Chapter 9 Laura #3
He peeled Kip’s cut from my body with shocking gentleness and tossed it to the floor.
My sweatshirt came next, leaving me in just my tank top.
I waited as he dipped below the counter to dig for the medical supplies before speaking again, especially as his face became level with the apex of my thighs.
I thought of last night, but also…my mind went back to that first time he snagged a piece of not just my heart, but my hope.
Your eyes are Cinderella blue.
I blinked to push away the memory and focused instead on the way he was applying ointment to my face in such a gentle way that it made me wonder who else he’d ever touched like this. Then I remembered the girl he was hugging tonight.
“Why were you following me anyway?”
Killian’s gaze stayed on my wound, his fingers bracing my face as he gently cleaned it.
I watched his dark brows and the way his thick lashes fanned the tops of his cheeks.
The silence filled the room, but music and the revving of engines could be heard from outside.
Orange flickered through the clouded window over the tub, making the room feel cozy and safe.
“I was headed back to the apartment, got tired.”
He was lying, and for months I had been letting his little lies slide because I didn’t want to confront the truth, but tonight, I wanted nothing but honesty between us.
“But you were with someone. I saw you.”
His movements paused, his eyes drifting down to mine.
“You mean Jill?”
Fuck if I knew. I shrugged, hating that it made pain flare in my shoulder.
Killian dipped his head, resuming his gentle ministrations against my wound.
“I said hello to her, she’s a good friend.”
It irritated me that he wasn’t telling me the whole story.
He wasn’t explaining why he’d been there to pull Kip off me or telling me why he’d been watching me all night as if I belonged to him, only to stop the second she showed up.
I wanted to go back in time and erase the fact that I knew he’d done it at all.
But saying anything more on the subject would lead him to believe that I cared, or that I was jealous.
While I knew I was, there was no way I wanted him to catch on.
The silence grew again, and this time, I wasn’t going to fill it with stupid questions that didn’t matter. Regardless of why he was watching me, he had been there in time to save me.
Gripping his wrist, I forced him to pause and look at me.
“Thank you.”
He searched my face, the intensity almost overwhelming.
His rigid jaw was shadowed with a day’s worth of growth, just barely.
It seemed he could grow a very effective beard if given the chance.
I had the strangest sensation to run my hand along his wide jaw to feel the harsh growth against my smooth palm.
His dark eyes seemed to hold a question he was too stubborn to ask out loud.
Then he leaned in and pressed his lips near my ear, invading my space completely.
“Don’t thank me, Daisy. Just don’t ever put yourself in that position again. His hands ever go near your body again and I will cut them off. Do you understand me?”
Daisy.
That fucking nickname again. God damn him and that stupid nickname.
Feeling a fresh fire bristle in my chest, I pushed at his, feeling the smooth leather under my palms.
“Put myself in that position? You put me in that position.”
I jumped down from the counter and tried to clear the bathroom, but he was on my heels, grabbing my wrist.
“Like fuck I did.”
Spinning around, I glared up at him and pushed again.
Pushing him felt akin to pushing a large STOP button.
“You put his cut on me and sent me into his arms. That was your fault.”
Towering over me, he caught my other wrist and pulled me closer.
“The cut was to protect you. I never told you to walk over and let him grope you all fucking night. Or to let him put his hands under your shirt and feel your tits. I never once said to do that.”
“So you were watching.”
His smirk landed somewhere in my stomach, but it was like a belly flop. All wrong and potentially lethal.
“Yes, and you were watching me, Daisy. Round and round we go in this fucked-up circle once again.”
I hated this. I hated him. I hated that he was right.
“What do you want from me, Killian?”
His glare softened the smallest bit before hardening again.
“I want you to stop being a complication. You’re a flicker in my peripheral vision, a glare, a goddamn floater that corrective lenses would fix. I want to erase you.”
Oh…
I couldn’t even—
Killian stepped closer. “But…I also want to wrap your soul around mine, feel the beat of your heart in my neck as I breathe, and carry you with me everywhere I go, all at the same fucking time.”
Inhaling a silent breath, I stared up into his emerald gaze. Silence passed between us. What he’d said would be just another secret added to the pile. It would be another pebble added to the rubble that was our fucked-up dynamic. Whatever this was…it was impossible, irrelevant.
In the end, Killian would never be mine, and I would move on. I’d get an apartment outside of the club. I’d get a job somewhere else, and I would meet someone new. He’d become nothing but a memory, and I’d be better for it.
Speaking soft but stern, I muttered. “I’ll be out of your life in a week.”
We were in the bedroom now, and I couldn’t stand the eerie way the firelight reflected in the room, so I clicked on the small lamp and began picking up the few random articles of clothing I had on the floor.
Killian stood silent near the door.
Ignoring him, I folded the small pile of clothes and set them back in my suitcases, which were in the walk-in closet. A few of my jackets and dresses were tossed over the bars because I didn’t have hangers yet.
“What the fuck is this?”
I peered out of the closet, seeing Killian lifting the edge of my mattress with his boot.
“My bed, why?”
It was made, why was he looking at it weird?
