Forbidden Temptation

by R. L. Kenderson

  “What are you talking about? And why aren’t you more worried about me?”

  “Kenzie, have you even left the room yet?”

  “No. Did you not hear me? I don’t want to die.”

  Naya started laughing, and Kenzie thought about hanging up on her. Unfortunately, she didn’t know whom else to call. She momentarily thought of Sawyer, but she really didn’t want to call him to rescue her.

  “Kenzie, listen. You’re not going to die. Just leave the bedroom, and I promise, everything will be okay. At least, it’d better be. I don’t care how pregnant I am. Someone can still get his ass kicked.”

  Kenzie was about to protest Naya’s suggestion when the bedroom door was pushed open a crack, and a cat walked into the room and jumped on the bed. But it wasn’t just any cat. It was Crabby Abby. Kenzie would recognize her anywhere.

  What in the hell?

  “Kenzie? Kenzie!” Naya called from a distance.

  Kenzie looked down at her hand, not realizing that she had let the phone fall away from her ear. She slowly brought her cell back up. “Naya, what is going on?”

  “That is for the two of you to discuss. Just go talk to him. Then, call me later. I want to hear everything.”

  “Who is him?” Kenzie asked, but it was too late.

  Naya had already hung up.

  Kenzie slowly rose from the bed, clutching her phone in front of her. It obviously wasn’t going to save her if she opened the bedroom door and there really was a murderer on the other side, but it was all that she had.

  Crabby Abby jumped off the bed, meowed, and walked back toward the door. When Kenzie didn’t move fast enough for her, Crabby Abby came back to Kenzie, meowed, and walked toward the door again.

  “I’m coming, okay?” she told her cat. “Give me a minute. My life might be shit right now, but I still want to live.”

  Crabby Abby sat down, lifted her leg, and started licking her butthole.

  “Yeah, same to you, cat. I knew I should’ve gotten a guard dog.”

  Crabby Abby paid no mind to Kenzie and rose to walk to the door, this time disappearing around the corner of it.

  Kenzie crept closer and slowly opened the door, hoping it was well oiled and wouldn’t creak.

  The first thing that she saw was her boxes against the wall in the hallway. She knew they were her boxes because they had her handwriting on the sides of them.

  The whole situation was just getting weirder.

  Maybe she was still dreaming. That had to be the only explanation.

  Kenzie pinched herself. Ouch. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t dreaming.

  She heard a voice coming from down the hall, and Kenzie followed the sound as she vowed to God that if she was killed, she would haunt Naya for the rest of her life. When she got to the end of the hall, it opened up into a living room with a kitchen beyond that. Kenzie was more than stunned to see Sawyer standing there on the phone with his back to her.

  Sawyer moved the phone away from his mouth as he put his nose in the air and inhaled. He instantly swung around, and she guessed that he must have smelled her.

  He put the mouthpiece back up to his lips. “She’s here. Listen, let me call you back.” He pushed a button on his phone and threw it on the couch.

  Kenzie stared at him, completely confused. “What in the hell is going on?”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  SAWYER STARED AT Kenzie, not knowing where to start explaining.

  “Where the hell am I?”

  That was an easy question. “My parents’ house. My house.” Our house now. “I inherited it after my parents passed away.” He gestured toward the couch. “Will you please sit? I’ll try to explain everything.”

  Kenzie eyed him like he had three heads as she slowly lowered herself onto the couch and set her phone on the coffee table, but at least she wasn’t arguing with him.

  Sawyer sat down next to her, making sure to give her some space so that she wouldn’t feel claustrophobic. Despite her messy hair and the indents on her face from her pillow, he still thought she looked beautiful.

  He couldn’t believe how freeing it was to think that. Before, he would have stopped himself from coming close to admiring her, but now, he felt like he had been liberated.

  Kenzie waved her hand in front of his face. “Dude, why are you grinning like an idiot? You’re kind of freaking me out.”

