Chapter 28
KNOX
Ireturned home a little late in the evening. My feet halted at the door as Shadow jumped on me in greeting, standing on his two feet with his paws against my chest. It had been three days, and I was already calling this apartment home.
I gave Shadow a few scritches behind his ear. “Where’s your mom?”
He barked and rushed to the hallway leading to Tara’s bedroom.
I put the groceries I’d gotten in the fridge, washed my hands, and made my way to her room only to find the door ajar.
Tara sat at her large computer setup, her fingers flying over the keyboard, her teeth biting into her lower lip as she focused on the screen.
I couldn’t help but lean against the door and watch the woman who held all my attention.
Her scarred side faced me, and a wave of rage bubbled under my skin with no way to get out.
I wanted to burn the fucker to the ground.
I wanted to tear apart his limbs and feed them to the vultures in front of his eyes.
I wanted to pop out his eyes and shove them down his throat.
I wanted to keep him alive for years so I could find new, creative ways to inflict pain on the fucker.
The only consolation was that my Tara had braved her monster and taken her revenge herself. She had killed the monster in her life and now unleashed hell on other monsters like a fucking goddess. My fucking goddess.
“If you keep staring, I’ll put on my mask.” Her words pulled me out of my musings.
A smile slipped on my face at the way color rose on the top of her cheeks, and she refused to meet my eyes. I stepped into the room and grazed the back of my fingers along the red blush. “Get used to the staring.”
Her eyes turned to me at that, and a soft vulnerability shone in them. “You really don’t mind my scarred face, do you?”
Was I not clear in my obsession? In my shift of loyalty to her?
Maybe she needed to hear proper words from me.
“Tell me something. If I had a giant scar on my face, a missing eye, a large slash going from the top of my head all the way to my chin, jagged lines covering it, would you be put off by me?”
She stared at my face, her teeth biting down on her lip. She shook her head. “My scars aren’t sexy.”
A smile slipped across my face. “Scars aren’t meant to be sexy.
Scars are evidence of the battles you’ve conquered.
The monsters you’ve slayed. They're proof of your heroism. I was already addicted to you before I saw your scars. Your mischief. Your headstrong attitude. Your fighting skills. But your scars? They showed me your heart. Your soul. Your essence. They showed me the pain you’ve sustained, the strength you’ve got within you to overcome the suffering you were put through. ”
She watched me with glossy eyes, her neck turning red.
I sat on my knees by her chair so our eyes met and grazed my thumb along her scarred cheek.
“You called me a psychopath. It is true. I had the most difficult time reading people as a child. I hated it then, and I hate it now. I hate the walking contradiction they are. I hate the empty, meaningless smiles. I hate the effortless lies they speak. I hate how they hide their rot behind beautiful facades. It makes me want to tear apart their faces and see their insides. I spent countless days trying to read every twitch of a smile, every sound of a laugh, every unconscious gesture of their bodies, the flick of their eyes, just to understand their intent. Their motive. The scars they’re hiding behind the pretty facade.
Their fucking truth. And in studying it all, I knew I had to become one of them.
I had to hide my wolf under the sheep’s fucking clothing to be able to eat the fucking sheep. ”
Tara’s eyes were riveted to mine. She looked at me like she wanted to know me. For the first time, she wasn’t irritated by me, or exhausted by me, or wary of me. For the first time, she was enraptured by me. She didn’t even mind that I was stroking her face, caressing her scars like I owned them.
In fact, she almost nuzzled into my touch, lighting my heart on fire.
My voice was a rasp as I continued, “Until I met you. Until I saw your face. Your breathtakingly beautiful face. Your scars, your story, your life, your fucking truth are laid bare on your face for the world to see. I look at you, and I see your fucking soul. For the first time, I can read a person. I can read you. And you’re exhilarating.
People, like me, hide their beast on the inside, wrapping it in a pretty package.
But you, my little criminal, carry your beast for the world to see.
You’re the prettiest package unwrapped and unraveled and fucking brutalized, and I can’t get enough of you.
Does that answer your question, my Tara? ”
A tear streaked down her face, her voice a wet rasp. “Yes.”
Another tear dropped, and I caught it on my thumb.
I slid my thumb in her mouth, making her taste her tears, her wet tongue enveloping me in its warmth. “You seem to have spent enough of these already,” I whispered, my gaze riveted on her lips.