His brows crinkled as he continued to inspect my sleeping space. “But why is it on the floor?”
“I don’t have a frame for it yet. This is what people do who don’t have bed frames.”
He looked around the space as if seeing it for the first time.
“You have the lamp sitting on a cooler.”
My face flushed the smallest bit, but I pushed it away. Wasn’t like he’d never been poor; he’d shown me where he once lived.
“It serves dual purposes,” I joked, lifting it to pull out a bottle of water. “See, it’s like having a mini fridge up here.”
He walked over to the window and picked up the sheet that had been hanging over it. I liked to unpin the side in the mornings after I dressed so I could have natural light in the room.
I watched him as his motorcycle boots pressed into the carpet, heading toward the closet.
“You’re still living out of your suitcases?”
This was starting to feel a little redundant, so I didn’t answer.
“You’ve been here for three months; how come you haven’t moved in?”
His gaze was soft and curious. I shrugged, pulling on a sweater, desperately wanting out of my shorts and into some sweats.
I wanted to take my bra off and get under my covers and prop my phone up so I could watch Never Been Kissed.
I had been making my way through nineties and early two thousand rom coms.
“This was always going to be temporary. I wanted to stay ready to leave in case you came back and kicked me out.”
Killian’s jaw went slack for a moment before he recovered, clearing his throat. I thought he was going to say something else, but instead, he turned and started downstairs, flipping lights as he went.
The office space across from the room was empty, so were the linen closets. He took the stairs one at a time, until his heavy tread was echoing over the hardwood.
“You’ve got to be fuckin’ kidding me.” He scoffed.
I watched from my perch near the stairs, close to the room. I was beyond ready for bed and the sooner Killian let himself out, the better.
“No couch. No fucking television.” His voice trailed as he transitioned to the kitchen. “Two plates, two spoons, two forks, one bowl, and a single coffee mug.”
Rolling my eyes, I decided I’d heard enough.
I’d never lived alone, and I came to Rose Ridge with exactly zero things to my name except my clothes.
Callie took me to the thrift store, and I grabbed a few things, and of course she wanted to make me her pity project and buy me a whole apartment’s worth of shit, but I refused.
I’d eventually build up my stuff, but why buy new stuff I’d have to move when I wasn’t planning on being here for very long?
“You’re living like you’re not getting paid by the club.
Why the fuck is that, Laura?” His arms went wide as he looked up at me and slowly slid his leather cut off his shoulders.
He placed it gently on the counter, since there was no table or chairs for him to lay it over.
Next, he slid his boots off, and my heart began raging in my chest. Why was he acting like he was staying?
“I get paid, I’m just saving up.”
“This isn’t living, this is squatting.” Killian was in a pair of white socks, a pair of denim jeans and a plain white t-shirt. I could see his tattoos running down his right arm, and the way it dripped down his hand and fingers.
I loved the way it looked on him, and how his left arm didn’t match. It was strangely perfect.
“I already told you that I’m moving out soon. I’m not sure why you’re so bothered by how I’m living.” My voice was starting to grow thin the later it became. I just wanted to sleep.
Killian muttered a curse as he replied, “you did say that didn’t you.”
His head dipped, like he was finally giving up, then with a weary expression he said, “Fine. Just get your ass in bed, you’re exhausted.”
I didn’t need him to tell me twice. I shuffled back to the room, taking my sweatshirt and bra off, tossing them in the closet as I went. My shorts went next. I was in just my tank top and underwear when I clicked the light off and crawled into bed.
Sleep weighed down my eyelids, and I was nearly out when I felt the bed dip and a rather giant-like presence fill the opposite side of my mattress.
I let out a groan as I fought the overwhelming urge to ignore him and slumber.
“What are you doing?”
Killian stretched out next to me, his body heat immediately enveloping me as he claimed all available space on my full-sized mattress.
“I’m sleeping.”
His hand grazed my ass before quickly moving to my hair, shifting a few pieces off my shoulder. Goosebumps trailed down my skin after his fingers lifted. I shifted closer to the edge to avoid him.
“Why here?”
“There’s no couch, no extra bed. Nowhere else for me to sleep in my own apartment.”
It wasn’t like I could argue with him. It was his apartment, and I was starting to care less and less about his reasons for being here and more about how him being next to me made me feel…safe.
“Fine, but don’t touch my ass.”
I heard him laughing behind me then his fingers grazed my ass again.
“But it’s one of my favorite things about you.”
“You don’t get to have a favorite thing about me, not when you said my ass was fake and not natural like Jill’s.”
Had I just thought that or said that out loud? I kept dreaming and feeling him touch me, and it was so soothing that it was making me even sleepier.
“No, she’s nothing like you, Daisy. No one is. You’re in a league all your own. That’s what makes this so hard.”
“Your dick?” I snorted and somehow shifted closer to the center. He was so warm.
“Yes, actually. Want to feel?”
I did want to feel, but I also didn’t want to. Another secret between us would be too much.
“I don’t want any more secrets between us.”
He went quiet behind me, and I started to drift off, but right as sleep nearly claimed me, I heard him whisper, “Then maybe we should confess.”