Chapter 10
Ten
AVERY
We had one more night before Kane left.
One more night after his party, after my unexpected admission. I felt like I’d purged. Like something rotting inside of me had been removed. Kane didn’t look at me differently, didn’t treat me differently, like I was broken.
His last night was the same as any other night. He lingered, eating his duck l’orange with a chocolate cake I’d whipped up earlier—I wasn’t the best pastry chef but I was known for that chocolate cake, and I knew Kane had a sweet tooth, which he’d declared almost as tasty as my pussy.
I’d grinned at that, after closing down the kitchen and walking to the alley with him.
“You up for another trip, Chef?” he asked when we made it to his bike.
My skin tingled with the offer, excited and hungry for another risk-filled dalliance. Although part of me was greedy for just him and a bed.
Yet I nodded.
Kane kissed me hard and quick before putting on my helmet and getting me on the bike.
I pressed close to him as we rode through the streets. The air had more of a chill now, so Kane ensured I wore more layers, even though he was only wearing a thin tee and a leather jacket.
“Do as I say, not as I do,” he’d joked when I’d pointed that out.
The motorcycle was my preferred mode of transportation. I had no idea how I’d go back to the subway or cabs. Two weeks. Two weeks without Kane. The thoughts followed me through the city until we stopped at a curb.
I got off the bike, looking at the businesses around us. Most of them were closed up, except the one with the flashing neon sign— Inked —which I guessed was our destination.
Kane’s hand closed firmly around mine, lifting our intertwined hands to kiss mine before walking us into the tattoo parlor.
“William,” Kane grinned at the man at the counter before clapping him in a man-bro handshake.
“Rhodes,” the tattoo-covered man greeted, smiling. The smile looked at odds with the rest of him. It was warm, boyish even.
And he was not boyish. Even sitting, I could tell he was well over 6′. He was wearing a black tank top that showed off bulging muscles and skin that was covered in tattoos. I couldn’t find a piece that wasn’t inked. The tattoos ran up his neck and covered his shaved skull. There was script underneath both of his eyes.
The eyes that were blindingly green, moving from Kane to me. His smile remained for me. Again, warm, friendly.
“William,” Kane waved to me. “This is my woman, Avery—”
“Hart,” William finished for him. He stood, rounding the counter so he could come shake my hand. “I know who you are. I’m a big fan.”
I felt my eyes widen, taken aback. I could count on one hand the amount of people who had recognized me on face value. I didn’t do press. The handful of interviews I did rarely included a photo—on my insistence—and the ones that did were not really indicative of how I looked on a daily basis because of the makeup and the lighting and the general polish.
But it had happened, mostly by cooking students who followed the comings and goings of the culinary world and read the publications I was featured in. Never by six-foot-something giants covered in tattoos.
“Your food is incredible,” he added, still shaking my hand enthusiastically. “Your twist on duck l’orange was revolutionary.”
I smiled. Genuinely. Despite finding it hard to take compliments—even though I teetered between overly cocky and battling imposter syndrome—somehow, William made it easy.
“Thank you,” I told him. “That dish is a particular favorite of mine.”
He nodded, finally letting go of my hand. “It’s my death row meal. Along with your twist on Mille-Feuille. Paired with a bottle of Villa Wolf Gewürztraminer.”
It was surreal to have this man talk about delicate desserts and a white wine that presented first with flowers on the palate. I instantly liked him.
“What are you doing with this gutter rat?” he asked teasingly. “He wouldn’t even know a soufflé from a soup.”
Kane laughed good-naturedly and had been watching the exchange between the two of us with a warm smile on his face.
“She’s slumming it, and I’d appreciate you not pointing it out since I’m planning on holding on to her until she comes to her senses.” Kane squeezed my hand.
William shook his head. “Avery Hart is nothing but a master of the senses, brother, you’re fucked.”
Kane’s eyes twinkled, then went serious. “I surely am.”
The jovial atmosphere left for a moment, leaving me feeling overwhelmed by the seriousness of the moment. We were no longer caught up in a chaotic and adventurous fling. It was something … more. And it scared the shit out of me.
