The Strings That Hold Us Together

by Kendra Mase

  The girl’s eyes lit with glee. “Aren’t you cute? Are you new? I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “I made that bra you’re wearing,” Katherine said, hoping her staring at her breasts didn’t come off too forward.

  Her eyes now filled with less glee and more recognition. “Oh, thank you. My boobs definitely thank you. Of course, I’ve seen you at Rosin before, right? And that night when Queen brought the little Emilie back for Passion and Prose. You don’t look so little anymore.”

  No, Katherine caught herself in the thin mirror by the door. She didn’t.

  She wanted to be a vixen tonight, and in her tight dress, shorter than most things she’d ever worn before, with her makeup done just as Avril had taught her, that was exactly what she’d become.

  “Have you seen them?”

  “Who?”

  “Jack?” Katherine asked, a bit louder. “Or Avril—Queen, I mean?”

  Biting her bottom lip still, she looked around but only shook her head. “I don’t think she’s here.”

  Great. Then hopefully her room would be empty.

  “Who is this?” A voice came down the stairs from behind the woman with the pink eye shadow and good taste in lingerie. With dark eyes and hair carefully swept to the side the way she had always imagined lawyers or doctors, Katherine recognized him immediately as the man who caught her the other night almost a month ago as she followed Avril in DuCain.

  Devil.

  He grinned with his perfectly straight white teeth. “Aren’t you Jack’s girl?”

  Looking over her shoulder toward another couple grinding down on one another, Katherine couldn’t help herself anymore. She gave a light snort as she laughed. What was even happening here? Go upstairs, get the notes if she could find them in Avril’s pit of despair, and leave.

  But she didn’t back down from Devil.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not anyone’s.”

  “Is that right?”

  The girl with the good taste in lingerie nodded effortlessly and slipped around her back to the party.

  Katherine’s eyes remained fixed on the tall, dark man in front of her.

  “So, what are you up to tonight?”

  “Well, you know,” Katherine came up with easily, glancing down at her shoes. “Saturday.”

  “That’s right. Saturdays are like a thing for you guys. So, you’re just here to have a good time?” Devil smirked.

  Again, Katherine shut her eyes as she smiled at this man Jack warned to stay away from her. Looked like she could also make her own decisions. They may not have invited her to the party, but here she was. And it wasn’t just them, it dawned on her, minding her company in whatever form it was Devil was looking at her for. The understanding settled low in her stomach as his dark eyes considered her.

  Whatever they said about Devil began to fade. He seemed nice enough.

  He certainly looked it.

  And isn’t that what Jack told her? She deserved a nice, handsome guy?

  Again, that stabbing feeling came back, and she ignored it. Again.

  She smiled instead, trying to remember the way Jack and Avril smiled.

  “Looks like it.”

  “Then let’s make this night worth it. What do you say?” Devil extended a hand.

  Before Katherine could question herself—that was all she ever did, she put her hand in his softer hand, compared to how her hand sank into Jacks, she thought to herself for just a second.

  Truth or dare?

  Dare. “I’d say please and thank you.”

  “Very good answer.”

  With that hand gripping hers, they walked back up the stairs one at a time. She was planning to go upstairs anyway, after all. Only now, a few of the doors were already shut. They were alone, and Devil twisted her with a single light tug.

  Back flush against the wallpaper, her hand was captured, lifted, and held above her head.

  She followed it, only meeting Devil’s eyes. They weren’t just dark, she realized. They were nearly black.

  Then he brought down his mouth on hers, or near hers.

  Katherine froze at the sudden intensity of the kiss. It claimed her right below her jaw. She melted against the wall instead while her heart beat rapidly. For a second, she wondered what would happen if she said something. But she didn’t, eyelashes fluttering, Katherine let Devil have her. There was nothing to say, after all. There was no fear or anxiety, just understanding.

  It was only kissing, after all. Holding her, he seemed to want it all rather desperately.

  Maybe Katherine did too.

  Pulling only his mouth away, Devil held her in place so she couldn’t move an inch if she tried.

  She didn’t.

  Devil snickered. “I can see why Jack was so intrigued. What is your name, by the way?”

  Right, because they hadn’t gone over that before her lips burned from the space between theirs. Katherine angled her head toward him, but with a jerk of his chin, he let his lips land back down on her jaw, her neck—just not her lips.

  “Kit,” she breathed.

  “Kit. I don’t know how Jack messed up, but I’m Dev. Devil. The one who comes out of the shadows and reins terror over the underworld. I’m sure they’ve told you all about me.”

  “I can’t say they have.”

  He only grinned wider, leaning back in. “Then I guess you’ll be in for a pleasant surprise. Wasn’t it said that Persephone wasn’t actually dragged down to the underworld after all?”

  Katherine couldn’t say she’d heard that part of the story either, but a different one began to form in her head again, like the last time she was at a party at the Queen’s castle. Thinking about the parties when she’d felt so alone until suddenly, she wasn’t anymore, and someone was right there beside her.

  This story was different.

  There were no lies here, no ill-intent or movement at all for her to make under Devil who looked at her with only keen interest. This time, she only needed to pay attention and worry about what was all right here in front of her.

