Chapter 52
I’d never thought it possible before coming home from the hospital.
I’d never thought anyone could stand up to Kayde’s superpowers and his Lassie face. Never imagined for one minute that someone had enough of a spidey sense to know when he’s around before anyone else does, and could prevent him from doing his sneaky-walk.
But Elena, it turns out, has powers that rival even Kayde’s.
My mouth twitches into a smile as I lean back against my headboard, and I can imagine the look on Kayde’s face as Elena loudly greets him on the landing outside of my door. She waylays him for a few minutes, asking how he’s doing and if my mom knows he’s here.
But luckily for him, he has carte blanche approval from my mom to be here during the day, even when she’s across the ocean in Thailand with one of her longest, most faithful clients. It’s just a shame he’s on trial for coercion, and she’s had to take the whole week to learn how to proceed with the laws in Thailand.
My door opens and Kayde breezes in with a sigh before closing it gently behind him. “She hates me,” Kayde informs me, sitting down hard on the end of my bed.
“Elena doesn’t hate you,” I laugh. “She’s very…responsible. She takes her job as chaperone incredibly seriously.”
“When does your chaperone leave, exactly?”
I glance at the clock, then back at him, as a wolfish smile crosses my face. “She’s probably on her way out. You timed it perfectly today.” Because of course he did. His beaming grin tells me it isn’t a coincidence, and I roll my eyes at him as Kayde stretches out on the bed beside me.
“Go me,” he murmurs, peering at the magazine I’m flipping through. “Horror Weekly?” he deadpans. “Where are the wedding magazines your mom told me she was bringing home?”
“Probably in my mom’s office,” I tell him absently. I’m a little out of it, thanks to the effects of the pain medicine I continue to swallow every few hours, but not enough to not enjoy his company.
Every day Kayde shows up by two in the afternoon, and every day he stays until after midnight. Normally he doesn’t leave until the morning, and only then, so my mom or Elena don’t think he’s over here spending the night.
When I’d asked Mom why he can’t spend the night, she’d only given me the look and asked Kayde if he wanted pizza or tacos for dinner.
A knock on the door makes me look up, and Elena leans in with a smile. “I’m heading out,” she announces, her eyes on Kayde and rife with suspicion. She has to know we’re fucking. There’s no way for her not to know when she’d walked in on us making out a week ago. That had been a particularly embarrassing day, and even Kayde had looked a little ashamed of himself.
“Thanks, Elena,” I tell her, smiling. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” Mom had arranged before she left for Elena to be here every day, and while she’d told me it was for the cats, I’m not stupid. She wants her here to check on me in the mornings and make sure I’m okay.
Though in my opinion, Kayde could do that just as well as Elena. And with the added benefit of not reporting our every move to my overprotective parent.
Kayde’s phone goes off, and he tells Elena his own goodbye before glancing down at the screen. For my part, I get another warning look, and I’m surprised she doesn’t tell us to ‘make good choices’ before she’s gone from the doorway, her footsteps receding toward the stairs.
“I didn’t know you had friends,” I remark, not looking at Kayde’s phone. “Or is that your mom?” Contrary to what I’d assumed, Kayde has a good relationship with his parents.
I’ve even FaceTimed with them.
“You’re hilarious,” Kayde mutters. “It’s Melody, actually.” But he grimaces and tosses his phone on the nightstand after shooting off his own reply. “She’s a lot more, uh, honest with me now that camp is over for good. About the sociopath thing.”
His words make my stomach twist nervously, though it’s not necessarily bad. Melody is too old for Camp Crestview now, but more importantly…I’m not a counselor anymore.
I’d been told by Fink I was welcome to come back. He’d come in and apologized, over and over, telling me he should’ve seen what Shawn was somehow, and that he’d have to be more careful not to let psychos into his camp.
The best part of it had been that Kayde had been in the room for the entire conversation.
But like Kinsley, I’d realized in the hospital that I was done with being a counselor. It isn’t for me anymore, I’d decided. Especially after almost dying there this year. Multiple times.
“Are you sure your parents don’t mind you moving here? Just like that?” I ask, not for the first time.
Kayde sighs and very gently pushes me down onto my back on the bed. He can’t exactly straddle my hips with my leg still a little messed up, and he has to be careful with me, but his hands come down to cup my face, thumbs running over my lower lip. “My parents love you, in case that’s what this is about,” he informs me sweetly, his caramel eyes twinkling. “They think you’re the best future daughter-in-law they could ask for.”
“We’re not even actually engaged,” I point out.
“Doesn’t really matter.”
“It does for looks. And maybe I do want a huge wedding. Melody wants to be, uh, runner up maid of honor, by the way.”
Kayde makes a face, his hand moving down my arms before he nudges my thighs apart gently, careful not to jostle the still-bandaged wound on my right thigh. That and the stab wound under my collarbone are the only things still bandaged, and the last remnants from Shawn’s tirade.
Though we both know I’ll have the scars from him for the rest of my life.
And I’ll show them off proudly whenever the opportunity arises. I’m certainly not ashamed of them. The same way I’ve never been ashamed of the scar my dad gave me.
“That’s a thing?” he asks, settling between my knees. Dressed only in a pair of running shorts and a t-shirt, I’ve made it pretty easy for him to touch me however he wants, and wherever.
And I’m not complaining about that, though my outfit choice has more to do with the heat than him. This is just a happy bonus. His hands massage up my thigh, and he drags me down the bed until my legs are pressed against his sides.
