"Look at us! We're skin and bones, covered in this shit-sand that never washes off. I haven't slept more than four hours straight in weeks without dreaming of choking on dust. And you… You want to dangle it? Make us beg?"
I raised a hand—casual, stopping her cold, but I didn't step back. Let her feel the heat radiating off me, the way my gaze dropped deliberately to the sweat trickling down her neck into that shadowed cleavage, imagining how she'd taste there, salty and desperate.
"I didn't say I wouldn't share," I corrected smoothly, voice dropping lower, rougher, like gravel under boots.
"I said, why should I. There's a difference, Officer. Out here, nothing's free. Not water. Not food. Not a soft bed to fuck in after a long day of surviving. But I'm a reasonable man. I'm offering a trade."
