Chapter 21
KAYLA
Light drips through the slits of my eyes, my arms stretching above my head. And for a moment, I’m not sure where I am and why it’s so bright in here. As I open my lids and blink around the room, I realize I’m not home.
It’s then I remember I’m in A’s home. In his bed.
I shoot up to a seated position, realizing he isn’t here, but my clothes are lying neatly on the foot of the bed.
I fell asleep here! Shit. How did I manage to do that? One second, I was lying in bed; the next, I’m waking up in the morning. The clock on the wall reads eight.
Chris must be going insane, searching for me. Probably called Michael and they have a search party looking for me.
But then the very thought infuriates me. I’m a grown adult. I can sleep over at anyone’s house. I don’t need to sneak around. I’m not a teenager.
With a harsh exhale, I flip my legs out of the bed and find my cell on the nightstand, waiting there with a bottle of water and a note.
I pick it up, and warmth instantly fills my limbs.
I like knowing you think about me even as you sleep. You said my name so many times. I just lay awake beside you, listening to you. You entice, babe, even when you’re unconscious.
Come downstairs. I made you breakfast. Your favorite.
-A
Babe.
That word…it does so many things to me.
A smile pulls at my mouth, but then the sudden realization hits.
Wait a minute. My eyes pop wide.
He slept next to me? I said his name in my sleep? And…he knows my favorite breakfast? How…
He’s been watching you. That’s how, you idiot. What part of stalker is hard for you to comprehend?
I get to my feet, quickly slipping out of his shirt before putting on my clothes, then head down the stairs.
The aroma of freshly brewed coffee hits my nostrils.
And suddenly, I’m a little less peeved with my stalker.
I mean, he made coffee. And breakfast. After breaking out those assholes from prison and letting me kill them. I say he gets a major pass.
His back is to me as soon as I step into the kitchen, his muscles rippling and flexing beneath his black hoodie as he stands in front of the stove, flipping something on it.
Hope springs to life that maybe he forgot his mask and I’ll finally learn who he is. But as soon as he turns around, holding a plate with a burrito on it…
Fuck me. That thing isn’t even scary anymore. It’s funny now. The entire fact of this masked man making me breakfast would make the outside world think I’ve gone mad.
But, I mean, let’s be real. I kinda have.
I give the plate a glance. He does know my favorite breakfast, doesn’t he? I don’t even need to bite into it to know he made me an egg-and-cheese burrito with avocado. It’s what I eat every single day.
Pulling a stool before the counter, I settle onto it and place my cell down.
“Morning, baby bird. Slept well?”
The seductive twinge in his tone does something to me, heat coiling between my thighs as I fight the urge to curl my arms around his biceps and pull him in for a kiss.
The fact that I want to—that I desire something normal after everything I was put through—is tremendously scary, yet beautiful.
He’s made me want things I once never dreamed of wanting.
Now I’m here, in his home, in his arms at night and being fed by him in the morning.
There’s something warm and safe about him.
You know, when you’re not thinking about the secrets and the mask…
oh, and the fact that he’s a killer. We’re a match made in hell.
“As per your note…” I say back. “I slept quite well. If I’d known you were asleep next to me, I’d have awakened to pull that mask off your face and kiss you.”
His burly, defined chest jolts.
“Then what?” he asks, practically groaning.
“Then I’d go back to bed.” I grin, yanking the corner of my bottom lip.
He inhales a sharp breath, his feet slowly advancing toward me like a predator about to make me his willing meal. Placing the steaming plate beside me, he flips my stool around to face him.
With a towering frame, he pushes himself between my thighs, opening me up, bare and pantiless.
He cups my jaw in his palm, thumb stroking across my lips, hips jutting out into my core, eliciting a wanton sound from my lips.
I swallow down the ball of nerves, anticipating his next move. He drops closer, leaning his torso into mine. His fist snaps around my hair, yanking my head back, his chest pressing into mine.
“The fact that you think we’d stop at kissing is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.”
I gasp a quiet breath, mouth parted slightly, just enough for him to push his thumb inside, pressing it down onto my tongue.
“Fucking beautiful,” he rasps, and my body peaks with awareness, with harrowing need.
I wonder what he’ll do next. Say next.
I jump back as my cell rings, over and over. He doesn’t move, except his free hand as he picks it up and examines who the caller is.
“It’s Michael,” he announces before he decides to answer for me, placing him on speaker.
“Kayla.”
“What the hell?” I whisper to A, my expression horrified.
I had no intentions of answering this call.
“Hey, Michael. What’s up?”
“I wanted you to know that you have a new bodyguard assigned. His name is—”
“I’m sorry, what? Where’s Chris?” My eyes widen at A.
He did something to him. He had to have. It’s why he said not to worry about him.
Oh my God. Did he burn him in the furnace?
“Chris had a family emergency. He had to go out of the country to take care of his mom, who’s dying.”
“Oh, no. That’s so sa—”
A cold, icy chill drowns out the rest of my words.
Because Chris doesn’t have a mom. I remember exactly what he said. His parents died years ago.
Did he lie to me? Or did he lie to Michael?
“What is it, Kayla?” Michael’s concern is evidence. “What do you know?”
“Are you sure he said his mom was ill?”
“Yeah, why?”
I can hear his beastly breaths across the speaker.
“Because…”
Beside me, A squeezes the phone so tight, his knuckles turn white.
“Because he told me his parents are dead.”
The phone goes silent. Seconds trickle by.
“Michael?”
“Are you sure that’s what he said? You have to be sure, Kayla.”
“I—I’m sure.”
“Okay. Look, if he contacts you or anything, call me.” I hear him shuffling around like he’s in a hurry.
“Michael, you’re scaring me.”
“You don’t have to worry. Terrence is at your house already. If you look out the window, you’ll see his black SUV.”
Chris didn’t even tell him that I didn’t come home. I can’t shake this eerie feeling.
“I have to go,” he says. “If anything comes up, call me.”
“Sure, yeah.”
Click. A hangs up too and places the phone down.
“Did you kill him?” I ask him point-blank. “I need you to be honest with me.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “But he’s as good as dead. Now eat your food so I can take you home, and I swear to God, if you let the new one anywhere near you, I will most definitely rip out his heart and make you watch as I burn it. Do we understand each other?”
He roughly grabs my jaw and grunts when I squeeze my legs around his outer thighs.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I understand.”
“That’s my good girl.”
“I’m not your girl.” The need to fight him, to let me hear him say I am, overwhelms me.
He chuckles all slow and seductive. “That’s what I keep telling myself. But unfortunately for you, you are. And there’s nothing either of us can do about it.” He places his palm on the center of my chest. “Feel that? Feel the way your heart races at the mere feeling of me?”
Yes. This is exactly what I wanted. To hear him say how wrong I am.
“I own you, Kayla. You’re mine. Your heart. Your mind. Your fucking soul. I own it. And soon…” He slips a hand between us and circles his thumb around my achy clit. “I’m gonna own this pussy too.”
“Oh, God,” I hiss.
“Make you beg and cry and scream my name. My real name,” he promises. “And that’s the moment…”
He pushes a finger inside me, and I whimper with a gasp.
“That’s the moment you’re gonna own me.”
Then he’s off, returning to the stove, leaving me there breathless and gasping for air.
Because he owns that too.
He owns everything, and I can’t even deny it.