Chapter 6
Chapter Six
GRANT
K it tried to cut Jasmine’s throat today. She thinks I don’t know but I do.
“Have you seen my mascara?” she asks, racing through the apartment and grabbing pillows off the couch like her makeup is going to be hiding there.
“You don’t need mascara,” Rafe yells from the bedroom and I roll my eyes.
“If she wants it, fucking find it.”
There’s a slam before Rafe sticks his head out of the bedroom and glares at me. “Fine, but only because you’re too fucking stupid to do it.” He points his whiskey glass at me and I get up from the couch and debate if it’s worth the publicity of Rafe showing up to dinner with a busted mouth. In the end I don’t, because Kit doesn’t like it when we fight.
“I’m going to find it before you, asshole.”
Rafe raises an eyebrow at me and glances around the apartment where Kit is still scrambling like a squirrel looking for buried nuts. “You think so?” he says and puts his glass down on the bookshelf beside him.
“Easy.”
I have no clue where the fuck her makeup is or why Kit thinks it might be in the kitchen. I can hear her banging around in there but it’s fine. I’ll find it if she wants it.
Kit rubs her temples and enters the living room with a groan. “I don’t know how I lost it. I swear I had it with everything else but then I think I was putting it on when I was talking to Alana yesterday.”
“I can buy you a new one,” Rafe says, dropping to the floor to look under the couch. Fuck. That’s a good idea. I hit the ground beside him and goddamn it, there’s the tube of mascara.“There’s no time! You said we have to leave in an hour for dinner!” Kit yells from the dining room. I wonder if she’s on the floor too looking for this damn thing we just found. I shove Rafe out of the way and go for it.
“What the fuck, golden boy?” He grabs my arm and pulls me back when I reach past him. We both end up grabbing it at the same time and I go still, just like I always do when Rafe is touching me. We both do. The shift between us is fast, it always is. It’s the stillness that brings it. His fingers are warm on mine, he flexes his fingers and I feel the strength I know he’s holding back on using right now. His hand is on top of mine and if he wanted, he could squeeze and at the least bruise me. He doesn’t. Rafe’s touch is gentle and I lean into him. Our arms are pressed together, we’re chest-to-chest, the bulk of his muscles fit against my body in a way that Kit’s doesn’t.
She’s soft with curves that fit against me but Rafe?
Rafe’s body slots against mine like it was made to go there. There’s no softness to either of us, but our hard lines fit together to make a whole. Good thing too, since neither of us knows how to back down from the other.
He strokes my fingers and that touch is all I need to reach for him.
“Fuck,” Rafe moans against my mouth but I stay silent. I curl my arm around his neck and thread my fingers through his hair.
Rafe opens his mouth to me and that’s when I moan. He tastes like the honeyed whiskey I know he was just drinking but there’s something sweeter to Rafe. There always is and I can never get enough of it, either. He moves into my space. The two of us kiss like we fight and I’m worked up when he shoves me on my back and straddles me.
I grab his hips and squeeze him harder than I would Kit. I don’t have to hold back with Rafe and maybe that’s part of why I’m hooked on him, even though I want to cut his face off half the time. He groans and grinds against me before he squeezes my throat. I lift my hips to meet him and the friction has my dick hard–just like the hand on my throat. Rafe loves being harder on me than he is with Kit, just the same as I do. It’s what keeps him coming back, just like me. He cuts my air off and I let him play his little game. We’re serial killers, so what’s a little breath play?
“Did you find it?” Kit calls to us and I hear her footsteps approach where we are on the floor.
Rafe jackknifes up and holds her mascara up over his head like a trophy. “It’s here. I found it,” he says, his hand still squeezing my neck.
“Oh my gosh, you’re the best!” Kit comes running and he catches her when she hugs him.
