Chapter Eleven
Kytten
I was tired.
And scared.
For three days I had met with Dr. Dunaway. I couldn’t call him Torment. Not in here. I needed to separate the doctor from the biker. I told him things. Things I had never told anyone.
Admitted things to him I found it hard to admit to myself.
But today I was done.
I couldn’t talk anymore right now. It was too much.
“Kytten, are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay. I need Cash.”
Dr. Dunaway looked at me over his glasses. The man was far too sexy to be a therapist. “Would you like him to sit in on your session?”
“No!” Was he crazy? I was barely able to tell him things. I couldn’t say them with Cash in here.
“Then tell me what you need.”
I growled under my breath. “I told you; I need Cash.”
“Why?”
I tried to glare at him the way Arsyn glared at people. One look from that woman and you would burst into flames. He didn’t appear affected by it.
“He makes me feel safe.”
“Do you feel unsafe right now?”
“Why are you doing this? You asked me what I needed, and I told you.”
Dr. Dunaway leaned back in his chair, removing his glasses. He wiped at his eyes. “You also told me you didn’t want him in here during your session.”
He waited for me to say something. Only I couldn’t say the words. I wanted to leave, but I didn’t want to disappoint everyone.
“What do you want, Kytten?”
I jumped and yelled, “I told you what I wanted!”
“What do you want, Kytten?”
“I want Cash.”
“What do you want, Kytten?”
“I want to leave!” I shouted.
Dr. Dunaway smiled and leaned forward. “This room? This club? This state? What do you want, Kytten?”
Could I do it? Could I tell him what I wanted? Could I choose to walk away? Not from everything, not forever. I just needed a break. I needed a day off from all the memories and the pain.
And the feelings.
I needed a break from the feelings. I wanted to breathe without the suffocating weight of everything that he was bringing to the surface. Just one day where I didn’t have to talk about myself.
“I don’t want to talk anymore.”
“Today or at all?”
I took a deep breath while I stalled to examine his question. I knew the answer he wanted. The answer everyone would want. Was that the answer I wanted?
I hadn’t slept well for the past few nights. Nightmares plagued my dreams, but when I woke up in Cash’s arms, they were all forgotten.
Literally forgotten to the point where I couldn’t remember what I had dreamed about.
“Today,” I answered softly as I waited for him to chastise me.
“Okay.” He stood up and started gathering his notes.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving you what you want. We are done for today.”
I didn’t understand. We had just started fifteen minutes ago. Why was he leaving? “You don’t want to work with me anymore?”
His shoulders slumped, and I knew I had asked the wrong question.
“Kytten, of course I do. I am not going anywhere anytime soon. But you have gone through a lot these past few days. If you need a break, we’ll take a break. All you have to do is say so.”
“But I’m not fixed.”
Dr. Dunaway fell into his seat. “Kytten, there is nothing to fix.” Now I was confused. “People don’t need fixing. They need help. I am here to help you learn how to handle the things you can’t handle on your own. My job is to help you grow. Not to fix you.”
I guessed when you looked at that way, everyone could use a little help. Even Val broke down. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it made me sad. It made me hurt for her.
“So we can talk again tomorrow?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “Or if you need a full day off, we can talk the next day.”
“And that’s okay to do?” It felt like at any minute he would turn around and take it back. Tell me I was stupid or weak for needing a break.
“Yes, it’s okay to do that.”
I still hadn’t stood up. Biting my lip, I waited for him to leave. He didn’t move either. It was like we were playing a game of chicken to see who would break first.
“Do you need me to leave first so you know it’s okay?”
My eyes snapped to his. Was he reading my mind? “No,” I said as I stood from my chair. My feet wouldn’t move though. I looked at the door longingly. Wanting so much to walk through it.
“Go, Kytten.”
Dr. Dunaway seemed to always know what I needed. His order to leave loosened my feet, and I walked to the double doors. My hand felt the hard wood beneath it. But before I pushed it open, I turned.
“Thank you.”
I didn’t wait for a response. I scurried away like a scared rabbit, afraid I would get caught in the trap if I didn’t leave when I had the chance.
I opted to take one full day off from meeting with Dr. Dunaway. Enough time to get my bearings and build up my resolve. The closer I got to telling him everything, the weaker I felt.
“You really want to do this?” Cash asked, coming out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel. Beads of water dripping over his chest had my mouth watering.
I absently licked my lips and heard him growl. “You keep looking at me like that and we aren’t going anywhere.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off him, but slowly they moved their way up to his face. His handsome face, with the scruffy beard. He hadn’t trimmed it in a few days after I told him how much I loved feeling it between my thighs.
