Forbidden Temptation

by R. L. Kenderson

  It wasn’t long before thoughts started filling her head, whirlwind-style. She had hoped that if she showered first thing, before any coffee and before she fully woke up, she would remain in a semi-comatose state. Sometimes, showers were a time for her brain to go into overdrive, and today was one of those days.

  It had been almost a week since Sawyer and she escaped from their kidnappers, and over the last few days, Sawyer and she had started sleeping together, in both the biblical and literal sense. Sawyer had stayed out of her room for all of four hours before he had woken her up the first night. He had fallen asleep after they’d done the deed, and after five minutes of trying to get him to wake up and leave, she had finally given up and gone back to sleep, too.

  She couldn’t deny that she liked sleeping next to Sawyer each night. But she was getting way too used to it. There was no possibility it was going to last. They weren’t going to live here in this house without any contact with the outside world for the rest of their lives. Reality would soon intrude. Kenzie’s brother would come home eventually. Honestly though, she wanted it that way. Sawyer might think that they were mates and that he liked her romantically, but it was all pretend. Just because things were great between them now didn’t mean it was real. Reality would be the two of them together after his memory returned, and they would go back to their regular lives.

  Kenzie sighed and turned off the water. She grabbed her towel and stepped out of the bathtub. After she dried her body and hair, she used her towel to wipe the steam off the mirror.

  Eyeing her body from head to the top of her thighs, Kenzie hoped that she wouldn’t end up in the hospital anytime soon. She looked like an abuse victim, but the bite marks on her body were anything but mistreatment. When she’d told Sawyer that there was no biting her neck, she should have been less specific and said no biting at all. He had listened to her on this rule, but she had marks on her breasts, her pelvis, and—Sawyer’s new favorite—her inner thighs.

  She looked up and immediately saw the knowing smile on her face. She had to admit that her inner thighs were her new favorite, too. Sawyer would go down on her, using his mouth and hand, and right before she would come, he would bite her right next to her pussy. Every time, it would make her come so hard.

  Despite Kenzie’s numerous lovers and sexual adventures, Sawyer was the best she’d ever had. He knew exactly how to please her. Sometimes, he’d seem to know what she wanted before she did.

  She frowned and shook her head at her reflection. Life definitely wasn’t fair.

  Kenzie went back into the bedroom and grabbed her now regular outfit of yoga pants, a T-shirt, and a sweatshirt. She was halfway dressed when she heard a deep hum. Wanting to be able to listen better, she paused in her movements. She knew that sound.

  “Sawyer! Wake up!”

  Sawyer, who had been sleeping on his stomach, jumped into a sitting position at the sound of her voice. “What? What?”

  “My brother’s home. I heard the garage door. Go put on some clothes.”

  Sawyer’s eyes widened, and he stared at her.

  “Go. What are you waiting for?”

  Sawyer didn’t respond, but he jumped off the bed and ran to the guest bedroom. Thankfully, the guest bed was still unmade.

  Kenzie quickly threw on the rest of her clothes and flung the covers up on the bed. She wasn’t trying to hide that she had slept there. She was just trying to hide the fact that she’d had sex and slept with Sawyer. Bastian didn’t need to know about her private life.

  Kenzie sprinted downstairs to the back door. As she waited for it to open, her mind raced with a ton of thoughts. How am I going to explain to my brother what I’m doing here? How am I going to explain who Sawyer is? How am I going to explain why I don’t have a car or our cell phones? And then the big question—could we be going home today?

  Kenzie heard two car doors slam in the garage and the sound of two voices. She groaned just as the door opened, and her brother’s girlfriend stepped through.

  “Oh,” Anna said when she saw Kenzie. “What are you doing here?”

  “Hello to you, too.” Kenzie rolled her eyes.

  Her brother had horrible taste in women. Anna was dressed in cream-colored slacks, an off-white sweater, a white trench coat, and taupe high heels. Her out-of-a-bottle blonde hair was pulled back in an updo with nary a hair out of place. Her appearance was as uptight as her attitude.

