Chapter 7
Kat
“I don’t want you to think about any of this shit or worry. I just want you to love me,” he whispered as I lay limp in bed. “Do you understand?”
As he asked the question, he cleaned between my legs with a wet towel and the sudden touch made me jump, but I was sure to tell him yes. The word spilled from my lips as easily as my pleasure came, one orgasm after the other after the other, bringing me closer and closer to sleep.
It was his kiss, though, soft and gentle on my shoulder and my cheek, then on my lips after he whispered, “Good girl,” that lured me into the depths of my dreams.
If he hadn’t kissed my shoulder so sweetly as he tucked me in, I’d have thought he secretly hated me.
For a moment I truly thought that he hated me.
That he knew and he hated me. He fucked me so roughly, so ruthlessly …
leaving me so deliciously used. But the way he held me, melted every insecurity away.
If it weren’t for the ache between my thighs, I would keep questioning, Did last night really happen?
That's all I can think when I wake up.
Slowly, because of the wine I had last night with Lydia.
Memories filter into the last moments of sleep. Cill next to me in the bed. His mouth on mine. His hands on my body like he had never missed a day of touching me in his life.
Did we really?
I turn over on my back and stretch, feeling the soreness in all my muscles …
and elsewhere. His muscles were hard next to the soft touch of the blankets.
It was like waking up after a long, deep sleep, so deep you hardly know you’re dreaming until it’s over.
Everything about it felt right. And … dangerous.
Dangerous in a way I didn’t expect. I don’t think Cill would hurt me.
Not physically. Never that. Even in his anger, he’d never lay a hand on me.
Emotionally, though ... My heart races, thinking back to last night.
I’m still in disbelief that he wanted this from me.
That he still wants me at all, after four years and the very last year.
Footsteps from the kitchen catch my attention, breaking up my wandering thoughts.
I climb out of the bed faster than I ever have.
It doesn’t take me long to fetch a clean pair of pajamas and I’m still pulling the shirt down as I head downstairs.
My heart never stops this weird racing in my chest. Like if I’m not fast enough, it never happened.
If I don’t see him now, before he leaves, it all goes away.
I find him in the kitchen, standing at the counter staring out of the window by the sink.
In worn jeans and a black cotton T-shirt, with bare feet and stubble lining his jaw he appears laid back, yet still has this intensity and pull about him.
It’s overwhelming and keeps me from going to him.
Instead I stand in the threshold of the kitchen.
Cill turns his head at the sound of my feet padding on the floor. “Morning,” he says, letting his eyes drift down my body.
“Hi,” I offer shyly and then blush as he gives me a charming, yet cocky smirk. “You look far more rested,” he comments and then he turns back to the coffee machine. It drips slowly into the pot.
“I had a little help.” I clear my throat and add, “A sleep aid I highly recommend.” I can’t help my smile as I go to the fridge.
I can feel his eyes on me as I get out a pan and the eggs and start the process of cooking them on the stove. A new pack of English muffins waits by the toaster. Scrambled eggs today. My hands aren’t steady enough to get the yolks right any other way. Especially with him watching my every move.
Nervousness and insecurity worm their way into my mind again.
I steal a peek at him over my shoulder and find Cill watching me. He’s not smiling and my own vanishes.
“You okay?” I ask him.
He blinks. I wonder if anyone else is asking him whether he’s okay. Checking in with him, the way people should after an experience like he’s had.
“Yeah,” he answers, seeming to shake off the seriousness that overcame him. “I’m good.” It doesn’t leave me, though. Last night was a moment for us.
Was it only a moment? My pulse seems to skip and a numbness creeps up the back of my neck as I put English muffins in the toaster.
I take another covert glance at Cill and watch him run his hand over the back of his neck, like he feels the same.
A pricking knowing that even if last night was heaven, we’re still living in a hell we didn’t choose and can’t control.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Another glance at him. The coffee is almost done brewing. “Do I want to talk about what?”
“What happened in there … and while you were away.” It’s better to ask him the question even if he refuses to answer me. I want him to know I can handle the topic.
His sharp blue eyes don’t leave mine when he says, “I want to talk about why you stopped coming.”
It’s so blunt that it feels like a punch.
