Eighteen
Kat
Kiss Me Until My Lips Fall Off – Lebanon Hanover
Closing the door behind me, I slump back against the wall. The chill from the concrete tames the shame working its way through my body. The flush in my cheeks is slowly dissipating. Resting my head against the wall, I take three deep breaths. The air smells faintly of stale beer and lemon cleaner.
Anger rumbles somewhere in my mind, but inadequacy pushes further forward.
I feel stupid. I feel like I’ve been living in some sort of dream world the last few days.
I was stupid to think he wanted me as much as I wanted him.
Shame presses against the walls of my mind as I remember crying out his name in the shower.
You’ve lived through worse, Kat.
I see my songbook resting on the table in the corner of the room.
Someone definitely cleaned the place. I flip it open, the pen moving in my hand before I can think.
Words spill across the pages, messy and slanted, tumbling over each other so badly there’s no doubt anyone can read this but me.
I don’t comprehend the words—I just write.
It doesn’t matter; I never read what I write.
It’s like living in the darkest parts of your mind—it’s just a creative outlet.
Once three pages are full of writing and my hands are decorated with ink smears, I close the book, dog-earing the next blank page so I don’t have to read my writing next time I open it.
I shove the small leather book into the front pocket of my guitar case. I should probably leave. But what’s there to go back to? An empty apartment? I’ll probably come face-to-face with Elias, and I’ll have to see him with her.
My stomach hardens, and I feel the flush creep back into my cheeks at the thought.
I absentmindedly run my fingers over my guitar strings, stopping when they catch in some grit. Fuck. I was supposed to restring this last week. I shrug my shoulders and decide there’s no better time than now when I’m avoiding something.
I pull a fresh pack of D’Addario’s out of my guitar bag and set to work snipping and loosening the strings.
I twist the first peg, loosening the string slowly.
The metal gives a soft whine as the tension releases.
Normally, when I restring, it’s almost meditative—a rare time when my brain is quiet.
Not today, however. My brain refuses to shut the fuck up.
Why the fuck would he be so nice to me if he had a girlfriend? Am I that fucked up that I think any man showing me the slightest bit of attention is flirting?
I snip the string and pull it free.
Maybe he’s just that kind of person. Some people are just naturally nice, friendly, and warm. Normal.
Another string loosens.
But that doesn’t explain the way he watches me. Or the way his voice drops when he says my name. Or that fucking electricity between us.
I shove the thought away as I focus on threading the new string through the bridge.
Maybe I imagined it all. Maybe I’m so damn starved for attention that my brain is inventing things that aren’t there. Do I know anything anymore? The thought makes my stomach knot.
Snap.
“Shit!” I hiss, clutching my hand to my chest.
In my obsessive thought bubble, I’d tightened the string too much. It whips out and slashes me across the hand. I frantically look around for a tissue or anything to stop the bleeding. But of course, someone has cleaned the place, so there is nothing fucking here.
I press my hand closer to my chest. There’s not a lot of blood, but it makes my head swirl.
I place my uninjured hand against the wall, steadying myself.
When I was younger, I was fine with blood.
I was constantly getting scrapes and scuffs, and the blood never bothered me.
But not so much now, as an adult. I glance at my hand and see a small trail of blood working its way down my wrist. The sight ignites something in me that I quickly push back down.
Bathroom.
I swing the door open, and immediately slam into something solid.
No, not something. Someone.
Elias.
My entire body jolts as if I’d just walked into a brick wall.
His hands grip my upper arms to steady me before I stumble backward.
His brows are knitted together, and he tilts his head to the side, his ponytail falling against his shoulder.
His eyes scan my face, then drop to the hand clutched against my chest.
“What happened?” he asks, his voice low.
“I cut myself restringing my guitar,” I rush, the words spilling out of me.
“I was having coffee this morning, and a song came into my head. I went to write it down but I couldn’t find my songbook, and then I remembered I left it here, so I came back, I saw you talking to a woman and didn’t want to disturb you—”
“Come,” he says, cutting my ramble short. He takes my hand as if it’s an injured dove and leads me back towards the bar, his other hand lightly hovering over the small of my back.
