Hideaway

by Penelope Douglas

  “Hey, um…” I breathed hard, licking my parched lips as I kept my voice low. “I can’t really talk right now. Can I call you back?”

  “Did you have fun tonight?” he asked.

  Tonight? How did…

  God, Kai was right. Damon was watching me, too? Or he was having someone watch me. Did he know about last night?

  “They will hurt you,” he told me. “And he will toss you out like trash, because that’s what sluts are. Trash.”

  My chin trembled.

  “If I was going to let my kid sister pass her pussy off to my friends,” he said, “I’d have at least given you to Will for first dibs. He was the most loyal.”

  I stared at Will as he drove, completely oblivious to who I was talking to.

  “I gotta go,” I told my brother.

  “He’s going to die,” he spat out.

  He. Kai?

  “Not because he betrayed me, but because you did,” he explained. “This will be all your fault.”

  My heart pounded so hard it hurt. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Damon would do it. He had nothing to lose.

  And he was single-minded in his idea of what was right and what was wrong. Betrayal was unforgiveable.

  I cleared my throat, keeping my words vague, since Alex and Will were sitting here. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “I’m already doing that. It’s Wednesday night. He’s usually at the cathedral around this time, isn’t he?”

  I closed my eyes. “Don’t,” I whispered.

  But he’d already hung up.

  “Hello?”

  The other end of the line was dead.

  Goddammit. Kai worked late on Wednesday nights. Then he showered and ate and drove to Thunder Bay to the Cathedral of Saint Raphael. Sometimes he went in the confessional, sometimes he strolled and looked at the art. Sometimes he was in there less than ten minutes, sometimes more than an hour.

  He went every Wednesday, though. Every. Single. Wednesday.

  He was supposed to be an expert in self-defense, right? Wasn’t “varying your routine” a preventative measure, goddammit?

  I stuck the phone in my pocket. “Can you take me to St. Raphael’s?” I called out to Will.

  “In Thunder Bay?” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Why?”

  “I just need to get there.”

  “What about your clothes?”

  “I don’t give a shit about the clothes,” I bit out. “Just let me take your car then? Please!”

  “Alright, alright.” He sighed and jerked the wheel left, turning and speeding down the narrow, cobbled street toward the highway. “I’ll take you.”

  I pulled on my seatbelt. “Go fast.”

  Kai

  Present

  “Kai?”

  I turned around, following the voice.

  The cathedral was all but empty, except for me and a couple janitors lurking somewhere, but the doors were still unlocked. I wasn’t expecting anyone. Keeping my arms folded over my chest, I walked down the Stations of the Cross to peer around the massive marble columns.

  Banks stood at the back of the church, near one of the holy water fonts, slowly turning her head back and forth, looking for me.

  How did she know I’d be here?

  No, of course. She’d done her research, hadn’t she?

  I let my eyes fall down her form. Wasn’t she just shopping? I saw all the charges come in on the card, but she still wore her same grungy clothes with the newsboy cap covering her hair as before. Although, some dark strands fell around her face.

  It was funny. She seemed to do everything she could to distract from the fact that she was a woman, but she didn’t realize that the clothes she wore only amplified her face. Without her curves or smooth skin, you had no choice but to rest your eyes on the one part of her you could see.

  Unfortunately, after last night, I’d seen everything else, and I knew what she hid now. Arousal wound its way through my body.

  I stepped out from behind the column, walking toward her between the pews. Her head immediately snapped to me.

  “Are you here alone?” she questioned, her eyes flitting about again.

  I fought not to smile. What was she up to? She seemed nervous.

  “Not anymore,” I said, playing with her.

  “Well, I just…” She continued to look and around, glancing at the balcony and down the aisle toward the altar. “Um, I knew you’d be here, that’s all. Thought it would be, um…”

  “Um…?”

  “Uh.” She swallowed, still looking around, for what, I didn’t know. “Uh, I thought it would be a good opportunity to discuss the wedding. This is a nice space for it. Should I reserve it?”

  I laughed under my breath. “Sure. Why not?”

  Whatever. I wasn’t getting fucking married, and even though I no longer needed access to the hotel, I really loved having access to her. I liked her.

  A lot.

  Plus, she was my only link to Damon. I wasn’t ready to give her up yet, and she’d be gone the second I told Gabriel there was no deal.

  “Did you already have your ‘confession’?” she asked.

  “No. I haven’t done that since…” I lowered my voice. “Since the last time with you.”

  “Really? But you come here every week.”

  “Do I?” I teased.

  Now how would you know that?

  But both of us knew she’d been my own personal satellite, circling me from a distance for God-knows-how-long before I showed up at Gabriel’s that day.

  I moved toward her, down the aisle, and let my eyes roam the vast hall. Dark wood gleamed everywhere, from the ornate arches a hundred feet above us, to the confessionals in the back to the dozens of rows of pews around us. I hadn’t been here for a mass in years, but the smell of incense and sickly sweet flowers still lingered from Lent six months ago.