“I don’t think so. But I guess we’re making it a thing for her. Did she want something?” Their sibling relationship that’s formed over the past few weeks is adorable, though I won’t say that out loud.
“She just…” He waves a hand in the air, and sighs. “She wanted to know how you were. And told me about some kid at school. Do all kids text this much?”
“They do when they’re lonely in school and think no one other than you understands them,” I reply kindly, fighting back a moan when his fingers dig into my tense calf muscles. “Did you go to school for this? You’re really good at all of that.”
“Sports massage,” Kayde supplies. “I took a few classes in college. You’re not an athlete, but you don’t seem to be complaining.”
I’m certainly not.
But I do space out a little, completely relaxed, as he moves up to my uninjured thigh. He’s so careful when he touches me, and so thorough as he flexes my knee and moves back down my calves, to my ankles.
It’s only when I’m half asleep that I feel my mouth moving, and my brain struggles to catch up to my words. “I wasn’t afraid of you, you know. That night you killed Shawn.”
Kayde doesn’t reply at first. Just flexes my ankle between his hands. “Yeah?” he asks, voice carefully neutral. “What were you, then?”
A small smile flits across my lips, and I throw an arm across my face before speaking. “I thought it was hot.” Though, I hadn’t realized that for a little while. But I’d been so in awe of him, and so thrilled he’d given Shawn what he’d deserved, that I’d never once thought to be afraid of my sociopathic, murderous boyfriend. “Just maybe if you decide to kill me, don’t stomp my face in before you slit my throat. That looked painful.”
“It was meant to be.” He huffs a laugh under his breath. “You really thought it was hot, baby girl?”
“Don’t let it go to your head, psycho killer.”
“Sociopath.”
“They’re lyrics.”
Kayde snorts, his fingers digging into the ball of my foot deliciously. I’ve never had a particular love or fascination for getting a massage before, but somehow Kayde has completely altered my opinion on them.
“I’m not afraid of you.” I want it said. I want it out in the open, just in case.
Especially if this is going to last.
“And Kins thinks you’re pretty cool. They’re coming over tonight, by the way. Did you know they got a dog?”
“Yeah. They’re naming it Camper. Did you hear that part?” He shifts between my thighs, fingers tugging at my running shorts to bring them down my legs. As always, he’s so careful with the bandages, and before long, I’m left just in my t-shirt that he pushes up to my shoulders to leave me bare and vulnerable to him.
But I’m not embarrassed or nervous or scared like I had been. I soak up his attention, peeking out from under my arm to stare at my sociopath. “Camper?” I repeat. “No.”
“Yep. Camper.” His fingers stroke up my inner thighs, and he pushes my legs wider so he can lean down between them, his breath ghosting over my stomach. “I know riding my face is off limits for another week or so, and I’m totally going to have you ride me until I either die or you pass out when you’re allowed to, but can I eat you out, baby?” Kayde purrs, fingers teasing my folds.
“No.” I reach down and grab his hair, dragging him up to me until Kayde is hovering over me on the bed. Confusion pulls his brows together, and I grin. “Not until I get to hear you say you love me again.”
His face brightens, and Kayde leans down to nip at my throat with a laugh. “Baby girl, you know I love you,” he tells me, as I readjust to wrap my arms around his shoulders. “I love you more than anything else in this world. I’d kill twenty Shawnathons for you, and then twenty more. Love isn’t strong enough to describe how I feel about you.”
I’ve asked him why more than once. I’ve asked him what it is about me that makes me worth his time and his obsession. Usually, Kayde explains by taking me apart piece by piece until I’m barely conscious and sore in the best ways. Though he promises every time that when I’m all healed, he’ll wreck me properly for even thinking of asking why.
Because you’re you, he’d murmured against my skin three days ago, while I’d barely been able to stay conscious after hours of him eating me out and fingering me to orgasm after orgasm.
Because, Summer. It was always you.
And maybe it was always meant to be Kayde for me. There’s really no explanation, other than madness, for how quickly I’ve fallen for him.
“I love you.” The words don’t sound as smooth and confident when they come from my mouth instead of his, but he still rewards me with an elated grin and eyes that light up at the sentiment. “I…I really do. I love you, Kayde.” Threading my fingers through his hair, I draw my sociopath down for a kiss.
“I’m glad,” he murmurs against my lips. “Because you had me worried there.”
“Really?” My brows shoot up. “When? For how long?”
“The day I came back to Crestview. For a whole, I don’t know, at least three minutes.” He’s completely serious when he says it until his grin cracks through the expression. I snort and shove him off of me, tossing him to his side on the bed.
“I take it back.” But I can’t stop my wide grin, or the way my hands itch to grip his shoulders once more. “I don’t love you. You’re too arrogant.”
“Well…” He rolls back onto me, pinning my hands gently above my head as he leans close. “I’ll just have to make it up to you. Over and over again. Until you love me…or you’re just too fucked out to remember which way is up. I’ll take either one.”
“I bet you will,” I reply, but I’m certainly not arguing. “Kayde?” My words make him pause, and he lifts a brow in question.
“Darcy doesn’t get to come to the wedding.”
His answering laugh is full-throated and genuine, and with a wolfish grin, he leans down to kiss me again, not pulling away until I’m out of breath and ready to beg him for more.
“Fine. But only if Fink gets to be the ring bearer.” I groan at his suggestion, though the sound turns into a yelp when he bites down on my throat, sucking another mark onto my throat to match the fading ones that mark me as his.
Though even when the marks fade, if he lets them, that fact will never change.
I won’t let it.