15. - Corey -
Chapter fifteen
- Corey -
M orning light bathed Corey's face, as warm as the body pressed up against her. Corey shifted, and Kayden nuzzled himself in closer, tightening his arm around her waist. She ran her fingers through his dishevelled hair, keeping her eyes closed, unwilling to wake up from the high of the night before.
“I like waking up like this,” she murmured honestly.
“Like what?” The words grumbled sleepily into her neck.
“Safe.” she said. And smiled, turning in his arms to face him.
He was awake now, eyes open and locked on hers. “You feel safe?”
“Here? Yes.”
“And before, at your ex’s, you didn’t feel safe?”
Corey thought about her answer before responding. “He was…. unstable. He used to hurt me.”
Kayden looked at her neck, her shoulder, touched his thumb to her lip where he’d bitten her. It definitely felt sore and swollen.
“It seems you have a type.” His eyes were still on her neck.
“You’re not like them.”
“No?” His left eyebrow lifted, like he didn’t believe her .
“Trust me, you’re not. You could have killed me already, and you haven’t even tried. So there’s that.” She tried to say it playfully, making a joke of the situation she’d ended up in.
Kayden’s eyebrows knit together. “You deserve more than the bare minimum, Corey.”
Her name in his mouth had her stomach flipping over itself, like she’d missed a step on the staircase.
“Most men I’ve known in my life have just been takers. They used violence to get what they wanted. The physical abuse was born out of resentment and animosity, just throwing a tantrum when they didn’t get their way. My ex hurt me, but I was big enough to hurt him back. It was worse when I was younger… in foster care, when I was smaller.”
She trailed off. She’d told very few about her experience in the system. People hadn’t believed her, so she’d stop trying to get anyone to listen. “Anyway, you’re nothing like the men I’ve known. You’re a giver, Kayden. You may have some violent tendencies, but you have a good heart.” She pressed her hand to the tanned skin between his thick pecs.
He didn’t look like he agreed.
She wanted to say more, but she swallowed her words. It was enough honesty for one morning.
“How long were you in foster care?” His question surprised her. She figured Jason would have shared her profile with him.
“Jason didn’t tell you?”
“Just what you said in the kitchen. I’d rather you tell me then read your records.”
“When I was four years old, the fire department pulled me from our burning house. I was told later that it was basically a crack den. I lost my parents in the fire. The authorities didn't investigate the matter much. From what I understand, we lived in a poor part of the city, and I guess the slums aren’t really worth the resources.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, using the soreness there to keep herself together before continuing.
“I had no other family or anyone to take me in, so they admitted me into the system. I don’t really remember much from before I was school-aged, but in elementary school, I started getting moved around a lot. Then in high school, it was pretty regular. I’ve been in a lot of homes. When I finally graduated, I was able to go out on my own. So, to answer your question, I guess 14 years?”
“Did you go to university?”
"No, I just worked after finishing high school so I could afford a room in a shared apartment."
“Where did you work?”
“Mostly in bars. Did you go to university?”
“No, we didn’t. Uh, me and Jason didn’t go to school. We ended up starting a business.”
“Is that how you got all this money?”
“We’re entrepreneurs,” Kayden said seriously.
“If that’s what you want to call it,” Corey said, laughing at him. “And what industry is it that you two work in? Drugs, weapons or humans?”
“I don’t think I should be telling you that,” Kayden answered, rolling on top of her and pinning her to the bed.
Corey just shrugged under him. “Who am I going to tell?”
Kayden brushed her hair behind her ear, considering her words. Between the helmet, the swim, the sex and sleeping, she couldn’t imagine the rat’s nest her hair was in this morning, even though he had taken so much time to comb through it last night.
“We work in the pharmaceutical industry,” he disclosed, finally giving her a little information about them, ambiguous as it was.
“Drugs, then,” she smiled .
