For wanting him so badly that, if he touched me, I’d let him have me right there with the lights on.
For being too scared and uncertain to do a damn thing about it.
“Touching,” I breathed at last.
“I don’t mind touching,” he replied.
As if to prove it, he brushed a thumb over my cheek.
The result was that of a faulty wiring sending sparks scattering across my skin. The prickling burn littered my arms in goose bumps and tightened my nipples to hard, painful ridges that pushed against the front of my dress.
I sucked in a breath that jolted me back to reality and what the hell I was doing.
“Oh my god ... I’m so sorry!”
Horrified, I scrambled from the car and threw myself out into the cold. My body radiated with a thermal heat that bordered on sweltering. Clammy fingers unsnapped buttons as I sprinted to the row of concrete stairs painted in the dull glow of the single bulb overhead. My heels clapped on each step as I jogged to the top ... and froze.
I didn’t have my keys.
They were still somewhere under my seat.
“Stupid!” I muttered into the quiet night.
Why could I never think properly where Kieran was involved? Why did I always manifest into some awkward, brainless idiot that couldn’t find her own left foot if it smacked her in the face? I’d never been any good at speaking with the opposite sex, but when it came to him ... I clearly needed a keeper. Maybe a bubble.
“You forgot these.”
The very reason for all my turmoil stood at the base of my apartment stairs, a beautiful phantom in a long wool coat and paralyzing eyes. Between his fingers, my keys glinting in the light.
I felt like a scorned child making my way back to him. Every step I closed and he remained firmly in place was like a punishment.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Kieran’s answer was to set the cool bits of metal into my palm. I knew immediately from the weight that several were missing.
“I took the ones for the car, I hope you don’t mind.”
How could I mind when I was drowning in mortification? It seemed no matter what I did, I never failed to find a new way to feel small and useless in front of him.
“I’m sorry.”
From his place just beneath me, Kieran raised his chin. Those warm, alluring eyes met mine through a thick stretch of darkness. They penetrated straight through me.
“You apologize a lot,” he stated at last.
“I’m...” I caught myself and winced. “It’s a habit,” I murmured instead.
It was more than that. It was my word of salvation. It was my curse. It was the chain around my ankle. I had always been given so much to be sorry about. My whole life was an apology.
“I think I’d like to help you stop,” he decided. “No more unnecessary apologies.”
He didn’t realize that was impossible, but I was intrigued.
“How?”
The liquid puddles of gold shimmered in the harsh light. I found myself hypnotized.
“Leave that to me.” He took a step back. “Have a goodnight, Ms. Thornton.”
I smiled. “Mr. Kincaid.”
He didn’t move until I’d let myself in. He remained a perfect statue at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for the moment the glass doors clicked between us. I offered him a final wave before letting myself up the stairs.
Chapter Six — Gabrielle
M: “Tell me something.”
The text was waiting for me when I opened my eyes the next morning. It blinked with a seductive little pull that sent my heart wild in my chest. My palms slickened, leaving anxious streaks across the screen as I wrote back.
Me: “Like what?”
M: “Anything.”
I hated when people asked me that. It was an unfair question filled with so many awkward answers. As someone who was me, I could tell him with absolute honesty that there was nothing interesting about me. Nothing that would be remotely interesting to divulge to a perfect stranger.
What could I possibly tell him?
“My name is Gabrielle,” I replied, hesitating for a split second before hitting send.
I wasn’t sure if I was breaking some kind of unspoken rule by telling him my name. A fantasy was no fun when one of the players got all personal. But he’d said anything, and my name was the only thing about myself that I did know.
M: “What else?”
I sighed. “You’re not playing fair,” I muttered out loud to my empty room. “How about you tell me something about you now,” I said while I punched it into my phone and hit send.
M: “I hate Brussel sprouts. I think all the Brussel sprout trees should be burned to the ground.”
I laughed.
Me: “Brussel sprouts don’t grow on trees.”
M: “Have you ever been to a Brussel sprout farm? My nanny took me to one once and for miles, that’s all you can see — little, green trees.”
Me: “Your nanny took you to a Brussel sprout farm? Was she punishing you?”
M: “Might have been. Certainly felt that way. I think she was trying to make the disgusting things fun.”
I laughed harder.
M: “All right, your turn.”
I groaned. My nose wrinkled.
Me: “Ask me something. I’m not good at randomly divulging information.”
M: “Randomly divulging information. Interesting way of putting it. Makes you sound like a spy. Are you a spy, Gabrielle?”
I arched an eyebrow he couldn’t see.
Me: “Is that your question?”
M: “Crap. Yes, fine. I’ll give you that one.”
Me: “If I were a spy, I wouldn’t be a very good one if I told you, would I?”
Biting my lip, I crawled free of my bed and padded into the bathroom. My eyes remained glued to the screen the whole way, refusing to even blink in case I missed his response.
He still hadn’t responded when I set the device down on the chipped toilet lid and turned the faucet on. I hurriedly washed my face and brushed my teeth.