  “Kenzie!” Bastian exclaimed when he saw her. He dropped the bags he’d been holding and gave her a big hug before letting go. “How are you?” His brow furrowed. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s a long story. Maybe I can tell you the whole thing someday. First, I need to—”

  “Holy crap,” Anna said, interrupting Kenzie.

  Kenzie looked over at Anna to see her mouth dropped wide open and her purse falling off her shoulder without her even noticing.

  Kenzie turned to see what Anna was looking at.

  Sawyer was coming down the stairs with a shirt half on and his jeans hanging low. Of course, he looked good, but Anna was probably staring at him because Kenzie had brought a guy to her brother’s house, not because he was hot.

  Kenzie looked back at her brother. “Bastian, this is Sawyer.” When Sawyer reached her, putting an arm around her shoulders, she said, “Sawyer, this is my brother, Bastian.” She looked over to see Anna’s mouth snapped shut. “And this is Bastian’s girlfriend, Anna.”

  Sawyer smiled and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You, too,” her brother said with surprise.

  Sawyer nodded a greeting to Anna since she didn’t bother to hold out her hand.

  “Kenzie has a boyfriend—and a handsome one at that,” Anna said, more to herself than anyone else in the room.

  “Anna,” Bastian scolded.

  Anna shook herself out of her daze. “I’m sorry,” she said to Bastian. “It’s just that Kenzie’s never had a boyfriend, much less a good-looking one.”

  “I’m standing right here,” Kenzie protested.

  She looked out of the corner of her eye at Sawyer. He lost the welcoming smile that he’d previously been wearing.

  Kenzie grabbed his hand and whispered, “It’s okay. She’s always like this.”

  “A bitch?” he whispered back.

  Kenzie laughed out loud. “Yes.”

  “What’s so funny?” Anna demanded.

  “Never mind,” Kenzie told her. She looked at her brother. “Bastian, I need to borrow your phone, and please tell me your computer is in one of those bags because I will probably need to borrow that, too.”

  Bastian reached into his coat pocket and withdrew his phone. It was like looking at a unicorn—rare and beautiful.

  Bastian gave her a puzzling look. “Where is your phone?”

  Kenzie snatched it out of his hand and gave him a weary smile. “That, my dear brother, is all part of the long story.”

  Sawyer sat, watching as Kenzie paced back and forth in her brother’s office. She was upset because all her attempts to contact someone had failed. He was trying to be supportive, but he didn’t really care if they went home. He just wanted to be with her.

  Kenzie used her fingers to start ticking off all the ideas she’d gone through. “First, I finally remembered Naya’s number and called her phone. It was off, and now, it’s been two hours since I left a voice mail. I emailed Naya. No reply. I called Vaughn’s cell phone. Just like Naya’s, it’s off. And I don’t know anyone else’s number.”

  “Why can’t your brother drive us again?”

  She looked at him like he was an idiot. “And where would we go once we got there, Sawyer? My crappy apartment that has absolutely no protection? Oh, I know. We can go to Naya’s parents’ house because I’m sure the king and queen of the vampires would love to let a shifter and a human in the door. Even better, why don’t we go back to Naya and Vaughn’s house, the place where we got kidnapped from?”

  Sawyer grabbed Kenzie’s ar
ms and pulled her between his legs. “I know you’re frustrated, but making comments like that isn’t going to do us any good. I’m sorry I don’t remember anything, but you need to try to calm down if you want this to work.”

  Kenzie’s face burst into a grin. “Sawyer, you’re a genius.”

  “I am?”

  “Work. Why didn’t I think of that? Scoot.” She nudged him with her hip. “I need the chair, so I can look up something on the computer.”

  Sawyer got up, and Kenzie sat down.

  She started clicking away at the computer. “Yes,” she said a few seconds later. She grabbed her brother’s cell phone and punched in a set of numbers.

  “Yes, what?” he asked.

  She opened her mouth, but before anything came out, she held up her finger and moved the mouthpiece toward her lips.

