The Smaller Evil Read Online Free PDF Page A

whispered. “Did I do something wrong?”
    The cook’s response was to lean forward and press her lips to his. She proceeded to do this, very gently, while at the same time shoving one hand down the front of his pants.
    At her touch, Arman made a noise. An odd one. Part fear. Part longing. But the cook kept kissing him, kept pushing her tongue around inside his mouth. It was a sensation as invasive as it was pleasurable, a probing wetness that addled his brain while what she did with her hand down lower—all confidence and expertise—sent jolts of electricity through his stomach. His chest. His limbs.
    His
everything.
    Then the cook was making him move—pulling his jeans off, pulling him to the floor, pulling her own dress up over her head so that Arman could see what was beneath. Skin and softness and patches of downy hair. He finally ventured to reach between her legs, a timid approach, because it seemed like what she wanted him to do, but the slippery heat he felt there was almost too much. Somehow the cook knew this. Maybe it was the way his legs trembled. Or the new noise he was making. She pushed his hand away. Got on top of him.
    Realizing what she was going to do, what they were
already
doing and what would soon be over, Arman couldn’t help himself. This was the second time in one day that someone was giving him something. A gift he hadn’t earned. That had never happened before, and he had to know.
    â€œWhy?” he gasped. “Why are you doing this?”
    The cook leaned down, her body devouring his with little to no temperance at all, and she whispered three words.
    Words Arman never thought he’d hear.
    She said to him:
    I need you
.

4
    ARMAN WONDERED IF THEY COULD smell it on him. Or if they saw something different in the way he walked or the way he talked or the way he just
was
. But if Kira and Dale happened to notice anything at all about him, they kept it to themselves, simply walking side by side and going on about the meeting he’d missed. Arman trailed behind, trying to listen. But he felt dazed.
    He felt distant.
    To the west, the sun faded quickly, dipping below trees, and slipping behind hill after hill after hill toward the ocean beyond. Apparently Kira and Dale were heading toward the cabin where they’d be rooming for the duration of the retreat. Only they knew the way. Arman had run into them as he left the kitchen, slinking out through the sliding glass door, and walking . . . well, more like
stumbling
back through the garden, past the drooping vines of honeysuckle and the apple orchard and the beehives, drained, jelly-legged, and no longer innocent.
    Wasn’t that something?
    â€œCome on,” they’d called to him, pausing and waving from the main path. “You’re staying with us.”
    Staying where?
Arman had wanted to ask, hating how clueless hewas, but instead he’d said nothing. He was still too stunned by what had transpired between him and the bare-legged cook, the young woman in the yellow dress who’d fed him and then—
    Arman’s whole body shuddered at the memory.
    In a good way.
    Mostly.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    â€œWe’re sleeping in
here
? Together?” Kira frowned. They stood huddled in the screened doorway of the tiny single-room cabin. Three cots with crisp white sheets were pushed together against the back wall. Three glasses, a flashlight, and a pitcher of water sat on a small round table. A bare-bulb light swung from the center beam, giving the place a stark, haunted feel.
    Dale walked in first, his shoes kicking up dust. Then he shrugged. “Yeah. I guess so.”
    Kira still balked. “Why aren’t I bunking with the girls? Isn’t there some sort of, I don’t know,
protocol
?”
    Dale let out a low chuff of laughter. He sank onto the closest cot. The springs squeaked loudly beneath his weight. As if they, too, were unpleasantly surprised by the