I was untangling the knots from my hair when he finally answered.
M: “Clever. I can tell I’m going to have to be careful around you. Your turn, lady spy.”
Hair forgotten, I set my brush aside and scooped the phone up. I took it with me into the kitchen. One hand typed while the other blindly lowered a bowl from the cupboard and located a spoon.
Me: “Tell me your name.”
M: “That isn’t a question.”
I bunched up my nose.
Me: “I’m being spontaneous and lady spy-ish. Fine. Will you tell me your name, please? Better?”
I poured myself cereal, keeping one eye on the time as I shoveled it down. My first class that morning was Sociology, but I had Physics straight after, the one course I was falling woefully behind in and I couldn’t afford to be late. But I needed M’s answer.
M: “Cain.”
The spoonful of Corn Flakes paused inches from my mouth. I stared at the black and white text on my screen.
Cain.
It didn’t have a M anywhere in it. But I’d already suspected M was either a made up letter, or a middle name. Unless Cain was the middle name, or last name. Cain could have been his brother’s name for all I knew. Anything he told me could have had a million other answers.
But I wasn’t in a position to ask and get a truthful answer. It wasn’t as if I could make him swear it in blood over text.
Me: “What does the M stand for?”
Cain: “You had your turn, lady spy. I get the next question. When can I see you again?”
I hesitated as I had the previous night.
Me: “Can I ask a question? It pertains to your question.”
Cain: “Only if I can ask two questions after.”
I took that as my cue to continue.
Me: “Why do you want to see me again?”
I waited five minutes for his answer. When it didn�
�t come, I left my phone on the counter and went to get dressed. I brushed my teeth again, pausing in between scrubs to check my messages before hurrying back to the bathroom. By the time I dressed and checked my bag for my books, I’d stopped checking. I wasn’t sure if he’d simply grown busy, or he was trying to formulate a proper answer, but I had classes.
The university campus greeted me with a dreary view of dark windows and red bricks. Trees stripped of their leaves waved half-heartedly in the razor sharp winds of approaching winter. They shivered nearly as much as the students scrambling to get inside.
I joined the melee up the polished steps to the high, arched doors with ten minutes to spare.
WALKING OUT OF THE university two and a half hours later, I was no closer to understanding Newton’s laws of rotational motions, or Professor Vijayan’s heavy accent. But I did leave, confident that I was going to fail epically, which really wasn’t an option. The only way David allowed me to continue attending university was if and only if I maintained my 4.0 average with full marks up until graduation.
Maybe I could find a tutor. There were fifty other kids in my class. One of them had to know what they were doing.
Feet encased in invisible concrete, I dragged myself down to the cafeteria. The succulent scent of fried meat and greasy fries greeted me before I even made the final turn down the hall. It surrounded me, prodding at the hunger headache I’d been studiously ignoring for most of the morning, a reminder that it was lunch and I had an hour to decide what I was going to do before my next class.
Eat, came to mind, especially when the cafeteria was a chamber of buttery-gold glowing radiantly just in the distance. A voice reminded me I had money in my secret account. I could buy anything I wanted in that buffet line, all I had to do was walk over and pick up a tray.
But even that very idea filled me with dread. I just knew the moment I stepped foot in that room, someone who knew David would walk by and I would be at the end of David’s scrutiny.
Paranoia was a powerful motivator.
Fear was even worse.
As far as David was concerned, I was minus two hundred dollars in the account he monitored closely. If I was caught doing anything suspicious like ordering a fifteen dollar burger at the school cafeteria and someone told him, that would incite him to dig, and I couldn’t have him digging.
Regularity was key.
I just needed to keep my head down, graduate, and get as far away from that city and that family as my little stash would get me.
Nailed to my resolve, I pried open my purse for the granola bar I usually kept inside. It would do the trick until I got home. My hand scraped the bottom, rearranging loose change and all the other crap I kept stuffed inside. But no granola.
I must have eaten it, I realized with grudging resignation. I couldn’t remember when exactly, but it was gone.
Miserable and hungry, I trudged the rest of the way to the student bulletin board pinned just outside the cafeteria doors. The colorful flyers fluttered like trapped butterflies to the cork. Each one advertised something, wanted something, found something, lost something. It was a mess of confusion and discord. Amongst all the bold fonts and blurry pictures, I found cards to everything from cheap, used furniture to legal assistance.
But nothing about tutoring.
Not one.
I couldn’t even fathom it.
However, there was a free to good home poster that caught my eye. It wasn’t so much the hot pink paper that hurt my eyes, or the barely illegible scribble of someone’s blue pen making the announcement, but the black and white photo of a box housing six furry, tiny jelly beans.
Kittens.
Brand new. Six weeks old, if I read the words properly.
I couldn’t afford a pet. I could barely afford myself. Getting a pet was just cruel. But the word kitten kept jumping out at me, and nothing about it elicited the cute and fuzzies.
It made my cheeks hot.
It made my entire body prickle with a sharp ripple of arousal.