  “Sorry,” he said, but he didn’t stop himself from smiling at her. He could watch her all day.

  “Sawyer?”

  “What?”

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on? Or are you going to sit there, like a lump on a log, staring at me?”

  “Sorry,” he said again. He cleared his throat. “I guess I don’t know where to start.”

  She raised her brow. “Well, you could start with why I am here and not on my way to Iowa right now.”

  Sawyer winced. “That’s kind of a long story.” How can I say this? How should I explain this? “Okay, I guess I’ll start with Naya coming to see me.” He looked down at his hands in shame. “She yelled at me for the way that I’d treated you the night of the New Year’s Eve party.” He peeked up at Kenzie for a second. “And Naya was right. I behaved horribly. I was jealous and mad, and all I could think about was your ex-boyfriend touching you.” Touching what’s mine. “Instead of being an adult and talking to you, I reacted on instinct and jealousy. The instinct part you can blame on my cat half, but the jealousy part is all me being a stubborn idiot.”

  Sawyer looked up at Kenzie, who was staring at him with her mouth halfway open.

  “What?” Do I have food on my face or something?

  “I-I-I,” she stammered. “I’m in shock. I can’t believe you just admitted that to me.” Her eyes widened. “Hell, I can’t believe you admitted it to yourself.”

  “After Naya yelled at me, I had a long talk with Phoenix, and she made some very valid points. Our conversation made me realize some things about myself that I’d been blind to, and I decided that I needed to make a change, or I’d end up living a long and lonely life.”

  “Wow. Can I ask what you realized?”

  Sawyer smiled. “Of course. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”

  “I am so confused,” Kenzie said as she rubbed her head.

  “Let me go back to the beginning. I grew up in this house with my parents, and when I was about ten, I think, we had new neighbors move in next door. My parents and the couple next door had a lot in common, including an only child of the same age, and they hit it off almost immediately. They became good friends, and the only thing that the neighbors didn’t know was that my parents were shifters.”

  “Your neighbors were humans and friends with your parents?” Kenzie asked in disbelief.

  “Yes.”

  “But you hate humans.”

  Sawyer cringed. “Hated,” he corrected. “And I’m getting to why I felt that way.”

  “Felt?”

  “Yes. Now, the neighbors had a daughter named Megan, who was the same age as me. I didn’t care for her at first because I was a ten-year-old boy, and as far as I was concerned, she had cooties. But after a few years, that changed. Not only did we become friends, but—”

  Kenzie closed her eyes. “You became boyfriend and girlfriend.”

  “Yes. And like any young romance, I thought I was in love. I thought we would be together forever, but I knew that it could never last if she didn’t know the truth about me. Megan was very kind and caring. I had no doubts that she would accept me as a shifter. I figured it would come as a shock, of course, but after she processed it, I figured we would live happily ever after, as they say.”

  “But that didn’t happen.”

  Sawyer shook his head. “No. When I told her, she didn’t freak out or anything, but she told me that she needed space and time to think. I was disappointed but not surprised, and I agreed to leave her alone for a while.” He clenched his hands. His story was getting hard to tell. “I
hadn’t heard from her for about two weeks. It was the weekend, and I went camping with a friend and his family. Apparently, that weekend was the same weekend that Megan decided to tell her parents the truth about my family. I don’t know what made Megan’s parents react the way they did, but apparently, in a fit of rage, they confronted my parents. I don’t know the details, but I know the neighbors brought a gun and shot my parents.”

  Kenzie gasped.

  “When I came home from camping, I found them in the backyard, dead. They had died the night before, so it was obvious that they were gone when I approached. I will never forget how they looked, lying there.”

  “Oh my God, Sawyer.” Kenzie moved closer to him and grabbed his hands. “I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”

  He squeezed her hands to let her know that he appreciated her being there. “The police investigated, and it was discovered that it was the neighbors. They didn’t even deny it when the cops came looking for them. Thankfully, humans don’t know or believe in shifters, so the neighbors came off as crazy, and the jury didn’t buy their defense. Both of them are currently locked up in prison. I was fifteen years old.”

