18. Chapter Eighteen #2
I stalk forward slowly, deliberately, letting each step echo cold and harsh on marble tile. Camille’s gaze lifts to meet mine, and for one raw second, I let her see everything raging behind my eyes. I watch her breath catch, watch the softness in her expression sharpen instantly into caution.
Smart girl.
“Leo.” My voice is low, controlled, quiet enough to kill. My eyes never leave Camille.
Leo swallows visibly, quickly setting down the knife. “Mr. Rivera. Good morning.”
“Get out,” I say softly. Deadly. No room for interpretation.
He wipes his hands hastily on a towel, shooting Camille a brief, apologetic look that spikes my rage even higher. I track the movement closely, the subtle concern…the fucking audacity.
He’s out the door a second later, careful to avoid my eyes again.
Camille sits straighter, wary, fingers tight around her glass. “Was that necessary?”
I close the remaining distance, planting my palms flat on the counter, boxing her in. She doesn’t flinch, but her pulse hammers wildly at the hollow of her throat. Good. She’s not stupid enough to think this is casual.
“You’re laughing,” I say quietly. “With a man who isn’t me.”
She raises her chin just enough to meet my gaze, stubborn, strong, goddamn beautiful. “He’s your chef, Kane. He was making a joke.”
“I missed the fucking punchline,” I snap, voice dark, raw. “But clearly you didn’t.”
Her eyes flash. “I’m bored. You’re never here. I have to talk to someone.”
Wrong fucking answer.
“You’re bored?” My voice lowers dangerously. “You want entertainment, Camille? You need attention? Laughs?”
Her breath comes faster, pupils dilating sharply. “That’s not fair…”
“I’m not fair,” I growl. My hand snaps out, gripping her jaw, angling her face up. “I’m selfish. Possessive. Violent. Especially when it comes to you. You’re not new to this.”
Her chest rises rapidly, lips parting softly. I can almost taste her adrenaline. Her fear. Her fucking desire. “He means nothing, Kane.”
“I don’t care what he means,” I murmur coldly. “I care what he sees. What he hears. Your smiles. Your laughter. That’s mine, Camille. Every breath you take belongs to me.”
She shudders beneath my touch, eyes darkening. “You’re jealous.”
“I’m fucking homicidal,” I correct quietly, thumb pressing against her lip, tracing the shape possessively. “Do you understand the difference?”
She swallows hard, eyes locked on mine. “I wasn’t trying…”
“Doesn’t matter.” I lean in until my mouth brushes hers, voice harsh and raw. “You let him see something he shouldn’t. You showed him a piece of you that’s mine.”
Her breath trembles against my lips, heart slamming so loudly I can almost feel it through my fingertips. “Then remind me who I belong to.”
I kiss her like I’m punishing her for making me feel this fucking insane. It’s brutal. Unforgiving. A theft of breath, of thought, of power. My hand fists in her hair, dragging her deeper into the kind of kiss that scorches, feral, raw, a threat carved into the seam of her mouth.
She gasps when I pull back, lips bruised, breath shattering against mine. Her pupils are blown, cheeks flushed, the neckline of her white dress clinging to her like sin I haven’t forgiven yet.
“There’s your fucking reminder,” I growl against her mouth, dragging my thumb across her lips, swollen and wet from me. “You smile for me. You laugh for me. You fucking breathe for me.”
She stares up at me like she knows she’s in too deep, but she doesn’t run. Never does. Her chest rises in quick, shallow bursts, her dress like parchment against fire, thin, delicate, and already halfway gone in my head.
I see the flicker in her eyes, guilt, defiance, arousal. That perfect storm that makes me lose every ounce of control I pretend to have.
“I hate when you look at anyone else,” I say, voice flat and sharp, like a blade to the throat. “Even for a second. Even if it didn’t mean a goddamn thing.”
“Kane…” she whispers. It’s not a protest. It’s a confession.
My hand slips from her jaw to her throat, not squeezing. Just reminding. Claiming.
“I don’t fucking share,” I whisper, voice like a blade scraping over stone. “Not your attention. Not your laugh. Not even the way your breath catches when someone looks at you like they see what only I’m allowed to.”
She shivers beneath my touch, spine rigid, her pulse throbbing against my fingers. But she doesn’t move, doesn’t dare break the contact that binds her to me.
“I wasn’t flirting,” she says quietly, stubbornly. Defiant even now.
My jaw clenches, teeth grinding together. I tilt her face up sharply, forcing her eyes on mine, forcing her to witness the unhinged violence she stirs inside me.