A clap jerked me from my thoughts.
“So what are we in for today?” William asked, looking between the two of us. “Avery, you looking to get some ink?”
I laughed at the absurdity of that. “Me? No.”
I didn’t judge anyone with tattoos. In fact, I liked them a lot. I was fascinated with Kane’s. Part of me wanted to be a person who could cover her skin in something so permanent. Most of the chefs in my world had at least one.
I just didn’t think I could pull it off. Tattoos were at direct odds with everything I thought about myself.
“One day,” Kane said, rubbing my arm, and I gasped at him in shock. “But no, today, you’ve got the pleasure of permanently scarring me.”
“Great,” William stood from his seat. “Come on back.”
And just like that, we were walking through a large room that smelled of antiseptic and ink, buzzing mingling with the hard rock playing over the speaker.
Surprisingly, the tables were separated by partitions, and a lot of them were occupied. Not sure why I was surprised. Just because I didn’t consider getting a tattoo at midnight didn’t mean there weren’t plenty of people who did.
That fascinated me, people who lived lives like that. I was jealous of that freedom. Then it dawned on me... That was Kane. Rather glaringly obvious, since I was in a tattoo parlor with him at midnight, and he was on a first-name basis with those who worked there.
William led us to the end of a partition to a table covered with plastic, the walls covered by various posters of dragons and mythical creatures, pictures of tattoos. On a shelf beside the tattoo table sat a stack of worn paperbacks.
Curiously, a lot of them were culinary related, biographies on some of the greats.
“Take a seat.” William nodded to a chair beside the bed.
“You know the drill, brother,” he said to Kane.
As I was about to let go of him to sit down, Kane’s hold flexed on my hand, and he dragged me to him so our mouths crashed together.
He kissed me hard and passionately, and though I was aware of the other man in the small space with us, I kissed him back with the same fervor.
Sitting once he let me go, I looked down at my lap. My ears became hot, knowing we had an audience, one who actually knew who I was, but William hadn’t so much as blinked, busy putting on latex gloves.
“What are we doing today?” he asked Kane. “Got sketches from some billionaire after you lost a bet again?”
Kane chuckled, the sound low and throaty.
“Nah, this one’s simple. ‘Yes, Chef,’ right here.” He whipped off his shirt then pointed to the empty spot on his left pec.
My heart skipped. My mouth went dry.
Had he just said what I thought he did?
He stared at me, an easygoing expression on his face as if it were totally normal for him to get a tattoo that was about me—on his heart no less—after however long we’d been ‘together.’
Was I missing something? Had I been out of the game so long that tattoos of names of lovers were no longer a faux pas? Surely not.
Or maybe it was Kane. William had just said he permanently inked his body when he lost bets, so maybe it meant something different to him.
His eyes went to mine, and something passed between us.
No, it didn’t mean anything different to him.
He was getting me, inked on his body.
I watched it happen.
Then, after shooting the shit with William, sharing a beer and talking about food, we left. We rode through the night, back to his brownstone where he made slow and purposeful love to me with my name inked on his chest.
We didn’t speak of it.
I told myself I didn’t need to, the look, the act said it all.
But mostly it was because I was too damn terrified of what it meant.
I didn’t see Kane for two weeks after that night.
Two agonizing weeks. I worked fourteen days straight—not uncommon for me—and I did twelve-hour days—also not uncommon. Every second was busy, full of decisions, of menus, of practice plates, of sourcing the exact fish I needed at the docks and negotiating prices.
There was not a moment to think about a romantic entanglement.
Or at least there shouldn’t have been.
But every minute, every second, Kane was there. At the forefront of my mind. His rough, callused hands running over my skin, his cock pumping inside me, his arms crushing me to his body in his sleep.
And every time I heard, “Yes, Chef”—which had to be hundreds of times a day—my pussy tingled, and my knees weakened, thinking about the rough and guttural way Kane said it. Then my mind flashed to those two words, inked into his chest.
