by Ella Miles
I reach out, needing to squeeze Zeke’s hand. He looks at it in fear.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. We both need the touch. He finally walks to the bed and takes it, and then I pull him to me so he can hug me. The familiar jolt of energy shoots through me at the touch, but I don’t focus on it. I focus on this man who cares about me. Something I don’t think I’ve ever experienced. My own father didn’t even care about me.
When Zeke releases me, I look to Langston. I tell him to come here with my eyes. He does and hugs me the same way Zeke did. Two men that care about me. How did I get so lucky?
And then I see Enzo. His look is both similar and different from Langston and Zeke’s. He cares, but there is something else there I can’t place.
Zeke and Langston leave, as Dr. Patten starts examining my wound one more time. He puts a dressing over it and gives me a bottle of painkillers to take. He reminds me to take it easy for a day or two, but I should heal easily. The stitches can come out in two weeks.
And then it’s Enzo and me alone in the bedroom we share. And as much as I’m trapped, I don’t feel that way—I’m home.
Fuck, it’s messed up that the only place I’ve ever considered home is this house.
Enzo sits on the edge of the bed while I study him. He’s lost in thought. His brow has deepened, and the lines near his eyes have creased. I’m sure he’s thinking about how to keep me safe from Milo.
Milo will be coming. But it will take some time for him to realize Enzo has me, and not his other enemies. We are safe enough for now.
Right now, I need something different. I know the doctor ordered rest, but I won’t be able to rest until I get what I need.
I need to solidify Enzo’s promise. I need to heal. And I need to know I will never be hurt by this man again.
Enzo reads my thoughts. He knows what I need. But I think he’s going to fight me on it. I think he’s going to say I need rest first. I need to sleep.
However, Enzo surprises me as usual.
“Punish me. It will make you feel better. And when it’s done, I will spend the rest of my life earning every bit of your trust.”
6
Enzo
Kai needs rest. She needs to heal. She’s been through hell today. She’s barely recovered from her first encounter with Milo. He only cut her neck this time, but it’s enough. Enough to bring back all the painful memories she experienced for years.
And it’s all my fault.
I may have thought I was setting her free by selling her to Milo, but it was selfish. I knew even if she wanted to be with Milo that it would hurt her to be sold to another man. I knew by giving her to him, I would win Black. Milo would never let her leave his side long enough to come back and compete for this empire.
I thought it was the best solution. Instead of the nightmare it has become.
Kai needs to rest, but she needs revenge more. She needs to make me pay for the pain I’ve caused her.
I don’t blame her. I know how it feels to feel helpless to the pain—to the anger. She needs me to suffer as she’s suffering. When Zeke was hurt because of Kai, all I could do was get his revenge. I couldn’t think—the pain clouded my head so deeply. And when I thought Kai had betrayed me by wanting Milo instead of me, all I saw was red.
Kai needs to punish me. She needs to let go of her anger. It’s the only way we will ever have a shot at moving past this.
I stand up and meet Kai’s gaze. Knowing in my heart we both need this more than we need air right now.
“What do you need?”
Her face scrunches in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“A whip? A knife? Chains? A gun? What?”
Please, anything but a gun. I vowed I would never let anyone shoot me again without fighting back. And I would have to break that promise to myself.
Kai studies me for a moment, as if trying to determine which method of torture she should use.
She shakes her head and pats the empty space on the bed beside her.
“You sure?” I ask.
She nods.
Fuck.
Somehow not using any weapons seems scarier than using one. I think back to the last time she hurt me with her body—forcing me to take something from her so savagely. I won’t let that happen again.
I slowly walk around the side of the bed and lie down next to her, my hands folded over my chest, staring up at the ceiling.
I’m not used to following orders. But today, I will do anything she asks, including slitting my own throat if that’s what she needs.
I wait.
But she doesn’t speak. She doesn’t move.
The waiting stretches, driving me mad with what she could be thinking. But I don’t dare open my mouth. I don’t ask her to move things along faster. This is about her.
Healing her.
Letting go of her pain.
And living through the anger.
I want to close my eyes to shut out the silence, but I don’t even allow myself to do that.
I wait.
I suffer.
And then I wait some more.
Finally, I feel her cold fingers brush against mine.
I turn my head to face her. But I don’t see the look of wrath I was expecting.
I see fear.
“Kai? Did something happen? Are you okay?” I ask, suddenly worried. I try to roll to her, to understand what’s happening.
She puts a hand up, pressing against my chest, stopping me from touching her.
The cold chill shoots through me. I shudder at how cold I feel. Usually, the cold settles my heat, calming me and making me feel whole. But this time, it empties me.
Kai looks at me unblinking. And that’s when I realize what’s happening. She won’t punish me with whips or beatings. She will punish me by showing me everything she’s feeling and everything she’s ever felt.
I will feel all of her pain. It will be impossible for me not to. The connection we share is too deep not to. I won’t be able to shut it out like she does. And I’ll never forget the pain.
The torment she has gone through.