  “And Megan?”

  “She committed suicide after her parents were arrested. I never spoke to her after I revealed my secret. I don’t know why she told her parents. I don’t know why her parents reacted the way they did. All I know is that if I hadn’t told Megan, then my parents would be alive.”

  “Oh, Sawyer.”

  “I blamed myself all these years, and of course, I blamed humans for what had happened. Only recently, I understand that I was punishing myself for what had happened to my family. But I couldn’t admit that I was punishing myself, so I put all my self-hate into hating humans. Toward you. It’s going to be a long journey, but the first step is admitting these things out loud. I’ve even started therapy.”

  “Wow, Sawyer. It’s no wonder you hate humans.”

  “But it’s not right. It’s no better than saying all cat-shifters are bad because of what Gerald has done. Not all cat-shifters are villains, and not all humans are like Megan or her parents. I realize, especially now, that it was wrong of me to lump you all into one category.”

  “I appreciate the fact that you recognize I would never hurt you like that.”

  “I’m sorry it took me so long to understand that. I’ve been horrible to you. I have treated you like no man should ever treat a woman.”

  “So, you brought me here to apologize? Am I getting that right?”

  “Yes,” he said, relieved that she understood his motive behind bringing her to his house.

  She pulled her hands from his. “What I don’t get is why you didn’t just come to my apartment to talk to me.”

  “I tried. You were out of it. You kept telling me that you were dreaming.”

  The color drained from Kenzie’s face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I am an idiot. Of course last night wasn’t a dream.” She put her head in her hands. “I can’t believe the things I said to you, thinking you were just a part of my imagination.”

  Sawyer knew he shouldn’t laugh, but she was so cute. “Kenzie, it’s okay. I know you thought you were dreaming. I barely remember what you said.” Now, he was lying to make her feel better because there was no way in hell he’d ever forget her saying she loved him.

  “I’m still embarrassed. And I don’t embarrass easily.”

  “Then, we’ll just pretend like it never happened. How about that?”

  She peeked at him before sitting up and dropping her arms. “Yeah, right. Sure. But I guess I’ll have to take what I can get. I’m still a little confused. Why did you bring me here? Why is my stuff here? I saw my boxes sitting in the hall.”

  “Since I wasn’t able to speak to you last night, and your movers came so early this morning, I just had them bring your things to my place. I figured you had to be out of your apartment today, and I wanted to talk to you about something else before you decided to move down to Iowa.”

  “What is that?”

  “Naya also told me that you had lost your job because you couldn’t account for your whereabouts during our kidnapping.”

  Kenzie groaned. “She wasn’t supposed to say anything. I didn’t want anyone to feel guilty.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We put you in that situation. If it weren’t for us, you’d still have your job.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve found a new one.”

  “In Iowa,” Sawyer pointed out. “Naya made it very clear that you do not want to move back there.”

  She shrugged again. “That’s life.”

  “But, Kenzie, Naya made it seem like you hate it there.”

  She threw her hands up in the air, obviously getting frustrated. “Well, hotshot, what do you want me to do about it? I tried everything that I could think of to get a job in the Cities. Nobody wants me. Nobody. I couldn’t even get an interview.” She stood up. “Now that I have admitted my failure to you, I would like to go and figure out how I’m going to get my stuff down to Iowa because I have a job to start in another couple of days.”

  Sawyer jumped up and grabbed her wrist. “No, you don’t understand. We found you a job at a great hotel.”

  She shook her arm, knocking his grip loose. “I don’t want anyone’s handout. I don’t have much left of my pride, but I do have some, and I don’t want anyone’s pity.”

  “Kenzie, it’s not a handout or pity. This is what is owed to you. You earned this,” he practically begged her to understand. “You can’t move to Iowa.”

