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“And I knew it,” Kas added with several sharp jabs of her finger into the table. “I could smell the crazy coming off him through the phone and I told you.”
“I was already in his car when you told me,” Kami muttered.
Kas groaned and rubbed a hand over her face. “Fuck, I get so mad every time I think about that motherfucker.” She hit the table with a fit. “If we’d only gotten there a few more minutes earlier…”
Now, I was deeply invested.
“What guy?”
The conversation screeched to a halt and all eyes pivoted to me as if only just remembering my existence. Rude. But I was more interested in the rest of this story and this guy I would be paying a visit to the first chance I got.
“It was nothing—” Kami started but I cut her off, eyes fixed on the other three, waiting for one of them to fill me in because I knew Kami would sugar coat what I needed to hear.
“What guy?” I repeated.
Sasha and Kas exchanged glances with each other, then with Lavena, neither of them saying a word.
So, I faced my sister. Her gaze met mine from across the table, hers calm and level. The look of a feral cat who just feasted on a whole chicken coop. It was the look of satisfaction and amusement. As if what I was asking was somehow entertaining in her mind. But I recognized that look. I knew that twisted glimmer. I was also very much aware that while the others had argued about this asshole, she had said nothing, as if the matter was somehow irrelevant.
Lavena raised her wine and took a sip. “No one of any importance. Kami took care of him. Didn’t you, Kami?”
Kami nodded immediately. “I did.”
Lavena set the glass down and leveled me with a look that said, see? The problem was solved.
My ass.
The fact that the other two were still enraged by the event while she sat unbothered only solidified my theory.
No one was finding this guy.
I should have known Lavena wouldn’t have let something like that slide. She would not have let him live. Why she hadn’t told the others was a question for another time. I frankly didn’t care. I was more enraged I wouldn’t be getting my hands on him.
I sat back, resting my elbow on the iron armrest and my chin on my loosely bunched fingers. My gaze met Kami’s and I felt theoverpowering urge all over again to find this guy and beat him to an inch of his life. Maybe beyond. What right did he have to put his filthy hands on what was mine? Had he honestly thought he could get away with it?
I guess, technically, he hadn’t gotten away with it, but he’d hoped. And herein my problem; Kami was too trusting. She was too … good. She never saw the evil rotting the belly of the city. She genuinely believed people were inherently decent when in fact, the majority of them would slit her throat for the watch on her wrist and I wouldn’t always be there to protect her and that terrified me.
“Company?”
Head bent over a sink piled with soapy dishes, I didn’t hear Kami slip into the kitchen until she stood in the back doorway, her thin arms clasped around her center.
“I’d never say no to yours.”
I flicked the soap from my fingers and motioned to the dishtowel I’d already set aside for her, anticipating her arrival.She plucked it up with a grin and stepped into the space at my side.
We worked in a comfortable silence that was broken only by the clink of ceramic and the rush of water. Occasionally, the laughter and raised conversation from the fire pit threaded through our moment, but we continued to work side by side as we had a million times in the past. Kami was the only other person I knew, besides myself, who enjoyed the methodical process of cleaning. Whenever we ate at my parents’, we were the ones who volunteered to do the dishes. I washed. She dried. It was a routine I’d missed being away from her.
When it was all finished and the counters were scrubbed and the floor swept, I tucked my hands around her waist and lifted her onto the counter. Her squeak of surprise was followed by a grin as I scooted her to the edge and stepped between her knees. Her arms encircled my shoulders, capturing me and pulling me closer. I found my face buried in the soft column of her throat, my palms flat along the delicate line of her back, pressing her tighter to me. My lips lingered on the pattering vein beneath the warm skin. Her sweet fragrance, a haunting aroma of roses and me.
Fuck, I smelled good on her.
Her fingers skimmed through my hair in rhythmic strokes that made me want to nuzzle in deeper and nap. Her lips lined the column of my neck with tiny, kissing nibbles. She’d locked her legs around my hips, and I could feel her gently stroking the back of my thigh with her feet. I relished in the moment, in the feel of being utterly surrounded by the most beautiful woman in the world, to be loved by her so fully.
She hadn’t said it, neither had I, but I wasn’t an idiot. No one, absolutely no one waited for a man for four years because of some ridiculous crush, because of a ten-minute kiss a lifetime ago. I knew she loved me. I knew it as certainly and completelyas I knew I loved her. Knowing it, however, didn’t solve the problem it brought.
How the hell was I supposed to live the rest of my life without her?
How was I going to keep her?
