Blinding bright light made me squeeze my eyes shut as soon as the closet door swung open. Knowing giggles flooded from Bree’s lips when she noticed how disheveled Kade and I looked, but thank God, she had the manners not to say anything. I leaned my back against the closet door, trying to adjust my eyes to the light, but my head still seemed foggy.
Dylan and Bree were explaining how they got rid of Fran; at least I think that’s what they were saying. The only sounds that reached my ears were the recollections of Kade’s heavy breathing and soft guttural moans. It took every ounce of restraint I had not to drag him back into the closet with me.
Kade’s eyes were wide, too. He looked ravaged; stunned. His eyes locked on mine and I was utterly swept up in Kade, in his eyes, drowning, drowning, not hearing or seeing anyone else in the room. I wanted to drown in him. I wanted to feel every inch of that look against my skin. I wanted to touch every last part of him. I wanted to make him call out my name.
Standing there in the office with Bree and Dylan still talking about Fran, I felt faint, surreal.
Still feeling his kiss burn against my lips, I covered them with trembling fingers. His voice, deep and husky, still echoing in my mind. Nobody ever kissed me like that, with force, with need, with fucking power. Nobody ever paralyzed me with one single look. Some nameless undiscovered organ in my body had opened and Kade Grayson was pouring himself inside me, seeping into my flesh, my veins, my cells, taking over my body. I was torn between wanting him to and not.
This man pierced my soul with his eyes. I feared he was seeing too much in me, peeling open my skin to try to find all the secrets within. However, the truth still remained that I wanted his lips on me, I haven’t been kissed well in ages. I hadn’t felt wanted and excited about a man in forever. I knew I shouldn’t want him. He was wrong for me. He was someone I could never be real with. Shit…I’d never be able to be real with anyone for the rest of my life, would I?
Bree and Dylan ended their sentences and walked out. I wondered vaguely what was said, but I was too Kade-induced to care.
“Kade?” I walked closer to him. The only response was his eyes following me. “Kade?” I whispered. “Talk to me.”
“I can’t control myself when I’m around you.” He stepped closer to me, face leaning down into mine, hovering over me, “You don’t make me crazy, you make me feel sane. Don’t ask me to stay away from you. I’ve been doing that for too many weeks now. I feel like I’ve been stealing from myself something I've been starving to have. And it’s you.” Damp sweaty hands cupped my face, “What happened in that closet is going to happen again, and again, and a-fucking-gain, Lainey. It’s never going to end.” He pressed his cheek against mine, the stubble of his unshaven face sent prickles of heat across my skin. The hands cupping my face shifted, and slid over my breasts and down my stomach. “This, Lainey,” he growled cupping in between my thigh, squeezing hard and releasing, “is mine. And, I’m yours. All of me. Destroy me, Lainey.”
He shuffled backward, and walked out of the office, leaving me…breathless.
Oh, my God…I was smiling.
The Kade-coma didn’t release me from its tight grasp until late afternoon. We spent the day cleaning, me demonstrating to everyone how to sterilize and scrub the hell out of things, and everyone moaning and groaning about me being an anal-retentive crazy clean freak. Well, everyone but Kade. Kade understood and scrubbed harder than I did, and I know this sounds sick, but it made my muscles clench and pool with want.
As night settled, and darkened the skies outside the bar windows, four men came in, a handful of regulars, and one of them, Bobby, dropped a few quarters into the old jukebox. Without looking, I could hear the familiar jingle jangle of the coins clinking against the sides of the metal as they slid in. It was so quiet in the bar that I heard the clicks of the buttons as his fingers chose the numbers to the songs, and soon after, the first guitar strums of Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones drifted eerily to my ears.
Bree, Dylan, Kade, and I, were sitting behind the bar on our small booth. Bree sat next to me, the smell of lemons, limes and thick dark beer erased the clean sent of disinfectant, and I missed its calming sterile scent. I’d been staring down at the little square napkin I’d been unknowingly folding into one of those origami animals and thinking about the heat of Kade’s lips on mine, when I felt Bree shift to stand. She walked over to the group of four men as Dylan made his way to the other end of the bar. My stomach did a flip knowing Kade and I was alone at the table and just out of the view of everybody and my hands stilled their movements.
My heart rate sped up when the small cushion I sat on shifted under more weight next to me. The warmth of Kade’s arm brushed against my skin and the slight touch made my body tremble. Leaning in closer, he brushed his knuckles along my jaw, immediately making my eyes meet his. So many thoughts were said between us in that stare, so many secrets were shared, so many strings were pulled that I lost myself a little drowning in those eyes.
“You’re going to leave, aren’t you?” he whispered.
“Why would you ask that?”
“You haven’t looked at me all afternoon. Your eyes are constantly on the door, and you look ready to run…Please stay…I didn’t mean to scare you before…” Intense.
“Kade, I’m not scared of you. There’s just…”
An explosive gritty crack rocked through the bar, a bright flash of light and the sizzling sounds of showering sparks and broken glass shattered out across the room, landing at my feet, and the music died instantly.
Even if I had never heard a gunshot before, it was not one of those sounds that you could mistake this close, but I knew for sure with every heartbeat what it was. That explosive sound that could deafen for minutes after, the slow motion of events right after, as chaos prepared its introduction. My heart thudded hard and all my muscles tightened into fight mode. For a half of a second, the room stilled and everything was bathed in thick silence. The smell of burning wires and acid filled my nose.
“Now that I have all you redneck’s attention, where can I find Samantha Matthews,” the gritty voice said, and I felt it in every cell in my body. This was it. Game over. I’d been found. My muscles tensed. Would he kill me quickly or drag me back home and kill me slowly in front of a live audience?
I still wore the stains of my decisions in slight white scars and discoloring on my skin. The strong feelings that I once had for my husband were locked in a small hidden box, and once that gunshot rang out, once the knowledge that his heart still beat somewhere, the lid of that box popped right open. My past exploded like warfare before my eyes. The feelings that I once had of love and comfort were twisted into hate and fear.
Holding Kade’s wide stare, anguish tore through me. God, please don’t let him kill me in front of Kade. Please, don’t do this to him again. I slid down onto the floor, crawled in front of the safe, and focused on turning the lock without being heard, or missing a damn number. Kade’s eyes pleaded with me. His hands grabbed after me to stay. His body slid across mine to protect me. My heart surged in my chest. Tearing my gaze away from Kade, I focused on the lock to the safe.
“I’m gonna repeat the question one more time. Where the fuck is Samantha Matthews?” The voice wasn’t familiar, the son-of-a-bitch must have paid someone to hunt me down. I dialed the lock to the safe. Right 12. Left 27… as Kade’s tense muscles hovered over my body mumbling low, just above a breath, in one of those horror movie singsong whispers… “2 exits. 5 windows. 4 customers. 1 waitress. 1 brother. 1 Lainey. 1 shooter. How many guns…” His hands gripped the flesh on my arms protectively as my heart was pounding through my chest. Oh, God, he was losing it.