  “L and L Construction. This is Cindy. How may I help you?” a voice on the other end answered.

  “Hello. Yes, I would like to speak to Vance Llewelyn.”

  “I’m sorry, but who am I speaking to?”

  “Kenzie. Kenzie Swanson.”

  “Uh—”

  “Look, I’m a friend of his son and daughter-in-law. Please, you have to put me in touch with him.”

  “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but Mr. Llewelyn isn’t here, and I can’t just give out his personal phone number to anyone.”

  “Well, can you give him my number and have him call me?”

  “Well...”

  At this point, the frustration was written all over Kenzie’s face. “Can you hold, please? Just for a moment?”

  “Yes, I suppose.”

  Kenzie pulled the phone away and covered the mouthpiece. “You need to talk to her, Sawyer.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because she’ll know who you are.”

  “But I don’t know her.”

  “That’s okay. Just pretend like you do. All you need to do is get ahold of Vance, and then I will take over from there. Okay?”

  Sawyer sighed. “Okay.” He made a come-here gesture. “Give me the phone.”

  Kenzie blew out a breath of relief and handed him the phone. “Her name is Cindy.”

  “I heard.”

  Kenzie looked confused for a moment, and then she chuckled. “Oh, yeah.”

  Sawyer put the phone to his mouth. “Hi, Cindy. It’s Sawyer.”

  “Oh. Hello, Sawyer.”

  “I need to get in touch with Vance. Can you please give me his phone number?”

  “You don’t have it?”

  Shit, he mouthed. He had to think fast. “I lost my phone, and I don’t have his number memorized.”

  “You?”

  Now, he was getting frustrated with this chick. “Yes, me. Something came up. I really need to get ahold of him,” he bit out.

  “Okay, okay. Here is his phone number.”

  Sawyer grabbed the pen and paper on the desk and wrote down the number she rattled off.

  “Thank you, Cindy.” He pushed the End button on the phone. He turned the paper around to show Kenzie. “Happy now?”

  She snatched it out of his hand. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE LARGE SUV was silent as Kenzie tried to avoid looking across the seat at Sawyer.

  It had happened. Her worst fear had come true. She had seen the change in Sawyer the minute Vance and three sentinels—Saxon, Tegan, and Camden—arrived. Not only had the look of confusion and then recognition crossed Sawyer’s face, but when he’d said Vance’s name before the alpha could speak, Kenzie had also known his memory had returned.

  He hadn’t looked at her since.

  She’d known that it would happen. Sawyer was too strong of a person to remain amnesic forever. And while she had enjoyed the sweet, sexy side of him, she’d known that it wasn’t completely real. So, why did she feel so despondent right now? She supposed that knowing the reality was different than the potential probability.

  “Kenzie? Kenzie?”

  “Huh?” She turned around and looked at Tegan in the third row. “I’m sorry. What?”

  Tegan cocked her head. “Are you okay? You let out a pretty big sigh just now.”

  “I did?” Kenzie smiled at the white-blonde beauty. “I was just thinking, I guess.”

  Tegan smiled back. “That’s understandable. You’ve been through a lot. I bet you’re excited to go home.”

  “You have no idea. I hope my Crabby Abby is okay.”

  “Your cat? Yes, Naya made sure someone checked on her.”

  What a relief. The cat was a pain in Kenzie’s ass, but it was still her cat.

  “How is Naya? The babies?”

  “Good. You’ll see her when we get back to the Cities. She cried when we told her that we were bringing you home. I don’t think she’ll believe that you’re okay until she can see you with her own eyes.”

  “I can’t wait to see her either.”

  “So...how did you two pass the time without killing each other after your escape?”

  Kenzie’s gaze automatically met Sawyer’s, who was practically shooting a death glare at her. She had to control the urge to roll her eyes at him. He acted as if she wanted the whole vehicle to know that they’d been fucking the last few days, only to have him dump her on her ass upon their return home.

  God, he is so dense.

  “We watched TV, played pool, cooked. It was really dull actually.”