Kai releases my hand and then moves her fingers to her neck where the doctor put the dressing. She removes the dressing. And I truly stare at the fresh wound for the first time. I could hardly look at it in the car except to ensure she was still alive.
She takes my hand again and moves it toward her neck.
“No,” I say, not wanting to hurt her or disturb the stitches. Like my touch might infect the wound in some way.
She holds my gaze, and her lips tighten. I know she won’t let me get away with not doing this. She carefully places my hand over the wound.
It’s hot as fire. The only part of her body that isn’t cold. And I can’t imagine what that feels like to her. Not only does her neck hurt, but it feels like she was branded with sizzling flames.
I close my eyes, and I can feel the sharp blade pressing against her skin. I feel the searing blood warming her much cooler skin. I feel the terror pulsing through her veins as blood spills and knowing the only way to stop it was to shut herself down. Knowing every time she shuts down, it takes a mountain of pain to reenter the world again.
She holds in her tears, but I can’t mine. I let a tear fall.
She growls at the sight of my weakness. And I suck the rest in. I pull my hand back, needing relief from the pain and loneliness.
No, she mouths—her face stern.
She grabs my hand again and traces the bruises on her face with my fingertips. The thin lines on her face that will continue to soften with time, but never disappear completely. Most of the scars aren’t my fault. They are her father’s for selling her the first time. But this is what would have happened again to her if I didn’t stop Milo from taking her.
She lets go of my hand for a second and then removes her shirt, lifting it up over her head.
I wince at the discoloration of her skin. Purples, blues, and yellows cover her body, in much the same w
ay her skin was when she first arrived.
I should kill Milo for what he did to her—I will kill him.
She takes my hand and moves my fingers over her broken and beaten skin. And with each touch, it’s like a knife is being shoved into my own flesh. I can’t imagine the amount of suffering she endured. I’ve lived with her for months now. But this, knowing I almost sent her to endure this again, it’s too much.
Tears fall as I feel everything and realize how much it would break me to see her suffer for even a second.
I feel the cold.
I feel the pain.
I feel the loneliness.
“Here,” she moves my hand over her shoulder to a mark I know. A similar mark to several I wear at the hands of my father.
“Here I was shot because I wouldn’t willingly suck Jarod’s cock. I bled for days. The wound became infected. I became delirious, sick with fever.”
I relive my own bullet wound. I know the pain. I remember the blood that never seemed to stop pouring out of me until I was too weak to stand. And she’s suffered worse.
“Here.” She moves my hand to her ribcage. “Milo beat me until it burned to breathe. He broke ribs that have been broken numerous times before.”
Jesus.
She sucks in a breath, and I can see the pain. Not from the wound on her neck. But I see how her lungs move cautiously, never pulling in a full breath of oxygen to avoid expanding her lungs as little as possible.
“The worst was here.” She forces my hand down to her lower abdomen. “I was stabbed here so many times. The pain always made me wretch. But worst of all, I faced the fact that I couldn’t help but thinking each stab was going into my ovaries, my uterus. I might not be able to ever have kids because of these stabs.” A tiny sob escapes. “But at the same time, I begged for them to keep stabbing, because I never wanted the ability to have kids and bring a child into such a cruel world.”
She rips my hand from her body.
“You may have fixed your error, but it doesn’t mean I can ever forget what happened.”
She shoves me back against the bed, and then her body is straddling mine. She’s reaching back, and I know instinctively what she is reaching for.
She doesn’t need it. I will say and do whatever she wants, but she needs to feel the power of holding the sharp metal in her hand.
Kai grabs the knife from my ankle and then presses it hard against my neck.
Adrenaline drills through my body in spades. Not because I truly fear for my life, I know Kai won’t kill me even if I deserve it, but my body reactions to the threat all the same. I grip the sheets to force myself from retaliating. It takes all of my restraint to keep myself planted on the bed instead of disarming her.
Her eyes engulf me, and a sly smile curls on her lips.
“Why?” she asks.
“You already know why,” I breathe, careful not to move my throat much to prevent the knife from dragging deeper into my neck.
“I know why, but do you? You say you sold me because I betrayed you, but that’s not the truth. Tell me the truth.”
“It is the truth.”
“No, I don’t owe you my loyalty. We are enemies. We are playing a game that generations of our families have played before. You own me. It shouldn’t have mattered to you that I slept with another man to win the game. It wouldn’t have been a betrayal.”
My nostrils flare, and I see red as I think about her with another man.
“You’re mine,” I curse, rolling us over so I’m on top. The knife is still pressed to my neck, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter who is in control anymore. It matters she realizes that even though we are enemies, she is still fucking mine.
She glares like a dragon breathing fire at me. “I’m not yours, not in the way you want.”
I lower my mouth, hovering over her tender pink lips. She keeps the knife pressing against my carotid artery, like that is going to keep me from claiming her.
“Admit it,” she raises her eyebrows, her confidence never as great as it is in this moment.
“No.”
I feel the warm blood draining from my neck, but I know it’s nothing more than a nick. She doesn’t want me to bleed, at least not from my neck. She wants me to bleed from my heart. But she forgets I don’t have a heart. I’m incapable of feeling anything.
