Skeletons of Us (Unquiet Mind Book 2)

by Anne Malcom

  He drank himself into a stupor and had been slouched against the bar since he’d jerked awake.

  Pathetic, really, but it was the only fuckin’ thing he could do. Lexie wanted time. It was the last thing he wanted to give her; he feared what time would do.

  “Christ, she’s not even like her mother,” Bull continued. “She feels everything so fuckin’ deep it worries me sometimes.” He paused. “That’s why I didn’t like what you two had when you were younger. Because she felt it deep. All the way to her core. It wasn’t right. Or I thought so.” Bull looked at Killian. “Turns out I was wrong. Seeing you two now, seeing how quick you put the light back in her eyes, I know, in this fucked-up world, with all the shit Lexie’s had to wade through, it was the only thing that was right. She’ll realize that. Or I’ll make her realize.”

  Killian blinked at Bull through whisky-drenched eyes. That was the longest thing he’d ever heard the fucker say. And shit if it didn’t rattle him to his bones.

  Bull slapped him on the back. He nodded to the glass. “Easy on that shit. You’ll want to make it to Lexie’s show tonight.”

  He left him contemplating his glass. He’d make it to Lexie’s show tonight. He had a promise to keep.

  “You ready to go, dollface? We’ve got to go quickly before the babysitter finds out what she’s got herself into with two Williams boys. I don’t care if he’s brand new, Axel is going to be more trouble than Rocko, I can feel it. He hardly ever cries. No child is meant to be that quiet. It’s the calm before the storm,” Mom said from my doorway. “Plus, I want to be able to catch at least the first half of the show before my boobs explode and I have to come back here to my precious baby boy who I love very much.”

  I jerked up from my perusal of my closet. “I’ll be two seconds,” I said. It was like a time capsule, containing all the clothes I’d left here years ago. I hadn’t packed much, so I was alternating between Mom’s closet and teenage Lexie’s.

  She raised a brow. “Lexie, you’re not even dressed yet. That will not take two seconds. You’re a rock star. I have it on good authority rock stars take hours to get glam. You’re hampering our escape. If you don’t make it to this concert, you’ve only got yourself to blame. Actually, I’ve only got you to blame.” Her smile left her face after she got a proper look at me. “You want to talk about it?” she asked softly, seeing what had been on my face the entire day. What I’d tried and failed to hide.

  She hadn’t been awake when I crept in last night, and both she and Zane had been surprised to see me emerge from my room, but they seemed to sense I didn’t want to explain, so they let it go.

  Well, Mom had. Zane had frowned at me, kissed Mom and the boys, and then roared off on his bike. Three guesses to where.

  I glanced at her. “I don’t know.” I screwed my nose up. “It’s complicated.”

  Mom stepped forward to squeeze my hand. “Not two nights ago my girl told me it’s actually not that complicated. It’s simple. Sometimes we try and make something more complicated than it is because we’re scared of something being so simple. We search for the hidden catch. You don’t have to work that hard to be happy, baby doll. Just be.”

  I glanced at my mom. “You’re happy,” I pointed out.

  She grinned. “Every day I don’t think I can get any happier and every day I’m pleasantly surprised.”

  “And Zane, despite everything, despite all that darkness he waded through, he’s happy too. And you still love him, even with that darkness.” It wasn’t really a question, more like an observation.

  Mom squeezed my hand. “It’s because of that darkness that I love him, baby girl. Because people like Zane…” She paused, giving me a knowing look. “People like Killian, that inhabit true darkness, can show us how to shine the brightest.”

  There was a long silence as her words sank in. Surprisingly, Mom didn’t fill it. Unlike Killian, she didn’t do good with silence. This time she sensed I needed it.

  “I know what I want to wear now,” I said finally.

