42
Mecca
Three more weeks of rest and recovery, and I was strong enough to stand and walk on my own, but Arjen was like a big looming hawk, fussing over every little thing I did. Desiree wasn’t any better, running around like my limbs were chopped off.
When she and Arjen attempted to spoon feed me, it was where I drew the damn line and put them out of my room. Khane was the only one I had allowed in until I started missing Arjen a day later.
After weeks of being caged inside of Silvia’s palace of a house, I was finally set free to explore. Arjen had an early birthday present he wanted to give me, and we had ended up scaling the side of a mountain until we reached Khane’s house where he claimed the gift was temporarily located.
My jaw hit the floor of the car at the sight of the modern-day replica of an old-fashioned castle. The draw bridge was all that was missing. The steep drop-offs surrounding the place weren’t water, but it could have acted as the moat. Desiree probably lost her mind at the first sight of this place because it was something that she would die to explore and paint.
“Dayem,” I murmured when I took the first few steps inside. The gothic theme was something straight from the medieval period. Desiree stepped towards me with, of all things, an apron on that said, “Chef in Training.”
The sight lifted my eyebrows as she had flour or something on one of her cheeks. Our embrace was soft and soothing. The knowledge that we were sisters always squeezed my heart tighter when we were around each other.
The house’s interior retook my attention when we separated, and I took another leisurely look around until Khane greeted us, bumping chests with Arjen and placing a tender kiss on my cheek that I didn’t expect. What was my sister doing to the man?
A serious side-eye was cast in his direction before my gaze turned to meet hers.
“This house is amazing,” I said, allowing my curious gaze to roam while taking a slow stroll through the living room. The rest of the group chatted in hushed murmurs, no doubt talking about the surprise Arjen had for me.
“Now I understand why Desiree is truly here,” I stated before returning to the couch, eyeing Khane.
“No matter what she tells you, I’m sure she married you for your house.”
Her playful tap caught me in the arm as I attempted, but failed to dodge it. We enjoyed a round of small talk and Desiree’s tasty crab bites with a glass of white wine.
Her excitement spilled out and warmed me as she announced that Arjen and me were her and Khane’s first official guests. We were also the first to sample something that he had taught her to cook.
Other than Arjen, the outside view of Khane and Desiree’s relationship was one of the most beautiful things I had seen since my return to the living. After she discarded her apron and returned from the kitchen, she casually walked past him on the couch, bumping his knee on purpose before she took her seat.
She angled her body so that she was scraping it against his side as he and Arjen were talking about a boring financial matter that I had long stopped listening to. It still boggled my mind that men with their reputations were as beastly in the business arena as they were in the true jobs they had been groomed to do.
However, Khane and Des had captured my attention. It was like observing a kitten flirt with a tiger. A third of one of her tasty crab bites that her resourceful-for-a-killer husband had taught her to make, was being shoved into my mouth. As soon as she was seated comfortably, her head fell against his shoulder before she turned and kissed the spot, her head had been.
I bit into my wide smile before shaking my head. She was a goner, so far in love with the man she was displaying public displays of affection, something she had never done.
Khane was no better. Although he was in the middle of a sentence, his hand covered her thigh, squeezed, and remained there, letting her know that he was acknowledging whatever was being transferred between them.
Was this how I was with Arjen? Eugh. I had never been an affectionate woman, but I couldn’t deny that Arjen had a way of taming me. I was still trying to figure out how he had accomplished it.
My lips twisted over my smile when I saw where Arjen’s hand was on my leg. He squeezed it at that moment like he had an idea, or even knew, what I was thinking.
When my head fell against his shoulder, I jerked it up, realizing I was as gone on Arjen as Des was on Khane. We had finally found men that loved and appreciated us like we had hoped for. I couldn’t speak for my sister, but I was also getting the best sex I’d ever had, as often as I wanted it.
Arjen was reluctant to touch me too soon after I had returned from the brink of death, but the last three days were dedicated to our sexual reunion.
Silvia was reluctant to let me discharge myself from the makeshift hospital she had turned a wing of her house into, but after she had walked in on me and Arjen fucking, she knew without a doubt that I was well enough to go home.
Now that the pleasantries were done, Khane led us towards his kitchen, but made a sharp turn into a hall leading to a broom closet. Once he sprang the door open, for the third time that evening, my mouth fell open.
Arjen had a death grip on my hand, afraid to let me walk on my own although he had fucked the shit out of me hours ago. He led me down the stairs of a modern-day dungeon. What in the kinky hell did Khane have going on in this house with my sister?
When the clouds of the mystery of the dark dungeon stairs faded, we were cast into the light of a deeper mystery. Was that some sort of torture table? My face grew tight as I continued to walk while everyone else, who knew the place, stopped.
When I stepped too close to a tight hall leading into another portion of the place, Khane and Desiree called me at the same time.
“Mecca.”