  “Did you know that out of Michael, Will, and Damon, Damon was the first one I met?” I told her. “We didn’t all become friends really until high school, but I knew Damon long before that. We were both confirmed here when we were ten.” I looked up and around again before meeting her eyes. “Together. Classes every Wednesday.”

  Her eyes shifted. “And you come here, because…”

  “Because I might not know where he is, but I know where he’s been. He’s as likely to come back here as anywhere.”

  She thinned her eyes, looking confused. “Why would he have any reason to return here? To the cathedral?”

  She really didn’t know? Huh.

  Well, I suppose Michael and Will didn’t know, either, so it wasn’t odd for Damon to keep things to himself. Some things anyway.

  Things that made him vulnerable.

  Well, I wasn’t going to be the one to educate her. I came here every Wednesday, the same day of the week we had our classes when we were ten, for several reasons, the most important being I knew this church was significant to Damon.

  In this one instance, though, I liked being one step ahead of her, and since she still wasn’t on my side, I wasn’t going to give up my information.

  “You look really pretty,” I said, noticing some faint mauve lipstick that closely matched the regular dark pink of her lips.

  “You’re not answering my question. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Everything that you can use to get ahead of me.”

  She looked away, annoyed. But she knew she’d do the same in my position. We weren’t partners—not yet.

  “Fine,” she bit out, backing away. “Fair enough. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  Spinning around, she headed for the back doors, but I called out, stopping her.

  “I saw the charges on the company card,” I informed her. “Why aren’t you wearing your new clothes?”

  “Oh, I am.”

  She twisted back around, reached inside her jacket, and lifted up her shirt, displaying a dark gray lace piece of lingerie accentuating the fuck out of her stomach, perfect bre
asts, and beautiful skin. The bottom hugged her waist just above her belly button, and every curve—the mound of her breasts to the swoop running down to her hip—was like someone squeezing my lungs.

  “Shit.” I locked eyes on her and lunged.

  She yelped, darting into a row of pews and leaping three rows down before I could get to her. I laughed.

  Whipping around, she held my eyes, fire flowing between us, and I placed my hands on the back of the pew in front of me as she stood rigid and waited.

  “You have good taste,” I teased. “I’m surprised.”

  “Will picked it out.”

  My smirk fell. “Did he see you in it?”

  She nodded, looking all too pleased to admit that. “He even got my underwear size correct. Although I don’t think there’s really enough fabric there to call a G-string ‘underwear’.”

  That motherfucker! I leapt over the pew, and she ran down the row, back into the aisle. I followed, chasing her and watching as the hat fell off her head and her hair came tumbling down, swaying as she tried to escape.

  I caught the back of her jacket, pulling her into me and then pushing her into the wall of the confessional, pressing my body to hers. God, I could feel her now. The binding on her breasts was gone, and she was soft everywhere.

  Threading my fingers through the back of her hair, I lightly pulled, forcing her chin up and her eyes on me.

  “You’re such a brat, you know that?” I said. “I might spank you if I didn’t think you’d ask for seconds just to piss me off.”

  “I’ll never behave for you.”

  “Is that so?”

  She leaned in, whispering over my mouth. “You’re not scary without your mask, Kai Mori.”

  I tightened my fist in her hair, and she grunted, arching up on her toes to relieve the pressure.

  I wasn’t scary? Meaning I didn’t intimidate her in the least.

  Dammit, she was a handful. Constantly pushing me, her fucking pride not willing to acquiesce an inch.

  I bared my teeth, speaking low as I pulled her closer. “You got quite a mouth on you on top of the trouble you’re already in for fighting today.”

  I heard her swallow as she stiffened. “I don’t want to talk about her.”

  “I think you need to.” I pulled my head back up, looking down at her. Anger deepened the crease between her eyes, and I could tell she wasn’t playing anymore.

  I grabbed her by the jacket again and pulled her around the confessional.

  “What are you—”

  “We need to go someplace we can really talk,” I told her, forcing her through the door.

  My foot hit the kneeler, but there was also a wooden chair, and I pulled the door closed, sitting down in it and bringing her into my lap.

  “Just let me go.”

  “No.”

  “No?” she burst out.

  The room was pitch black, and I could barely even make out her shadow, let alone any colors. A small bit of light breached the wicker screen and a little more through the cracks in the door, but other than that, we were hidden from the world.

  Again.

  “I won’t touch you,” I promised. “I’ll take my hands off right now, because…” I rested my forehead on her shoulder. “what started between us here six years ago started off honest. If nothing else, just let there always be that. Just listen.”

  The last time we were here together, she heard everything. Everything I didn’t want people to know. And I wanted one person who knew me. I didn’t want that tainted between us simply because I was afraid of what she would think. I needed her to understand.

  She breathed hard, but she was still, making no move to leave.

  Loosening my grip, I kept my hands rested on her waist. “My father used to tell me stories about Japanese warriors,” I told her, keeping my voice low, “who, if they were defeated in battle, would commit what’s called the seppuku. Ritual suicide.” The images from the books I’d seen flashed in my head—men and women kneeling with a sword clutched in their hands. “Using a short blade, they’d impale themselves and slice open their stomachs. This would regain them their honor.”

