Chapter 8
Eight
After a dizzying ride through the city, our bodies still sticky with the sweat from earlier—the mere thought of what I’d done made my toes curl—we were tangled up in my bed, on our sides, facing each other.
I would have usually showered after coming home, to get the heat of the kitchen off me, the specific scent of it. But now it was mixed with Kane, me, us. I wanted to imprint that into my sheets.
Though it was so late it could be classed as ‘early,’ I still wasn’t ready to sleep. I was ready to dive deeper into this. Into Kane.
“Why do you do this?” I asked, tracing the scars on his body, a roadmap of the injuries, the evidence of his brushes with death. The scar on his lip—from hitting a half pipe the wrong way when training for the Winter Olympics in New Zealand. The jagged mark on his bicep—from tearing layers of skin almost down to the bone when he hit the concrete while riding BMX.
Though I couldn’t see it, I knew there was an ugly mar on his calf from almost being torn to pieces when his dirt bike landed on him after coming down wrong.
The scars made up a story of what he’d survived, sure. But they also taunted me with the fact that he danced with death for a living.
I’d only known him for a short time, but the idea of this earth spinning without Kane Rhodes walking on it made my skin prickle with sheer panic.
“Why do you do things with such high stakes?” I asked him, trying to swallow that terror.
He continued drawing circles on my navel for a few seconds before replying. “I had a shitty childhood,” he said to my belly button. “A really shitty childhood. Cliché, which fucking sucks that the experience is so common, but such is the world. Deadbeat dad. Mom who was trying to make ends meet with two boys and not even a high school diploma. She did what she had to do, kept thinking the next man who came along would be the one. The one to save us.” He looked up at me. “My mom was, and still is, a romantic, you see.” He sucked his teeth. “Romantic love is her top-tier, a man to worship her. Further up than her sons’ well-being.”
I ground my teeth. Even though there didn’t seem to be resentment in his tone, I instantly bristled toward his mother. No one would ever describe me as maternal, but even I knew that children came before romantic love. Keeping children safe came first. Baby Kane had deserved unconditional love, and I hated that he didn’t have that.
Not knowing my interior thoughts, Kane kept speaking. “She thought it’d happen. A happily ever after, someone would save her, save us.” He shook his head, a small, sad smile on his face. “The world quickly showed her the reality. Not every boyfriend was bad. Some were okay. Nice even. Somehow, the nice ones lasted the least amount of time. And somehow, she married the worst of them all.”
Though his tone was light-hearted, I could feel the change in him, the tension in his body.
“Knox, my brother, knew there was something wrong about him from the start, even though he went out of his way to talk to us, made an effort.” Kane’s palm crept up to my chest, though not a sexual touch. No, he laid his tattooed hand over my heart. “Knox tried to warn my mom off, warn me off. I guess I was kind of a romantic too. I was waiting for the guy to take over, take care of my mom and show us how to be men. Thought we’d found him. It wasn’t until after they got married that he changed, showed us who he really was.”
Kane sucked in a long breath. Deep, as if he were trying to gulp in the air he couldn’t get while drowning in the memory.
“Knox protected me from the worst of it,” His easy tone vanished, pain so deep in his words that I could feel the point of each letter. “He offered himself up when it became clear that he married my mother not because he wanted her, but because he wanted … us.”
When the realization of what he was saying hit me, I tasted bile. My stomach lurched with the knowledge of what Kane meant.
This man, this monster, had married Kane’s mother to get close to two small boys.
His eyes were clear and strong, remaining glued to mine. I forced myself not to let my horror and pain show on my face. “That fucked with me, for a long fucking time. Not only did I not know how to be a man, I felt like I couldn’t be because of what happened to me. So I chased down every single thing I could find that made me look more masculine. I rode dirt bikes, I got in fistfights, I raced cars. And doing that shit when you’re a dumb kid full of pain and unhealed trauma is the quickest way to get yourself arrested. So I did. Coupl’a times.”
His eyes bounced between mine, gauging something. I didn’t know what, I was still trying to digest the horrific information he’d served up.
