Chapter 28 Devon
DEVON
I’ve never seen the moon so big in the city before.
Once the snow stopped, the skies cleared and the most pristine, dark sky opened up to the glittering moon and the thousands of stars dotted all around.
It’s so beautiful that even the cold is kept at bay while I stand on the balcony of Kairo’s penthouse.
It was easier to come here after spending three more hours at that gala.
A trip all the way home was simply too exhausting to think about and I felt slightly guilty that Martin would be the poor soul driving me around. He deserves a break as much as I do.
“Devon?”
Kairo’s voice drifts from inside the penthouse, so I turn my body, causing the skirt of my dress to spiral around my legs. “I’m here.”
He walks around the corner and my heart skips a beat.
The well-dressed, expertly tailored man is disheveled now, with his tie hanging loose around his neck, his shirt open halfway down his chest giving me a tantalizing glimpse at the top of his abs, and his belt gone from his waist.
“Careful,” he says softly as he approaches. “I don’t want you to catch a chill.”
“It’s actually nice,” I assure him. “I don’t feel cold at all.”
He joins me on the balcony, his smile relaxed and easy. “That’ll be the heated stone.”
“Is everything you own heated?”
“What can I say?” His dark eyes sparkle, reflecting the little white lights dotted around the balcony’s railing. “I like my comforts.”
His eyes remind me of the sky up above, pitch black except for the twinkling stars, and my heart beats a little faster. “Was the gala a success?”
Kairo’s mouth twists to the side. “Depends on what you would call a success. Most would say yes because my mother went home happy.”
“And what about you? Would you say it’s a success?”
“I came home with a beautiful woman.” His gaze locks onto mine. “So yes, I would say so.”
Warmth flushes my cheeks and I’m forced to look away before I say something silly.
This entire night has felt magical, but none of it even compares to how that kiss felt on the veranda after Kairo told me how he felt.
Knowing he’s truly interested in me, a man like him? I must have died on the way to the party.
“Come on.” His soft voice gently draws me from my thoughts. “I set up a room for you.”
“What a gentleman.” A room of my own.
There’s no expectation for me to do or give him anything.
He invited me here and set up my own room without my asking.
He’s respected my boundaries since the day we met and hasn’t questioned them once.
Moreover, he’s never made a big deal out of any of it.
I follow Kairo through his penthouse to a large room with a gigantic bed situated in the middle hugging the far wall.
Directly across from the door are two glass doors draped in sheer white curtains that drift lazily in the warmth radiating from the heater near the floor.
Beyond the doors, an untouched balcony twinkles and glitters with snow.
“Heated floors again,” Kairo teases. “But you are welcome to sleep here. I hope you’ll find it comfortable.”
“It’s huge,” I murmur, stepping closer to the bed and briefly touching the feather-soft blanket on top. “Never thought I’d risk getting lost in a bed.”
Kairo’s soft laugh warms me and a smile creeps across my lips, but it threatens to vanish as Kairo steps back toward the door.
My heart jumps. I don’t want him to leave.
I want him here with me, somehow.
It’s a trembling urge that yo-yos back and forth in my mind, but I clutch at it because my gut instinct is to find a way to make him stay just a little longer.
“Actually, Kairo—”
“Yes?”
It might be my imagination, but I swear he sounds just as eager to stay. “Could you help me with my dress?”
“Your dress?” He takes a step closer.
“Yeah, uhm… It’s got some buttons and things on the back that were easy to step into, but I’m tired and I’m not sure I can get them now.”
A weak lie.
The buttons are easy.
The dressmaker took me through how to get in and out of this dress with ease.
I’d chosen it due to its high back to hide my scars, but the dread of showing those off to Kairo, while scary, isn’t as strong as my urge to keep him here with me.
“Of course.” Kairo walks up to me, and I slowly turn around to face the bed, scooping all my hair to one side. “Are you ready?”
Despite the anxious flutter in my heart, there’s a stronger urge in my gut.
A gnawing, growing ache just to feel his hands against my body even for a moment.
I’m so desperate that I’ll even consider drinking, and I nod quickly just to hurry things along.
Kairo’s first touch is so soft that my breath catches in my throat and every nerve along my body jumps and then freezes.
His fingers are gentle and nimble as they glide from my shoulder blades down to the small of my back, unhooking each small button as he goes.
I shiver, unable to stop myself, and while Kairo pauses briefly, he doesn’t stop.
As the pressure of his fingers lingers on my lower back, a sudden heat flushes through my system from head to toe.