“I don’t give a fuck what you think you were doing.” My voice is low, controlled fury lacing every syllable. “He looked at you like he had the right. Like he could be the one to make you laugh, to claim you.”
Her brow creases in frustration. “You’re acting like I cheated.”
A harsh laugh rips from my throat, cold, raw, filled with dark promise. It lingers, suspended in the charged space between us, heavy and unmistakable.
“If you’d actually cheated, Camille,” I rasp, my voice savage, brutal truth dripping from every word, “he’d already be rotting beneath the foundation of my fucking house.
And you?” My grip tightens painfully, possessively, on her jaw.
“I’d keep you somewhere no one could ever look at you again.
No light, no freedom, no chance of escape. Just darkness…and me.”
Her breath stalls in her chest, eyes widening as she registers the quiet brutality behind my words. I watch her carefully, drinking in her reaction, the flare of shock that bleeds into something deeper, something twisted and hungry she’d rather deny.
But denial won’t save her now. Not from me. Not from this.
“You’re being insane…”
I squeeze, not hard, just enough to make her gasp, to remind her she’s mine and I’m not fucking sane.
“You think I’ll ever be sane about you? Rational?” My mouth is at her ear now, breathing heat and warning. “There is no version of me that exists calmly in your orbit, Camille. You lit the fuse. I’m just what burns.”
Her breath stalls, pupils flaring wide with something she won’t name, fear, fascination, twisted craving. The delicate column of her throat pulses beneath my thumb, betraying every word she won’t say out loud.
“You wouldn’t,” she breathes, barely audible. “You wouldn’t dare.”
My thumb brushes roughly over her trembling bottom lip, forcing her silence, feeling her breath hitch beneath my touch.
“Try me,” I murmur, voice cruelly soft. “I promise you, munequita, daring me is the most dangerous thing you could ever fucking do.”
Her chest rises sharply, eyes blazing, anger warring openly with desire. A part of her wants to fight me, deny this sick pull we share, but the other half, the half she’s terrified to admit exists, craves it. Craves me. My violence, my obsession, my ruin.
She swallows hard, eyes narrowing in challenge even as her body trembles beneath my touch. “ “Kane…just…stop leaving me alone.”
My hand slides lower, gripping her throat gently but firmly, keeping her exactly where I want her. “Is that what this is? Punishing me because you can’t handle solitude?”
“No,” she snaps, but her voice cracks with raw, vicious honesty. “It’s because when you’re gone, it feels like you forget I exist.”
My control splinters dangerously, and I pull her flush against me, my lips grazing hers with brutal softness.
“Forget you?” My voice is guttural, harsh, drowning in violent obsession.
“You’re in my blood, Camille. You poison every fucking breath I take.
Forgetting you would mean forgetting how to breathe. ”
Her lips part, trembling, eyes darkening. “Then breathe with me.”
My grip loosens just enough for my thumb to caress her jaw, deceptively gentle, though every nerve in my body screams with reckless possessiveness.
“Understand this,” I rasp, lethal and quiet.
“I don’t leave you behind because I forget you.
I leave because the things I do, the man I am out there… it’s not safe for you to see.”
Her fingers curl into my shirt, pulling me closer, holding me tighter. “I don’t want safe,” she whispers, desperation threading her words. “I want you.”
Something primitive, unhinged, and dangerously vulnerable surges within me, shattering my resolve. My hand fists her hair, pulling her head back as my lips crash onto hers, violent, claiming, punishing us both. Our breaths tangle, the kiss brutal, edged with the cruel truth we both refuse to admit.
I pull away, just enough to meet her burning gaze.
“Camille,” I warn softly, voice fractured, jagged. “I’m going to drag you into the darkness with me.”
She meets my gaze, unblinking, beautifully ruined, ready to shatter.
“I’m not afraid,” she breathes, eyes burning with fierce defiance. “The dark is where my monster lives.”
The tether inside me snaps, and my restraint disintegrates. I surge forward, gripping her thighs roughly, hoisting her onto the nearest surface. Her back slams against the wall, and I pin her there, trapping her exactly where I need her. Exactly where she belongs.
Her gasp is muffled by my mouth, tongue plunging deep, tasting desperation, surrender, fury.
She meets me with equal hunger, her teeth sharp on my lip, pain mingling with pleasure.
My hands slide up beneath her ruined dress, fingers biting into her hips hard enough to leave bruises, marks she’ll carry as a twisted reminder that she’s mine.
“Tell me,” I demand roughly, my voice barely recognizable. “Tell me who owns you.”
She arches into me, her thighs tightening around my waist, heat radiating through the fabric separating us. Her eyes flash, defiant and pleading. “You do,” she whispers fiercely. “Eternally… you.”