Chapter 19
Leilani
I shouldn’t wait up for Koby every evening.
Definitely not on a Friday.
It’s barely midnight. He won’t be home for hours, maybe not until dawn. I should head to bed and let him do the same, but I’m selfish... and hopeful. Maybe tonight he’ll come back early. Maybe I’ll get more than five minutes of his busy schedule.
Half the time I want to scream at the top of my lungs and hit him straight in that perfect face for making me feel so unhinged. So needy. So raw. So alive after years of numbness.
The emotions Anton tried to train out of me are back, bubbling like a shaken soda bottle, and every time Koby so much as breathes near me, another Mentos drops in.
It’s only a matter of time before I burst.
I shake my head, cheeks flushing at the fantasy distracting me: Koby, shirtless in his bed, jeans undone, back against the headboard, his cock in his fist, and me, kneeling between his thighs, tongue out, ready for a taste.
Does he think about me like that?
He must do. I refuse to believe he’s not into me on some level. There’s too much intimacy between us, too much heat for this attraction to be one-sided.
Although, given he looked like sex on a stick when he left, maybe I’m misreading him completely.
Maybe he won’t come home at all tonight. He always dresses well, but tonight he cranked it up. Black slacks, white shirt, matching jacket that made his shoulders look even broader. Gold cufflinks, signet rings, and a watch that could fund a semester of college. More bling than on any other day.
Why put in that much effort if you’re not planning to impress someone?
I swallow the fist-sized lump clogging my throat.
When he saw me naked, the feral look in his eyes sent a thrill straight to my clit. My imagination fired up immediately. He locked himself in his bedroom, and the whole time he was getting ready, I pictured his touch, his kisses, imagined his scent.
For a second, I thought everything had shifted. I thought maybe this was the crack in the wall between us, the moment he’d finally take what we both want.
Wishful thinking.
I don’t get it. I really don’t. His eyes burned like I was the only thing he wanted when he saw me naked, but he walked away.
Why?
Because I’m too broken? Because he saw me standing there flushed, bare, ready for the taking, and decided I wasn’t enough?
Every time I close my eyes, I see the hunger written all over his handsome face... and then his back as he leaves. He dressed up, smoothed every sharp edge until he looked untouchable, and walked out the door.
And now, instead of thinking about his hands on me, I see them touching someone else. Some faceless girl at Scarlett.
It’s scary how clearly I can picture that woman. Tight dress, fuck-me heels, long hair. She sits in his lap, his fingers bruising her thighs, her lips sucking his neck...
She’s nothing like me. She knows how to flirt. How to seduce. How to function in society without lashing out, because she hasn’t spent years locked in a dollhouse.
My mind’s eye shows me Koby kissing her, fucking her, loving her. I press my hands to my real eyes like that will smother these images, like it might stop me unraveling over this guy. Even if he’s perfection personified. Even if he acts like he’d kill for me one second and kiss me the next.
God, I’m fucking nauseous.
Koby’s not mine. I’m not entitled to his time.
He’s never even kissed me. He pulled away the one time I tried.
But it makes no sense because he sleeps beside me when I ask.
He lets me rage, keeps me calm, helps me heal.
He calls me hellcat, and sometimes his desire bleeds into his features, clear as day.
That has to mean something... right?
Unless I read it all wrong.
The ringing silence is broken by the lock disengaging and the apartment door whooshing open. Koby steps in. His footsteps kick up my pulse, waking the butterflies.
What’s he doing back so early?
He looks tired, but it takes nothing away from his devastating handsomeness. Sin wrapped in muscles, ink, and black clothes.
“Hey,” I call out, trying to sound casual when my throat’s tight. “Is everything okay?”
He shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over the closest chair. “Yeah, fine. How are you doing?”
“Fine.” Very far from fine. “You hungry? I made pasta.”
The crease between his brows flattens when he takes me in. “How many times do I have to tell you that you’re not my cook?” He grips the backrest with both hands, the muscles in his arms shifting as he leans forward.
“And how many times do I have to tell you I’m bored? Besides, you like my cooking, don’t you?”
“I do.” He scans the living room and throws his head back when he spots the neatly folded laundry on a side table. “Did you leave any t-shirts for me, or have you stolen them all?”
“I left you a few. Now...” I grin, gesturing toward the kitchen. “How about a smile, a thank you and a nice meal with me?”
That damned crooked smirk curls his full lips, sending a heatwave through my body.
“Fine. Thank you, hellcat.”
