Chapter 13
SUMMER
Iwake up before Kairo. The room is still dark, the curtains blocking out the early light.
Kairo is on his back, one arm thrown above his head, the other resting on his stomach, his breathing deep and even.
He looks younger when he sleeps, the hard lines of his face softened, the jaw unclenched for once.
My body aches in ways I've lost count of. Yesterday was a lot, not just physically but emotionally too. He confessed he loves me, that he wants this marriage, that he wants to have a family with me, and that he’s been in love with me for seven years.
Bullshit. There's a woman's name tattooed on his arm, a woman he told me means the most to him.
If he's loved me for seven years, then who is she?
He's lying. He’s playing me. Maybe this is all part of his plan for revenge, to have me fall in love with him, and then leave me.
That would break me, and he did say he would break me.
I shift carefully onto my side and look at his inner forearm.
The Greek letters are there, clean and black against his tanned skin.
I've traced them before, in the shower, and he’s shut me down when I’ve questioned him over it.
I need to know who she is, I don’t need a third in our marriage.
I grab my phone from the nightstand while I slide out of bed, every muscle protesting.
I come back to his side of the bed and zoom in on the lettering on his arm and take a photo of it.
My heart is thumping wildly in my chest as the screen captures the Greek letters clearly.
He doesn't stir, thank goodness, as I turn on my heel and slowly and silently rush out of our bedroom.
The corridor is quiet and dark as I pad barefoot to the library, any moment wondering if he is going to wake up and bust me.
Finally, I make it to the green chair where I open the phone, I pull up the photo and zoom in on the letters.
My fingers tremble as I open a translation app and type them in one by one, matching each character to the Greek alphabet.
καλοκα?ρι
I hit translate.
My stomach drops out from under me.
It reads … Summer.
I stare at the screen as the word sits there, simple and impossible.
Summer.
It's me.
The name on his arm is me, and has been the whole time.
I press the phone against my chest and close my eyes.
Every time I asked about it, every time he said it was someone important, someone who means the most to him, he was talking about me.
He tattooed my name on his body before he ever met me properly.
Before the wedding.
Before the island.
Before any of this.
The library door opens, and I jump. Kairo is standing in the doorway in just his shorts, hair messy from sleep, squinting in the low light. He sees me in the chair with the phone pressed against my chest and a look crosses his face.
"Summer?"
“I had to know.”
He looks confused by my response. “Had to know what?”
"It's me." I gasp. "The tattoo. It's my name."
He goes still in the doorway. “How?”
I turn my phone around and show him the photo I took this morning.
This makes him smile. “Clever girl.” He walks into the room slowly. He doesn't sit down, he stands in front of me, looking down at me, curled in the chair with my knees pulled up. "Five years," he says.
My brows pull together. "You put my name on your body five years ago.”
“Yes.”
"You told me it was someone important. Someone who means the most to you. I thought it was another woman. I was jealous of myself."
The corner of his mouth twitches into a small smile.
"Why?" I whisper. "I don't understand. How could someone like you want someone like me?"
"Someone like me?" he questions.
"You're powerful. You're dangerous. You could have anyone. And I'm nothing. I'm a girl who filed paperwork for her father's fake company and couldn't keep a boyfriend for more than two weeks. No man has ever wanted me. I'm worthless.”
His face changes, the softness disappears, and a harder look takes its place, not anger at me but anger at my words.
"That's not true," he says, and his voice is low and tight.
"It is. I've been invisible my whole life. My father didn't see me. No man ever stayed. I'm not the kind of woman men obsess over, Kairo. I'm the kind they forget."
He crouches in front of the chair, so his face is level with mine. He takes my hands and holds them. His grip is firm and warm. "The only reason no man ever stayed was because I made sure they didn't."
I blink. "What?"
"Every man who got near you. Every boyfriend who suddenly lost interest. Every date that got canceled. Every guy who stopped calling." His jaw is tight, but his eyes are steady on mine. "That was me, Summer, all of it, every time."