My cock stood straight at attention as her cheeks hollowed and she gave a suck. A growl escaped my lips as I pushed my thumb deeper, earning a soft moan from her mouth. “Look at you, beautiful. Sucking on my thumb like a good girl.”
Her eyes rolled back in her head, her cheeks flushed, and I couldn’t help it.
With my thumb in her mouth, I licked the entirety of her cheek, tasting the salt of her tears and the sweetness of her skin.
My cock throbbed in my pants, and the swell of arousal had my muscles bunching. I wanted to replace my thumb with my cock. I wanted to paint the back of her throat with my cum. Wanted to mark her pretty face.
The need to claim her ran rampant in my blood.
A loud bark had her eyes flying open and her mouth spitting out my thumb with a loud choking noise.
Stupid dog, always cockblocking me. It was only the little laugh from my beauty that had me turning my murderous glare from Shadow back to her face.
“You hungry?” she asked, giving Shadow a little kiss on his nose.
I glared at that little fucker, my chest burning with rage. “For what?”
She chuckled and hid Shadow behind her. “For food. I made some Indian food. You like it?”
A sudden warmth infused in my chest. “You cooked for me?”
She sputtered, “For me. And you. Us. I cooked for us.”
I barely stopped the smile threatening to slip on my face. “I haven’t had much Indian food. But I’ve liked what I ate.”
She got off her chair, stretching her arms while standing over me. I couldn’t see a hint of her skin with the way she was drowning in her large sweatshirt and pajamas. “C’mon. I’ll heat it while you freshen up.”
She sounded like a caring wife, and with every beat of my heart, I was here for it. “Yes, ma’am.”
Even the way we sat at the dining table a few minutes later made my heart—and cock—throb.
She sat across from me, sipping on mango lassi, playing throw with Shadow, while I ate aloo-paratha with chicken tikka masala, with some mango pickle on the side—as explained by my girl.
The potato-stuffed flatbread, paired with the spicy chicken curry, wrapped my soul in a heavenly warmth.
The chilled mango lassi was the perfect cool refreshment to the burning delight. I could eat this every single day.
Tara had a soft smile on her face as she watched me eat. “You like it, huh?”
“You will cook this every single day.”
She scoffed. “I think not. It’s too much work. This is only for special occasions.”
“What’s the special occasion today?”
Her lips pressed together as she turned her face to Shadow. “Nothing. Just felt nice to cook for someone other than myself.”
Seemed like there was more to her day today. But I let it go, turning the conversation to something she’d be very interested in. “So I had a talk with Greg.”
A sly smirk crossed her face. “A talk?”
I nodded with a smile. “A talk. He will become my informant. I told him I’ll give him a girl to kidnap and bring to his boss.
We keep the Wildcats a secret. He doesn’t need to know that Sloane can handle herself and him.
Sloane can keep an eye on him if she can and let us know if he double-crosses us. ”
Tara nodded, sipping her lassi. “I’m arranging for earphones that she can hide in her clothes or shoes. The only challenge is sending a cell phone with her.”
“We can have Greg hand her the phone after she’s taken to the hideout where she’ll stay captive.”
“That works.”
Once we cleaned up the kitchen, we turned off all the lights and checked the door lock. While I walked to the first door to the right in the hallway, Shadow and Tara turned left to the end of the hallway.
I had just turned the knob to my door when my name on Tara’s lips stopped me in my tracks. When I turned to her, she had a shy smile on her face. “Um…for what you said about my scars, thank you.”
I nodded. “Just told the truth.”
“I know. Good night, Knox.”
“Good night, my little criminal.”
This time, she smiled before she turned around.
For the next hour and a half, I tossed and turned in bed. The moonlight cast shadows on the floor, the chilled air-conditioning doing nothing to cool the burning arousal tenting my sheets.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Tara's lips wrapped around my thumb.
My cock jerked with the need to feel that mouth swallowing me whole, that tongue to drag along the vein on the underside of my cock, licking the precum sliding down my length.
I refused to jerk myself off when my little beauty was right across the hallway.
Every drop of my cum belonged to her.
Every fantasy had her face etched in it.
I was not going to jerk off to her image in my head when I had her sleeping fifty feet away from me.