Chapter 31
“What does this one mean?” Kaia asks, trailing a lazy finger over one of the tattoos on my right peck. It’s a pocket watch in the palm of a skeletal hand, entwined with vines and flowers.
“Time’s precious. Life’s too short to waste it by putting shit off or waiting around. It can be taken from us so easily.”
“And this?” she dusts her fingers over my shoulder and down my upper arm, following the soft lines of feathers that form the wing of an angel.
It carries on around my back and over my shoulder blade, and the opposite shoulder, bears the black, jagged wings of the devil.
The perfect balance between good and evil.
“The devil’s wing represents the bad within me, but the angel’s reminds me there’s good in me too. Though, sometimes it feels there’s more bad than good.”
Kaia rises onto her knees and straddles me. “Sometimes good people do bad things for the right reasons, it doesn’t make you a bad person, and there’s so much good in you, Killian. I’ve seen it, I just wish you could see what I do.”
I sit up, wrapping my arms around her waist as I take her mouth.
What the hell does this girl see in me?
I have no idea. All I do know, is she doesn’t see the same damaged shell of a man I see staring back at me every time I catch my reflection in the mirror.
She sees something worth saving. Worth… Loving.
But she doesn’t know the things I’ve done.
She has no idea the plan I set in motion. She has no idea I’m using her to get to her father and that all of this is just temporary.
She’ll never want me again when she learns the truth. My stomach clenches at the reminder.
But in this kiss, under her feather-like touch with her warmth seeping from her body into mine, I can pretend this is my life, my future.
Just for a little while, at least.
I break the kiss, unable to hold back my smile as I peer up at her, savouring this moment, etching it into my mind so I can remember it when she’s gone.
“What?” she asks.
“Nothing.” I love you.
My heart jumps in my chest.
Fuck… I love her.
“What about this one?” Her fingers dip down to the thin, spindly black branches that stretch along my left side, from my hip all the way up to my rib cage.
I shrug. “I just like it.”
It’s a lie. I got it as soon as I got out of prison, putting what happened there in the past in the hopes of leaving it there.
The tree represents a new beginning, that I’m still here.
Still alive. I walked through hell and made it out onto the other side.
But I can’t bring myself to get into it because I’m still processing the fact I’m in love with this girl and the fact my admission doesn’t terrify me like I expected, it excites me.
She laughs, rolling over onto her back next to me, bringing the sheet up to cover her chest.
“Would you tattoo me?” she asks.
“What would you want me to tattoo?”
She fiddles with the butterfly necklace around her neck. “I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a butterfly.”
I groan, my head falling back against the pillow.
She braces herself on her elbows, pinning me with a look. “What’s wrong with a butterfly?”
“If I have to tattoo one more butterfly, I might kill myself.” If I had a dollar for every woman who wanted me to tattoo a butterfly on their body, I’d be a millionaire sunning myself of some beach in a ridiculously hot country right now.
“Well, if you won’t do a butterfly, looks like I’ll have to find someone else who will.”
In a flash, I’m on top of her and she squeals as I pin her wrists to the pillow either side of her head, wedging my hips between her thighs as a wave of possessiveness washes over me. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me.”
I growl. This fucking girl loves to test me, pushing all my buttons, seeing how far she can push before I snap.
I dip down, brushing the tip of my nose along her jaw, breathing in the sweet floral scent of her soft skin. She shivers under my touch. “If you think I’d let anyone else mark what’s mine, you’re sorely mistaken.”
Desire flares in her eyes, her lips curve into a smile. “So… A butterfly then?”
With a roll of my eyes, I concede, knowing there’s no way I can say no to this girl. “A butterfly it is.”
She grins, clearly happy with herself as I roll off her, dropping onto the mattress beside her on my back.
Her phone buzzes on the table next to me. “Can you pass me that?”
“Sure.” I reach across for it. I don’t mean to look at the message illuminating the screen as I grab her phone, but it’s right there.
My heart slams to a halt in my chest, my eyes skimming over the message trying to process what I’m seeing.
There’s no way.
“What the fuck is this?” I ask Kaia, turning the screen around so she can see it.
Her face falls. “It’s nothing,” she replies, and she couldn’t be less convincing if she tried.
I sit up and angle myself towards her. “Don’t lie to me. Tell me the truth.”
She shifts to sit up against the headboard, bringing the sheet up to cover her bare chest. “I’ve been getting messages off an unknown number.”
Messages? “There’s more?”
She nods, taking her phone from my hand, swiping across the screen before handing it back to me and my heart thumps in my chest as I read through half a dozen messages, dating back two weeks, each one making me more and more nauseous.
“I figured they were from some jealous ex or something. I texted the number and asked who it was but the message bounced back. I tried calling and it says the number I’m trying to reach is unavailable.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to bother you with it. It’s probably nothing, just someone messing around.”
I wish it was, because the truth is far worse.
A torrent of memories hit me like a fucking freight train.
Memories I’ve stowed away as best I could, but memories that have haunted my dreams ever since.
His face is at the forefront of my mind, his voice echoing through my head, it’s like I can hear him reading the texts aloud as if he were in the room with me.
I drop the phone onto the mattress and swing out of bed.
“Killian?” Kaia asks.
I pull on a t-shirt and a pair of jeans in record time.
“Killian?”
I cross the room and tug open the bedroom door, letting it swing back on its hinges. She calls out to me again as I leave the room.
“Killian, stop!” she calls again, her footsteps close behind me as I head downstairs. “Where are you going?”
“Need to take care of something,” I reply as I pull on my boots sitting by the front door.
Kaia reaches the bottom of the stairs wearing one of my shirts. The sight of her body barely covered by my clothes isn’t enough to distract me this morning.
I throw on my kutte and grab my keys. I reach for the front door handle but her voice stops me.
“Don’t shut me out.” She lays a hand on my arm and I sigh, glancing over my shoulder to see worry etched across her face, tears glistening in her eyes. “Talk to me, please.”
“Stay in the house. I won’t be long,” is all I say before I pull open the front door, letting it swing closed behind me.
I’m not being fair to her, I know that, but I can’t think straight. My mind is racing and my heart is beating so fast I’m sure I’m going into cardiac arrest.
Throwing my leg over my bike, the engine roars to life beneath me and I take off down the street, the thunderous roar loud in my ears as it echoes down the quiet street.
I know exactly who’s been sending Kaia those messages. But it’s impossible—at least I thought it was—because the person sending them is still in prison.