  A grin tickled the corner of Mom’s mouth. “This conversation was really just about fashion? I totally thought it was deeper than that. Though some of life’s biggest troubles can be solved with a killer outfit,” she teased. She leaned in to kiss my cheek. “You deserve to be happy, baby. And despite how I’ve felt about him the past four years, so does he. I don’t think a person exists for either of you that can make that happen apart from each other. It’s that simple.” She paused. “Now I’m going outside to get the motor running so we can make a quick getaway when Rocko sets the house on fire.” She winked at me.

  I turned back to my closet, her words echoing in my mind. My hands touched over rainbow crotchet fabric.

  I smiled.

  *****

  “I know we don’t do covers anymore on account of having our own stuff,” I spoke into the mic, above the scream of the crowd. “But I haven’t written a song yet to say what I want to say tonight. So here’s one you all might know. It’s for someone who I write every word for. Who I sing every word to. Who brought the skeletons of us back to life.”

  I closed my eyes and began to strum, the crowd screaming as I sang the first words of “No Matter What,” by Papa Roach.

  I didn’t need to open my eyes to know he was watching, to feel his gaze. But I did. I had to. He was at the back. Even in the dim light, I didn’t have any problems finding his ice blue eyes. Even though he was dressed in all black, he didn’t melt into the background. Everything else melted around him until the room was empty and it was just me and him. Just me singing to him. It was that simple.

  I was singing that song to him, wearing the same rainbow dress I’d worn on the best night of my life, trying to tell him that it was that simple. That years meant nothing. That all the other stuff was nothing.

  I think he got it, because as the song began to trail off, his entire body jerked as if he’d gotten an electric shock and he pushed off the bar. I would have said it was impossible him to make his way through the packed crowd at Clay’s bar. We had sent a social media blast out an hour before we’d been due to go on. We’d expected a full house. What we didn’t expect was a line of people outside, screaming when we arrived. We didn’t expect them to test the capacity limits. So I would have thought there was no way for Killian to wade through the sea of bodies and make it up to the stage.

  I would have been wrong.

  Because before I’d even sang the last word, he was there, on stage in front of the screaming people. My words were cut off by his mouth. It smashed against mine the second he pushed my guitar over my shoulder and yanked my body flush to his.

  The moment he had come on stage, the roar of the crowd had turned deafening. But as soon as his lips touched mine, it was gone. Like a switch was flipped, there was silence. There was only Killian and me. Only his mouth moving against mine, his body claiming every inch of me.

  Too soon, far too soon, it was gone and the roar returned.

  Killian rested his head against mine and eyed me lazily like we weren’t on a stage in front of a crowd of people.

  “I love you, Killian. Always,” I whispered. I wasn’t even sure if he heard me. I couldn’t even hear myself overtop of everything. But his eyes flared, and then I was lifted and taken in Killian’s strong arms.

  All my boys grinned at me as he carried me off the stage.

  The roar dulled as Killian took me into the room we’d hung out in after our first show. He put me down, his face dark with desire.

  “You had to do that in front of a hundred people where I couldn’t fuck you the moment those words came from your mouth?” he growled.

  My stomach dipped. “I had to make a grand romantic gesture,” I replied, voice husky.

  Killian yanked me to him. “Fuck, baby, I think that’s gonna be imprinted on my soul for the rest of my life.”

  “Good,” I murmured against his mouth. “’Cause you’re going to be imprinted on mi
ne for the rest of my life.”

  He leaned forward so his lips brushed mine. “Gonna kiss you now, freckles. Gotta taste those words on your mouth.”

  My heart soared as he propelled me back in time, and then his mouth was on mine and there was nothing but us once more.

  Before I could do anything stupid, like beg him to fuck me against the wall of the room that would most likely be filled with people in the next few minutes, Killian stopped kissing me.

  “Need to show you somethin’, baby.”

  I grinned at him. “Me too,” I said grabbing his hand and trailing it up my leg.

  He let out a growl and the cords in his neck pulsed. “Oh, I’ll be inspecting that in great detail later, but now, I’ve got somethin’ else.” He stepped back and intertwined our hands together. “First, we need to get out of here before your and my insane fuckin’ family burst in and we never escape,” he said, dragging me out the back door that led to the parking lot. “And before your equally insane fans swarm my bike and I have to start shooting them.”

