Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
KAI
Figures. Fucking figures. I step outside for one measly smoke break and suddenly there’s an unconscious girl on our couch.
Lanz gapes at me, looking somehow stupefied and keyed-up all at once. “I…she…”
“Yeah, go ahead,” I say. “Explain. I’m reallllly looking forward to this little tale.”
Between us, Gwenna lies loosely on the couch cushions, asleep—I think—but breathing, definitely breathing, and unless her blood pressure has dropped precipitously since I checked her pulse two minutes ago, she’s definitely alive.
There’s a slight dark circle on the pillow under her cheek—sweating?
crying? I have no idea—but she doesn’t seem like she’s in active danger.
Not sure I can say the same for Lanz, though.
“I was just…I was out on campus, and she ran into me, and she…she passed out,” he stammers. “So I picked her up, and?—”
“And you’re just gonna let her sleep down here?” I finish for him.
“You wanted me to just barge into an all-female dorm with an unconscious girl in my arms?” he cries.
I see. He has a point there. But still …
“What are we going to do with her?” I ask. “Did you think that through? No, of course you didn’t,” I answer my own question. “You didn’t think any of this through. So I’m going to have to fuckin’ fix it for you.”
I sidestep to the couch and kneel down, weight in my heels, and slide one arm under her shoulders, the other under her knees. She’s not exactly dainty, but I’m strong, so.
On an exhale, I hoist her up.
Lanz’s eyes go even wider. “What are you?—”
“What’s going on?”
I jump, but it’s just him—Callahan—coming down the stairs. Takes one look at Gwenna in my arms and Lanz’s burgeoning freakout and raises both eyebrows—maybe the most expression I’ve ever seen out of the guy.
“Oh, you know,” I say breezily—or breezily as I can, holding an unconscious coed in a designer dress. “Just shooting the shit.”
Callahan stares. “Is she…”
“She’s fine,” Lanz says quickly. “Or she will be. She just…” He runs a hand through his hair. “She needs a place to sleep.”
“As I’ve been saying ,” I enunciate, sagging under her weight for effect. “Can you fuckin’ strategize here, please? Where am I putting her?”
Cal and Lanz look at each other. Then at me.
“My room?” I say. “Absolutely not.” Many reasons for that, of course. But I go with the innocent one. “It’s filthy. I haven’t washed my sheets in?—”
“I’ll take her,” Lanz says hurriedly. “I mean…” His face flushes. “She can have my room. I’ll…” He glances at Cal.
“Sure. Bunk with me.” Cal’s face doesn’t change.
“ Thank you,” I say. “Now, can we all scatter to the four winds and clear the area?” I’m already going to get a reaming from Luther, and possibly Kingston, over the shopping spree. The last thing I want is another problem they can blame me for .
Because they will. It’ll always be me.
Neither of them moves.
“ Now ,” I bark.
That works. They scatter.
And I walk her, quietly as I fucking can, up the stairs.
Lanz’s room is, in fact, much cleaner than mine—his bed is actually made, for one thing, which leaves me to kind of shove the covers back with my foot so I can set Gwenna down more or less on the sheets.
Her breath flutters over my arms as I lower her down, pull back my arms. I stand a second, panting a little, and look at her.
At her dress.
Fuck. She can’t sleep in that.
I mean, she can, but…
I eyeball the swirls of silk, the corset sides of the bodice.
It can’t be comfortable. And…I mentally think back to the itemized receipt the shoppers had sent me.
If this is the Valentino, that’s a $7,000 dress.
And while it would really drive the point home to spend all that money and then ruin what it bought, I don’t want to.
Not for her sake. Not if she liked it enough to pick it and wear it.
Honestly, I wasn’t even sure she would do it when I made the offer. Just liked the idea of fucking with Daddy Pendragon’s head. But now…
I stare at her there, thinking through my options. Probably something she can wear in Lanz’s bureau. Just have to get her in it. And out of this.
I’d have to get her out of this.
Shit. Shit. As gentlemanly as I can force myself to be, with every fiber of my self-restraint on point, I still feel…awkward about this.
Gwenna stirs a little, pulls her head from the pillow as she rolls over, eyes still closed .
“Too hot,” she murmurs.
Oh, for Christ’s sake , I think. I’m really going to do this. Really going to undress a girl who I can’t touch not only because she’s unconscious and unable to consent, but because I have to be a pious, chaste little swordboy for the foreseeable future.
I swallow hard, my throat suddenly dry.
“Hang on,” I whisper, “hang on.”
I chew the inside of my cheek. How the fuck does this thing come off?
