Chapter 53
Chapter Fifty-Three
Kraven
The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies. -Unknown
Two weeks later.
I watched her cook dinner in the kitchen. We were dancing around, listening to music while she finished the chicken pesto on the stove.
“I’m going to burn it,” she said, pulling away from me.
“Or…” I teased. “I could eat you instead.”
She wiggled out of my hold. “You’re horrible.”
For fourteen days, we’d lived in limbo.
“I go after what I want.” I kissed her lips. “I’m sure you can understand that.”
I never stood a chance. Not when she finally let me in. She was being extra quiet that day. Something was on her mind.
Or should I say someone…
I woke up that morning with a pain in my chest, unsure of where it was coming from. It helped that Isla was in my arms. It always did.
I used to love sitting in this kitchen as Melody cooked. I hadn’t done it in years, but there I was, utterly drawn to Isla’s magnetic pull. Our dynamic was different, more intense, personal.
I learned a lot about her. From her childhood, or lack of, to the way she curled up in a ball to sleep at night. The way her breathing would even out, how warm she was, how soft. I wasn’t lying when I said she was mine now.
I treated her as such.
Except I could tell she was still holding back from me. We hadn’t had sex since that first time, but honestly, it didn’t really matter. We were intimate in ways we hadn’t been before. I began playing my piano for her while she lay in my bed.
There was no longer a wall between us. Now she was right there experiencing it with me. I never played for anyone. It was just the two of us, unless it was Julius and me practicing. It wasn’t weird, feeling as if I was baring my soul to her.
She also slept in my arms every night. I didn’t ask; she just did.
After we had sex, we ended up in my bed, and she hadn’t left since.
Not that I wanted her to. However, the unavoidable question of when Julius was going to make his presence known loomed in the back of our minds.
It was always right there, waiting, lurking, ready to strike at a moment’s notice.
I hate it.
One way or another, we couldn’t go forward, nor could we go back. We were stuck in the same place we’d been, sitting in neutral, anticipating the weight of Julius’s foot on the accelerator. He would be the one who would drive us off a cliff.
Later that night, after we had eaten dinner, she pulled back the covers as I crawled to her. Getting under the sheets, she lay down, and I followed suit. Except I laid my head on her stomach, demanding a head and back scratch. Her nails were like claws.
The second I felt her nails dig into my scalp, she moaned.
“Careful, Kitty.” I glanced up at her. “That’s an invitation.” Rubbing my nose against hers, I baited, “Is that what you want? Me lying on top of you?”
“Kraven…” she rasped in a tone so low I almost didn’t hear her.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, kissing me instead. Caging her in with my arms, I hovered above her frame. Her breathing escalated as she ground against me, creating friction on my dick.
She was trying to forget.
It was what we did for each other.
I intended to lie with her and catch up, but the desire I had for her made my balls ache and my cock throb.
I needed to slow down.
She always felt amazing and smelled so damn good. Up until this second, I held on to my restraint, though it was becoming apparent that I wanted her in more ways than just hearing about her day.
There was this buildup.
This hope deep in my bones.
Our flirty banter.
Her smile.
Her laugh.
How easy it was to fall back into this place where the lines were blurred and the future unknown. I didn’t believe in love. Yet with her, it felt like I was.
Claiming her.
Making her mine.
It fucked with my head more than I could have ever imagined.
She’s more than I can ever imagine…
Pussy never meant anything to me. Now Isla, she meant something in every last part of me.
Pressing my forehead on hers, I muttered, “Do you have any idea how bad I want to fuck you right now?”
She moaned in response, kissing me.
I kissed her back, whispering, “If I don’t stop…
” I paused, trying to gather my thoughts.
“I’m a selfish asshole, Kitty. I want you all to myself.
I don’t want to share you with anyone. Especially my brother.
I can feel him here between us, although I can’t see him.
” Shifting my eyes to hers, I said, “You let me kiss you… You sleep in my arms… We’re… I’m—”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then let me make love to you. I—”
The words barely left my mouth when my bedroom door slammed against the wall, rattling the whole house.
Isla flinched.
I turned…
And the golden boy and lone wolf finally collided.
With his fist to my face.
Isla
I felt him before I ever saw him.
There he was, after a month and a half.
Julius.
The moment I realized it wasn’t just a feeling I’d been experiencing all day, his fist was already in Kraven’s jaw.
“No!” I shouted, instantly standing. “Don’t do this!”
Neither heard me.
Rage quickly took over every last fiber of their beings. Kraven took off, hauling ass toward Julius, confirming my suspicions that this wasn’t going to end well.
This was a fight to the death. There was no denying it.
No pretending.
It was right there in front of our faces, the betrayal.
I screeched, “Kraven, stop!”
He rammed his shoulder into Julius’s chest, slamming his back against the wall behind him. The impact of his assault sent drywall crumbling to the floor.
Julius didn’t waver, attacking him to the ground to get on top of him.