I love it when he calls me that. I love it when he looks at me, smiles at me, and talks to me. I want every ounce of his attention. I want to be his beginning, middle, and end.
He’s too fucking perfect. From the way his shoulders fill out his shirt to the way his eyes narrow and his thumb brushes his chin when he’s lost in thought. Those big hands... that scar on his lip... the way he handles me when I lose my shit.
Calming down before I explode is getting easier, but Koby still gets caught in the crossfire too often.
It’s humiliating.
He never gets angry, though. Not even annoyed. He doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t manhandle me... he just takes it, smiling along.
I think my madness turns him on. His gaze always darkens when I snap, his jaw ticks and fists clench like he’s holding himself back from fucking me raw.
I sincerely wish he wouldn’t hold back.
“Earth to Leilani.” He waves a hand in front of my face. “Where did you go?”
Oh, if only he knew the dirty roads my mind wanders all day long. How I’d tear his clothes off and climb him if I weren’t afraid of rejection. How badly I want his lips devouring mine.
The air moves with him as he steps closer, and a sweet, floral scent slaps me hard. My breath hitches, my blood turning to cherry slurpy in my veins.
I tilt my head, scrutinizing every last inch of him until I spot a pink smudge on the sharp line of his cheekbone...
Fucking lipstick.
My gaze clashes with his. He looks amused, unaware he just triggered the feral rabid thing inside me. Her perfume curls around me, clings to his skin, and my fists clench on cue.
I surge forward, shoving him back with all my might. “You fucking asshole!”
He stumbles, his brows hitting his hairline, lips briefly parting without sound, and then: “What? What did I do?”
“Why don’t you tell me?!” I shove him again, tears threatening to spill down my cheeks. “I’m right here!”
“Tell you what? You’re not making any sense, Leilani. What were you thinking about?”
“You!” I charge at him as he backs away, my fists pounding his chest. “You drive me insane! I’m here, waiting, and you’re—” Another shove, but this time he doesn’t step back. He grabs my arms, holding me at a distance. “Let me go! Don’t fucking touch me!”
His hands fall away, a deep eleven denting his forehead. “Just stop, okay? Talk to me. I don’t know what’s happening.”
“Neither do I!” I yell in his face. “You’re so hot, so funny, so fucking perfect, and what? I’m not enough? God, I can’t stop thinking about you! I see your face every time I come and you’re out fucking other women?! What the hell is wrong with me? I’m right here!”
His demeanor shifts, pupils blowing wide as he steps forward, towering over me. “I jerk off every morning because of you,” he seethes. “Every night after you go to bed. I haven’t touched another woman since I met you.”
The words knock all oxygen from my lungs, but her floral scent wafts between us and his cheek is fucking stained.
“You’re lying,” I grit out, dragging my finger over the pink smear. “You have lipstick here, and you smell—”
“I’m not lying.” He catches my face, his fingers sinking into my cheeks and puckering my lips.
I love it when he does that. It’s the kind of possessive, control-filled move that makes my pulse race and thighs clench.
“I’ve never lied to you.” His dark eyes rove my face, glinting with satisfaction.
“Fuck, you’re gorgeous when you’re jealous.
It’s my birthday, hellcat. That’s Violet’s perfume and Bianca’s lipstick.
The only girl I want throws her fists at me every five minutes.
” He bands one arm around my lower back.
The fire in my chest flickers, then morphs into an entirely different type of heat as I melt into his touch. “You want me?”
“I wanted you the moment you walked into Scarlett that first time.” He lets go of my face, his warm breath fanning my mouth. “But you’ve been through some fucked-up shit, and I was trying to be fucking patient.”
“You were being fucking stupid and you’ll pay for that.
” I shove him onto the couch and straddle his lap.
My knees dig into the cushions, thighs locking his hips.
“You’ll pay for making me feel like I’m not good enough for you.
No food until you fuck me, Koby. Treat me like I’m breakable and I’ll make it hurt. ”
The veins in his hands strain as he grips the cushions instead of my hips.
The restraint in that one small gesture makes my pulse spike.
He could flip me, crush me, fuck me into the couch until I can’t think.
Instead, he’s holding back, fighting the part of him that wants me under him, writhing and moaning.
My throat clogs again, and something dangerous flickers in Koby’s eyes a second before—
“Fuck it.”
He surges up, one hand grasping the hair at the back of my head, the other cinching my waist to crush me into him, and his lips finally catch mine.