“I know. I’m such a fucking hero, aren’t I?” he says and smirks down at me while he keeps his hold on my neck. Fucker. I break his hold and hip bump him off of me to grab Kit. She squeals and grabs on to me. The sound is happy, light, nothing like the look on her face when she saw the photo we showed her this morning. Kit kisses me and smiles up at me. The look in her eyes is soft and warm, the way I like her looking the best. I relax slightly but not entirely.
I’d seen Kit when filming had been done for the day. She’d looked wrong… there’d been no softness or gentleness to my girl then and I knew why. There isn’t a thing my girl does that I don’t know about. After what happened this morning with the photo, I knew I had to watch her if I wanted to force her to tell me why she had been so spooked by a prom photo. It was easy enough following Kit without her noticing me. My girl has a bad habit of never really stopping to look behind her. She’s gotten better about scanning but nothing more than a quick glance before she’s scurrying off.
All I had to do was find an out of the way spot and be still, find out what’s up, why she was doing what she was doing. Kit was too nervous and on the move to look around much. She had her computer out but wasn’t writing. Her fingers weren’t moving the way I knew they did when she was plotting or putting down a scene. From the way she had been looking at her screen I guessed she was trying to find out who took that fucking photo. She was jumpy as a cat, sneaking quick glances around the room but not looking behind her and to the left where I was. When she packed up and made a beeline for the door I waited thirty seconds before I followed her. I heard the slam of the metal door as I hit the hallway and slipped out with the sound guys passing through. It couldn’t have been more than a minute after I’d left the building that I saw Kit heading towards the trees.
Whatever made her go for the trees was quick and valuable enough Kit hadn’t overthought it. That immediately had me on high alert. Kit likes stability. She takes her time with things. She never ever goes anywhere without Rafe or me with her.
Who the fuck was she following?
I had to jog to keep up but the second I hit the trees I heard someone up ahead. Kit wouldn’t make that much noise. I kept Kit in sight and saw a flash of pink ahead of her before it was gone. It was only when I’d gotten to the clearing where Kit’s attack had happened that I heard a scream.
“That freak!”
I’d have known that screech anywhere.
Jasmine.
Kit had followed Jasmine out here but why? I dropped low to keep an eye on things. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, only a word or two made it to me with the wind blowing hard through the trees but I listened hard. “Bitch” and of course, the tried and true “cunt” floated to me while I listened and stayed ready to intervene. I didn’t trust Jasmine with Kit, not even though Rafe and I had been teaching her self-defense. We got a coach to come by the apartment weekly now and she was better than good, even if she did still get timid after landing a solid punch on one of us. I know Kit isn’t a fighter by nature, just like I know she’s a quick study but it wasn’t until I’d watched her drop Jasmine with a punch to the gut like a bag of hammers that I realized how quick of a study she is.
Kit hadn’t stopped with that one punch, either. She’d cut Jasmine. Did it with the knife I’d gotten her because I didn’t like her walking around unarmed. Rafe had been showing her how to handle it lately and she’d learned. The ease with which she’d pulled that knife out and used it to keep Jasmine kneeling in her own sick was impressive.
Fuck, it had turned me on, too.
But what the fuck?
That’s not the woman I fell in love with. The woman that I call mine cries during sappy movies and gets the same take-out order from her favorite restaurants everytime. She loves thunderstorms and fuzzy socks. She can’t hold her liquor and she falls asleep holding on to my arm like she thinks I’m going to vanish by the time she wakes up. And above all else, she doesn’t keep secrets, not ever.
Today she had, though. Still was keeping one.
“What would I do without you?” She asks and leans down to kiss Rafe who’s sprawled where I tossed his ass, twirling Kit’s mascara in one hand with a shit-eating grin.
“I love you,” Kit tells me and I come alive. I only exist because of her anymore.
“I love you more,” I say and look her over, really take her in and commit the way she’s smiling up at me to memory. This is my girl. My love. Something is changing. I can feel it but right now we’re the way I like the best.
The doorbell rings and we all get up.