Khane
Speechless. Desiree had me so messed up that I couldn’t form a word, let alone a sentence in reply to the comment she made about the possibility of us. I was starting to figure out why I had never tried to understand women or forge something as confusing as a relationship with one. They were such alarming creatures. Unpredictable as hell. Logic and reason did not apply, especially where Desiree was concerned. For the first time, in a long time, I was lost.
Her aura was unstoppable, a force of nature that made me dizzy as she breezed past my defenses like I’d not applied any. She inhabited me and settled deep within, like a reflection of my soul. Her words, her kiss, her touch, her.
I hadn’t wanted to interact with her outside of being her protection for the sake of my brother, but I was a servant to the power she had over me. It was too strong. It was too good. She was nothing like the many hells that had inhabited my life and left me raw, damaged, and uncaring.
At first, she healed me from a distance. Watching her and seeing her thrive in a world built to rip her apart gave me hope for my own monstrous existence. Now, she was feeding the wicked connection we shared, fixing me with her presence, saving me with her warm spirit.
I couldn’t resist the world she kept pulling me into, a dimension all on its own. I was fighting to resist her, but a part of her was already inside me, possessing and doing with me as it pleased.
If I didn’t believe Desiree before, I did now. She wasn’t playing a game with me. The woman of my dreams, of my every fantasy, shared the potent chemistry swirling between us. The idea that she saw me as more than a monster blew me away because it was usually all anyone ever saw.
She hadn’t shied away from any of my dysfunction. It almost appeared she embraced it like she had been waiting for someone who didn’t follow the typical script. My behavior and actions scared and angered her. However, I hadn’t taken into consideration that her being an Evans gave her the mental strength to deal with someone like me. She had faced much worse than me spying on her and feeding my wicked obsession for her.
Desiree seemed to handle my crazy well. Should I tell her that my house was armed with enough tech, spy, and weapons to fight a number of different types of wars. The only reason I’d felt comfortable leaving her alone in my house was because the place was one gigantic safe room. I could lock the house down and watch every space inside it from the watch on my arm. Should I tell her that I had never stopped watching her, even while she was in my home? You’ve told her enough, the voice in my head sounded upset.
A cute little squint rested on her face as she was observing me again, studying me like an artist putting the finishing touches on their most inspiring piece. She was upset with me, but she was also conflicted as her face pinched tighter in thought.
“Make no mistake about it, I’m outraged and angry at you, Khane.” She paused, glaring with a hint of confusion riding an emotion I couldn’t read. Even in anger, she was beautiful and unusually calm for what I had unleashed on her.
“I know you did this show-and-reveal session with me as a way to sway my attraction to you. It didn’t work. I’m still attracted to you, even more so than before, if you can believe that. Do you know how many women would kill to have a man that they desire, be fascinated with them in the way that you claim to be fascinated with me? You stalked me for six years, embraced your inner crazy, but never once touched me or endangered me in any way.”
What was happening right now? What was she saying?
“Your past, your deadly reputation, the graphic display of torture you lured me to see in your basement, you stalking me and taking all those pictures. I don’t know if I’m naïve, dumb, or just plain crazy, but I should be afraid of you, terrified actually. However, I’ve never felt safer with anyone else. I’ve never been more relaxed around anyone. I’ve never connected with anyone so fast. For as deadly and vicious as I know you can be, you allowed me to see that you can be just as sweet, and patient, and good. You allowed me to see all of you, Khane.”
How was I supposed to reply? The implication of what her words truly meant had caused me to go still. She was proving to be as unusual and off life’s manuscript as I was. Was it possible that I’d been stalking and taking pictures of a woman that had been tailor-made specifically for me?
The first time she kissed me, she nourished a hunger I had never known how to feed. She watered a thirst that I had learned to live with because I’d never known what it needed.
Should I reveal to her that I had killed Keith? The handsy motherfucker had touched her with aggression. He’d shoved her into a brick wall outside the restaurant he had taken her to because she had refused to go back to his place. Then, he had left her on the cold street to find her own way home. I had been watching them closely because I knew his history, knew that his exes had been beaten and hospitalized multiple times.
He had also broken his five-year-old son’s wrist. Therefore, satisfaction was the emotion that filled me when I had fractured every bone on him that he had broken on his exes and his son. For putting his hands on Desiree, I had cut them off and made him stare at them as he bled out and made a feeble attempt to fight off the flesh-eating ‘nest of beetles I’d unleashed on his ass.
“Holy shit!” Desiree shouted, snapping me out of my vengeful memories. She was standing in front of me again, her body the kind of distraction that picked apart what was left of the sensible parts of my brain. She scattered my thoughts into a jigsaw of parts I was fighting to piece together as quickly as she dragged them apart.
Her straining gaze roamed left to right, scanning my living room as a knowing gleam flashed in her eyes.
“Leave it up to me, at the height of my irritation with you, to figure out why your living room is always talking to me.” Her gaze panned down and landed on me. She kept saying she was irritated with me, but I didn’t see or sense it. If so, she had the most peaceful type of irritation I’d ever seen.
“‘Broken Home’. One of my works. The painting had been stolen from an auction and burned by a jealous opponent, over three years ago, when it outsold his signature piece. The piano, the clock, some of the pictures on your wall, they are all similar to those from that painting. The positioning of your furniture in this room bears similarities also.”
She was going in a whole different direction from where she was moments ago. That I would pattern my living space after one of her paintings had lit her face with excitement, and although not on her lips, I didn’t miss the smile in the sparkling brown of her eyes.
When I told her that I was fascinated with her, I had meant with every aspect of her. She was who had opened my mind to art, making me see deeper than the surface of a piece.
Her discovery had taken the bite from her so-called anger. She loomed above me, turning in place as she took in the space of my living room, her smile growing wider with each ticking second. She eased back onto the couch, brushing my leg on the way down.
“Khane,” she whispered my name. “Dammit,” she uttered under her breath. “You get me like no one else.” Was she assuming the unhealthy obsession I had with her equaled me understanding her? I squinted at the notion as the intricacies of her mind baffled the shit out of me. My behavior wasn’t normal by any stretch of the word, yet she remained close, and it was hard to miss the appreciation that now rested in her probing gaze.
When she sat her hand on my forearm and allowed her delicate fingers to slide up my arm, I didn’t stop her. The fact that she was able to take the fresh hell I’d unleashed on her and still touch me had earned her the right to do so.
Her grip on my arm tightened, each finger a deliberate point of contact that drove in a deep, sharp need. The jagged edges of my desire was leading to thoughts of me fucking her rough and recklessly until she screamed my name and begged me to hurt her harder.
I sat in place, curious about her actions as she stood and slid one hand to the back of my neck with the delicate ease of a feather’s stroke. I didn’t stop my lips from melting into the cushiony softness of hers when she leaned in and initiated a kiss. My lips naturally slid apart when she slipped her tongue past them and into my mouth.
Helpless, I couldn’t stop the overpowering flow of her possession because I fed on the delicious flavor of her boldness and desire for me. It swayed me, flooded me with sensations that made me dizzy.