He gestures for me to sit at the nearest booth, and I obey. He walks behind the bar and returns with a large, red box. A first-aid kit. He pulls up a stool and sits between my knees, gently placing my hand in his lap. The intimacy of this scene threatens to steal my breath again.
Stop it, Kat. He’s with someone.
He pours liquid onto a cotton ball, and I hiss as he swipes it across the gash, the sting shooting straight up my arm.
“Sorry,” he says, gently patting the liquid into the wound.
The way he’s looking at my hand would make it seem like I’ve shown up with a mortal wound instead of a stupid cut from a guitar string.
His fingers move with surprising care as he cleans the small amount of blood away.
I try not to stare at him, but it doesn’t work.
Up close, I take in all the small details of his face—the faint scar running through one eyebrow, the concentration in his eyes as he works to clean me up. He looks focused.
“You should really be more careful, Kat.”
A warm heat begins in my belly at the way he says my name.
“Sorry,” I reply, not knowing what else to say.
“Sorry?” he repeats, his mouth twitching at the corners like he’s fighting a smile. “You’re apologizing for being hurt?”
Heat crawls up my neck. “I guess I am.”
He takes my wrist in his hands and begins cleaning the blood that trailed down there, but his fingers stop. The location of where he stopped makes my stomach drop, and my body go rigid.
Slowly, almost reverently, his thumb traces one of the many faint, white lines scattered across my forearm. He starts with the small ones, higher up my wrist, before working his way down to the thicker purple ones around the joint. He doesn’t press hard, like he’s afraid of hurting me.
“What happened?” he asks.
I try to pull my sleeve down, but he holds my wrist firmly before I can cover it.
How did I not anticipate this? My scars have faded so much over the last year that I sometimes convince myself they’re gone.
But under bright lights, up close—there’s no denying they’re still there.
I try desperately to wiggle out of his hold, but he tightens his grip.
“I’m fine,” I mutter, but he still doesn’t let go.
“Who did this to you?” His voice is deep and firm. The intensity in his eyes makes me stop and go slightly slack in his hand. My eyes fall to the floor, not wanting to look at the mirror he’s holding up to my past. And the judgment that comes along with it.
“Myself.” My voice is barely a whisper. I don’t even know if he heard me.
He releases my wrist and tilts my chin, forcing me to look at him. His beautiful face is full of pain and… something else.
“Don’t,” I say sharply, taking him by surprise. “I don’t need your pity.” I stand up, pushing past him as I rush for the door, looking back one last time. “I’m sure you need to get back to your girlfriend.” The words lose their intended venom. Instead, they come out wistful.
He stands and advances towards me. “Is that what you think, Kat? That you’re a pitiful inconvenience?”
I retreat a step, the intensity of his stare and words too much for me to handle.
“I don’t pity you, Kat. I admire you.”
My eyes burn as the weight of his words settles onto my chest.
“When you felt so much emotional pain that physical pain was the only relief. When you traded one pain for another… yet you still carried on.”
He’s inches away from me now. It feels as if all the air has been sucked out of the room. He reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
“You had the strength to continue on… that’s what I admire about you,” he breathes the last word.
My head feels fuzzy; I can’t think of a single word in the English language. Tears brim at the edges of my eyes.
“Who’s Freddie?” he asks, his breath hot against my skin.
“F-Freddie?” I ask, my brain filled with both static and emptiness. The whiplash I’m getting from this conversation makes my head swirl.
He gestures towards the necklace at my throat. My gold “Freddie” necklace that has been hanging between my collarbones for the last fourteen months.
My breathing quickens, and the tears fall free. “He’s my cat. Well, was my cat.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, wiping the tears from my cheek. “What happened?”
“He didn’t die,” I rush out, hating the idea of that outcome entering the world.
