In My Arms You Shall Hide

Chapter 28

Dorian

N othing gave me more pleasure than killing Tucker Starling. My bloodlust has plagued me since the day he had the nerve to show up on my front porch—no, the day he dared to hurt his daughter.

I slide Katherine onto the backseat, scanning her for any injuries. She said she jumped from the car but hadn’t hurt anything. And though it means that Tucker didn’t hurt her directly, it doesn’t soothe my rage.

If I could kill the bastard a second time, it still wouldn’t have calmed me.

As I mess with her seat belt, she presses her face to the crook of my neck, touching the cold skin of her face against the warmth of mine, seeking comfort. I kiss her head when I pull away and search her face for tears. Cory had taken great care to ensure that she didn’t see Tucker’s corpse, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t shaken.

The sunlight catches her shimmering blue eyes. “You came for me,” she breathes.

I pluck a pine needle from her hair before smoothing it back from her face. “I always will, Kittie. Now, let’s get you home.”

When she lets go of me, I close the car door.

“What’s the plan?” Cory asks me when I turn around.

I flick my chin in the direction of Tucker’s body. “We’ll clean the gun and leave it here.”

Although a second ticks by in silence between us, Cory’s face doesn’t give any of his thoughts away. Still, I know the man well enough that he’s rooting around in his head for hitches in my plan. “Is that such a good idea?”

“The gun’s unregistered,” I point out patiently.

Cory nods once. “And what about the car?”

“We’re leaving it along the road. Someone will eventually drive by.”

My words prompt him to lift a brow, which is the most movement I’ve seen on his face today. “Shouldn’t we at least wipe it for prints as well?”

I sigh, walking toward the corpse. I flick my gaze over my shoulder to confirm that Katherine’s still seated in the car with her back to the scene and give Tucker’s body a hard kick. I regret the mercy I granted him in the name of haste.

Cory has nothing to say about my small emotional outburst, though I feel his heavy gaze on my back.

With a sharp inhale, I push my hair out of my face, trying to comb it back into place. Without looking back at him, I ask, “You didn’t touch it, did you?”

“No,” he responds. Neutral, unassuming. “But what about Katherine’s prints in the car?”

I lift the revolver from the ground, grabbing a handful of dirt and leaves with it. I aimlessly fish through my empty coat pocket, trying to will some tissue or napkin into existence. “I think Mr. Starling offered me the perfect out I’ve been looking for.”

Cory’s footsteps crackle behind me over the brush. When they stop, I look back and find him holding out a beige handkerchief.

I take it from him and clean the steal, pushing the edges into the cracks and crevices before bending down, wrenching Tucker’s hand open, and shoving it against his palm.

“A little sloppy,” Cory comments softly. “Shouldn’t we make it more convincing? He has no gunpowder on his hands.”

“You sincerely underestimate how much a small-town police force strives for easy answers.”

As I return to the BMW, I watch from the corner of my eye while Cory sweeps the area, taking everything into account before we leave it behind to be found by a patrol car, a hiker, or a curious mountain driver. Either way, I trust him to catch anything I might have missed. I head back to the car. Faintly, the open car door alarm chimes in the Pontiac as I pass it.

When I climb into the backseat and sit beside Katherine, her trembling smile cools my anger. I clasp a hand against the side of her head, taking in the sight of her face and the shaking of her shoulders. Seeing her hold herself together echoes a pain in the center of my chest.

The irony that I felt a gaping wound form in me when I watched Tucker speed off with her isn’t lost on me.

Once he’s content with the scene, Cory drives us back home, and silence perforates the car. No one speaks, and I almost taste the emotions in the air—Cory’s low-caliber anxiety, Katherine’s frayed nerves, my dying rage and guilt. Perhaps I should force it down, but it rises in me like a tide, and I battle with it long after we return to the estate.

“Oh, dear god!”

I hear Raney before I see her. She runs into the garage to meet us, whipping open the rear passenger-side car door to inspect Katherine. Her bony hands fly over her, searching for damage, unsure what to touch or tend to should she find it.

“I heard all that commotion and came downstairs…and you were gone!” Raney doesn’t notice that Katherine flinches and jumps at her movements and frantic voice.

“Easy,” I warn her as I slide out of the car. “She’s in pain. Let’s get her inside and cleaned up.”

Raney doesn’t ask for any clarification or details. And while my cousin excels in keeping out of my affairs, I expect Katherine to argue as I hoist her out of the car and carry her to her room. She doesn’t protest as Raney prepares a shower for her, nor does she push away our efforts to help her.

Placing her on the edge of her bed, I get to one knee and gingerly remove her shoes. She places a trembling hand on the back of my head.

“Thank you,” she whispers, but for what, I can’t be sure.

I return to my task, rubbing her calves and feet after I’ve set her shoes aside. “I’ve been expecting you to tell me not to worry about you.”

“I’m stepping on your toes,” she says, and I can’t help but smile at the note of certainty and confidence in her voice, even if it shakes. “I hope that’s okay.”

When I put her shoes aside, I notice droplets of blood on the back of my hand. I hate being apart from Katherine now, even for only a few minutes, but I loathe the idea of bringing a part of Tucker back with me, so a shower is in order.

I bend down and kiss the top of her foot before carefully returning it to the floor. “Anytime, Kittie.”

Leaving Katherine in Raney’s care, I retreat to my bathroom to shower. It’s as if Tucker’s filth clings to me, and I scrub every inch of my skin until it becomes red.

In the midst of it, I think of my own father’s death: the car crash had expelled his body through the windshield. The crash itself has become hazy, but I recall limping toward him once I managed to pull myself out of the twisted death trap of the old Shelby. I couldn’t believe that my father laid in the open field, still breathing but barely.