  And, when it came to Devil, even with his reputation, there were no questions. Only rules and an understanding that no one would share anything but a smile about what happened the next day.

  She could do that, Katherine thought. Maybe Avril was exactly right about who she was.

  “But you can call me Sir, if you like, yes?”

  Katherine licked her lips, watching as he followed her tongue with his gaze. She’d heard the word uttered from dozens of other lips in her time at DuCain, but it felt like a shock wave on the tip of her tongue as she said it, looking from his dark eyes down to his lips right there in front of her. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good.”

  She couldn’t help but agree, a light smile brushing the corners of her lips.

  His hand left the one he led her into the hallway with, smoothing it up her waist before cupping her breast. Though not much there, she always thought, it didn’t appear that Devil minded in the least.

  His mouth dipped as he nipped her neck and her breast swelled.

  With a gasp, Katherine melted farther against him, her single hand flexing before gripping onto his shoulder as her vision swayed. Floral greens on the wallpaper vibrated like the sound she tried to keep hidden behind her lips that she pressed tightly closed.

  With another hard bite right at her clavicle, Katherine couldn’t help at the sharp combination of acute pain and sudden heat that swelled in her hips that rolled into his on their own accord.

  “You like that, huh?” Devil murmured into her skin and continued to rub and squeeze.

  Stop. That was all she had to say, if she wanted to, now would be the time.

  She knew how to shove and scratch and walk away. She was good at walking.

  Stop. It was just a word as his hand flared where it met the heavy crystal brooch that steadied her. It gave her courage as the hemline of her skirt inched higher at his insistence.

  The only thing she co
uld think of right now was, let it. “Yes, Sir.”

  Her voice sounded like someone else, deep and raspy.

  “We are going to have fun, you and I.”

  Before he could complete his promise, however, a hand was on his shoulder, and Devil was flung back into the other wall before he could right himself. Katherine’s hand fell from where it was held up, her chest expanding and receding much farther than she thought now that there was no one for it to connect with.

  “What the fuck did I say about staying away from her?”

  Turning her head, Katherine was met with kaleidoscope eyes of seas and honey.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The first time Avril ever ran off the face of the earth, she took Jack with her. They went to LA and laid on the beach filled with litter and rented an old Volkswagen van only he could drive all the way up to Washington. Slowly, the van got fuller with every person they seemed to accumulate along the way.

  He learned on that trip that Avril once had a brother who rode motorcycles. He’d been out to Washington once. It was postmarked Seattle, one of the last letters he sent her to wherever home had been at the time. It was before she met Reed. Jack didn’t get much more.

  Not until she took him to Spain. Then, she told him about her mom and how she died. She laughed through all the alcohol they inhaled throughout the day, so he wasn’t sure she was kidding at first, not until he asked Reed.

  There was always something left with Avril that he felt like he didn’t know. For one now, where the hell was she?

  On the other hand, he knew exactly where Pen was.

  “Get out.”

  “What are you talking about? We’re having fun.”

  “Fun?” Jack couldn’t believe this. “You think this is fun, inviting all your friends over to my—Queen’s house like you suddenly think you run the place now that she’s out of town with her boyfriend or whatever?”

  Pen rolled her eyes from where she was lying half naked on his bed. He turned around for one minute and it was suddenly like she had stripped in five seconds flat. The air filled with irritation and simple wants. “Come on, it’s Saturday.”

  “You never were into our Saturdays.”

  “Our?” Pen sneered.

  “Yes, our,” Jack repeated, though he didn’t know why. Shutting his eyes, he knew better than to look away. “What are you doing here, Pen?”

  “Well, I couldn’t find you at DuCain now, could I?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “At least look a little excited to see me.”

  “I’m not. I’m not excited to see you, Penelope,” Jack said. He hated how he sounded, but seriously. What the hell was going on? He booked another last-minute wedding that called him this morning and came home to this.

  The past few weeks, nonetheless, were a mental hell for him for some reason. They started fine, normal. He got up, worked out, went to work at DuCain and came home if he didn’t meet up with a friend for drinks. Then, slowly, he stopped doing that, thinking about his conversation with Kit again, always Kit and how she lit up at his photography in that stupid museum.

  What did you really want to do when you came to the city? She asked him. Why don’t you go home?

  He was looking at a piece of the reason why on his bed. He wasn’t someone he took home to mom and dad. Apparently, in his mind, it was beginning to turn out, not even his own.

  Not even when someone like Kit thought he was magnificent.

  What a joke. All of this. Both of his hands gripped either side of his head.

  “I’m here to make up,” Pen pouted.

  “There is nothing to make up.”

  “Now we both know that’s not true. Though your silent treatment was rather annoying, come here. Let’s not fuck around anymore. It’s really not good for either of our health.” Pen sat up, coming to open her legs on either side of him.

  “Stop, Pen.”

  “What?” she asked with a scrunch of her nose. “You want me to say I’ve been jealous about who else you might’ve been with? Is that it?”

  “I haven’t been with anyone, not that it is any of your business,” Jack said. “I’ve been busy.”

