12. Kane #3
“It’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten,” I clarify as solemnly as I can, so she knows I’m serious.
She preens. “That’s better.”
A moment of silence follows. The popping of the oil has settled down now that the burner’s off, so our mingled breathing and the groan of the walk-in freezer are the only sounds left in this warm little oasis.
The world outside is cold and frosted over. But in here, the swirls of flour and sugar feel like a private snowfall for us and us alone.
And we are definitely alone.
In a sick and twisted sort of way, this is what I came for tonight. I wanted a brief, private audience with Connor Boyd, so I could squeeze him until he crumbled and gave me what I was truly after.
In many ways, this is better. I have direct access to the source. I’m one whispered threat away from getting this woman to sign over her life’s work to me.
A single sentence and a single signature. That’s all it would take, and the last building on this block would finally be mine.
“What?” Delilah asks, suddenly nervous. It’s like she can sense the dark turn my thoughts have taken. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I make a spur-of-the-moment choice:
Not yet.
I won’t rip it all away from her. It’s fucking Christmas Eve, after all. Even I’m not that cruel.
Or so I tell myself.
Instead, I lie.
“Because you have sugar on your face.”
She frowns and goes to wipe it with her forearm, but that’s dirty, too, so it only makes things worse.
“Stop moving,” I order.
She stops.
I step even closer.
She doesn’t know what’s happening. I’m not sure, either. The possibilities at my fingertips are endless.
All that’s obvious is that I am here and towering over her, and she is here and so fucking breakable beneath me.
Her pupils are enormous. Her chest rises fast under the apron bib.
Her hands hang open at her sides, floury, useless, and the breath that trickles between her plump lips is tinged sweet with sugar.
It’s fear in her eyes.
It’s want.
It’s both.
It’s everything.
I hold there and let myself savor the taste of it all on my tongue.
Because this is the thing I’ve been hunting in fights and card rooms and bottles for years. Not obedience. Not a woman lying still and smiling at whatever I say.
This.
Somebody truly alive in front of me.
“Kane…” she whispers.
“Hold still.”
I lift my hand and paint her cheek tenderly with my thumb, from the bone down toward her jaw. The sugar comes off her skin. She doesn’t dare breathe.
Then, without breaking eye contact, I put my thumb to my mouth and suck the sugar off of it.
When there’s nothing left, I sigh and step back.
“There,” I say. “You’re clean.”
I turn away from her. I need distance. We’re too warm and too drunk on sweets and the irresponsibility of being tucked away from a snow-covered world at midnight.
Anything could happen in here.
That is a very bad idea.
“I’m leaving,” I announce.
Her head comes up. “Now?”
“Right now.”
“Were the doughnuts that bad?”
“I meant what I said: It was the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” I retrieve my coat from the hook where she draped it. “That’s not why I’m going.”
“Then why?”
“Because I need to think, and I can’t do it in here.”
She wipes her hands on the apron and shuffles anxiously in place. I shrug my coat on and feel the weight of it settle back down, reminding me of who I am and what my role is in this life.
It’s not to eat fucking pastries with a shy, beautiful civilian, that’s for sure.
“Thank you for the food,” I say.
“Uh. You’re welcome.”
“I’ll be back soon.” I bump the door of the swinging kitchen open with my shoulder, then stop. “One more thing: Don’t tell anyone about me.”
“Why not?”
“Just humor me.” I look back at her, standing there in flour and party dress. “Tonight will be our little secret, Lilah.”
She frowns at the name. “Lilah?”
She’s framed in the doorway, curvy and gorgeous. The snow is coming down behind her in the window glass and she’s got flour on her forearms. If she told me she was an angel sent to this earth for me and me alone, I might be crazy enough to believe her.
“Everyone in your life has a name for you,” I explain in a gruff voice. “Your husband says Dee. Your sister says Dee-Dee, like you’re a dog. Your mother says Delilah Aileen when she wants something out of you.”
“You were listening in that pantry a long time.”
I nod. “And the family chant. Do-It-All Delilah.”
“That one’s a job description.”
“Exactly. So every name you’ve ever been called has somebody’s filthy fucking fingerprints on it,” I go on. “I won’t pick up where they left off.”
“So you just invented one?”
“Yes. For me alone,” I confirm.
“And I don’t get a vote?”
“Of course you do. Tell me not to say it and I won’t.”
She opens her mouth. Then she shuts it again, brushes past me, and pulls open the back entrance. Cold surges in over both of us and ruffles the paper edges taped by her register.
“Goodnight, Kane,” she says.
I step out into the snow.
“Goodnight, Lilah.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “You’re crazy. Nobody calls me that.”
“From now on,” I tell her, “I do.”