A chill sweeps down my body as the events tip over like dominoes in my mind.
Once the first one fell, they couldn’t be stopped.
I swallow thickly and try to focus on the pan in front of me.
My motions mechanical, I pull the plate closer and tip the eggs onto it. Then the other for Cill.
I don’t want to tell him. I don’t want him to know anything about what happened.
“So we both have some things we want to keep to ourselves?” he questions.
“You scare me, Cillian.”
I look back at him and find him staring, his eyes wide. “Why’s that?”
The English muffins pop up and I toss them onto the plates, burning the tips of my fingers in the process. Hissing fuck under my breath, I’m quick to stick the tips of my fingers into my mouth.
“You all right?” he asks, the concern real in his voice.
“Yeah,” I answer him and gather the courage to answer his question.
All the while, I butter the bread automatically so it melts into the little crevices. As if this isn’t a conversation I’ve been dreading. “You’re—you’re intense. On edge. Your shoulders are rounded in like you think someone’s about to hit you. You look like you might get into a fight.”
I part my lips to tell him I saw it happen. I watched him change into this man every time I visited him. Then his father … then everything that happened after.
He’s the one who changed first, though. “I just … I’m not used to it being like this.” I answer him honestly and my voice cracks at the end. I hate it.
I’m reckless as I toss the butter knife into the sink, and I immediately wish I hadn’t. I’m calmer as I put the butter back into the fridge.
His gaze burns into the back of me and I pretend the tension isn’t heightened.
“You know I’ll never—”
“You’d never put a hand on me,” I say, cutting him off, turning to gaze at him so he knows I mean it. “But that doesn’t mean … it doesn’t mean things aren’t different and that we aren’t different people now.”
“And that we both have secrets,” he notes as I reach for the plates.
Swallowing thickly, I answer him, “Yeah, we both have secrets,” and place both plates on the table, taking my seat. He stands for a moment, watching and with a fork in hand I look up at him, then motion to the plate.
“I’ll tell you something if you tell me something,” Cill says, taking the seat across from me and picking up the fork but not eating just yet.
Cill clears his throat and he doesn’t look at me while he speaks. Instead he stares at his plate. “The first time they tried to kill me was in the cafeteria.”
“What?” The stunned word leaves me as my fork falls and my body goes numb.
“Competitors … That fuck Tray, I’m pretty sure.
” He swallows thickly, then finally looks back at me and says, “Reed made a few calls and found some people, so it didn’t happen a lot, but in the beginning …
I thought they were going to kill me, Kat.
” His voice is hoarse with raw emotion although his eyes don’t reflect it.
His body is tight until he turns his attention back to the plate.
Tears prick the back of my eyes. There’s something about how he sits there, so matter of fact that they tried to kill him and that’s why he changed.
He had to fight for his life. The boy I loved had a tenderness about him that’s all but hardened into unforgivable stone.
I watched it happen and I couldn’t stop it.
I couldn’t help him … I didn’t even know what he was dealing with.
Before I have a chance to calm down and blink the tears back, they leak from the corner of my eyes.
Fuck. It comes out of nowhere.
It’s all the pent-up feelings of the last four years coming out of me in a rush.
I’m out of my seat, hiding my face from Cill before he can see.
I reach for a mug and pretend like I’m not losing it from his confession, but a sob is torn from me.
He thought he was going to die. That they were going to kill him and he never told me or anyone. He lived with that fear.
I could never imagine—
Strong arms wrap around me and Cill turns me in his arms, holding me tighter as I try to bury my face in his shirt.
It only makes me cry harder. It’s been so long since anyone held me like this.
He rocks me as he holds me, kissing my hair.
“Don’t worry, Hellcat. Don’t worry. Everything’s all right now. ”
“I’m so sorry.” Embarrassment heats my cheeks. “I can’t control it … I just.” My throat is tight and the right words won’t come. “Neither of you told me.” I barely get out the words as Cill loosens his grip slightly to look down at me.
“Why would I, Kat? You couldn’t do anything to help me. No one could.”
My hands tremble as I furiously wipe away the tears and try to stop. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do this.” He kisses my cheek. “And I don’t want to hear you say that to me ever fucking again.”