CHAPTER TWELVE
Vero
I am having the best dream when I feel myself drawn toward the waking world. For a moment I think I must still be in a dream—a sexy dream—as when I blink my eyes open and look down I see Kayla peering up at me, with my cock in her mouth.
She pulls back and smiles. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” she murmurs, wrapping her hand around my base and stroking me.
“Don’t stop,” I moan.
“I wasn’t planning on it. Brawley told me to be creative waking you up.”
She leans back down and takes me back into her mouth. I drop my head onto my pillow and decide this is how I want to be woken every day.
“Fuck, I love him and you. Best morning ever.”
She laughs around my cock as she slowly sucks me, her tongue moving along the underside lightly. My eyes roll into the back of my head, and I moan as I tangle my fingers in her hair. She takes me deeper, and my hips lift off the bed.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” I groan, meaning her teasing pace and slow movements.
She hums in response, and the vibration travels through me.
“Fuck, that’s good.”
She pulls back and does something with her tongue that feels like it rewires my brain, making me tighten my grip on her hair. “Kayla!”
“Mmhmm?”
“I need more of that.”
She glances up, and I see the amusement in her eyes, then she takes her time getting back to it, kissing along my length with both her hands fixed on my thighs.
I can’t take my eyes off her lithe body.
When she finally takes me back into her mouth again, the slowness is gone. She finds a steady rhythm, her hand working in tandem with her mouth. The combination is just right, and my thoughts stop being coherent.
I drop one of my hands to the sheets and fist them. Her mouth is so warm and perfect, I want to come all over her already, though I try as hard as I can to hold back. But when her suction changes, I have no hope, and my entire body trembles.
“Fuck,” comes out in a strangled gurgle. “I’m going to come.”
She doesn’t pull back, even when I try to lift her off by her hair. Kayla sucks down every last drop of my cum until there is nothing left, and I think my brain short-circuits at that moment.
Then she pulls back and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.
“I would like to file a complaint,” I tell her with a huff.
“About what?” she asks, her brow scrunching.
“The fact that you waited so long to do that.”
She laughs as she moves up the bed, and I pull her down to my side.
Kayla curls up against me, her head on my chest, and I press my mouth to the top of her head and hold her there.
My brain is quiet; that normally only happens after Brawley fucks the thoughts out of me, and it hasn’t had time to fill back up yet.
I hate the quiet. It’s when the noise is gone and thoughts start to slowly creep back in. What Aaron said fills my mind. I have been trying to push it out, but here it is yet again.
Kayla is drawing patterns on my chest with one finger, and as I watch her, I wonder if now is the right time to bring it up.
My head tells me there will never be a right time, but if I keep it locked away too long, it could cause me to spiral.
And that would hit when it’s inconvenient, like it always does.
“I need to tell you something, but I don’t know when to do it. I feel like my brain will keep it locked away and then spill it out when it’s not a good time.”
Her hands freeze on my chest; she is able to read me well by now. Kayla lifts her head to look at me. “You can always tell me anything anytime. I don’t want you to tiptoe around me.”
I want to make a joke that I couldn’t tiptoe around anything if my life depended on it, but decide not to because I know now is not the time.
Staring up at the ceiling, I focus on a mark left by a sticky toy. I threw up there a while ago, but it only just fell down.
“In the shed when I was with Aaron, he said something about a scar on your left hip.” She goes still against me.
“He tried to tell me you deserved it, but I knew better, and I stabbed him with a screwdriver. What he told me keeps ringing in my head, and I need to know. I don’t want to push you, though, so you can tell me to mind my own fucking business, and I promise I will. ”
Kayla is quiet, and I’m scared I pushed her too far.
I’m an idiot. I push and push. People can’t handle it, but my brain just never lets up. It’s always go, go, go.
Kayla takes my hand and moves it to her hip, and I feel the raised skin under my fingers.
“Early on, before I knew what kind of monster Aaron was, we were in the kitchen. He said it was an accident, that I turned into the knife. We’d been fighting about something stupid, and I believed him because I loved him.
It took me a long time to realize what I knew deep down.
He got angry and manipulated me into believing his version of events, then he helped me get it cleaned up. ”
I look at the scar under my fingers, and something pulls at my chest. It’s so tight it’s almost unbearable, and if he wasn’t dead, I would hunt him down and kill him again.
“He told me it was a punishment. That he was proud of it.” Her eyes gloss over at my words. “Paper-cut princess, don’t cry—he isn’t worth your tears,” I say, leaning forward and licking the lone tear that slips down her cheek, and she chuckles. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
“You couldn’t have prevented any of it, not even what just happened,” she tells me sadly.
“I know, and I hate that I wasn’t there to protect you. That you had no one beside you and had to build a version that protected yourself. But just know I would die before I ever put a mark on you. Life simply isn’t fair.”
My own tears fall at the thought of anyone hurting her against her will. I know she likes it rough on her own terms, and Clay can give her that, though he thinks we all missed the hickey on her neck. Not that they hurt, but it’s still a bruise.
Kayla wraps her body around me, and I press my face into her and silently cry. I have never been a quiet person, but right now I need to grieve for the woman she had to become. She holds me through it and doesn’t tell me it’s okay; we both know it’s not.