It filled my head with that word purred in deep, husky growl directly into my ear as agile fingers teased the hot bundle of nerves between my thighs. The same bundle now twanging for a repeating performance. It panged for attention, swelling against the crotch of my jeans.
I closed my eyes, blocking my view of the poster, but filling my senses with the roar of blood between my ears. I was so hot I physically hurt.
Could someone die from being too turned on ... by a kitten poster? It would be just my luck.
“Kitten.”
The low, rasping murmur in my ear nearly sent me to the floor. My knees gave a violent shudder that snapped my eyes open and my hands flying out for something to grab. They closed uselessly into air, and I was still going down.
“Whoa!”
Fingers bunched in my coat and dragged me up, saving me from becoming the next viral video on YouTube. An arm came around my middle, an anchor hauling me into a chest that smelled of tangled limbs, hot kisses, and greedy hands. A familiar scent that had been haunting my dreams for several nights, making me come awake so close to climax I could have cried.
My head lifted, already full of so many possibilities while simultaneously refuting them all.
“Kieran?”
His beautiful face swam into my line of sight, disrupting the scenario in my head of M and our single night together. My whole world tilted on its axis, torn between fantasy and reality. It scrambled for an explanation, a viable excuse why Kieran would utter that word, while insisting he hadn’t. That I’d imagined. He couldn’t possibly.
“Kieran.” His name breathed from my lips a second time, a choked squeak of disbelief and confusion. “What...?”
“Are you okay?” he cut in.
I could only stare at him, long enough for his brows to draw in over the liquid gold of his eyes. Heavy lashes slanted down as he took me in, possibly searching for injuries.
“Gabby?” Warm, gentle fingers cupped my chin, such a brutal contrast to the way David had grabbed me the night before that I gasped. “Are you hurt?”
He ignored the shake of my head by tipping my face.
I’d checked the night before and that morning for bruising. There’d been a few splotches where David’s fingers had bit into skin, but I’d had years to learn the tricks of hiding the marks. I was an expert with a sponge and a bottle of foundation.
I was confident Kieran wouldn’t see anything.
But his gaze lingered a little too long on my jaw.
His fingers flexed a little too tight.
His mouth was just a little too rigid.
For a panicked second, I was sure he could see something, that I’d missed a spot or the makeup had begun to fade.
I started to pull away.
His gaze lifted. My attempts at escape faltered the moment they pinned me in place. There was nothing in them to suggest he knew anything, but there was something underneath that whiskey gold that made my chest tighten.
“Do you need to sit down?”
I rocked my head slowly from side to side. “What did you say?”
Concern narrowed his eyes. “Do you need—?”
“No, before that, when you first arrived,” I tried to explain and failed miserably.
His chin lifted a notch in understanding. “Kittens.”
My breath became a hard wedge lodging itself in my chest. I almost couldn’t formulate words around it.
“Why? Why would you—?”
He nodded towards something over my shoulder. “The flyer.”
Of course.
I felt so stupid for even entertaining the idea ... Kieran wasn’t Cain. It wasn’t possible. My imagination had completely run away with me. I wanted to laugh, because that was what people who realized they’d made a mistake did; they laughed at their own insanity.
But I couldn’t get it out.
I couldn’t stop looking up at him and wondering.
There were so many things, so many similarit
ies, so many ... feelings.
Too many.
Too many to ignore.
“Kieran?”
“Yeah?”
He would tell me, I told the persistent little voice badgering inside my head.
He wouldn’t ... why would he?
Why would he go through the trouble?
Why ... just so many whys.
It made no sense.
“What?” he pressed when I couldn’t get the words to lunge off the tip of my tongue.
“Have ... have you ever been to an auction?”
It could have been my imagination when he went inexplicably still against me, when his heart gave an unexpected kick against mine through the bulk of our clothes. It had to have been, because the moment I thought I noticed it, it was gone and he was tilting his head to one side.
“I’ve been to plenty. What kind of auction?”
There it was.
The double edged blade.
I could tell him.
I could reveal it all and wait for his face to change, to twist into disgust.
I could wait for him to pull away, to shove whole countries between us with a single step back.
I could watch him turn away from me, or worse, laugh and call me pathetic, sick ... a whore.
The agony of those images wrenched daggers into my chest. I felt each one pierce through fabric, fat, and muscle to nick my heart with fine precision.
A million tiny papercuts until I wanted to scream.
Yet it wasn’t nearly as traumatic as the thought of him saying yes.
To confessing.
To admitting he was Cain.
My Cain.
The mortification, the absolute horror would kill me.
I could feel it just standing there.
I could feel myself tearing apart at the seams, dissolving into tears of humiliation.
I couldn’t stand it.
I couldn’t handle the knowledge that Kieran had seen me like that, had seen me sell myself because there was nothing else left for me. I couldn’t bear ever looking him in the eyes without wanting to die of shame. Oh, and the agony of knowing he’d paid for me ... oh God, I couldn’t.
I couldn’t.
“Nothing,” I whispered, the coward winning. “What are you doing here?”
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