“One night, I was drunk. Reliving shit that had happened. I was angry. Jesus, it was like a dragon was inside me. Like I was a dragon. It was bursting out of me.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Some guy bumped into me. Said something smart. That was it. His sin. Got in my space, touched me, made me feel like less of a man. So I did what I thought would make it so no one could ever confuse me for any kind of victim again. I beat him half to death.”
The silence in the room after that was oppressive. Even more oppressive than when he talked about the abuse. I could feel it. His shame. Guilt. He was coated in it.
“Pure luck the guy survived. Wasn’t brain damaged for life. He’s now blind in one eye, though.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I had a record at that point. Was officially an adult. No money. I would’ve gone down for a decent amount of time, possibly ten years for attempted murder with my record. But Knox was there again, saving the day. He got the money for a hotshot lawyer who got it down to six months.”
His eyes were swimming with a pain that seemed so foreign on his handsome, easygoing face that it took my breath away.
“Six months was nothing compared to what I was facing. But fuck, Chef, it was the worst six months of my life. It took me right back to being that kid with no control. Constantly on guard for danger. No power. For me, being in a cage was worse than death.” He shook his head, and I swore to God, it looked like he was trying to shake demons free.
“But I got out,” he sighed. “I lived. Was lucky. And then it was more luck that had me falling into a situation where the shit I did to chase away my demons—jumping things, riding things fast, dancing with death—that shit actually became a career.”
My ears were ringing from the flood of information. The pain that Kane offered up, unadorned, without shame, without me having to pry it out of him. With absolute trust.
Kane wiped my cheek with his thumb.
I’d let a tear fall, and I hadn’t even realized it.
“Don’t need you to cry for me, Chef,” he murmured. “Love that you feel that deep, but know that I’ve done a lot of work to repair the shit that asshole broke. Therapy. All that shit. Healed as much as I could. Well, I suppose if I was truly healed, I wouldn’t be making my living jumping shit and playing out being a tough guy. Because if I look tough, fearless, I’ll never be the victim again. Never watch my brother be the victim in order to protect me.” He let out a cold laugh. “Not that he’s going to ever be the victim.”
“What happened to your brother?” I asked, my heart breaking for the boy I didn’t know. My soul was in tatters, in agony, grieving for the boy who had turned into the man I loved.
Kane’s features fell, obviously stricken. In pain.
“My job dances with death, Chef. On the legitimate side of it. For the world to see. His does too. But the world doesn’t see what he does. He’s taken himself so far into the shadows, I’m bracing myself for when he doesn’t return.”
Worry and love for his brother were physical things. I could taste them.
“And your mom?” I probed, unreasonably angry, furious, at the woman for putting her sons through that.
Kane smiled. It was a terribly sad smile. “She lives in Phoenix. Right now, at least. Waits tables. I bought her a house, fully paid off so she wouldn’t have to do that anymore, but she’s a creature of habit.” He brushed the inside of my thumb with his wrist. “I personally think she’s punishing herself. For our childhood, what she put us through.”
I pursed my lips, a cold part of me thinking that waiting tables in Phoenix was far too light a punishment.
“I can see that,” Kane murmured, brushing my lips with his tongue. “Your fire, ready to breathe it for me.”
I frowned, not realizing I was that transparent. I never normally was.
“I’ve forgiven her, Chef,” he said quietly.
“You’ve forgiven her?” I repeated. Forgiveness wasn’t something I was entirely practiced in.
He nodded. “Therapy, inner-self work and generally realizing my mother is just another broken human being who was trying her best with the hand she got. I either blame her and don’t have a mother or forgive her and get a mother who I accept as a flawed person. Knox isn’t of that same opinion. They don’t speak.”
I tried to school my expression. I would likely act like the shadowy Knox who I liked although Kane alluded he was a criminal.
“So that’s, in a nutshell, why I do it.” Kane smoothed hair from my face. “Jump things, race things.” He gave me a blinding grin. “And ’cause it’s fun.”
