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So much for not telling her about the other girls.
“11, if you include us.”
“God. I knew there was something fucked up about him but I could never figure out what it was.” Ivy produced a humorless laugh. “I’ll admit, this is way less menacing than anything I’d pictured.”
Had she shared the same grim thoughts Kenna had in those early days? That he was capable of murder. Hauled limp bodies around in his station wagon. Dumped them in the forest. Those thoughts had come crawling back as soon as Detective Reynolds implied Dayton’s possible involvement in Lacey’s disappearance and subsequent death.
But she had been found in a dumpster, not in the woods. No prints had been found. That cleared him of suspicion, so why did her heart constantly ache when she considered that maybe hewasinvolved?
Why had Reynolds trailed him for so long if there wasn’t any new evidence?
“Get out while you can.” Ivy pulled the door open but she hesitated. “I loved him and he didn’t so much as blink when he cut me out of his life. He’ll do the same to you.”
32
LIKE YOU MEAN IT
She filled out an appointment card for the last patient of the day and passed it along with a forced greeting, heaving a sigh of relief once they had gone.
Her job performance had been less than stellar that day. Ivy’s smoke clouded her brain. With a disquieting clarity, Kenna relived their conversation over and over. Her tinny voice and hard looks. For all her hurt, she had not cried.
Ivy was past the point of tears.
She hadn’t yet confronted him about the drugging. They were slaves to their routines and a deep exhaustion had compounded and left them with little energy—and fighting required so much.
Knocking to announce herself, she entered the psychotherapy room where Dayton remained despite his patient having left. His head was angled back against the top of the chair, both hands buried in his hair. He stirred slightly when she perched on one of his thighs and she wondered if he’d heard her come in.
A tic ruled his jaw, one which seemed to never go away, even when he spoke. “Are we alone?”
“Mercifully.”
Her fingertips traced that tense line, trying and failing to relieve some of its tension. Kenna took one look at his weathered face and all she wanted to do was cure him of his fatigue.
Silently, she cursed that urge. She lived every day surrounded by reminders of his toxicity and yet she craved his poison all the more. The poison that had slithered into her bloodstream and made her resistant to his lies, his follies.
Bracing her hands on his chest, she leaned forward and claimed his lips. Their kiss was slow and tentative. It was tame though she found herself overwhelmed with desire, a burning hunger that insisted Dayton’s lips were not enough. Her tongue slipped over his and she relished in its slickness, that familiar feeling. She surprised herself by threading her fingers in his thick hair, further deepening the kiss. Kenna felt heavy and lightheaded at the same time, ascending to some unidentified circle of euphoria. He pulled away, breathing already ragged.
“It’s been a long time since you kissed me like that.”
“Like what?”
A sadness played over his features that broke her. “Like you mean it.”
Those words coupled with his face set her soul ablaze. Kenna undid the buttons on his shirt, methodically, as her mouth captured his once again. She fumbled with a few of them but she didn’t let it discourage her.
Fully open, the fabric draped at his sides. She shifted in order to properly straddle Dayton’s lap. Her hands found his lean stomach—the cold, bare skin—and he elicited a small gasp at the warmth of her palms. A branding iron in a snowbank.
She felt his icy flesh melting beneath her the longer her hands remained pressed to him and she was pleased that he was pleasured by such a simple touch.
His arms hooked around her and, as he stood, she rose with him. He brought Kenna to the velvet chaise and all but dropped her amid the plush cushions. Like an animal attacking its prey, Dayton yanked the button on her jeans and tore at the zipper. He was working them down her hips before her thoughts had time to catch up. Her heart fluttered in her chest, a caged butterfly, as he used his hands to part her legs. Even though a flimsy piece of fabric kept her from being on full display, she felt completely exposed beneath his gaze.
Sweat sealed her to the couch and, despite Dayton tugging off her underwear, all she could think of was whoever would sit in the imprint of her slicken backside the next morning.
He didn’t tease her with his words or his touch.
Instead, he bowed his head like he had in the cathedral as his tongue sailed over her. She relaxed against the sensation, at being so profoundly intimate with the man she’d once labeled clinical and detached. Presently, they were almost as close as two people could get and something twisted low in her stomach as she remembered she loved him.
She loved him and he had no idea.