“You don’t fucking touch her!” he seethed. Using his own momentum, his fist connected with Kraven’s jaw again.
Kraven’s face snapped back. I was over to them in one stride, grabbing Julius’s collar as he continued to beat on Kraven. Delivering a blow to his stomach, then his ribs.
“Julius, please stop this!” I shouted.
Kraven locked his legs around him, flipping Julius over, spewing, “Fuck you! You left! You fucking left her! You fucking left me!”
“And that gives you the right to fuck what’s mine!”
Kraven hit him in the face, taunting, “She’s mine now!”
“Oh my God!” I cried. “That’s enough! Both of you!”
Kraven hovered above him, panting until Julius reacted. Punching him back. They were like this for a minute as I cried out for them to stop. This wasn’t going to fix anything. It wasn’t solving shit.
It was making everything worse.
“How could you do this to me?” Julius shoved him away. “After everything I’ve done for you!”
Kraven stood. “For fuck’s sake, Julius! You left! What part of that do you not understand?”
With one foot in front of the other, Julius abruptly got into his face. “You’re my fucking brother, Kraven!”
Inhaling deeply, it was my turn to snap, loud and clear. “Who the hell do you think you are, Julius?!” I stepped between them, glaring at him.
“You did leave! Let’s not forget that!”
Vindictively, he replied, “Yeah… and it didn’t take you long to find comfort in my brother’s arms, did it?”
“That’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair, sweetheart.”
“News flash,” I reminded him. “This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t left me.”
“You don’t think I know that! You don’t think I have to live with this!
Do you think it’s been easy for me to leave you?
That I haven’t been thinking about you every moment of every day…
? I left because I couldn’t stay. It was all too much, Isla.
But how about you ask me why I came back?
” he finally confessed. “I came back because I can’t live without you.
You mean everything to me. You’re mine. No matter what, you always will be.
All I’ve wanted to do is protect you and keep you safe.
I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to make you turn to my brother, and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to know that? How hard that is to accept?”
My lips trembled. It was on the tip of my tongue.
“What do you want me to say?” He coaxed.
“What do you need to hear, Isla? You want to know the truth. I’ll tell you the truth…
” Without thinking twice about it, he spoke with conviction, “I love you. I’ve always loved you, and I won’t ever stop.
Do you understand me? I’m in love with you! That’s why I came back…”
Tears brimmed my eyes. My heart ached, pouring out for all to see.
His expression suddenly turned heated as he called out, “Are you really going to stand there, though, and pretend you two haven’t been—”
“Yeah, Julius,” I interrupted. “And you were gone all those times too.”
“I was working, Isla, like I’ve been for the past month and a half. I wasn’t fucking around on you.”
Kraven abruptly intervened, “She didn’t cheat on you, Julius, so stop acting like she did. You weren’t together. You haven’t been together. She’s not yours… You just think she is…”
Realizing he didn’t know the truth, Julius broke his illusion into a million pieces, enjoying every last second of it as he brutally ripped the rug out from under him before I could chime in.
Crudely, he lit the flame. “I was her first, Kraven. She became mine the night before I left, you fuck.”
My heart exploded.
What did I do? How do I fix it? Where do we go from here?
Kraven jerked back, glancing over at me with an expression I couldn’t read. “Is that true?”
I swallowed hard, shivering.
“Is. It. True?”
“I… I…”
I was backed into a corner. In less than a second, my world as I knew it suddenly came crashing down on me. All the blood drained from my face as I stood there frozen.
Immobile.
Shocked and nervous.
His reaction triggered something inside me. Our eyes never wavered from one another as I grasped the reality of the future. For a minute, my pain broke through the uncontrollable emotions.
I strained, locking up, staying firmly rooted to the place I stood with the wind knocked out of me. I felt like I’d just been punched in the stomach.
My heart.
My mind.
My love…
Was broken.
Snapping like the strings of Julius’s violin. They were both yanking every sentiment from my body, every last emotion as if it belonged to them.
I might have been standing there with them, but my mind was somewhere else entirely.
“Isla,” Julius stressed, “tell him the truth!”
I gasped, placing my hand over my mouth, not wanting to be heard.
The truth blatantly slapped me in the face again. I couldn’t stop my feet from moving, following the sound of his voice.
Three steps.
Two.
One.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to do, about to feel—sucking all the air from my lungs, taking my heart and shattering it into a million pieces.
It was this raw, excruciating torture.
I was so confused.
Torn between two brothers.
As much as I urged myself not to leave, to run, it willed me to stay in place. I needed to remain strong.
When I came face-to-face with Julius, I mocked, “What truth is that? Huh? The truth that you left me… the truth that I’ve slept with both of you now…”
Julius’s gaze widened as I stepped away, looking back and forth between them for a moment before I added…
“Or how about the truth that I’m pregnant and I don’t know which brother I’m pregnant by.”