I shook my head, unable to do anything but smile back in the face of all the trauma Kane had laid out.
Kane arched his neck, giving me a gentle kiss. “It made me who I am, Chef. All of that. Plenty of times I’ve wanted to wish it away, but now more than ever, I’m happy I went through it because no other story would’ve led me to be here, in bed with Avery Hart.”
Before I could formulate an adequate response, Kane kissed me, ending the conversation.
We arrived at Kane’s party late, Kiera and me. Although I was itching to be the first to arrive, to see Kane, even though I’d woken up with him that morning.
I missed him. Such a foreign concept. Such a terrifying one. Where I felt off-kilter going not even twenty-four hours without someone.
Without a man .
Long-honed instincts inside of me told me to erect my walls, to step back, to retreat into that cold, unfeeling persona I’d crafted so exquisitely over the years.
But there was another side of me, another piece of me that Kane had revealed. A piece that wanted the danger and chaos and intoxication that came with being with him. I felt more alive than ever before, all of my senses engaged at all moments.
And then there was what he’d shared with me, offering his pain up so freely, sharing his trauma with me without agenda, with such vulnerability it obliterated my walls.
“You’re glowing,” Kiera informed me as she was doing my makeup at the apartment. She was drinking the champagne from Kane’s and my latest grocery trip. The very fancy kind. We’d argued over who would pay. He’d won.
I had a tequila on the rocks, unearthed from the depths of my freezer.
I wasn’t normally one for hard liquor, but I was going to be attending a party. Full of people I likely had nothing in common with, people Kane knew as acquaintances at least and friends at most. I wanted to … impress them. I wasn’t versed with impressing people with social interactions; I let my food do that. I didn’t normally care if people liked me, therefore, I didn’t have the social skills to make that happen.
Hence the tequila.
“I’m not glowing,” I argued. “You’re just seeing me through rose-colored glasses because Kane charmed you, and you’re a romantic. And because you live in rose-colored glasses.”
It was something of an enigma that Kiera and I were even friends. Her the eternal romantic, an optimist. Warm, charismatic, extroverted and glamorous. Me, pretty much everything the opposite. Our friendship was happenstance, her answering my ad for a roommate in an apartment in Chelsea I couldn’t afford. Initially, I’d written off the girl wearing bubblegum-pink lipstick, in six-inch heels who spoke loudly and giggled easily. I figured she’d get on my nerves. Except she was the only one who answered the ad apart from a guy who asked me where I put my worn socks.
Kiera it was.
And somehow, that crazy bitch pulled out of me a similar kind of softness and fun like Kane had. We’d been friends ever since.
She paused, mascara wand in hand, leaning back in order to give me a sharp look. “I may live in rose-colored glasses, but I’m seeing you clearly, baby. You are glo- wing. ” She winked, regarding me with more scrutiny that had nothing to do with my makeup and everything to do with how well she knew me.
“You like him,” she hummed. “Actually like . For more than the no doubt wild sex that is working better than any $500 face cream. This man is under your skin.”
My cheeks heated, hearing her say it out loud. I didn’t know why it embarrassed me. Human beings were allowed to like people, fall in love. It was a rite of passage. But for me, it felt like a weakness.
“I do,” I said instead of denying it. It was exceptionally hard to say, even to Kiera who had never judged another person in her entire life.
I expected Kiera to smile, to throw a party in the streets. For years, the eternal romantic had wanted me to find something with someone, even though she herself hadn’t had a relationship that lasted longer than a season.
Except she didn’t smile, her eyes were not light and teasing. “I can’t believe I’m telling you of all people this, but be careful, Avery.”
A boulder landed in my stomach. “I’ve been careful all my life.” I felt defensive, evident by the bite to my voice. “I think I’m entitled to take a risk or two.”
“You are,” she nodded. “But you’re my friend. I see past that tough exterior and know there’s a soft heart in there. I don’t want it damaged any more than it has been. I want someone to take care of it, be gentle with it. And Kane ‘The Devil’ Rhodes is not known for taking care or being gentle. Nor is he known for long and steady relationships.”
