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Max looks up at her, suddenly recognizing he’s in more trouble than he realizes. “I…?” His lower lip wobbles.
The angry expression on Kendall’s face softens. She helps him stand up. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” He shakes his head, not looking her in the eyes.
She crouches down ‘til she’s eye level with him.
I notice the wince she tries to hide.
She looks at Max. “Good, because you’re grounded for a week. No cartoons.”
He gapes at her, the shock of the punishment making him forget temporarily that he’s supposed to look repentant. “But—?”
“Want to make that two weeks?” Kendall tugs off the underwear off his face. “How many times have I told you not to go through my drawers?”
“But you have all those cool toys in —”
Kendall slams a hand over his mouth, her face beetroot red as she hisses, “Shut up!”
I hide the stunned satisfaction on hearing this and my mind goes to every place possible. But I can’t stop imagining Kendall on her bed, fucking herself with a toy, and the image is seared into my brain.
Kendall’s eyes widen as they meet mine.
Without thinking, I let her see the heat in my eyes.
She swallows, and then immediately lowers her eyes, refusing to maintain eye contact. There’s a tremor in her voice, as she says, “Go wash your face. And come sit here. No more jumping around.”
As Max trudges away, his body hunched as if his small shoulders are bearing the weight of the world.
Kendall turns to look at me, and there is a stubborn tilt to her chin, as if daring me to comment on what Max has just unwittingly revealed.
It’s the way she’s watching me, her eyes narrowed in a challenge, as if she’s ready to take me on, that my heart stutters for the first since I’ve laid eyes on her again. And I realize that Duke was right.
I was jealous.
This whole thing may have started out as fulfilling a promise to the girl who’d been the first person to show me what love and affection was, to carve a place in this world for her where she knew every luxury and comfort she desired, but as my eyes move over her face, I realize it had always been more than that. A desire to tie her to my side in a way that would never let her escape. To have her in every way possible. To have a claim over all her smiles, all her tears, all her anger and her joy.
I wonder when I had fallen in love with her.
Maybe as I had walked away from her all those years ago, even as she had begged me not to go. Maybe when the FBI had stripped me of everything, and all I had to keep me company for the next three years were memories of her. Or maybe it was when she had made me crack a smile, a young angry boy, who had been hurt by the world so many times that he refused to trust another soul.
Change of plans, then.
6
Kendall
I curse Max for opening his mouth.
The way Caleb is watching me right now, it’s making my mouth turn dry, a considering gaze, filled with heat. But he doesn’t do or say anything.
I refuse to feel ashamed of anything.
When I start glaring at him, he arches a brow at me. “I wasn’t the one who rifled through your private things.” The bastard is smirking.
I have the urge to throw the underwear at his face, just to ruffle up that damn composure of his.
However, I restrain myself, and ask through gritted teeth, “What did you want, Mr. Starr?”