  She looked at Sawyer, who started to relax once he realized that she wasn’t going to say anything about them being intimate.

  She directed her next statement toward him. “To tell you the truth, I’ve never been so bored in my entire life. It was a very, very blah time.”

  Sawyer narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw.

  Ha. Take that, you big jerk.

  He, of course, knew that she was lying. After all, he’d been there when he made her come over and over, but she felt like the jab still stung him, and if it were possible, she’d pat herself on the back for a job well done.

  Kenzie looked back at Tegan.

  Tegan muttered, “Right...that’s why you two smell like each other.”

  Sawyer turned his glare to Tegan, and Kenzie opened her mouth to say...something, but she didn’t get the chance.

  “When we get back, you two can tell us everything that happened,” Vance said from the passenger seat in the front. “Then, we will fill you in on everything that you missed.”

  Sawyer and Kenzie knew a little of what had gone down after they had been kidnapped but not much. No one had wanted to say anything in front of Kenzie’s brother, and after they had piled in the SUV, Vance had asked how long they had been at Bastian’s, and that was about it. Neither she nor Sawyer had offered any more information.

  Everyone fell back into silence, and not another word was spoken until they got to a house in the Cities that Kenzie had never seen. It was a beautiful big house on what appeared to be several acres of land surrounded by trees. The SUV pulled around to the back of the house to a big garage and another smaller house.

  Everyone exited the vehicle, and Kenzie followed them all into the main house.

  They entered the kitchen, and everyone headed for the next room. Kenzie stepped forward to follow, but she was stopped by a large hand wrapping around her bicep.

  She looked back at Sawyer and scowled at him. “What?”

  He pulled her close and spoke in a low voice, “You can’t tell anyone that we”—he looked down at her mouth and licked his bottom lip—“were intimate. We’ll explain that we had to pretend to be Vaughn and Naya and leave it at that. That should be enough of a clarification as to why we smell like one another.”

  She ripped her arm out of his grasp and scoffed. “As if I want them to know either.” She rubbed her upper limb where she could still feel his touch, and she felt her birth control implant under her fingertips.

  Two days ago, when Sawyer had discovered it, he had almost been upset.

  She dropped her hand
. Now, he was probably thanking his lucky stars that she wasn’t going to end up pregnant from their time together.

  “Look, I know you don’t want them to know that you slept with a human, but did it ever occur to you that I don’t want them to know I slept with you?”

  Sawyer took a step back with a look of surprise on his face. “But—”

  “But nothing, you conceited big oaf. Get your head out of your ass. You are not the great, wonderful catch that you think you are.” She looked him up and down. “You really need to get over yourself because I can totally do better.”

  With that, she spun on her heel and followed the group into the other room.

  Phoenix’s phone lit up from the nightstand next to where she lay. She grabbed the device off the table and checked the message. Sawyer was back. She needed to meet up with everyone to discuss what Sawyer had to say.

  Urgency had her almost sitting up in shock, but at the last second, she remembered that Dante was sleeping on her hair, and she didn’t want to wake him.

  She was still at the vampires’ compound, only leaving to hunt that rat-bastard Gerald. She’d continued to sleep in Dante’s bed. She’d been doing it for so many days that she was actually getting used to sleeping during the day and hunting at night.

  Dante and she never acknowledged that they slept in the same bed. They always went to sleep and woke up at different times. And he never touched her, not even by accident—except for her hair. Every evening, when she woke up, Dante would be sleeping on her hair.

  It was the oddest thing because it wasn’t like she fanned her long lengths out behind her on purpose. In fact, she had tried tucking it under her shoulders or putting it in a ponytail and even a bun, yet she always woke up the same way. Now, she didn’t really care because he was always careful to keep his distance, and she was getting really good at moving her tresses out from under him without waking him up.

  Phoenix gently nudged Dante from his back to his side as she clutched her hair in her other hand. As soon as he moved away, she tugged her long lengths out from under him. After she was free, she let go of him, and he rolled onto his back once more. She sat up to get out of bed, but she was momentarily distracted by the sight before her.