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Lavena laughed. “That definitely sounds like something my dad would say.”
I thought of the days leading up to the trial, the months of pacing the floors with Marcella, waiting for news. Then the conviction and the sentencing.
It could have been worse. It could have been so much worse. He could have gone in forever. I could have lost him for good. The very thought still woke me from a dead sleep, soaked in sweat and on the verge of throwing up. I had to remind myself, a tired affirmation every time the numbing fear crept in that he would be out soon. Four years was nothing. I just needed to keep moving forward each day until I got him back.
Well, I had.
He was home.
He was a stone’s throw away and he might as well have been on another planet.
I rubbed at the places his fingers had curled into my skin, their weight hot and betraying.
It was just a damn kiss, Kami!The voice hissed, disgusted by my pathetic behavior.
It was two,I thought as if that made a difference.
God, maybe I was pathetic waiting on a man I had zero ties to beyond a kiss … or two.
“Kam?”
I was standing.
I had no memory of pushing to my feet yet I stood there with my friends watching me as if I had lost my mind — maybe I had.
“I…” I motioned stupidly to the house, at a complete loss for words.
“Are you going inside?” Sasha snatched up her empty iced tea glass. “Could you grab me one, too, please?”
Grateful for the excuse, I took the glass and hurried up to the very place I had zero desire to be anywhere near when he was there somewhere in its shadows. But he was in his room. That was where he’d been all through dinner. He hadn’t even come down to grab the plate Lavena had made for him. I told myself I was relieved but knowing he was just a staircase away had filled me with a weird surrealism I didn’t know what to do with.
The kitchen sat in puddles of inky black that dripped from the ceiling to pool across the counters and collect in corners. I left the lights off as I padded the ten steps barefoot across cold linoleum, the glass in hand.
It was with me standing in the open doorway, the cool air of the fridge brushing all the skin not covered by my tank top and shorts that I completely forgot what Sasha was drinking. Three different bottles stared back at me with different colored liquids,each one open and dispensed. I brought the cup to my nose and gave a sniff.
Fruit cocktail?
I took another sniff, kicking myself for not paying attention. What was wrong with me?
Exasperated, I turned to set the glass down on the island behind me, prepared to smell each bottle until I found the right one.
It took all of two seconds to realize I wasn’t alone. The muted light of the fridge spilled around the broad silhouette of a man with the body of a god and a face painted in shadows. The unexpected invasion elected a squeak of surprise from me that was followed by the release of the cup in my hand. It slipped from my fingers and exploded into a million clear shards around my feet. The sound was momentarily the only one for several seconds while I clasped a palm over my startled heart and gaped.
He wasn’t wearing a top. The elastic waistband of his gray sweats hung mockingly too low on narrowed hips and there was nothing stopping my eyes from consuming all that exposed skin illuminated by the feeble light. Kas would have been appalled by the waste of energy and letting out all the cold air but she wasn’t there to see what I was seeing. She would understand.
He was a masterpiece of perfection, an intentionally crafted specimen designed to liquefy a woman.
Her thoughts.
Her body.
Her will and senses.
He was steel wrapped in muscles and ink I knew he hadn’t had before going in. His beautiful chest was etched and crossed by a series of words twined around symbols I couldn’t make out, but the color was dark, cut in deep and I’d never been so curious, but thoughts of meanings vanished when my attention wavered to his face.
Hard, glacier pools of endless blue studied me from the wall of darkness separating us, watching me as I watched him. The weighted silence drenched the air with everything I wished I could say, everything I wished he would do. I was on the crumbling edge of a ravine needing to jump off but wanting him to push me.
My skin flushed with heat even as goosebumps rose along my arms and tightened my nipples. My core rippled, a familiar pang of longing. It was a desperate flutter to remind me I hadn’t had a man since freaking high school, long enough that I was sure I wouldn’t even know what to do with a penis. But I wanted his. God, I wanted him so far up inside me I could taste him.