I’d cut my hand plunging a shard of metal into his neck. Even ten years later, I’ve never forgotten what it felt like. I’ll never forget the light leaving his eyes. It should have felt gratifying that I’d been the one to snuff out his life.

But I hadn’t done it for me. I did it for my mother.

After staring at the faded scar in the palm of my hand for too long, I get out of the shower, throwing on a pair of sweats and a shirt before returning to Katherine’s room. I run into Raney just as she sees herself out, first aid kit in her hands.

“She’s all showered up,” she announces with a mock salute.

I thank Raney and steal away into Katherine’s bedroom. There, she sits on her bed in nothing but underwear and one of my Tacron Global shirts, which engulfs her. She studies the ends of a lock of wet hair in the dim light from the bedside lamp.

I sit beside her and study her for injuries that might have gone unnoticed.

Gathering her wrist, I lightly turned over her hands, inspecting them for damage, and am relieved to find none. “Are you still in pain?”

“No, I’m fine, really!” Katherine withdraws her hand and coils her arms around my neck. Her eyes dart back and forth across my face. “I missed you.”

We knot our gazes for several long, silent moments. I search the depths of those eyes for denial or shock, anything that might indicate that she hates what I’ve done. But there’s only longing there, maybe even relief.

I smirk at her, craning my head back and pulling closer to her mouth. “Did you, now?”

Katherine pinches her lips together. “Mmhm.”

I want to tease her for her honesty, but it feels unspeakably good to know she’s become the same clingy mess as me. With the rose scent of her overwhelming my senses, I almost give into that starving darkness in me that wants to claim her. I push against it; if she needs comfort, I’ll give her that.

Tucker hurt her—to what extent, I’ll never know—but that doesn’t lessen the fact that I killed him right in front of her.

“Did you want to talk about your father?”

Her face blanches, and she shakes her head furiously. She isn’t in denial, at least.

Chewing her lower lip pensively, she asks, “You said something about ‘the first time.’ Did you meet him before?”

I don’t hesitate. “He came by looking for you a few months ago. You were asleep in the sunroom at the time. He said he wanted to repair the relationship with you, and I told him to get lost.”

Katherine listens to me carefully. I anticipate anger or maybe grief over a missed opportunity. However, her sweet blue eyes don’t hold any other emotion beyond curiosity.

“Did you fight?”

“ Fight is a generous word for it. I hit him…and kept hitting him.”

“Oh.” Processing, she frowns. “Is that why your knuckles were all black and blue a while ago? I was too afraid to ask back then.”

Yes, it was a rocky time between us; I never explained myself and let my jealousy get the better of me. I lift a hand to Katherine’s face, tracing a line down her cheek with the backs of my fingers.

The purple bruises had looked stunning against her pale skin back then.

“That’s right.”

Katherine tenses in my arms. “I was so afraid that I’d never see you again.”

If I wanted to kill him before, the way she’s trembling now only makes it worse. If only I could kill him more than once and make his suffering last.

I continue to caress her cheek. “No one will hurt you again.”

My words put her at ease. She untangles her arms from me and gathers my hand in both hers, studying the back of it. I want so desperately to peer into her thoughts.

“It’s all a shame, though. I hoped to have you watch me beat him to death,” I breathe my confession.

Admittedly, it’s part of my more demented fantasies, the sort that I try to keep locked away. But I’m beginning to care less and less about guarding myself around her.

Despite my comfort around the subject, I do expect her to react. Maybe a frown, a recoil, a wince. But no, my girl kisses the back of my hand instead. She’s distracted by something, and I feel a stirring in my groin.

“Would you have liked that, kitten?”

Katherine doesn’t respond. Instead, she parts her lips and runs her tongue along my knuckles.

Like a switch, she turns off all other thoughts of that day and commands all of my attention. I gather her face in my hand and kiss her hard, plunging a tongue into her mouth.

I lower her to lay back on the bed, running a hand lovingly down the length of her bare leg. Her skin’s hot to the touch. She shudders beneath me, her fingers tangling themselves in my hair. I undress her completely, kneading her breasts and rolling her nipples between my fingers until I elicit soft, pained moans from her.

Once I tear my clothes off, Katherine moves her body against mine. I taste her lip balm and minty toothpaste. She nips lightly at my lower lip, panting on my mouth and driving me insane.

I’ve left a bloody path in my wake, all the way to her. If I were a better man, I might feel guiltier, especially as I take her so roughly that her fingernails mark my back.

“You’re mine,” I tell her, mouth against the nape of her neck, teeth digging into her sweet-scented skin. I brutally thrust into her, fist in her tangled hair as I reach her limit.

Her cries fill the darkened bedroom.

I tighten my grip on her hair. “Tell me, kitten. Tell me who you belong to.”

“You,” she cries, her entire body trembling beneath me. Tears matte her eyelashes. “I belong to you, Dorian.”

The tortured and desperate way my name falls from her lips throws me into a frenzy. I tell her over and over again this singular truth: that she belongs to me. She screams yes to each proclamation until her cheeks glisten with her tears.

Before, I convinced myself not to touch her, as if I’d steal or sully her light in some way. But as every part of her invades my senses, I know it doesn’t matter. I will never be sure whether I unlocked something deep in her heart or if she’s bent and molded herself to me.

When I bring her to climax, listening to her sweet screams, I know only one thing that matters with any certainty: so as long as she’s beneath me or beside me, the rest doesn’t matter. The destination of Heaven or Hell, or any place between—I couldn’t care less, as long as Katherine is there with me.