Page 83 of Kylie

It didn’t surprise me that Travis was pissed at Kieran. I understood why. His own family had kept a secret that would’ve changed everything. Not to mention, Kieran had been aware that I was alive and being held captive by Martin. At least from the time he’d come to the hospital with Allison to move me. Whether he knew before that, I didn’t know. I hadn’t bothered to ask. I had tried to wrap my head around Kieran’s reasons for doing what he did, but I couldn’t. Nothing had ever been more important to me than family. Certainly not a job. However, I did appreciate that he’d come to rescue me when he had. Otherwise, I would’ve been dead. For real.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“For what?”

What was I sorry for? Being rude? Interrupting? Or coming back from the dead and inserting myself back in my life as though I’d never left. The world hadn’t stopped turning while I was locked away. For all I knew, Travis and Gage had moved on. Perhaps they’d found⁠—

Screeech.

That was the sound of my world coming to an immediate halt. I hadn’t considered the possibility that they had found someone else. Sure, I’d thought about it before, but not since they showed up yesterday had I actually considered the reality of it. What if… I swallowed hard and forced the hard question past my lips. “Have … um …” I gripped Travis’s arm and tried to calm myself. “Have you and Gage been with … anyone else?”

“No,” he said easily and without hesitation.

Relief flooded me, but I tried to hide it. “Why not?”

Travis bristled behind me. The way his arms tensed told me he didn’t appreciate the question. When he pulled away, I feared I’d upset him. He didn’t leave, didn’t get out of bed, and I could sense him watching me.

Rolling to my back so I could look at him, I was about to apologize, but something in his expression stopped me. There was a wealth of emotion burning in his blue-gray eyes. Before I could stop myself, I put my hand on his cheek, letting the stubble scrape my fingertips.

God, he was so familiar. And safe.

“Kylie…”

“It’s okay,” I whispered, unable to stop the tears from sliding down the sides of my face and into my hair.

“We haven’t been with anyone,” he whispered. “Only each other.”

That made my chest tighten, the thought of them turning to one another in their grief.

“Trust me when I tell you … I haven’t made it easy for Gage.”

I chuckled and felt some of the stress ease out of my body. “I can only imagine.”

Travis smiled. It wasn’t filled with light and laughter, but it was there nonetheless.

I turned toward him, burying my face in his chest, relishing the warmth and the strength of his body as he cocooned me within his arms. I wanted to stay like this forever, to let Travis keep the world at bay by simply holding me.

I had dreamed about this. While I was trapped in that shit hole. I had dreamed about what it felt like to be held by Travis and Gage. I’d longed to feel it again, and here I was. It felt surreal. I feared that I would wake up at any second and find myself back in that house, chained to the floor, starving to death. I didn’t want to wake up. I wanted this to be real. I needed it to be real.

“I’ve missed you so fuckin’ much,” Travis rasped, his lips pressing to my hair, his arm curling around me, holding me.

We remained like that for several minutes, the two of us surrounded by silence and each other. It felt good.

However, the day needed to get underway. Not only because I had promised to have breakfast with the kids, but also because it was high time I started taking the necessary steps toward making Martin Calloway pay for the hell he put me through.

“Are the kids awake?”

Travis shifted back a little. “They are.”

I smiled. “I should get downstairs and have breakfast with them.”

“They would love that.”

I pulled back, intending to roll away from him, but his arm remained firm, keeping me close. I looked up, saw that he was watching me. He shifted again, propping himself up on his elbow and brushing my hair back with his fingertips.

“I’ve missed you so fuckin’ much,” he rasped, repeating the words from a moment ago.

“Me, too.”