“So you haven’t told him?” Lydia questions.
“I betrayed him, Lydia.” The clock reads six fifty-five. “I honestly thought about texting him … and then hiding at your place.” A heavy exhale leaves me.
“He wasn’t here,” she tells me and I’m shocked by the hard tone she uses. With my gaze trapped in hers mostly from shock, she repeats, “He wasn’t here and a lot happened. He changed and so did you, and if he can’t understand that, it’s on him.” Her swallow is audible when she finishes and she gives me a curt nod as if to ask, isn’t that right?
There’s a flop in my chest, one that’s dull and thuds on its own for a moment.
“How do I look him in the eye after he’s gone through hell and tell him what happened?” I’ve thought of it a million times, but even in my imagination, I open my mouth and no words come out.
“Kat.” Her voice goes soft and serious. Lydia puts down her fork and my stomach twists at the conversation I know is coming. “You aren’t the only one, and he needs to know—”
The front door rattles, then opens with a familiar creak. I jump, feeling guilty and caught, and barely manage to catch my wine before it sloshes all over my kitchen floor.
“We’re back,” Reed says. “You here?”
“In the kitchen,” Lydia calls out. With only a few steps Reed appears in the threshold, wearing his leathers, complete with a Celtic cross, and an easy smile. Until he sees me, and it slips for a moment.
Then there’s Cill … appearing right behind him and all that nervousness and fluttering and every emotion that I can’t control, it all comes up full force with no way to stop it.
Cillian
With a soft click, the front door shuts behind me and my gaze roams down Kat’s backside as she enters a code into the security system.
My body’s hot and my blood pounds as I slip my leather jacket off and wait for her to turn around.
To face me and face this situation we’re in.
It’s so quiet in her place that I can easily hear her swallow as my jacket is placed over the back of the simple wooden chair.
“Well now they’re gone …” she says and trails off as she ambles her way into the kitchen, her bare feet padding on the floor. With her arms crossed over her chest, she hides the fact that she’s not wearing a bra under her dark navy sleep shirt.
“Do you need anything before I go to bed?” she asks, brushing her hair off her shoulder, her wide hazel eyes peering up at me.
“Why does what you say to me, not match what I think … you’re thinking. What is it you really want to say?” I take a hesitant step toward her and the floor creaks beneath me.
My little hellcat stays where she is, her breath hitching as I reach out and let my thumb slip down her arm. The small touch is like a spark, cracking and igniting the faint tinder into a blazing fire.
She swallows again, her chest heaving with a desperate inhale before brushing my touch away and ripping her gaze from me as well.
I haven’t felt so nervous, so close to the edge of something that could break me since I sat in that small barren room of the courthouse, signing confession papers and knowing it meant I wouldn’t see freedom again for years.
That’s what her simple act of rejection does to me … it’s worse than that even. Fuck.
“I um …” She clears her throat, her back to me as she gathers the wine and glasses, cleaning up the small space and avoiding me entirely.
With both hands gripping the back of the chair, I’m careful as I ask her, “Do you want to talk? Do you want me to help?” It takes everything in me to keep my voice steady as I confess to her, “I’ll even take small talk, Hellcat.”
I’m only given her profile as she rinses out the glasses, the sound of the water rushing from the faucet taking up space, but her laugh, feminine and warm, drowns it out. She still loves to be called Hellcat. Hope lingers and the heat rises.
I may be nervous, but I’m not letting her push me away.
“Small talk, like what?” She peeks up at me, turning off the faucet.
“Thought you preferred beer.”
She huffs a short laugh, wine staining her bottom lip. “Things changed …” In an instant, that warmth vanishes. She’s hot and cold. “I have to tell you—”
“No you don’t.” My response is harder than I thought it would be.
“I don’t want to talk about … whatever the hell it is that keeps stealing you from me.”
“I can’t—” Her head shakes and her reluctance shows as she grips the counter, no longer facing me in the least when she adds, “I can’t stand seeing you without telling you—”