She was speaking the truth, stating the words I’d whispered to myself, the ones I’d tried to drown out with the noise of the kitchen, the sounds of life with Kane.
Now that we were in the quiet of my apartment, with nothing but Taylor Swift singing about small men, the words hit their mark.
Still, I felt cornered, not ready to face up to these facts. And I was mad at my best friend. I opened my mouth to say something rash, something I’d likely regret, but she held up a hand, maybe reading my expression.
“That's all I’m going to say on the matter,” she told me. “And I’m only saying it because I love you. Because I have a slight amount more experience on men in general and a certifiable PhD in assholes. Not that Kane is an asshole,” she added quickly. “He seems the absolute opposite. But sometimes those ones, the ones who masquerade as bad but seem good, are the ones who do the most damage.” She drained her drink. “Okay, that’s it, that’s enough of my not so sage wisdom and my protective friend routine. I know you can look after yourself, and I’m here cheering for a happy ending. If not, an ending on your terms. And just to let you know that if he hurts you, I’ll cut his motherfucking balls off and let you make arancini out of them.” She smiled sweetly. “Now, let’s make you the hottest bitch at the party.”
Though there were a lot of things I could’ve said to my friend at this moment, some of them good, some of them bad, and some of them far too honest, I simply sipped my drink and let her change the subject.
Her words settled at the base of my spine, though, along with an overwhelming sense of dread.
You could hear the music from the street.
Not something that surprised me since I didn’t think Kane did quiet, understated parties.
The brownstone was filled with people, throngs of them, all drinking, laughing. All in different types of clothing. Some were dressed in cocktail attire, dresses, heels, suits and open collars. Most were on the more casual side, which is what I’d erred to.
Deep brown slacks, some trendy tennis shoes that Kiera had given me that I liked, but once I found out the price, I decided that they would be my one and only pair.
Deep brown tee, a similar color to the pants but not exact. That’s what my off-duty wardrobe was—shades of monochrome, easy clothes I didn’t have to think much about and would work if I was forced to attend something to promote the restaurant. If it were something fancier, I’d swap the shoes out for low-heeled pumps and the tee out for a blouse.
I didn’t look out of place exactly, but I did have a moment when I thought back to the photos I’d seen of Kane when I googled him. The kind of women he was photographed with. Slim, perfectly put together, expensive clothes, shoes, showing a lot of skin, sky-high heels. He would be better suited with someone like Kiera who was all of those things.
“Fucking finally !” Hearing the familiar voice, my entire body simultaneously relaxed and tensed in anticipation. Before I could blink, I was hauled into a warm, hard body, and a mouth was slammed onto mine.
Despite the crowd, the doubts and fears swirling in my stomach, I kissed Kane back. Enthusiastically. So enthusiastically that more than one onlooker whistled, and I knew one of the whistlers was Kiera.
“You’re late, Chef,” Kane murmured against my mouth, acting as if he didn’t have an entire audience, as if we were in the room alone.
His eyes only saw me.
And it made me feel like the little girl I’d never been. The little girl my sister had been, a romantic, dreaming of the man who would look at her like she was the only person in the room.
He leaned in to brush his lips against my ear. “Can’t wait to get inside that pussy.”
My body twitched in anticipation.
Okay, so not exactly what my romantic little sister would’ve imagined her white knight saying.
But that was good.
I didn’t want a white knight.
“Kiera,” Kane addressed my best friend, who was grinning at him despite the wariness she obviously felt. He slung his arm casually, possessively around my shoulders.
“You look lovely,” he said, paying my friend the compliment she deserved.
She’d gone … less casual than me.
Her cropped bob was curled in messy beach waves, her makeup was sultry. The neckline of her sequined dress was plunging, showing off her ample assets. Kane’s eyes stayed at her false lash-framed irises.
“You’re not too bad yourself,” she replied.
He smiled cheekily. “I try.”
“Like your ass in these pants.” His hand lazily went down my back. “We’ll have to make sure you have them in every color.”
