Pull You In (Rivers Brothers Book 3), стр. 19
"Yeah. You know... they might be drawn by my cooking. Maybe I shouldn't do that anymore," I teased, smiling when he clutched his chest.
"You can't say things like that," he told me, giving me that boyish smile of his. "Besides, they don't want to eat your cooking. They want to eat you," he said.
It was immature at best, the way my body responded to that turn of phrase, to the ways it could be interpreted.
But regardless of that, heat bloomed in my core, spreading outward until it overtook me completely, a fever that made me feel warm instead of freezing for a change.
It must have shown on my face, too, because Rush's eyes went a little warm, the teasing smile fell, replaced with a seriousness that I didn't know how to interpret coming from him.
"Bet you'd be a lot sweeter," he said, voice a low rumble that turned my belly to liquid. As he said it, I would swear there was actual hunger in his eyes.
But no.
That didn't seem right.
He was just playing around, teasing.
Or he was saying it because we were in forced close proximity.
Because I was female.
He was male.
And there were parts that could fit together.
I didn't have much pride, but I had enough to know that I didn't want to be the woman a man reached for just because she was there.
I turned away from that look, from the desperation I felt for it to be true, for it to be directed at me in some sort of solid way, but knowing it wasn't how things were.
"They'd go for you first," I declared, reaching for a rag to wipe down the counter.
"How do you figure?" Rush asked after a short pause.
"It's the first rule of cannibalism—go for the person with more to consume," I said, shrugging.
"You're aquatinted with the rules of cannibalism, huh?" he asked, voice once again light, teasing.
"It's your usual common sense."
"And you think cannibals have basic common sense?" he pressed, smirking at me.
"Well, actually no. They'd probably be riddled with Kuru."
"Kuru?" he repeated, brows furrowing.
"It's a Prion disease," I supplied.
"Gonna need more than that, I'm afraid."
"It's a neurodegenerative disease that comes from eating the brains of humans."
"How the fuck do you know something like that?" he asked, scoffing.
"I watch all the documentaries that hit my streaming services."
"And there was a documentary about Kuru?"
"Well, no. I mean, yes. There was a documentary about cannibalism. In particular about the funeral rites of the tribes of Papua New Guinea until like the nineties, I think. The women would remove the brains of dead loved ones and cook and eat them."
"Why only the women?"
"Because they thought the female body was the only one capable of holding onto the spirit of the dead body. But they would sometimes slip bits to their children, and then there were a lot of deaths, bringing in researchers who figured out what the problem was."
"Documentaries have never been my thing, but you're making them sound interesting."
"We can watch... oh, I guess not," I said, the excitement deflating.
"Maybe when we get back to Navesink Bank," he suggested.
There was an undeniable crushing sensation in my chest at those words. Because I knew how untrue they were.
When we got back to Navesink Bank, things would go back to normal. Which meant he would all but forget I existed. Sure, maybe he would go out of his way to say hello to me more, ask about my days, slip in a comment like "Hey, remember when we were trapped in a cabin together, and the power went out, and we had to huddle for warmth while protecting ourselves from cannibalistic mountain men?" but that was all it would be. There would be no shared meals, no watching documentaries together.
My heart—and my pride—ached at that realization, but I couldn't spare myself it. It would only make the fallout that much harder to process.
The rest of the day was pretty eventless. We made an easy dinner. We played a couple board games with the light of the oil lamp, since we'd found several bottles of oil upon another inspection of the house. Then we took turns getting ready for the night.
When I made it back into Rush's room, I found the fire already dancing happily, starting to spread its warmth through the chilly space.
Rush was sitting off the edge of the bed, flicking through his phone, hoping for some small bit of reception so he could get a text out somewhere.
The rational side of my brain reminded me that he was worried about tangible things. Like having enough gas to keep the generator going. Like food running low. Like something happening to one of us that would require medical intervention that we couldn't get to. That was why he was so desperate to get into contact with someone.
But the silly, irrational, insecure part of me couldn't help but wonder if he was sick of being cooped up with me already, if he was dying to get away from me.
"Hey, everything alright?" he asked, tossing his phone onto the nightstand, looking over at me.
"Yeah."
"You've been quiet."
"I'm always quiet." I didn't miss the sharpness in my voice. And, it seemed, neither did Rush.
His hand shot out, grabbing my wrist, stopping my attempt to get to the other side of the bed, pulling me instead in front of him, between his spread legs, his head angled up, brows raised.
"Wanna try that again?" he asked, lips twitching. "That wasn't even halfway believable."
"I'm tired," I told him, and the answer was two-fold. Yes, I was tired. In the physical sense. Even though my days, by in large, had been much less busy than back in my usual life. But also, in a soul-deep kind of way. I was just... tired. Tired of feeling like crap about myself, tired of second-guessing all my interactions, tired of feeling like