  She listened, and I leaned back, bringing her with me.

  “They’d rather kill themselves than live the rest of their lives with the shame,” I explained. “And not just them, but it regained their family’s honor, too.”

  She remained still, but I felt her relax just a little.

  “Getting arrested changed everything for me,” I continued. “—my future, my family, my hope…. Even after I got out, I could still see it in my parents’ eyes. The sadness in my mother’s and the disappointment in my father’s.” My eyes stung, and I felt her relax against my chest as she listened.

  “What could I do, short of sticking a fucking sword in my gut, that would make my father see me the same way again?”

  I wrapped my arms around her waist, hearing the cathedral creak around us as the wind blew outside.

  “I couldn’t be with a woman, Banks. I couldn’t touch them. I couldn’t drink or smile or hardly eat. I couldn’t do anything that would bring me pleasure, because I wasn’t worthy.”

  I hesitated, not wanting to hurt her, but she needed honesty.

  “We put Rika through such hell last fall,” I admitted. “We blamed her and targeted her, put her in danger and scared her. We terrorized her, Banks.”

  I dropped my voice to a whisper. “She saw me the worst I’d ever behaved, and she still talked to me. Still listened. Still wrapped her arms around me and fuck it…” I choked out, tears welling. “We just, the three of us, needed that moment. Each for different reasons, but she made me feel like I wasn’t alone anymore. She made me feel wanted and strong. And it brought me a little peace for the first time in a long time.”

  I could feel her body shaking in my arms, and her breathing quivered. She cried softly. “But you…” I buried my nose in her neck, smelling something heady and fragrant. “You make me feel driven. You make me hungry and on fire and wanting to slow down time instead of wanting to rush through it. It’s you I look for when I walk in the doors in the morning. Not her. You.”

  She exhaled a heavy breath and twisted her head around, finding my mouth. We kissed, her lips melting into mine and our tongues finding each other, taunting and teasing, biting and taking. I groaned, my dick swelling inside my pants, growing painful.

  “You can touch me now,” she whispered between kisses.

  And I didn’t need to be asked twice.

  I ran my hands around her waist, feeling the lace and skin and squeezing her, because my adrenaline was running so hot I was losing control. She was so sweet.

  I cupped one of her breasts, holding her to me and savoring the feel of her.

  “I like the top.” I kissed and nibbled her neck “I love it.”

  “I’ll pay you for the clothes.”

  I peeled off her jacket, letting it fall to the floor, before lifting her shirt over her head. “Yes, you will.”

  My suggestive joke didn’t seem to piss her off, because she kissed me again, her tongue brushing against mine.

  “For starters, you can behave yourself,” I told her, kneading both breasts in the gray lace again.

  “I’m a street punk, Mori,” she taunted, leaving little kisses across my cheek that were driving me crazy. “I fight dirty.”

  “Not anymore. It’s your turn now.”

  “My turn for what?”

  I pushed her up from my lap and twisted her around, bringing her in again to stand between my legs.

  Looking up at her faint outline in the dark, I held her hips as her hands rested on my shoulders.

  “To confess,” I told her. “Time to wipe the slate clean.”

  She made no move and remained silent, probably thinking about what she should do. What should she tell me? What shouldn’t she tell me?

  “Go ahead,” I prompted her.

  “I…” Her fingers slipped around the back of my neck,
and she let out a nervous laugh. “Uh…forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It’s been…”

  She trailed off as I unbuttoned her jeans and let them fall down her legs.

  “Six years since my last confession.”

  She stepped out of the pants, to the outside of my legs, and sat down, straddling my lap.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, running my hands down to her ass. I was back there again. In the Bell Tower, long before everything went to shit, and I was happy.

  “I…” She pressed her groin into mine, leaning in. “I don’t know where to start. I’m nervous.”

  “That many sins, huh?”

  I heard her laugh, and I smiled.

  “Okay, let me help you.” I squeezed her in my hands. “Did you think about me a lot during the last six years?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  I dug in my fingers, feeling her smooth skin and the lace of the panties.

  “Were some of the thoughts good?” I questioned.

  She leaned her chest into mine, her lips brushing my own. “Yeah.”

  Electric heat swirled low, and I could feel damn near every little bit of her between her legs. My cock was straining against my pants.

  “Did you touch yourself, thinking about me?”

  She started panting, slowly rolling her hips against the hardness. I felt her nod.

  And I took my hand away from her ass and brought it back down with a sharp whack.

  She yelped, jerking back. “Hey!”

  She rubbed the area I smacked, but I took her hand, bringing it back to my shoulder.

  “That’s pretty naughty,” I told her. “So, what did you use…a vibrator, a pillow…?”

  She breathed nervously now. “Um, my…my, my hand.”

  I spanked her again and then kissed her hard, cutting off her cry. I rubbed the spot I hit, feeling her body slowly relax again.

  “Did you like last night?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Another whack.

  She lurched forward, gasping. “Kai…”

  “Do you like me?”

  She panted in my ear and clutched my shoulders tight. “Yeah.”

  Whack.

  “You like me a lot?”