“Speaking of pharmaceuticals, if you were on the pill, you probably haven’t taken it in a while…” Kayden let the implication hang in the air between them.
“I have an IUD,” Corey confirmed before he could spiral about last night.
“Good to know.” Kayden kissed her neck. It felt very tender. She stretched her body out underneath him and groaned.
“You’re sore?”
Corey blushed. She probably should be used to blushing so much lately, but it still irked her that he could get a rise out of her so easily.
“A little,” she admitted.
“Go take a hot shower. I’ll make some coffee.”
Corey didn’t argue. A hot shower sounded great.
He left her with another kiss to her neck, grabbing the pool towel from the floor and wrapping it around his naked waist. The muscles of his abs stood out deliciously as he moved. He ran a hand through his black hair, pushing it out of his eyes. His body was immaculate, like it had been carved from stone. Corey had to swallow a request that he get back in bed.
Kayden’s lips ticked up as he caught her gawking at him, but he didn’t stop.
Corey dragged herself to the bathroom. She didn’t even need to turn the lights on as the morning sun came in through the windows.
Glancing at her watch, she realized it was almost 10:00 a.m. She still didn’t know what day it was.
Corey turned the shower on and let it heat while she brushed her teeth. She saw her reflection in her mirror and had to do a double take. Her lip was bruised and puffy, two distinct lines beneath the lower lip—from Kayden’s teeth. The skin around the shoulder bite was equally mangled. But the bruises on her neck were what shocked her, stark even against her tanned skin. She brought her fingers up to her neck, trailing them along the handprint imprinted on her skin. There was a distinct tightening in her core as she recalled Kayden suffocating her over and over again until she came so hard that she blacked out.
She had never experimented with asphyxiation; it had never even been on her radar. Given her history with men, her experience with consensual sex had been relatively vanilla, though rough. It was hard for her to trust a man in a position of physical power, yet she hadn’t even panicked when Kayden pressed down on her airway. She had innately trusted him. There had been tenderness to his violence, intention. He may have wanted to cause her pain, but only enough to amplify her pleasure.
Kayden was attentive in a way she’d never experienced before. It was like he was actively listening to every sound she made, aware of every slight tell her body would give, like he was trying to get into her mind.
With some effort, Corey shifted her attention away from her ravaged neck and brushed her teeth.
The steam from the shower was spilling out into the bathroom, and she hopped in, excited to try her new shampoo.
After, Corey dressed in a new pair of leggings and a soft cotton long-sleeve, courtesy of Kayden’s impromptu shopping spree, and she made her way to the kitchen.
Kayden was fixing her a latte when Jason trudged down the open stairway and into the kitchen, bare-chested, his grey sweatpants clinging low to his hips. His green eyes were bloodshot, dark hair sticking up at odd angles. Like Kayden had earlier, he ran his hands through his hair, ruffling it up even more.
He looked rough.
“You look like shit,” Kayden said, voicing exactly what she was thinking.
Jason just grunted.
“You hungover?” he asked.
Jason grunted again.
“I’ll make pancakes!” Corey said. He was Kayden’s brother, and if she could put a little bit of effort in to decrease the weird tension between them, she may as well try. He had left dinner out for her last night, after all. “I’m kind of just learning to cook, though? So don’t expect anything on your calibre.”
“On my calibre?” Jason responded, voice gravelly, probably from the cigarettes she’d watched him chain smoke last night.
“Kayden said you’re an exceptional cook.” Jason just looked at his brother. “I mean, the chicken curry was amazing, so I can agree with him on that.” What was this weird, cheery thing she was doing? She chided herself internally and got off her barstool while Jason took his own seat.
In the pantry, she pulled out what she needed for pancakes, and got to work mixing her ingredients on the island, taking sips of her latte while she did. Kayden made Jason a coffee. The coffee in this household was divine—it was like going to a café every day. She was so used to shitty drip coffee that she’d almost forgotten how good it could be.
