24. Emery #2
Didn’t I have enough to worry about without conjuring ghosts?
And Kane…he was right there.
I could feel the force of his presence radiating from down the hall.
He wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me.
I nearly scoffed out loud at the errant thought.
As if I could trust the man.
I mean, come on, the last thing I should be doing was creeping in to get a glimpse of him.
But there was no stopping it.
The tether that bound from somewhere deep within.
Tugging.
Tugging.
Tugging.
No will in my feet except to get to him.
By the time I made it to the end of the hall, my breaths had turned short and shallow.
Dim lights burned from within the kitchen.
I peeked inside.
He was there, facing away at the window over the kitchen sink. His hands planted on the counter as he stared into the lapping shadows of the backyard.
His back bare and only wearing jeans.
His aura had diffused from the easiness he’d worn through the entire evening.
As if once the house had gone quiet, he’d been carried away by his own ghosts.
This...this was the man I’d met Friday night.
Every muscle in his body tightened when he realized I was there, the silence between us growing thick and heavy .
A weighted awareness that dragged between us, vying for a victory there was no chance we could find together.
Yet, there I stood.
Chained to the spot.
My stomach in knots as my eyes traced the intricate art that crawled over his shoulders and down his back. A forest scene with skulls hanging from the limbs of the trees.
Morbid and grim.
I’m not the dragon slayer you think I am. I’m the dragon.
“What are you doing awake at this time of night?” His voice was gruff. Held in the tumult that howled through the rambling room.
I edged forward. “I could ask the same of you.”
He stifled a rough chuckle as he glanced back. “Not used to going to bed until three or four. Am usually still at Kane’s closing up at this time of night.”
Questions stirred. Those reservations I couldn’t shake. I inched forward, trying to gather myself. To focus on what was important.
The little girl upstairs.
Only my breath locked at the base of my throat when he fully turned around. Wide chest fully on display. Rippling with fettered strength. Designs played over the hard, packed lines of his pecs and abdomen.
The man a painting of awestriking, terrifying perfection.
I attempted to clear the roughness away as I eased forward. I had to keep on track. There was a real reason I was here, and it wasn’t to ogle this man.
The first man who sent me sailing right past those barriers I’d hedged. Beyond the anger that had held me back.
“And how is that supposed to work when you’ve insisted on raising a little girl?”
I remained on the opposite side of the island.
Again needing the physical barrier between us.
He roughed a tattooed hand through his hair. “Gotta work some stuff out.” He stalled, obviously reticent to say whatever was on his mind .
He looked to the floor as he mumbled, “And I have a work trip I need to take in two days. Something that was planned long before I knew about Maci. Don’t want to leave, but I have to. I can have her stay with my family, but I think she’d be more comfortable if you stayed here with her.”
Disbelief blustered through, and I shook my head. “You’re leaving? In two days?”
More hesitation, his thick throat bobbing in something I couldn’t quite read.
Guilt, I thought.
“I’m sorry. But I have to do this.”
My brows lifted in challenge.
Sighing, Kane planted those big hands on the glittering veins of the quartz countertop. “Listen… Won’t pretend I have everything figured out right now, but I can promise that I’m going to make this work.”
Rejection puffed from between my lips. “Make this work? She can’t be some extraneous piece that you try to stuff wherever you can make her fit, Kane.”
Those magic eyes pinched at the sides. “Is that what it looks like I’m doing right now? Because what I’m trying to do is give my all. Every good part of me.”
Not even close to being a good man.
My insides flip-flopped.
“And what are the bad parts?” It raked out on a disordered gush. “You told me that you aren’t a good man. You told me you’re the dragon.”
I wouldn’t tiptoe around it.
The air shivered when he straightened, the man rising to his full, imposing height. He began to slowly weave around the island, eyes never leaving me.
His head cocked when he came around the side, and the ground trembled beneath my feet as I stood there without anything separating us.
No barrier for the energy that pounded through the atmosphere.
“You want to know what my bad parts are, Emery?” His voice had dropped to a jagged blade. “They’re the parts of my life that have shaped me. The ones that made me who I am. Some of them were mistakes. And others I would never fucking change.”
My pulse thrummed into turbulence, both alarmed at the foreboding he emitted and wanting to rest in the safety of it at the same time.
He took another step forward on bare feet.