The room tilts. "What are you saying?"
"The first one, some kid from your street, took you to a movie. I had someone explain the situation to him in a parking lot. He never called you again. The second one took you to dinner and kissed you at your front door. I broke his jaw myself."
I'm staring at him, my mouth is open and no sound is coming out.
"By the third, word was out. Summer Rayne was off-limits. Everyone assumed it was your father being protective." He pauses. "It wasn't your father or brother, it was never them. They didn't care enough to protect you."
"It was you," I whisper.
"It was always me." He grins proudly.
"I thought something was wrong with me. Every time I looked in the mirror and wondered why no one wanted me …" Tears well in my eyes. "That was you." My voice hardens. "I spent hours alone, wondering what was wrong with me. I had convinced myself I was unlovable. You did that to me. What the fuck!”
"Summer …"
I shake my head at him. "No." I stand up from the chair, and he has to step back.
"You don't get to act like this is romantic. You got your wish, Kairo. You broke me, it wasn’t here on this island, no, you broke me years ago.
You took every chance I had at feeling normal, and you ripped them away because you decided I was yours before I ever got a say in it. "
"I was protecting you," he argues.
"From what? From being happy? From having someone hold my hand at a movie without getting their jaw broken?
" My voice is shaking. "I was nineteen, and I thought that boy just didn't like me.
I cried for a week. I stopped eating. I thought I was so ugly and boring that a guy couldn't even be bothered to text me back. And the whole time it was you."
He doesn't look away.
"Do you know what that does to a person?
" I'm in his face now, fists clenched, tears running down my cheeks, but my voice is steel.
"Year after year of no one wanting you? I stopped trying.
I stopped putting myself out there. I stopped believing anyone could ever look at me and think I was enough. And it was all because of you."
"Yes," he says. No excuse. No justification.
"You ruined me before you ever touched me," I cry out to him.
"I know."
"And you're proud of it.”
His jaw tightens. "I'm not proud of what it did to you. I'm proud that no one could have you."
"That's the same thing!" I shove his chest, and he barely moves. "You can't separate those two things. You kept me lonely so you could keep me for yourself. My pain was the price, and you paid it with my self-worth."
I'm breathing hard, confused by everything.
He's standing in front of me, taking every hit, and the worst part is he's not fighting back.
He's not grabbing my wrists or pinning me to a wall or shutting me up with his cock.
He's just standing there letting me tear into him, and that makes me angrier because I don't know what to do with a version of him that doesn't fight back.
"I hate you," I say, but my voice cracks on the word, and we both hear it.
"No, you don't."
"No, I don’t, but I should."
"You should." He reaches out and wipes a tear off my cheek with his thumb.
"But you don't, because now you know the truth.
You were never unlovable, Summer. You were never invisible.
You were never worthless. You were wanted every single day for the last seven years by someone who would have burned the world down to keep you. "
"That doesn't make it okay." I sniffle.
"I know it doesn't, and I’m sorry. I should have … I don’t know,” he says, running his large hand through his dark hair.
"It doesn't fix what you did to my head," I explain to him.
"I know," he says, and he looks ashamed.
"Stop saying I know."
He cups my face and I let him. I hate that I let him, but my hands are shaking, my legs are weak, and the anger is still there, but underneath it, it feels like relief. Because he's right, I wasn't unlovable. I was just loved too much by the wrong person at the wrong time in the wrong way.
"I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you," he says quietly. "I don't expect you to forgive me. I just need you to know that every second you spent thinking you weren't enough was a lie. You were always enough to me. You are my everything."
I close my eyes as the tears keep coming.
"Show me," I whisper. "Stop talking and show me how sorry you are."
He doesn't hesitate as his mouth crashes into mine, hands sliding into my hair, holding me there like he's terrified I'll pull away. I can taste salt from my tears and warmth from his mouth, and I kiss him back because I don't know what else to do with everything I'm feeling.