When she finished at the stove, Corey piled all the pancakes on a plate and pulled out three more plates for them.
“Do you have whipped cream?” she asked, breaking the silence, but already expecting an answer in the negative, given how healthy their kitchen always was.
“Nope.” Kayden said with some sass, like not having whipped cream made them superior to the rest of the population somehow. But he got up from where he was sitting and came around her side.
“Maple syrup is in the fridge.” Jason said, not looking up from his mug. “There might be some berries in there, too.”
“Go sit down, baby. I’ll get everything else,” Kayden whispered in her ear. She bit her tender lip in an attempt to stop any fucking colour from rushing to her cheeks. It didn’t help.
Corey sat down on the barstool, leaving a space in between her and Jason. He looked up at her, just barely, but his eyes locked onto her neck, an unreadable expression on his face. She shifted in her seat, feeling slightly embarrassed .
But there was nothing to be ashamed of, so she just lifted an eyebrow at him, daring him to say something. “See something you like?”
His nostrils flared. He tried to sneer at her, but it fell flat. He turned back to his coffee, and she knew the colour in her cheeks was deepening.
Kayden dished out pancakes and syrup to both her and his brother, sitting down in between them, cutting off some of the tension.
Jason just looked at his plate, seemingly undecided if her cooking was worth it.
“Eat up, Jase. You need something to sop up that bottle of whiskey.”
Sighing, he took the first bite.
Corey held her breath, expecting him to spit some insult at her. To her surprise, he just scarfed down the food, only stopping for another liberal pour of syrup. Corey took that as a win and dug into her own plate. Kayden was happily chewing beside her.
“I need to work out today.” Kayden said, after he’d cleaned his plate.
“Yeah, I should probably sweat the booze out,” Jason said, looking like that was the last thing he wanted to do.
“Corey is a runner,” Kayden said, watching his brother for a reaction.
“Fascinating,” he responded dismissively, and she could see Kayden stifling a laugh. She wasn’t sure what he was playing at.
“You want to train with us, Corey?” Kayden turned to her. “We have a treadmill in the home gym.”
Corey was taken aback by the invitation. Jason didn’t give any sign that he’d heard his brother, though he obviously had.
“Oh… um… I’m not sure. I love running outside, but running on a treadmill without music actually seems like hell.” She loved running because she could do it anywhere, with no equipment, and she could escape outside and go wherever her legs could take her. She’d also always had a phone for music.
Kayden just shrugged. “It’s up to you, but we’ll put something on the speakers.”
“Okay, then,” she agreed. “I need to digest first. Let me clean this up.”
The guys let her move around the kitchen, putting things away and loading the dishwasher. Both of them tracked all of her movements. She felt more flustered than she had since she’d been here. The dynamic between her and Kayden had irrevocably shifted, and she wasn’t sure where that left them.
“What day is it?” she asked.
“Saturday.” She wasn’t looking at them, wasn’t sure which one of them had responded. The answer had done nothing to help her anyway. She could ask about the date, but did she even want to know? Had it been one week or two since she’d been here? Did it matter? It really didn’t matter, she decided.
“Why? Do you have plans?” She turned back around to see Kayden grinning at her.
“Yes, actually. I’m going to the gym.” She stuck her tongue out at him like a child, and his eyes flashed.
“Careful with that,” he said, and his smile only widened.
“Are you going to bite it off?”
“I just might.”
“Wouldn’t really benefit you in the long run now, would it?” she asked cheekily, waggling her tongue at him again.
She saw Jason scowl then drain his mug.
“I’ll see you in the gym in an hour,” Jason said to his brother, getting up from his seat. Then he looked right at her, holding her eyes. His gaze was so intense, it set her skin on fire. He seemed to catalogue her every detail.
After a beat, he said, “Thanks for breakfast.” Then turned his scarred back on her.
She saw Kayden press his lips together, trying to hide what looked like amusement.