Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
I got it now. The act of wearing a lover’s clothing after they’d just owned every inch of your body. When you smelled of sweat and sex and him.
Yes, I got it.
I put on panties, though. Another thing I didn’t get. Walking around without underwear. It seemed impractical and unsanitary. Especially after sex. Even protected, which Kane luckily had the foresight and sensibility to ensure because I hadn’t even been thinking about condoms. I had no memory of him putting it on the first time, but I’d been a little preoccupied. Even though I was on birth control—for practicality’s sake more than anything—I had never been so reckless or so intimate with someone to have sex without a condom.
My bare feet didn’t make a sound on the hardwood floors, nor on the plush rugs as I followed the telltale signs of pots clanging in the kitchen.
My body felt relaxed and at home as I entered the kitchen to the smell of onions and garlic.
I didn’t say anything to Kane as I watched him move about the kitchen. He did it like he’d done everything else, with confidence, an ease in his movements. My eyes traveled over the tattoo on his back. It was the one piece on his body that was cohesive. It looked like it could’ve been painted on the ceiling of some old church in Europe. In the middle of his shoulder blades was a heart shape, wings behind it and various knives stabbing into it, blood dripping from the heart. Cherub-type angles were on either side of the heart and on the bottom, holding a chalice as if to catch the blood. Flames burned around the scene.
I didn’t know why, but the tattoo seemed beautiful yet somehow sad. I ached to know the history of it.
“I told you to stay upstairs,” Kane said as he turned toward me. Though I hadn’t spoken, Kane must’ve sensed my presence. He was grinning. He didn’t look like the man who would have such a sad scene immortalized into his back. “You’re a woman who doesn’t do what you’re told… I like that.”
I found myself grinning back even though I wasn’t someone who easily smiled. People, mostly men, often commented on my perpetual ‘resting bitch face.’
That didn’t bother me. Women who didn’t smile on command, who didn’t walk and talk the way men wanted them to, and most especially, women who had power, were more often than not labeled as bitches.
I looked around.
The kitchen was nice, like the rest of the brownstone. All renovated with hardwood floors, expensive art, tasteful furnishings. The long space contained quartz countertops and stainless steel appliances, everything top of the line and sparkling clean. Everything except where Kane had been. That area was an explosion of ingredients, chopping boards, plates.
I kept an impeccably clean kitchen. Didn’t tolerate any kind of mess. My staff knew their station had to be spotless at all times. This was absolute chaos to my relentless order. Yet for some reason, it didn’t set my teeth on edge.
I perched on the barstool at the kitchen island.
“I’m not one to do as I’m told,” I agreed. “Nor am I someone who lays in bed while someone else cooks for me.”
I didn’t add that I’d never had the opportunity to lay in bed as someone cooked for me. It felt a little pathetic.
His mouth twitched. “Well, we’re gonna have to change that, aren’t we?”
My stomach dipped at the way he said it. So offhand, as if there were going to be opportunities for us to change that, chances to use the royal ‘we.’ I told myself not to read too much into it.
“Wine? Beer?” He nodded to the wine fridge beside the subzero.
I licked my lips. I was thirsty. Not that I was a big drinker, but right then, a crisp, cold beer suddenly sounded appetizing.
“Beer,” I responded. “But I can get it.”
“Keep that luscious ass in that stool.” He pointed at me with a spatula. “I got it.”
I pursed my lips. It went against everything in me to not just heed the command but to let someone run after me, let alone a man. I was about power balances, not owing anyone anything, not seeming weak, vulnerable.
An intuitive voice inside of me told me that Kane was the most important person to guard myself against, yet I ignored it. I kept my ass in the stool as he strutted to the fridge to get me a beer.
I watched his naked body move. It was covered in tattoos and scars. A lot of scars. I’d noticed them when he undressed, but I had other things to concentrate on at that point. I didn’t really think about what being Kane ‘The Devil’ Rhodes meant. But it meant pain, by the looks of those scars. Risk.
The scars, the tattoos, the muscles, the bone structure all spoke of a dangerous life, yet the cheeky grin he wore spoke of something else too. Something more playful. Safer. Or maybe that made him all the more dangerous.