When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice rough. “I’m so fucking sorry for the way I’ve treated you. For not giving you a choice. For treating you like something I could own instead of someone I’ve been in love with for years.”
I don’t know what to say, my throat is tight.
He kisses me again, slower, deeper, like he’s trying to prove everything with his mouth, and then he lifts me, turns me toward the rolling ladder, and sets my hands on the rungs.
“Climb,” he says against my ear.
I grip the ladder and step up, one rung, two, three. The T-shirt rides up over my ass as the cool air hits my bare skin. He’s right behind me, hands running up my thighs, pushing the shirt higher.
“Hold on tight, baby,” he says.
Then his mouth finds me from behind as his tongue drags slow and filthy between my folds, licking me open while I grip the shelf above me.
A book topples off and hits the floor. He doesn’t stop, he continues to eat me like he’s trying to apologize with his tongue, deep, hungry strokes, sucking on my clit, fucking me with his mouth until my legs are shaking and more books are wobbling on the shelf.
“Kairo …” I moan, knuckles white on the wood.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against my pussy.
“I’ve always got you.” He makes me come like that, standing on the ladder, face pressed against the books he bought for me, my body shaking so hard the entire shelf rattles.
He catches me before my legs give out, carries me to the big wooden desk, and lays me out on it like an offering.
He then pushes the shirt up over my breasts, opens a drawer, and takes out the fountain pen.
It’s black with a gold trim. He then uncaps it, and I notice the nib catching the light.
Then he starts writing on me. First on my inner thigh, right where it meets my pussy.
K-A-I-R-O. His name, in elegant, possessive strokes and then across my lower stomach, big and dark, he writes MINE.
He moves higher, circling my left breast, writing his name across the soft curve while my nipple hardens under the cool nib.
The ink is cold against my heated skin, every letter feels like a claim.
He caps the pen, sets it aside, and pushes my thighs wide open.
Then he sinks into me. He fucks me on the desk with his name still wet on my skin, the ink smearing against his hips with every thrust. He leans down and kisses me, whispering filthy apologies between strokes.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he rasps, grinding deeply.
“I’m sorry I made you feel like property.
But fuck, Summer … I can’t stop wanting to own you.
I can’t stop wanting to breed this perfect little cunt.
” He fucks me harder, the desk creaking beneath us.
“I’m going to keep you full.” He groans.
“Every single day.” And lately he’s been keeping his word.
He reaches for the pen again without pulling out.
He uncaps it and writes across my other breast, the nib dragging over my nipple, making me whimper.
When I come, it’s with his name written all over my body and his cock buried inside me. I cry out, clenching around him, nails digging into his back. He follows right after, groaning my name like a prayer as he floods me again, holding me tight while he empties himself deep inside.
He stays there for a long moment, breathing hard against my neck, then slowly pulls out. He looks down at the mess, his cum leaking from me, his name smudged across my skin, and an almost reverent look crosses his face.
“Beautiful,” he whispers as he gathers me into his arms, carries me to the big green leather chair, then sits down with me on his lap. He positions me back onto his cock again, facing the bookshelves, his arms wrapped around me from behind.
“Read to me,” he murmurs against my ear, rolling his hips up slowly.
I reach forward with a shaky hand, pull a book off the shelf, and start reading.
My voice is unsteady, but I keep going. His cum is leaking out of me onto the green leather, his name is smeared across my body, and he’s still inside me, hard and deep, holding me like I’m the most precious thing in his world.
And I keep reading.
And somewhere between the first page and the third, his breathing evens out against my neck, his arms loosen just slightly, and the most dangerous man I’ve ever met falls asleep with his cock still buried inside me.
I place the book down, turn and take him in, this man who seems to have gone to the end of the earth for me, one of the most dangerous men I know, and probably many men know, and here he is asleep with his cock still in me.
I feel so … powerful.
This man loves me, and he would burn the world down for me.
And I think I like it.