I missed him, to put it simply. Even though it was infinitely more complicated than that. It felt like my cells were dying without him. Like I wasn’t entirely alive.
It was an obsession we had for each other, pure and simple. It couldn’t have been healthy, it sure as hell was dangerous, and it was bound to burn itself out at some point. But I couldn’t find myself caring. For once, I was being reckless with my time, my energy and my heart. I’d deal with the fallout when it came.
I did find myself watching the clock like a hawk all day, waiting for the time to strike so I could leave the restaurant with enough time to go get ready and make it to the arena.
Kane only flew in today. Because of the way his schedule worked, he had to go straight to the arena to prepare. I could’ve seen him before the show, but that would’ve meant I would’ve had to leave the restaurant even earlier. And I needed to be there to prepare, to school my staff, to basically control everything I could. It was enough that I was taking time off for a man.
Unheard of.
It was my challenge, my punishment to myself, that I would not get to see him until after the show.
Kiera was coming with me. Because Kane offered her the tickets as well, and I didn’t like the idea of going alone. I was not a person who enjoyed crowds or had been to any kind of event like this.
I needed Kiera. And she was more than happy to oblige.
She also helped pick my outfit.
No, she bought my outfit.
She was already at my apartment when I got there, waiting at the door with a large shopping bag in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other.
“Outfit,” she announced, holding up the bag. “Dutch courage.” She held up the champagne. “Since I’m betting you’re close to breaking out in hives at leaving the restaurant on a Saturday night in order to go to a place that is so far out of your comfort zone it may as well be another planet. Which Jersey technically is.”
Not for the first, or even the hundredth time, I was infinitely grateful that the universe brought me a friend like Kiera.
A friend like Kiera who somehow knew exactly what kind of outfit to put me in for attending an extreme sports event where I was dating —that seemed far too pedestrian of a word for what Kane and I were doing—one of the biggest stars in the show. One of the biggest stars on the planet right now. Despite not having any social media accounts or time to follow entertainment news, I scrolled religiously, reading articles on Kane blowing through the globe, flying through the air on a motorcycle, walking through the airport in Wayfarers, face in a phone, texting me.
Well, at least I assumed he was texting me since we’d rarely gone more than an hour without some kind of contact, unless he was actively competing.
Which was tonight, the last of the Supercross events he was competing in.
Kiera and me. Because no way could I fathom going to this event on my own. Me. Who ran kitchens all over the world. Me, who had done everything alone since I left home at seventeen.
Jeans. That’s what Kiera had bought for my first public appearance as Kane’s girlfriend—if that’s what I was—and for the first time I’d see the man in weeks.
I owned jeans. Didn’t think that they were particularly spectacular or special.
But these jeans were something else. They fit me like a second skin; the denim was faded perfectly and sculpted my butt in such a way that I thought it was witchcraft. She had also got a simple white tank. Again, it didn’t sound like anything extraordinary. But something about the thick, ribbed fabric, the way the sleeves curved slightly inward to be more flattering on my arms to accentuate my chest and flatten my stomach.
Then she put me in simple sneakers and slung a bunch of gold necklaces around my neck.
And she tamed my hair into slightly more manageable but still wild curls. Did makeup that was subtle but made my eyes pop and my lips look impossibly perfect. My green eyes were almost glowing, the high blush on my cheeks emphasized the cheekbones and made my heart-shaped face look both sultry and soft at the same time.
I hadn’t admitted it to myself, but I wanted to look good for Kane. I wanted to look like I deserved to be with the famous, devilishly-handsome superstar. Though I wasn’t a jealous person, I was mindful of him being ‘on tour’ for the past two weeks. I didn’t exactly know what that entailed, but I could only imagine there were plenty of attractive women in his vicinity. Women with smaller waists, bigger boobs and much less complicated backstories. I didn’t think that I had the ability to be insecure about such things. It turned out I’d never cared about anyone enough to be insecure about them.
Kane hadn’t given me any reason to be unsure. He’d been in constant contact, calling me the second he woke up and the second he went to bed. At all hours.
Yet I couldn’t help feeling doubt.