  She lost some of her anger. “It is what it is, Sawyer. And I shouldn’t be mad. Tell...whoever...got me this job, thank you. I appreciate it, but I can’t stay here.” Her eyes grew sad. “It’s too hard. Maybe even more so now.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s okay. You don’t need to.”

  She picked up her phone and started walking back toward the hall.

  Even though he knew that she wasn’t leaving right that second, a sense of panic came over him, and he blurted out the first thing that came to him, “You can’t go. I love you.”

  She stopped walking, keeping her back to him.

  “And I know you love me, too. You said it last night.”

  She slowly pivoted around on her foot. “You told me that you didn’t remember anything and that we’d forget it ever happened.”

  He shrugged a little regretfully. “I lied.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  KENZIE STARED AT Sawyer, speechless.

  “Did you hear what I said? I love you, and I don’t want you to move to Iowa.”

  Kenzie had been given a lot of information today, and she didn’t even know what to make of Sawyer’s current news. “I think I need to sit down.”

  He stepped over to her and guided her down to the closest recliner. “What’s wrong?” he asked as he knelt between her legs.

  “You’re asking me what’s wrong? I should be asking you that.” Hmm...

  Kenzie put her hands up to Sawyer’s forehead and face.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Checking to see if you have a fever.” She pulled her arms back, so she could look at him better. “Oh my God, you’re dying.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m not dying.”

  She leaned forward and said in a low voice, as if it were a secret, “Are you sure?”

  He burst out laughing. “Yes.”

  She moved back, insulted that he would think his death was funny. “Well, I think it’s a legitimate question. Up until now, you’ve hated me.”

  Sawyer grabbed her hips and pulled her closer to him. He looked and smelled so good that she had a hard time not touching him.

  “Have you not heard anything I’ve said in the last hour?”

  “Obviously, I have,” she said. “But I thought that was all a part of your therapy, all a part of the healing process.”

  He gave her a funny look. “I’ve only gon
e once. That would have been one heavy-duty therapy session.”

  “And how was I supposed to know that?”

  He nodded once. “Good point. You couldn’t have known.”

  “I don’t know what to think of all this.”

  Sawyer pulled her closer and ran his nose and mouth along her neck. Just like that, she was wet.

  “What does your heart tell you?”

  Kenzie closed her eyes, taking in the feel of his touch. “Mmm,” was all she managed to say as she brought her hand up to grab his hair.

  Sawyer nipped her neck and continued to rub her there. “That’s it? Just ‘mmm’?”

  “Well...” She paused and licked her lips. “It’s saying...”

  Sawyer sucked on the spot where her neck met her shoulder, and her pussy throbbed.

  “Oh God, I don’t know what it’s saying. I can’t concentrate.”

  He ran his nose back up her neck until he reached her ear. “Is it saying yes? Is it telling you that it wants me to mark you?”

  His words, while sexy, actually gave her the willpower to open her eyes, put her hands on his chest, and push slightly away.

  His eyes were filled with concern. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  For some reason, she’d thought he’d be mad that she had stopped him, so seeing him worry made it easier for her to talk to him. She put her forehead on his. “I don’t know what to think. I feel like I’m in the middle of a tornado, and I don’t know where I’m going to be set down or what shape I will be in when it happens. I don’t want to be hurt again.”

  Sawyer moved his forehead from hers, kissed her brow, and cupped her face. “Oh, Kenzie, I really did a number on you, didn’t I?”

  She felt guilty saying yes, so she shrugged.

  “How about if I tell you how I feel and what I think about the situation?”

  “Okay.”

  “The moment I met you, I felt an attraction like I have never had with any female, shifter or human, before. I tried to fight this pull I felt toward you, but even though I denied it until now, my cat knew that you belonged to me.”

  Kenzie was about to protest the belonging-to-him part—while she liked where this was going, she belonged to no man—but Sawyer cut her off with a quick kiss.