“When I… When I left my hometown, I had to leave him behind. It was what was best for him. He was twelve, and I couldn’t afford to bring him on one of those fancy pet planes, and I couldn’t bring him on the bus, that would have killed him. So I gave him to the shelter.”
The words rush out as quickly as the tears fall—faster and harder. A pain forms in my chest at the memory of my first and true best friend.
Elias pulls me close. I rest my head on his shoulder, trying to avoid soaking it with my tears. He runs a comforting hand up and down my spine.
“I still find little strands of orange fur on my clothes sometimes.” I half laugh and sniffle at the same time.
“You can get him back.”
I shake my head. “It’s safer for him there.”
I go still. The words are out before I realize what they were. Elias doesn’t stop, though. He continues running his hand up and down my spine, gripping my lower back firmly with the other.
After a few comfortable moments like that, I pull back, wiping my nose against the back of my sleeve, carefully avoiding the bandage. “I should go. Thank you for…” I hold up my injured hand with a small wave.
I turn to walk away, but his fingers close around my wrist and he tugs me back towards him, my body hitting his chest like a wall.
“Oh, and for the record?” he says, his face inching closer and closer to mine.
My heart stutters. He’s so close now, I can see the faint gold flecks in his eyes. I haven’t noticed that before. Up close, everything about him feels… bigger. His shoulders. His presence. Everything.
“Yvonne isn’t my girlfriend.”
The words take a second to sink in. My brain tries to latch onto them, but it’s too distracted by the way his hand has settled against the door beside my head, his weight making sure it stays closed.
My pulse quickens. If I wanted to leave, I could.
He hasn’t actually trapped me, it’s an illusion of control.
But something about the way he’s looking at me makes it feel impossible to move.
“Kat,” he says quietly.
The sound of my name sends another ripple through my stomach. My gaze drops to his mouth for half a second.
That’s all it takes.
His lips crash into mine, swallowing my gasp.
The taste of mint and tobacco fills my mouth.
My body melts into his hold as he pulls me towards him.
My body perfectly molds into his chest like we were carved from the same stone.
His beard scratches against my face as his tongue invades my mouth.
I welcome it. It’s messy yet calculated.
It’s frantic yet tender. It says everything that words cannot.
It’s exactly how I pictured kissing Elias Monroe would feel like but it’s so much more at the same time.
His hand runs down the small of my back, pulling me even closer into him. My body feels impossibly light. I run my hands up his neck and through his long hair, ignoring the stinging in my palm.
My attention narrows on the growing hardness between us. I let out a soft moan, his mouth consuming the sound. An animalistic growl reverberates in his chest. He slides his hand under my shirt, his warm hand caressing my ribs. A shiver wracks my body, and he lets out a breathy laugh.
“Tell me what you want, little rebel,” he says, his lips curved into a sultry smirk.
“You,” I say breathlessly.
He grabs my hips, pressing me into the booth table as he slides his knee between my legs. I move my hips, desperately trying to relieve the ache that’s building there. He kisses my neck.
“Just enough to relieve a little bit of tension,” he breathes against my skin, leaving goosebumps in his wake. “But that’s not what you need, is it, little rebel?”
My mouth opens, but only my breath comes out. All I can think of is grinding my pussy against his knee until I come, but…
“There’s not enough friction, is there?” he coos, knowing full well that there isn’t. “What if I just…”
He slips his index finger in the front of my jeans, moving painfully slowly towards the wetness pooling there.
“Elias, please,” I plead breathlessly.
The sound of a throat clearing stops me dead in my tracks. I pull away as Elias’s hand leaves my jeans. I instantly miss the feel of him there.
Looking behind Elias is a man just as tall as him, if not an inch or two taller. He wears all black, and tattoos cover every visible part of his skin. He runs his hand through his black hair and down his neck.
“Sorry, boss,” he says with a wicked grin.
I look at Elias, searching for any answer as to who this man is. Elias’s face is murder personified.
“Cain, you have three seconds to explain before I tear each finger from your body.”