He couldn’t help the grin that grew from one side of his jaw to the other. “Why, Mrs. Bentz,” he asked, “are you trying to seduce me?”

“Never,” she said, but dropped the hand from his face, slowly tracing his neck and chest to fall into his crotch. “Uh-oh.” Feigned innocence.

Jesus, he loved her.

She let a finger trail between his legs.

His erection, already at half-mast, stiffened.

“You’re wicked,” he said, and leaned over to kiss her.

“Only for you,” she said into his open mouth as he scraped back the blankets with one hand and stretched out beside her. Her arms surrounded his neck and she kissed him with a passion that had been with them since the first time they’d made love. Yes, they’d had their bumps in the road. Their relationship had been far from perfect. But the heat between them, that raw lust and deep yearning, had never faltered. And now, as her hands sculpted his muscles and his blood quickened in his veins, he closed his eyes, lost himself in her, and wished that the lovemaking would never end.

“Come on, hurry!” Zoe said, pushing her sister from that hellhole. The ladder had opened to the stone floor of a small one-room building that was more shed than living space, and she’d had to push her sister up and out. After they had made their way up the metal rungs, Zoe had taken the time to pull the ladder to the ground floor of the darkened shed. If the psycho in his rubber apron somehow had the grit and strength to wake up and try to follow them, he’d be trapped in his own lair.

Fitting, Zoe figured, as she knocked over a chair and tripped while ushering Chloe outside to the darkness of the night.

“What about him?” Chloe asked, her voice tremulous with fear.

“He’s dead.”

“You killed him?”

“Yes! Move it! ”

“Good. Twisted psycho-freak!”

The old door scraped as Zoe tugged it open. Then she led her sister into the dark night. The cabin was dilapidated, ready to topple onto the sparse, weedy clearing around it. A forest surrounding the small patch of ground seemed to block out any light. From here, there were no visible neighbors, no signs of civilization. If only she could hear the hum of traffic on a highway or the clack of a train on tracks or the deep moan of a foghorn on the river. But there was no sound beyond their tattered breathing, the steady patter of rain, and the sough of wind rushing through branches of nearby trees. Then a dog, as if disturbed from slumber, gave a sharp “woof.”

“Where are we?” Chloe whimpered, sounding as if she might start crying again.