Yes, I want to protect her, but in the same way I want to protect my favorite car from getting stolen. She belongs to me, not anyone else. That’s all this is.
“You have a heart.” Kai trails the blade down my neck, over my shirt, to my chest. She stops it over my heart.
“My heart hardened, years ago. You learned to shut down to survive; I learned to shut off my feelings.”
“And you brought me back from my darkest cavern. I was trapped inside the darkness, and you showed me how to live in the light. You may have shut off your heart to protect it, but it’s starting to thaw.”
“You can’t thaw it. You’re made of ice.”
“And you’re fire, but it’s going to take more than fire to free your heart.”
“I don’t want it freed.”
She grits her teeth as she pushes the knife harder against my chest until I can feel the metal against my skin. Until I feel the pierce of the blade over my heart. All I have to do to get the pain to stop is lean back, but it would mean removing myself from Kai. I need to feel every inch of her. I want more, not less. I want to shove my tongue so deep into her throat that I taste all of her. I want to nibble and attack her precious neck so the long cut on her neck is nothing in comparison to the marks I leave. I want to spread her legs, throwing them over my head until her thighs are trying to suffocate me as I lick her into oblivion.
“Admit it, you care about me.”
“Only as a man cares about his car.”
“I’m not an object.”
“No, you are the bane of my existence.”
“Admit it, Black,” Kai says. She never calls me Black. It would be admitting defeat. That I’m the true ruler.
“Not until you admit you like being trapped here. You like my protection.”
She pants against my lips. If she wants me to admit I want her, then she has to admit she wants me. That she doesn’t feel like a prisoner. That she wants to be here.
We both lock in our determination to not admit defeat. Because that is what it would feel like: defeat. We are both too strong to ever develop any sort of feelings toward each other.
“I’ve already thawed as much of your heart as I’m going to without your help. It’s your move Black,” Kai says.
I lean down and finally taste the lips of the woman I’ve claimed, stolen, sold, broke, healed, and cried over. Somehow the tears I shed before is what breaks through all the rest for me. I don’t cry. Ever. Not since I was a boy. And then when I’m around Kai, I cry all the time for her. It’s just because her life is so tragic.
“You care about me. Truth or lie?” Kai says.
“Truth,” I breathe, as I brush our lips together again, my salty fire mixing with her sweet cold.
“You like me. Truth or lie?”
“Truth.”
I dip my tongue between her parted lips and both our bodies ease. Her muscles melt against the kiss.
“You like being mine. Truth or lie?” I say.
“Truth,” she whispers, pulling my bottom lip into her mouth.
She drops the knife, and I push it off the bed, as I tangle my body with hers. I taste her deeply, our teeth clash, and our temperatures slam together, as we stop fighting with our words and instead fight with our tongues.
Kai grips my shirt, thrusting it up my body over my six pack and then jerks it forcefully from my body. I lay my body on top of her, melting her exterior. But I want more than just the surface. I want all of her. Kai’s right, I want as deep as it gets when it comes to her. I just don’t think I can give anything in return. But I want her to depend on me, beg for me, live for me.
We shouldn’t
be making out right now. We are both too angry. In too much pain for this to be the logical next step. Kai should be healing, and I should be finding a way to keep Milo from figuring out I have Kai.
Instead, we devour each other. I’m not careful with her like I should be. She’s bruised and physically broken, but fierceness inside her has only grown stronger. It’s the main reason why I like her as Kai says I do.
And the way she’s biting as much as she’s kissing me, I know she doesn’t want this easy and gentle. She wants me to push her, show her how desperate I am for her. That was her plan all along, and I fell for it. She may think she tricked me as she did before, but it’s not tricking if I’m doing it willingly.
“Does it hurt?” she asks as she kisses my neck where she spilled some of my blood.
“No.”
She shakes her head as she bites over my chest and to my heart.
“That’s not what I mean.”
I cock my head, but I don’t want to know what she means. She’s dangerous right now.
I grab her neck; she winces as I brush my hand over her wound. I push my hand back, fisting her hair as I claim her mouth. As long as I’m kissing her, she can’t speak. She can’t do any more damage. And neither can I because when we are together like this—our bodies mixing in a hurricane of temperatures and moans is when we are most right. It’s where we are most meant to be.
I like Kai Miller.
I like the fucking.
I like how she makes me fight for her.
I like how nothing is easy, and yet everything is easy at the same time.
I like how it feels to have her in my arms. Her body temperature may be cooler than mine, but it doesn’t feel that way to me. It feels like a breath of air when I touch her, grounding me, while also giving me wings to fly.
I hook my thumbs into her pants and pull them down. And then I drop my head between her legs. Her body instantly arches as I find her clit with my tongue. I growl, the vibration in my throat sending shockwaves through her body.
“Jesus, Black.”
I tighten my grip on her clit with my teeth, applying just enough pressure to drive her mad. Good thing she doesn’t still have the knife, or she’d use it to threaten me to stop teasing her.