  “With who? I know you have been cutting hours at DuCain, so don’t say working.”

  “I have been.”

  “What?”

  Was he seriously still talking? “Working, Pen. Working.”

  She raised a light eyebrow. “Where?”

  “It’s none of your business.” Though he hadn’t been at DuCain in a while, it still seemed too soon to say anything about how he had been out with his camera more often than not. He couldn’t keep taking days off, but at least when he wasn’t at DuCain, he didn’t have to think, not about anything.

  Unlike now.

  “Shut this down, now.”

  Pen rolled her eyes. Reaching out from where she was on her knees, she gripped the bottom of his shirt. Drawing him in for a second, he let her lips graze his. “Don’t be so serious. You love parties.”

  Finally, something she was saying made sense.

  Looking down at her mouth, Jack could calm down for just a little while, just relax and let it go. He’d worry about it later. All of it.

  A subtle bang in the hall behind him sounded.

  Breaking whatever spell he was under, Jack took a step back. He nearly dragged Pen and her grip on him with him. His head turned to the closed door, a tingling sensation in his chest curling around each of his ribs.

  He took a step toward the door, but not before Penelope tugged him back.

  “They are probably just having a good time.” She pulled on his shirt again until she managed to wrap her hand around his belt. “We could be having fun too.”

  The one end slipped through his belt loop and clanged against the metal buckle.

  Another small bang sounded. Something was wrong between his ribs…

  Jack pulled away, running a hand through his hair as he took a step back.

  Pen looked at him with annoyance. “What now? I forgive you, is that it?”

  Putting up a single finger, he took a step back and opened the door. For a second, he thought Pen was right, it was just another one of the couples she let the castle doors open to. But then his hand gripped the shoulder of some guy with a dark pressed button-down.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Jack asked, a sharp tone to his voice. He gave the man, who was a good head taller than him, a shove. Fucking Devil.

  He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. Eyes flicked to the girl beneath the big asshole, still plastered against the wall. The face that looked back at him might’ve been the last one he expected. Then again, it might’ve been because he hadn’t seen her in a while. What was Kit doing here?

  Jack shoved Devil again. “She has enough to worry about without adding to it with your messed-up ass.”

  Devil only shrugged. “I mean, not that you should be talking, friend.”

  Friends? Jack clenched his one fist near his hip.

  “Lighten up, man. She said she wasn’t yours. We were just having some fun.” Devil looked to Kit for some sort of confirmation. Eyes still locked on Jack, she looked more likely to let the wall swallow her whole than answer.

  Jack bared his teeth at the man. “Get out.”

  “Stop the whole alpha crap here, Jack.”

  “Do you need to get your ears checked?”

  Opening his mouth, Devil looked between Kit and him again with a shake of his head. Wisely, he took one step out from in front of Jack and toward the staircase.

  “Sorry, sweetheart,” Devil sniffed. He straightened his pressed shirt as he glanced at her. “Another time.”

  Another time, Jack’s ass. He stomped a step toward him. “Out!”

  Everyone needed to get out.

  Kit, however, hadn’t moved from the wall. Her lips parted as she stared at Jack. The skirt of her loose dress, the color of Easter flowers, still hitched toward her left hip as Jack looked her up a
nd down, the picture of flushed beauty and… nerves.

  “Kit?”

  “Jack?”

  They both stood there for another long second. But no, she wasn’t going to wait any longer for him to have the first word, was she? It was probably a good thing, Jack thought as he swallowed. He didn’t know what to say.

  He forgot how pretty she was.

  The last thought he had for the longest time was her getting out of his Jeep, grinning with the promise of friendship on her lips and then, nothing. Avril disappeared. He disappeared, he guessed too.

  Friends.

  That’s what he called her?

  Opening her damp lips, she lined them with her tongue—

  “Jack?” a voice snapped them both out of whatever thought they had. Her head snapped toward the open bedroom door to Penelope before his did. “Yeah, I’m still here.”

  For one of the first times, Jack wished she was just about anywhere else.

  Turning back to Kit, her gaze turned down to her shoes, fixing her skirt back over the light glimmer of what could only be the brooches. She was keeping them safe, she said, for Queen.

  His brow furrowed again at the thought, remembering how weird she was about anyone touching them. Especially him when he found them.

  “Kit, I didn’t know you’d—”

  “It’s fine. I was just…” She trailed off, clearing her throat as she smoothed herself back down as she blinked. “I’ll come back another time. I just…”

  Just.

  Jack narrowed his eyes, focusing on her. But he didn’t feel anything anymore, just silence in the void in the space between them.

  “Jack,” Pen cut in once more. Her tone this time had a bit more bite that was directed straight at Kit.

  Twisting around, his eyes flared. He still had questions, yet he just kept looking at her. What was Kit doing here? With Devil? How— “One second.”

  Again, Kit shook her head as she moved toward the steps. “It’s fine. Go ahead.”

  Looking between her and the doorframe of his bedroom, blessedly empty this time, Jack turned back to Kit. “Wait here. I’ll be right back. Wait here and we can talk, okay? Can we talk?”

  Pausing with her hand on the railing, her other reached up and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.