That he’d see me, and I wouldn’t be what he remembered. That I’d be a disappointment. That I’d been a novelty. One he got caught up in, and once he had distance, a plethora of slim, beautiful uncomplicated women around him, he’d come to his senses. I knew an outfit and hair and makeup couldn’t completely dispel such feelings, but they helped.
Kiera also helped by providing me with endless chatter throughout the trip, barely giving herself a chance to take a breath, and not requiring me to do more than nod and look out the window while picking at my cuticles.
We were escorted from an entrance at the back by large men in suits. Kane had given us the option to be in some private box, but I wanted to be as close to him as I could. Not that I could be that close to him while he was tearing around a track on a motorcycle. And I wanted the true experience of what it would be like to come as a fan, to be on the ground.
Our section was cordoned off from the rest of the general public, with seats and a refreshment stand. I didn’t know if this was the norm or something Kane had organized for us.
Brax was there. On the phone when we arrived, his eyes running over me dismissively, Kiera sleazily before he gave us a patronizing nod and returned to his phone call. He hadn’t gotten off that thing since we arrived, which I was glad about.
“Yep, you were right,” Kiera said in my ear as we settled ourselves in the seats. Her eyes were on Brax. “Total asshole. My detector has taken a while to calibrate, but I can spot them from a mile away now. Unless I’m sleeping with them.”
I suppressed a chuckle. She wasn’t wrong. Not that I socialized with her ‘boyfriends’—though that was a generous term for them—but I’d heard about them plenty, had had a crying Kiera on my couch and in my kitchen eating chocolate mousse cake many times.
I nodded in agreement, deciding that I was going to ignore Brax if he was going to do that to me. I’d stopped forcing myself to be polite to assholes long ago.
I looked around at the arena. It was much like any sporting venue stadium with the staggered seating, the thrumming crowd. But instead of a baseball or football field, there was a large dirt pit in the middle, with various hills and valleys—the ‘track,’ I assumed.
My eyes traced over the various slopes and ramps with interest. Not having anything to compare them with, I could only use my imagination to figure out what they would be used for. Jumping through the air. On motorcycles. My nails bit into my palms, thinking of Kane doing that. He’d been doing it for weeks and survived—he’d been doing it for years and survived—but still, dread curled up my spine.
Then I moved my attention to the stands. People were still filtering in, but the entire place was packing up. Quickly. It looked like every one of these seats was going to be filled. How many were there? Thousands. Tens of thousands?
“Wasn’t extreme sports like a ’90s thing?” I asked Kiera, leaning over in her direction while staring at the crowd.
Kiera scoffed, downing her drink before looking at me with an arched brow. “Honey, where have you been for the past five years?”
“In a kitchen or sleeping,” I replied. She knew this.
“You don’t scroll through social media, like at all?” Her nails drummed on the screen of her ever-present phone. I couldn’t even be sure I’d brought mine. I must’ve. I was keeping better track of it now since it was my only line of communication to Kane. Plus, I wanted to ensure the restaurant could reach me in case of problems. Not that I could do anything in New Jersey.
I wanted a night out like a normal person. A normal person who was going to watch her kind of boyfriend perform motorcycle tricks in front of thousands— tens of thousands —of people.
“I only have social media because you made me one, and I only follow you. I haven’t gone on since you created the profile,” I informed her, something again, I thought she knew.
Her horrified face told me that my best friend had been ignorant of just how unaware I was to the goings-on of the virtual world.
“Babe, I knew you were not a social media addict, but I didn’t think you were off the fucking grid.”
I rolled my eyes, taking a sip of my drink before scanning the area again. People were still taking their seats, the music pumping over the speakers, but there were also people seemingly finishing setup on the track.
My stomach felt like it was trying to climb up into my throat.
It must almost be time.
I looked back to Kiera. “I don’t think I can be classified as ‘off grid’ just because I don’t know about influencers … aside from you, I mean.”