“You have us now, and can be any version of yourself that you want to be. But if you want to cry, yell, or fight, that should be aimed at Clay. I’m sure he will have deserved it.
” She chuckles at that part. “If you want to walk around naked . . . actually, I wouldn’t advise that because there would be a trail of dead bodies behind you, but that would be fine.
This is your life. I know I am honored to be part of it and call you mine.
I have your back no matter what, and will always try to be the best version of myself for you.
But please remember you chose me, too, so the best version of me is still the me you know, because I would be lost without you. ”
“You are one of the best humans I know. The worst version of you is still better than Aaron by a long shot. You are perfect the way you are, Vero. You heal a part of me, and I’ve meant that from the first moment I said it.”
The smile I give her would probably look deranged to an outsider, but hearing those words coming from Kayla makes my bad days all worth it.
“I love you, Vero, and I know you love me. It may not look like the way you love Brawley, and I know that plays on your mind, but what we have is special, and it’s ours.”
I was worried I could never love her the way I love Brawley.
With him, every time he walks into a room, I want to crawl inside his skin and live there.
Yet with Kayla, it’s different, but it is no less intense.
I wouldn’t want to ruin her skin by burying inside her; I want to preserve every perfect part of her.
It’s the reason I had Banks make a wax figure of her likeness, and I can’t wait to bring it home.
“I love you just as much as I love him,” I tell her. “It’s different, and I didn’t think it was possible, but now I know it is.”
“I have you, and that’s the only part that matters.”
I hold her face and stare into her eyes, thinking about the scar on her hip and the man who put it there. Glad that he will never be able to hurt her again, and if anyone else ever tries, I will burn the entire world down if it will keep her safe.
Kayla untangles herself from me and stretches, announcing she is going to have a shower before Ares comes to find her for work.
She vanishes from the room, and I am left to think, which is never a good thing.
Or maybe it’s the most genius thing, because some of my ideas are amazing.
Jumping out of bed, I decide to surprise her, and I know just how to do that.
Banks is always up early, and if he isn’t, I will wake him.
He told me a few days ago that her wax figure was ready, and though I wanted to wait for the perfect time to give it to her, why not now?
Throwing back on yesterday’s clothes, I sneak downstairs and out the back door before anyone can see me.
As I expected, Banks is already working, and he nods at me as I fly through his door. There I see her in all her glory.
“She is perfect,” I mutter in awe.
“My best piece to date,” he says proudly.
Banks lays some paperwork down in front of me to sign, and I do with a flourish. I have never read paperwork once in my life and I haven’t died yet. Banks loads her onto a trolley, and I wheel her out, fully covered, carefully wheeling her back to the residential area.
Two of the groundskeepers pass me, giving me a skeptical side-eye, but I smile and keep on walking.
When I get home, I quietly open the back door, hoping I have enough time to sneak in and set her up.
With my back to the door, I step inside and pull the trolley over the lip of the frame, careful that she doesn’t fall off.
When I turn, all eyes are on me, and I freeze. Shit, I’ve been busted.
“What is that?” Clay asks.
“A surprise,” I tell him, positioning her in the center of the kitchen, cover still on. “For Kayla . . . I went to get it early.”
“Get what?”
“You’ll see,” I say, pulling off the cover with a flourish.
Everyone is completely silent.
Clay’s jaw tenses—maybe he’s jealous I thought of this first. Ares looks back up from his phone and stares.
“That’s Kayla,” Clay says, stating the obvious.
“I thought we could put her next to the fridge, or in the living room,” I tell him.
“Absolutely not,” Clay scoffs. “I am not eating breakfast opposite that every morning, Vero. It will stare at me . . . it has her eyes.”
“Duh, because it’s her. Don’t you want to see her more?”
“See who more?” Kayla asks as she walks into the kitchen, having showered and dressed in Ares’s bar T-shirt and black jeans. She is stunning as always.
She stops when she sees the wax figure. Kayla opens her mouth and closes it again, glancing from the life-size wax figure back to me.
“Surprise!” I say.
“I love it,” she says, walking closer to it. “I saw it, but not like this. Banks did a good job.”
“He did, look at all the details,” I tell her excitedly.
“I feel like you should be more disturbed by it,” Clay adds.
“Why?” she asks. “I think it’s awesome. Where is she going to live?”
“Here, next to—”
“No,” Clay snaps. “It’s not going next to the fridge.” Kayla glares at him but he doesn’t back down. “Nope, it will look at me with its beady eyes. Just no.”
Kayla laughs. “What about your room at the Asylum? We can dress her up to match you, and Clay can eat breakfast without having to admit he’s scared of a wax figure.”
“I am not scared. I just don’t want to stare at a life-size replica of the woman I’m fucking. One that gives off weird, creepy vibes.”
“Fine,” I say. “She can live at the Asylum, but if anyone touches her, they will get hurt.”
“But for today she stays,” Kayla demands.
I clap and Clay groans.
Kayla comes over to me and presses her lips to mine. “Best present ever.”
I beam. I knew she would love it when it was finished. This way she can always be at work with me. Talking to myself all night gets old, so at least now I can talk to her.