I want him to keep going.
I want him to go lower.
His touch sweeps back up my body like a gentle caress, stopping when he reaches the zipper at the base of my neck.
The room is completely silent.
My heart thunders in my ears, almost blocking out the soft rushes of gentle breathing from Kairo behind me.
“Can I?” he asks me, his voice so utterly tender.
I want him to.
But if I say yes, he’ll see.
He’ll see what Axel left on me.
He’ll see my rolls of flesh, the curves and flab I fight so hard to keep hidden despite the obvious curves of my body.
Maybe he’ll be disgusted and immediately understand why Axel treated me so horribly, but just as that reflex bursts through my mind, guilt follows.
Kairo has never said or done anything cruel and it’s unfair of me to assume he will do something like that now.
But my mind won’t stop.
Maybe this is what I need. I need him to see and I need him to react so I can stop falling in love with a dream.
“Yes,” I say, and relief pulses through my chest that my voice didn’t betray my nerves.
His fingers shift at the base of my neck, then the soft whoosh of the zipper fills the air between us.
As it glides down my back, my breathing grows slightly easier as the tight material of the dress relaxes around my body.
The corset loosens, the sleeves grow relaxed around my shoulders, and the only tension comes from my clammy skin as my heart attempts to punch its way out of my ribcage.
The zipper reaches the bottom of my back, resting just above the swell of my ass, and heat prickles across my skin while the back of my dress gradually falls open.
Kairo’s breath hitches and I want to cry.
He’s seen it.
Of course he has.
A mixed patchwork of scars from Axel’s cigarettes across my shoulder, injuries from being thrown into furniture that cut skin and grazed my body, and one thicker scar just below my shoulder blade and sweeping toward my spine.
Where his knife tore into me the day I left.
Kairo doesn’t speak.
I’m suspended in fear, frozen as I imagine all sorts of looks crossing Kairo’s face.
But just as the smothering, desperate feeling to cover up rises like claws in my throat, he touches me.
Softly at first, with just his fingertips.
They brush against my lower back and caress over a small scar there, one of the many that I can’t tell where it came from.
I flinch, but Kairo doesn’t pull away.
His touch remains like a singular point of warmth that gradually becomes so intense that I need to move away.
Before I do, Kairo moves instead.
His fingers sweep up my spine and he very slowly maps out the patchwork of small scars across my back like he’s trying to draw a picture of my past.
Up and up until he reaches the worst ones. The burns.
Not once does he recoil.
Not once does he flinch like he’s disgusted.
His touch remains gentle and sure and when he speaks, it’s like he really sees me.
“Devon, I can’t fathom the strength it took you to survive this,” he says softly. “And I can’t fathom the strength it’s taking you right now to let me see you. To really see you.”
I turn my head until my cheek rests against my bare shoulder.
My arms wrap around my body, half to keep my dress from falling all the way down and half to comfort myself.
“You don’t think it’s awful?” I whisper.
“These scars?” His fingertips continue to wander, touching parts of myself that I can barely even look at in the mirror. “Nothing about this, or you, is awful to me, Devon. What is awful is that someone dared to treat you like this.”
A lick of anger enters his words and an unexpected curl of warmth radiates through my core.
“Not just the scars. But all of me.”
“All of you?” Kairo’s touch sweeps up to my shoulder and he gently encourages me to turn and face him.
I’m powerless to resist so I turn until we’re face to face, but I can’t bring myself to meet his eyes.
“Look at me,” I say hoarsely. “And then look at you.”
My attention is fixated on his abdomen where muscles subtly flex and roll as he moves.
He keeps one hand on my shoulder and the other curls under my chin where he applies gentle pressure.
“Look at me, Devon.”
I can’t.
It’s one thing to feel his touch and hear his voice.
It’s quite another to witness the truth in the depths of his eyes. So I resist.
“Please?”
My chest tightens and I close my eyes.
I must resist.
But I can’t.
I have to look.
How can I resist such a gentle request?
I relax and let him tilt my head up, then I open my eyes and stare up into his dark, warm irises.
There’s no judgment.
There’s no disgust.
His brow is furrowed, but the open concern etched across his handsome features doesn’t read like pity.
It’s more like sorrow.
“I’m sorry, Devon, that someone treated you this way. I know there’s nothing I can say that will erase the scars deep down and that only time will truly be able to soothe them, but I swear to you, it will never happen again.”
He speaks like he knows, like a part of him truly understands, and I don’t know if I should be comforted or heartbroken.