“Well, swallow it and kiss me.”
She did, and he gave her a quick peck on the lips, then pulled back and thrust his own energy bar toward her mouth. “Take a bite of mine.”
“You think maybe we could retire to the bedroom for a while after this? A quickie before dinner?” she asked as she bit into his bar.
“Maybe we’ll make it a longie,” he said suggestively. “One more bite.”
“I’ve hardly swallowed this one.”
“One more.”
She obediently bit off a chunk of her bar with the blueberries while Bobby bit into his. An uncomfortable heat had started to fill her up inside and she found herself swallowing hard, her throat feeling as if it were constricting. “Uh-oh,” she said on a strangled gulp.
“What’s wrong?”
“Something . . . in it.” She was suddenly struggling for air, her windpipe closing. She knew immediately she was in the beginning of an allergic reaction. A bad one. “EpiPen,” she gasped.
He was frozen in the act of biting into his bar. “What?”
“Epi . . .” She couldn’t get anything more out. Her lungs felt on fire. She couldn’t breathe!
“EpiPen? Why? What? From the energy bar? No way. Look at me, I’m fine.”
She signaled frantically toward the bathroom. “Med . . . . med . . . cabinet!”
“Are you faking?”
“No!”
She was frantically clutching her throat. She couldn’t breathe at all! “Help . . . help . . .”
He got to his feet and looked down at her. Her hands were clawing at her throat. She gazed up at him in mute horror, sliding her eyes toward the hallway. When he just stood there, she tried to scramble up from the couch. He suddenly pushed her back down, pinning her in place. She flailed about, struggling to pull air through a windpipe that was all but closed.
“Trinidad Finch,” he said, saying her name as if he were tasting it.
He let go of her to take off his pants. She clambered wildly to her feet, but as soon as she was upright, he pushed her back down, hard. Her head slammed into the wooden arm again, the one Jarrett had sat on less than an hour earlier.
“Oops.” He laughed.
Then he was stripping off her pants as she raked the skin at her throat, her fingernails gouging her own flesh. He crushed down on her with his full weight. She begged him with her eyes, but the smile on his face was filled with cruel enjoyment.
Then he was inside her again, laughing and laughing, as he rhythmically thrust into her ever harder, watching her face, smiling coldly as her lungs felt ready to burst and her world receded to a black dot.
“Good-bye, little bird,” he whispered.
She tried to scream one last time, but it was no use. She could do nothing but stare into the eyes of her killer.
At the moment of her death, she saw him throw back his head as he climaxed with the wild howl of a conqueror.
Chapter Seventeen
Andi woke up feeling sluggish. She’d fallen into a comalike sleep after leaving Luke to sort out his sleeping arrangements on the couch or the floor. He’d assured her he was fine, and she’d reluctantly headed to bed, hurrying through the bathroom so he could use it whenever he needed to. She’d thought she would toss and turn, thinking about him in the next room, but it turned out to be one of those nights when she felt like she was drugged.
She threw on a robe and peeked outside the bedroom door. She had a direct view to the living room, where Luke’s sleeping bag was rolled up and set on the couch. He was nowhere to be seen, but then she heard him in the kitchen, opening cupboards quietly.
She headed into the bathroom, checked her hair, made a face at herself without any makeup, and tried to force herself to go out to see him as she was. No dice. She quickly brushed her teeth, put on some eye shadow and mascara, and took a moment to conceal the circles beneath her eyes. Then she walked toward the kitchen.
Luke was in jeans but was shirtless. She saw the whorls of light brown hair on his chest and the sculpted muscles. The man was in great shape. She had a moment of comparing him to Greg and was mad at herself. Greg had been Greg. He’d had good points and bad, like everyone, and he was part of her history.
He was making a cup of coffee from her Keurig machine, brown liquid pouring into the cup he’d placed beneath the machine’s spigot. Hearing her approach, he looked up. “Good morning,” he said. “Thought I’d rustle up some coffee.”
“There’s cream in the refrigerator. Sugar bowl’s up there.” She pointed to a cupboard.
“Black’s fine.”