I couldn’t help but grin. “I already do.”
“Perfect,” he licked his lips then looked to Kiera. “We have drinks, food, celebrities and many men who would hit on you … with your consent, of course. You think you’ll be okay on your own? I just must take Chef to the bathroom and have my way with her.”
My cheeks flamed, and I really wanted to be embarrassed, but I wanted him to do that too. Just as he’d appraised my outfit, I’d done the same to him.
He was wearing an Unquiet Mind band tee, his inky hair was long and wild, drooping over his left eyebrow. His dark jeans and Dr. Martens accentuated his strong legs and perfect backside. The black polish on his fingernails had chipped, and a handful of silver rings adorned his long fingers.
He looked like Kane. Attractive, edgy, hot.
Kiera’s eyes alighted with glee. “Of course, bang away.” She waved her hand. “I’m in my element here.”
Before I could say anything, Kane whisked me away, back through the throngs of people, nodding and greeting various people who acknowledged him but not stopping for anyone. Not until we’d gone through the rooms to a bathroom that was on the other side of the brownstone. Not the main one guests were using, but there were people milling around. It wasn’t exactly private.
Which was what got my heartbeat thumping.
Just before we could get to the bathroom, a man stepped in front of us.
He was one of the fewer people wearing a suit. No tie, though. Grey, expensive by the look of it, pale-pink dress shirt unbuttoned to show a tan and hairless chest.
He had perfectly styled short hair, a color brown that seemed too rich and perfect to be natural, although I suspected it might’ve been colored based on his overall appearance. Obviously fake tan, leather loafers, flashy watch, a mouth full of veneers showcased with a fake smile. He was conventionally handsome with a strong jaw and classic features, but his eyes were dark, beady, and something about him was off-putting.
“There you are,” he sighed, eyes on Kane.
I expected Kane to dismiss him the way he had all of the people who had tried to get in our way, but he didn’t.
“Brax, bro, this is Avery, who I’ve been telling you about. Avery, this is Brax, my manager.”
Brax’s eyes rested on me for a split second, casting up and down, what I would bet was a faux smile on his face. “Nice to meet you.” His tone dripped with dismissal. I could tell he didn’t think I was worth his time. I had a lot of experience with men looking at me like that.
“We’re so close to signing the Adidas deal,” he spoke to Kane as if I weren’t there. “There are some execs here, want to meet you, photo op, and then we’ll be in for a three-year contract.”
“I’m busy right now,” Kane said, holding on to me.
Brax’s eyes darted to me, irritation flickering in them before flashing a too white smile. “It’ll take five minutes. I’m sure Avery can entertain herself for that long. We’ve got a great buffet.” He looked at me as he dragged his hand over his jaw.
The way he said my name made my lip curl. Before now, I’d had a placid expression on my face because even if I got the sense this was an asshole in a suit, he was connected to Kane, so I was going to be polite.
But my eyes narrowed at what was left unspoken. He considered me to be just another bimbo. And if I wasn’t mistaken, a bimbo who wasn’t as skinny as the other bimbos.
I didn’t know if Kane picked up on the insult since Brax delivered these subtle insults the same way a woman might. And the truest skill of that insult was to ensure no one but other women understood it.
The tilt of Kane’s head, the clench to his jaw and the general energy around him communicated that he at least read the dismissal of me.
“ I’m entertaining Avery,” he bit out. “You do whatever the fuck you want with those corporate fucks. I’m going with my woman, and you’re getting out of my way.”
Brax’s megawatt smile dimmed for only a millisecond.
“Of course. We’ll touch base later.” He quickly stepped aside, immediately submitting to Kane, but the edge to his smile told me I needed to look out for him.
He was a weasel.
Kane didn’t hesitate to continue our journey, nuzzling my neck.
Despite Kane’s touch and my body’s instinctual reaction to it, I couldn’t help my feeling like I was covered in a thin layer of grease and oil.
But then Kane pulled me into the bathroom and his lips plastered over mine, with fire and heat, and that oil burned right off.