“I’m the only influencer that anyone needs to know about.” She gave me a sly smile. I knew it was a joke, because despite the seemingly vapid title, my friend was a deep person who struggled with a lot of insecurity. All of her makeup, her online persona was just that… a persona she wore to survive her insecurities.
I knew a thing or two about that.
“But we’re not talking about makeup gurus or lifestyle vloggers here,” she continued. “We’re talking about culture .”
I pursed my lips, gesturing to the track. “You’re going to classify this as culture?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, did I miss your weekly pilgrimages to the Louvre or the Met?” she asked dryly. “Or did I neglect your love of the opera and classical music?”
I smiled at my friend’s gentle ribbing.
“Like it or not, darling, pop culture is the culture of the time.” She nodded her head to the arena. “Which happens to include super-hot dudes riding on motorcycles and jumping shit. Which people have dug in a big way for a long time. Although I’ll give it to you, it used to be a certain societal niche that enjoyed things like X-Games. But the sport has had somewhat of a resurgence. Not entirely because of Kane Rhodes, but let’s just say this stadium would not be at capacity if it weren’t for him.”
She wasn’t wrong. I’d been ignorant of him and the power of social media for a long time, but since I’d been researching him, I couldn’t deny the league of fame he was in. It was hard to remember when I was with him. Because he wasn’t Kane ‘The Devil’ Rhodes when we were together.
I still didn’t know how I felt about that. We’d enjoyed a relationship in the shadows, drinking coffees together in the early morning, no realities of who we truly were in the daylight.
That time had ended. I was with someone famous. Hugely famous. He had millions of followers on social media, was photographed wherever he went. And whenever a woman was with him, she was picked apart.
By accident or grace, that hadn’t happened with me. Yet.
A deep dread rolled in my stomach, knowing it was just a matter of time before that happened unless I ended it. I had a small amount of attention and fame, but I had managed to remain uninteresting enough that people didn’t want to know about Avery Hart the person. Any kind of attention that Kane enjoyed, even an ounce of it, was too much for me.
Yet there I was.
“That purse is ridiculous,” I muttered as Keira took longer than she should’ve trying to arrange her phone, lip gloss and credit card just so the thing closed.
“This is not just a purse,” she said, aghast. “This is the Fendi Baguette from the Sex and the City movies. Do you know how hard these are to get? It’s a collector’s item.”
I rolled my eyes. Another way that Kiera and I were vastly different—I did not get excited over purses, certainly not overpriced ones that the designer paid big bucks to put in a movie in order to create a false scarcity and try to justify the price tag.
Not that I would ever say that to Kiera, never judging her for the things that made her happy. She worked damn hard for every cent she made.
“It’s my thurdy gift to myself,” she declared, admiring the bag. I took back every judgmental thing I thought about it. If something as simple as a bag could bring that look of childlike joy to my friend’s face, who cared about the price or the false scarcity?
“You’re thirtieth?” I echoed. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”
Kiera shot me a vicious gaze. “It absolutely is not a little late for that since I’m only twenty-nine .”
I kept my lips pressed shut. Kiera had been twenty-nine for three years. Another thing I didn’t understand about women—how we were desperate to seem younger, not just denying the aging process but spending thousands on making it look like we were perpetually in our twenties.
I held up my hands in surrender. “Okay, so you’re twenty-nine, and it’s an early thirtieth gift.”
“ Thurdy , not thirty,” she said.
“Thurdy?” I repeated.
She nodded. “A thurdy gift is something a woman in her thirties or older buys for herself. It’s most often rather expensive and from a casual observer’s gaze impractical, but it brings her joy and signifies the life she’s building for herself.” She grinned at me. “I coined the term. Think it’ll catch on?”
The roar of the crowd jerked us from our conversation. Music was playing so loud it became a second heartbeat inside my body. I watched in awe as bikes sped by, unaware that was possible.
Then Kane was announced.
The crowd went wild. I could feel the change in energy. The power that he wielded.
“Fuck yeah!” Kiera shouted from beside me, grinning widely at me and quite obviously embracing the energetic atmosphere.
I couldn’t embrace anything.