  I scowled at him, though he couldn’t see it in the dark parking lot. “My fans are not insane, and I don’t like your threat of shooting them.”

  Killian stopped us by his bike. “We forgetting the one fan that will most definitely be lookin’ down the barrel of my gun when I catch him?” he asked, all teasing gone from his voice.

  A chill settled on my arms. I rubbed them absently. “No, I haven’t forgotten that,” I told him, which was kind of a lie. In all the chaos, I actually had let the murderous stalker creep to the back of my mind. We hadn’t had any problems with whoever it was for a while. And being back in Amber was like being in a protective bubble. Killian owned most of the property in my mind. “Plus, that’s one. The rest are quite sane.”

  Killian sighed. “What about the one who spent thousands of dollars on plastic surgery so she could try to look exactly like you?”

  I stepped back. “How do you know that?” I paused, answering my own question. “I think I preferred it when you and Sam weren’t talking.”

  Killian kissed my head. “Get on the bike, baby.”

  “Where are we going?”

  The corners of Killian’s mouth tipped up. “It’s a surprise.”

  I folded my arms. “I don’t like surprises.”

  Killian pulled me to his chest. “I haven’t forgotten.”

  I frowned up at him. “Then why must you inflict them on me?”

  He kissed my noise. “’Cause you’re fuckin’ cute when you get all irritated.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Really? Then I’m about to get real cute.”

  Killian let me go, fastening a helmet to my head. “Just get on the bike, freckles.”

  I stayed where I was.

  He gave me a look. “For me?”

  I glared at him. “Just to be clear, I’m doing this under protest,” I said, swinging on the bike.

  “Duly noted.” He swung on in front of me and his hand came behind me to yank my body flush to his. I let out a little gasp at this; then my hands automatically went around his middle.

  Without hesitation, he roared out of the parking lot. We sped past the crowds at the front of the building, which had grown since we’d arrived. They were gone in an instant.

  I closed my eyes as the bike picked up speed. I didn’t think I’d ever get sick of riding with Killian. It was better than any dream or fantasy I could conjure up. Though, I did feel like he deserved some kind of punishment for subjecting me to a surprise. Another one. Last night’s surprise hadn’t turned out that great and it meant I’d had to spend an entire night without him. I knew I’d spent four years without him, but now we were together, one night was almost unbearable.

  My hands trailed down from his waist and snaked up his tee, my nails raking up the taut ridges of his abs. His entire body stiffened as I skimmed my hands up then down. Way down. I teased the top of his jeans while I nestled my head into his neck. I could feel the veins in his neck tighten and my hand skimmed over something decidedly hard in his jeans. I grinned, my own body responding to his. The vibration of the bike was doing terrible things to me. I had been so focused on my task until now, I hadn’t realized where we were going. Now, as the bike climbed a familiar winding road, I knew. I knew where he was taking me and it hit my stomach.

  Killian maneuvered the bike expertly over the bumpy dirt road that lead to a place I hadn’t been to in almost four years. A place that I only let myself visit in my dreams.

  Our place.

  He parked the bike, and before I could rake my eyes over the cliffs and the ocean beyond, I was lifted so I straddled Killian on the bike. My helmet was off in seconds. Killian yanked me to him, his mouth covering mine. The kiss was furious and unyielding. My body pressed up against him and the hardness in his jeans hit the perfect spot. I moaned into his mouth and grinded against him, needing friction.

  “You’re an evil woman,” he growled, mouth inches from mine.

  “Less talking, more kissing.”

  Killian heeded my command, but before things could get really steamy, he lifted me off the bike.

  “Can’t keep kissin’ you, baby,” he rasped once we’d gotten off the bike. “’Cause if I do, I’ll never stop.”

  I stepped forward and grasped the edges of his cut. “Is that a problem?”