Gingerly, I ease her shoulders forward a bit, looking for a zipper at the back, and mercifully, there it is, although not without a series of tiny buttons the size of a pea leading down to the pull-tab from the…turtleneck part of the top, or whatever it’s called.
“Shit,” I whisper through my teeth. I crouch by the bed and start in on them, fumbling their slippery surface through my fingertips, suddenly clumsy as a goddamn puppy.
Each one needs to go through this infinitesimally tiny loop of silk fabric, and it takes me a good five minutes just to get all seven of them undone.
But I do, and the red lace falls back, revealing the pale nape of her neck.
I swallow again.
Look but don’t touch, Kai .
Lord knows I’ve seen women in states of greater undress than this. Seen them naked as God made them, and gotten to touch them to boot. Run my fingers over every sweet curve and soft expanse of skin, inhaled their scent, tasted them.
But that was before. And this…this is all that and more.
Instinctively, blood rushes to my cock, because I’m a fucking animal.
I yank myself back.
Come on. No.
I think of boring things. Of scoring matches. Of French verb conjugations. Of fucking anything until the heat of my pulse cools down.
Then I reach for the zipper.
It’s small and fine, and I have to brace my left hand against the top as I pull down with the right to keep it from snagging.
But it slides down the extent of her spine easily, all the way to just above her tailbone.
She’s wearing a bra, thank the Lord, and her panties are nothing for display.
Black, but a practical kind of black that nevertheless makes my throat feel like sandpaper.
I pull back a little, bite my cheek harder, strategize a bit, then gently push her shoulder so that she’s rolled onto her back. From there, I lift her left arm, easing it down and out of the sleeve, and…her skin.
I suck in a breath.
It’s not smooth and pale anymore. It’s kind of…mottled. Rippled. All the way from her wrists to above her elbows.
Like she’s been hurt.
Instinctively, again, I avert my eyes. Like I’ve truly seen something I have no business seeing.
Explains all the long sleeves.
Heart hammering, I delicately repeat the process with her right arm, then peel the top of the dress down to her waist, over her hips, down her legs and off.
The whole time, I train my gaze on the dress itself, the clothing, the bunches of red, the gentlest movements so as not to disturb her. Not to look at what I shouldn’t.
But good God, is it difficult.
There’s just millimeters of this gauzy stuff between my fingertips and the skin over her ribs, her hips, her legs. And heaven knows I’ve been tested before, but this is next level.
Dress removed, finally. I roll it into a ball and throw it on the floor—Valentino be damned; dry cleaning exists.
I turn for Lanz’s bureau and rummage through it, extracting the first clean T-shirt and pair of sweats I can find.
Then I blow out a low breath and begin the process in reverse, easing the sweatpants up her legs, getting the waistband over her knees, and finally over the crest of her hips, and into place, ignoring the thin, visible strip of black that stays at the top.
The shirt’s more difficult. I have to bunch it up around the neck, so it’s like a ring in my hands, and then sort of shove it over her head, like she’s a giant doll.
Guide her arms through, awkwardly, but in her half-conscious state, she helps me along.
My breath catches as she gives her shoulder a little shrug, easing the material into place.
If she wakes up, sees me, I’m absolutely fucked. There’s no good explanation for this.
Lanz, sure. Callahan, definitely. Kingston—well, he’d never get himself in this position to begin with.
But me, Kai?
No one would believe me.
I start to pull the hem down, and I’m so focused on not seeing anything in the kill zone that I can’t help see something else.
Faint, but unmistakable.
A scar. On her chest.
Not an ugly one, like from a car crash. Not even all puckered and painful looking like the ones on her arms.
Two pearly lines, carved right over her heart.
A cross.
“What the fuck ,” I say out loud, before I can stop myself. Anger, bitter and hot, surges up my throat. Because that’s not from an accident. Whoever did that wanted to hurt her.
To mark her.
And I want to kill whoever would do that.
Cool it, Kai.
Not now. Not…yet. Or possibly ever.
Instead, I just tug the shirt down, over the soft liquid space of her stomach, and take a step back, biting my lip hard, clicking the ring against my teeth.
She looks…comfortable enough. Hopefully less hot, anyway. Better for sleeping
I curl my fingers in tight to my palms, digging the nails into the flesh.
There’s my good fucking deed for the day , I think . Hell, this should count for more than a day, maybe a month . I breathe out hard and breathe in slowly, and as I do, catch the faintest edge of her scent—not anything perfumed or artificial, but clean, warm, the smell of soap and human girl.
The most of her I’ll ever be able to take in.
I don’t know where that thought comes from. I shake out my hands, give the room one last look, and leave, shutting the door just firmly enough not to wake her.