My heart stuttered as Kane went through the air at a height that seemed inconceivable. It only resumed at an uneven beat when he landed back on the ground, wheels first, carrying on the track at a dizzying speed.
More roars. My pulse was racing at a speed that made me feel like I’d just drank four espressos. I was more wired than I had been in any kitchen.
And that was just from watching.
I felt excitement, I felt dread, I felt immense fear. That was Kane. Doing this. And he did this constantly. Rode hand in hand with death. This was the man I was with.
I loved it. Hated it.
Music boomed through the stadium, his bike flipping and flying seemingly with the rhythm. He hung off it, holding on to the handlebars with one hand in a move that seemed to defy physics. It was like a dance. It was an art, I realized. Not just someone hopping on a motorcycle to prove they were a man, like Kane had told me. No, this required skill. Though the ones who came before him were impressive, there was a tangible difference. I understood why he was so famous. Because he was the best in the world. He made it look effortless.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I was almost having fun.
It didn’t happen in slow motion. It was a frantic, horrible, terrifying blur. He was up in the air one moment, just like before. But unlike moments earlier, he didn’t land smoothly with a cheer from the crowds. No, he crashed.
Crashed.
A normal word from the past. I’d heard about people getting hurt, killed in accidents before, and I’d had a detached kind of sympathy for them, knew crashes happened. They were a part of life.
But not this life.
Not my life.
Not Kane’s life.
Surely, that couldn’t have been what happened, but it seemed like all sound had been sucked from the stadium. I was in an abyss. Everyone around me ceased to exist.
There were no more screams, no more pulsating crowd. There was nothing but the replay of Kane in the air then being on the ground.
I started moving, obviously. Because at one point I was standing in our little section, and then I was moving. Sprinting. Pushing past people, elbows, hips, arms. Then I jumped over fences, over the barriers between the course and the crowd.
I couldn’t be sure how long it took me to get from my spot to Kane. There were already people around him, but not the paramedics who needed to be there. Not the army of people who needed to be there to ensure Kane was okay.
I half collapsed, half skidded on my knees when I made it to him. I noticed from a faraway place that there was a dull sting in my legs. But that was nothing compared to the burn in my lungs as I struggled to breathe around the image of Kane, prone, lying on the ground.
Brax was there.
I didn’t know why Brax was there and not an army of doctors. I didn’t know how he’d gotten there first. Maybe because there was a portion of time between the crash and me moving when I froze. When I was a thirteen-year-old girl being told her father was dead. I was experiencing loss again, preparing for it. Brax hadn’t done that. He’d obviously moved quicker than me, and I didn’t like that.
He was trying to pull off Kane’s helmet.
“You’re not supposed to do that,” I hissed over the buzz in my ears, swatting his hands away.
Brax glanced up at me. Still in the midst of this, there was a cold annoyance in his gaze. And in that moment, I loathed him. I wanted to stab him in the eye, punch him in the face. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to kill him.
“He’s good, he’s fine. Aren’t you, bro?” His tone was infuriatingly casual, light.
“You don’t just fucking ‘rub some dirt’ on this situation,” I snapped at Brax. “He fell. From the sky. On a motorcycle.”
My eyes turned to Kane, though I was terrified to look at his face in case it was pale and lifeless or there was blood coming out of his ears.
But I locked on to sapphire eyes. Open. Awake. Aware.
A part of me relaxed. Slightly. My teeth were no longer in danger of immediately snapping from the force I was grinding them.
“Chef.” Kane’s voice sounded normal. Not like he’d plummeted from … how many feet in the air on a motorcycle?
I crawled closer to him, not glancing at Brax but having the strong urge to elbow him in the gut. Or in that pretty face of his. How is it he was here first? Protecting his investment.
I swallowed my bitterness toward Brax to focus on Kane.
“Kind of envisioned being a bit more impressive the first time you saw me ride,” he joked. He sounded like himself, but there was a tension to his voice, a straining around his eyes that told me he was in pain.
“I’m plenty impressed,” I said honestly, forcing myself to be calm. “You fell from a thousand feet and are talking to me, still handsome as ever.”