  He rested his hands on my hips. “Fuck no. I’m plannin’ on spending the rest of my life drowning in you, freckles.” He paused. “But I gotta show you something first.” He grasped my hand and walked us to the edge of the outcrop, where the waves crashed against the rocks.

  I let the sound wash over me and breathed in the ocean air before giving Killian a sideways look. “As beautiful as this is, Kill, I’ve been here before,” I said, for once not being content in the silence.

  Killian turned me to him. “Do you remember what you said to me when we were up here after you’d played a gig at some jock’s party?” he asked.

  I thought on it.

  My heart stilled as I remembered what I’d whispered to him over the ocean air.

  “I wish we could stay here forever. Build a house here and live out our days.”

  “Killian,” I whispered.

  “Bought this the moment I could scrape up enough cash. Livin’ simple the past four years, Lexie, it didn’t take long. Been waitin’ to build on it though. Waiting until I had something to build on. Waiting till I had a reason to build myself a home. Waiting for you.” He paused. “Crew breaks ground tomorrow.”

  I opened my mouth then closed it again. I searched for the words, but there were none. I was struck dumb as tears streamed down my face.

  Killian gently stroked my face. “Fuck, Freckles. I can call them, tell them not—”

  “Don’t you dare,” I interrupted him, my voice barely above a whisper.

  He stilled.

  “I just need a second,” I whispered.

  “I can give you that,” he murmured.

  “Actually, no I don’t,” I corrected. Then I launched myself at him.

  He caught me, like I knew he would. There were no slow, tender kisses for me. It was frantic, urgent. I impatiently yanked off his cut while my mouth stayed glued to him. I trailed my nails along his abs and he growled against my lips.

  “Baby,” he rasped.

  “No talking.”

  He heeded my command immediately, lifting his arms so I could yank his tee off. The moment it was gone, I had no more control. Killian pulled me up his body, my dress riding up as he did so. I let out a little moan as my sensitive skin grinded up against his hardness encased in denim.

  Then we were down, on the grass, Killian on his back, yanking me on top of him. His rough hands went to the tie holding my dress up, tugging it so the front tumbled down, exposing my breasts to him in the moonlight.

  He cupped them almost reverently. “So fuckin’ beautiful,” he growled, then he yanked me down so he could fasten
his mouth over one of my nipples.

  My body sang for him as he sucked and turned me into a mess of hormones. When he let me go, I made short work of freeing him from his jeans, urgent to get him where he belonged. Inside me.

  Our cries mingled in the night as I positioned myself and sank down on his hard length.

  He didn’t stay on his back. Instead, he knifed up, crushing the bare skin of our chests together, his hands diving into my hair, resting his forehead against mine. He pounded into me from below, never tearing his gaze away from mine as he stoked the fire kindled within me.

  “Kill,” I moaned.

  “Tell me what you are, Lexie,” he commanded.

  “Yours,” I said. “Always yours.”

  His grip tightened on my hair. “Always,” he repeated.

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  “You’re not coming with me,” I said, trying to make my voice sound stern. It didn’t exactly work, considering my entire body was bursting with happiness.

  Pure happiness.

  Killian stepped forward, his face hard but his eyes were twinkling. “I’m comin’,” he declared.

  I let out an exaggerated sigh. “No need for the bodyguard duty anymore. Stalker caught. I’m in no danger.”

  The police had called two days after I’d played the concert in Amber, the day we got back to L.A. They had caught someone matching both my and Duke’s limited description lurking around my Calabasas house. When they’d caught him, he’d been rambling about how he and I deserved to be together and I had to know that, how it was God’s plan. They hadn’t been able to get much out of him thus far, but they were sure they had their guy. I wanted to be angry at him, like Killian and the boys were—no, it was safe to say they’d been furious. Furious he was actually caught.

  “Prison cell is not what he deserves,” Killian bit out.

  I raised a brow. “And what does he deserve, then?”