A shockwave rolled the ground.
He came so close that I could smell him. That warm cedar and clove scent that covered me in a jumbled, disorganized comfort.
His voice dropped even lower as he inclined his head my direction. Words raw, unbridled temptation that he whispered far too close to my lips, “You didn’t seem to mind a whole lot about that on Friday night.”
Shivers raced.
“That was obviously a mistake of my own,” I managed to say.
“That so?” he rumbled, inching even closer.
I released a shaky breath, one he seemed to inhale, and a big palm came to rest on the side of my neck.
Heat blistered at the contact.
A roar that burned through my veins.
“Yes,” I forced out through the desire that flickered through my nerves.
A dangerous smirk ticked at the edge of his mouth.
“I think you’re a liar, Little Warrior. I think you want this every bit as badly as I do. Do you think I can’t feel what’s coming off you? Way your body lights up the second I come near you?”
His hand slid up from my neck to tangle in my hair.
He tilted my head back. Mayhem ripped through me like a tornado. How out of control I felt. The man holding all the power.
And I was nothing but a fool. The way I wanted it. The way I wanted him to take that power and rule me.
Just for one minute more.
I wanted to forget. I wanted to be elevated. I wanted to fly.
He dipped down, so close the words breezed across my lips. “The things I would do to you, Emery Voss. The way I would make this perfect little body glow. Make you light up like the sun. Know you’re aching for it.”
Air heaved from my lungs, a clash of horror and lust that whipped around the two of us, my gaze trapped by his.
The bare flesh of his chest pressed to the thin fabric of my tank, and our hearts ravaged in a clattering of greed.
“That can never happen.” Somehow, I managed to wheeze it.
The pad of his thumb stroked the sensitive hollow at the side of my neck, from behind my ear and over the pulse point that drummed in desperation.
“Never?” The gold of his eyes flashed with the challenge. “Already know the way you taste. Know the sounds you make when you come. How hard your thighs shake when pleasure is tearing through you. How these greedy little hands rip at my hair as you beg for more.”
“That was before I knew who you were.” The words barely made it off my tongue.
Surprise rocked him back half an inch. “And that changes things?”
I choked in incredulity.
Was he serious?
“You had a child with my sister. My twin sister.”
My sister who was dead and gone.
A rush of shame came barreling through at the thought. How could I be standing in here with this man like this?
Kane seemed to war, thoughts cutting and grinding through the sharp edges of his face. His expression finally settled into a frown. “I didn’t even know her real name, Emery.”
I could feel my own expression contort with guilt.
With the grief and the torment and the contention that ransacked my conscience.
“Do you think that changes it? Do you think it doesn’t kill me to think about you with her?
Do you think I don’t hate that you make me feel this way?
That you make me want something that no one else has?
And you’re the last person I should want it with. ”
For a beat, he lessened his hold, and I thought he was going to release me, only his fist suddenly tightened as he bent me over farther, the man hovering over me as he murmured, “And you’re the first person who’s ever made me want like this, too.
First person who’s ever chased me into my dreams. One who hits my mind the second I wake up in the morning. ”
His tone deepened. “Only you’ve got it all wrong, Emery. I’m pretty sure you’re the exact person I should want.”
“You’re my enemy.” I could barely croak it around the desire that coursed through me.
His entire brow pinched. “Your enemy?”
All that bottled pain rose and lifted, churning from the depths of where I’d tried to keep it concealed. Bubbling up and spilling over.
I ripped myself out of his hold, and the fury gushed free.
“Yes, you’re the enemy. The enemy who is trying to steal the last part of my sister from me. The one who is trying to steal the last bit of light in my life. You.”
I gasped it as my fingers clutched the fabric of my tank right over my heart. My heart that was bleeding out all over his floor.
“You are the one who’s going to destroy me. Destroy us. Rip the last joy from our lives. Take a little girl from her home and keep her from the ones who love her.”
A sob tore out with it, and I bent in two as I was slammed with the misery. With everything I’d tried to keep contained and shored away.
It rended and rived, cutting me apart.
I struggled to remain standing.
To keep from being swallowed by the ground that had suddenly opened up beneath me.
A dark hole that would take me all the way under.
Hell.
Hades.
Purgatory.
Whatever torture you wanted to call it.
I was there. Drowning in it.