He let out a laugh that turned into a cough that sounded wet.
My heart dropped out of my chest, right there onto the dirt.
I ripped my eyes from Kane’s to look for someone to help so I wouldn’t watch him die there, in front of thousands of people.
Like I’d conjured them, the paramedics made their way to us.
“Give us some space, please,” one of them said.
Though it felt wrong at the very core of me, I let go of Kane’s hand and stood up to let them do their work.
Brax was somehow beside me.
He touched my shoulder in a way that maybe was supposed to be reassuring, but it felt controlling, his hold was too firm, bordering on painful.
Kane’s eyes were on us, on me, which was likely why Brax made the gesture, to keep up appearances.
I didn’t flinch out of his grip as I so wanted to; I didn’t want to give Kane a reason to worry about me.
“Her knees,” Kane gritted out as they lifted him onto a gurney.
I frowned at him. His helmet was intact, but maybe he was concussed.
“Her fuckin’ knees,” he repeated, pointing to me. He waved his hands at the paramedics, shrugging them off. “I don’t want anyone fucking touching me until they look at my woman’s knees.”
When all eyes turned to me, I looked down. My jeans, my magical jeans had ripped, and sure enough, there was blood dribbling down my legs from two grazes I’d obviously sustained when I’d skidded against the rocky surface.
They stung faintly.
“You can’t be serious,” I huffed, taking the chance to pull myself from Brax’s side to walk toward Kane. “You just crashed from fifty feet in the air. I just did what most third-graders do on a daily basis.”
“You’re bleeding,” Kane argued, his voice steel. “Take care of her first,” he ordered the paramedics.
They didn’t look happy about it, but it seemed they also couldn’t resist the authority in Kane’s tone because they made a move toward me.
“Do not even think about it.” I held up my hand. “Toss some Band-Aids my way while we’re in the ambulance, and you’re taking care of him.” My voice had its own authority. I might not have had muscles nor been a man, but I’d controlled kitchens for years.
“I’m not letting anyone do shit to me while my woman is bleeding.” Kane was obviously not letting it go. His eyes twinkled as they focused on me, but I could see the pain ringing in them. “I’m a stubborn son of a bitch, Chef, and I haven’t lost a battle of the wills yet.”
I squared my shoulders. “Well, you’ve never engaged in one with me.”
Then, with effort, I tore my eyes from him to focus on the paramedics who were watching us both. "I understand he is a brute, a famous brute and can be somewhat convincing in a hardheaded kind of way, but he’s also just sustained a serious injury. And I’ll tell you right now, if you even think about tending to me before him, I’ll make sure to sue you for negligence.” I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t do that, and I did feel vaguely guilty for threatening people who saved lives on a daily basis, but panic was crawling up my throat, and I had no other option.
“Tranquilize him if you need to,” I added when I saw Kane’s lips part to argue. “I’ll do it myself if I have to.” My voice was cold, calm and utterly unyielding. I focused my gaze back on Kane, prepared for a fight, knowing I was going to win.
Kane’s face was still hard, mostly from pain at that point. At least that’s what I was guessing because his eyes had turned soft. Tender.
“Fuck, I love you,” he said.
I blinked.
He just said he loved me.
After crashing a motorcycle from a dizzying height.
While on a gurney.
With a crowd full of people watching.
Granted, they likely couldn’t hear him, but the paramedics could.
I could.
He must’ve had a head injury.
I swallowed the butterflies in my throat and steadied myself as the world had gone and tilted since he uttered that sentence.
“If that’s true, you won’t say another word, and you’ll let these nice people take care of you,” I ordered stiffly.
If Kane was upset about me not returning the words, he didn’t show it on his face. He just smiled lazily. “Yes, Chef,” he replied dutifully.
I sagged as the paramedics took this as permission, instantly getting to work on him. Although I rode in the ambulance, I opted to do so in the front. There was no room for me back there. Not with all the equipment, the people trying to help Kane and with those three words.
I was done for.
Kane was alive. For now.
But I feared our relationship was terminal.