I’d thought I lost all feeling from the cutting, but the feel of him between my legs, the redness left behind from the coarse hair as he ate me out, brought me to levels I had never experienced before.
“I mean, we could maybe be a little late.”
Cash grinned and grabbed me from where I sat at the end of the bed and tossed me up further before climbing over me. A loud knock stopped us before we even got started.
“Let’s go, I’m fucking hungry.”
Cash’s face dropped to my neck. “Whose brilliant idea was this?”
“Ellie’s,” I reminded him as I laughed at his fake anger.
When Ellie asked us to have dinner with them, I was excited. She’d called it a double date. I had never really been on a date before. Sure, I found guys to hook up with, but this was different.
We were going out with another couple. Having dinner, and while there most definitely was a guarantee of sex when we got back, that guarantee would have been there even if we didn’t go out.
Cash leaned up and looked into my eyes. “Are you happy?”
I could feel the panic rise in my chest when I didn’t know how to answer him.
“I want to make you happy, Rose. I want to see that smile on your face every day. The real one. Not the one you show everyone else.”
I smiled at that. How could I not?
He smiled back. “That’s the one. I fucking love that smile. And I love you. I want you to be my old lady.”
My gasp was short-lived when his lips fused to mine.
When he pulled back, he said, “Say yes, baby.”
“Yes,” I breathed.
He left me on the bed and went to the closet. I assumed he was getting dressed. Instead, he came back with a cut. He sat on the bed next to me and held the cut as he stared at it.
“This was Rachel’s.” He ran his finger over the space where her name had been. The space that now held mine. “I wanted to get you a new one. One of your own. But Rachel asked me to give this to you.”
“How?” I had never met Rachel. She passed away before I came to Diamond Creek. She had no way of knowing who I was or that I would be with Cash.
“Remember I told you about the letter she left me?” I nodded, and he continued, “In that letter she asked me to give her cut to my old lady. A gift from her to you, letting you know you have her blessing—not that you need it, she said—to love me the way I was meant to be loved.” He chuckled at that, and I smiled.
I think I would have liked Rachel.
Ellie had shared a few stories with me and she sounded like a wonderful person. A great friend. I didn’t have many friends. Sure, I had the Nyght Nymphs. They were my sisters.
Friends were different.
Ellie was my friend.
“The way she couldn’t love me.” He looked at me, tears shining in his eyes as he whispered, “Forever.”
I bit my lip. These were moments I had missed out on. These were the feelings I craved. Being loved. Being wanted. The monsters had stolen them from me. I asked them to take the bad feelings, and they took all the good ones too.
I swiped away a tear and leaned into Cash. “I would be honored to wear her cut.”
“Stand up, baby.”
He pulled me to stand between his legs and helped me put on the cut. “You are so damn beautiful,” he said. “Not just here”—he waved his hand over my face—“but here.” He rested his hand over my heart. The tears couldn’t be stopped now.
He saw me.
He saw more than the tiny frame, and the pink hair and the fake fucking smile.
He saw the fear, and the loneliness and the heartache I carried with me, and he wanted me anyway.
“I love you,” I whispered. It was all I could manage over the lump in my throat. I leaned in and kissed him. My lips moved slowly over his, and I poured every feeling I wanted to share with him into that kiss.
Not just the feelings of love, but my joy, my happiness I had found here in Diamond Creek between meeting him and finding my brother. But I also shared my fear, and I shared my loneliness and my heartache.
I gave them all to him, and he took them. His kiss felt like a promise to hold those feelings for me so I didn’t need to give them to the monsters anymore.
Pounding on the door pulled us apart.
“Come on, you two!” Ryder’s voice sounded as frustrated as I felt in that moment. Because all I wanted to do was cancel on my new friend and stay here with Cash and love him.
“We’ll finish this when we get back.”
I nodded as tears slipped down my cheeks. Cash wiped them away and kissed the trails they left behind. He quickly got dressed, and I fixed my makeup. I couldn’t very well go downstairs looking like a raccoon.
When we made it to the main room, I felt my body shrink when everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at us. Cash had insisted I wear my cut.
“Brother, we haven’t voted yet,” King said.
I looked around the room. Beck, Sam, and Ellie were smiling. Haizley wasn’t, but her eyes told me she was pleased. Dr. Jefferson looked concerned, but I had expected an anger that wasn’t there.
“Everyone’s here?” Cash asked.
“Except Banshee and Win.”
Cash pulled out his phone and put it on speaker. “Hey, Cash, what’s up?”
“Are you close to Banshee by chance?”
“Actually yea, he and Aspen came up to the main house for dinner.”
“Put it on speaker.”
King watched him without a word. When Banshee said he was there, Cash spoke, “We’re taking a vote.”