“I have to feed my cat,” she whispered, rather irrationally, he thought. “She’s probably hiding. Terrified. She’s probably so hungry…”
He knew from experience that sometimes it was easier just to give in. If this was important to her, it would help if it was done. “I’ll do it. Tell me where it is.”
“There’s tuna in the pantry. Open it. Put a quarter onto a plate. Her medicine bottle is in the cupboard over the fridge. There’s a blue measuring vial. Fill it to the two mark and mix it into the food. She’ll come out soon. I hope. She’s probably so scared…” she trailed off, voice turning into a whisper.
“It’s alright,” Kian said gruffly. He’d had more than his fair share of experience dealing with trauma victims. Over the years he’d seen it all. Rape cases. Domestic abuse. Homicides. People trusted him. They really had no reason to, but for some reason, they always talked to him when they couldn’t talk to anyone else. “I’ll do it.”
He went off towards the kitchen. He flicked on the light, noting that it was just like his own. He found everything easily. What do you know, the click of the can opener produced an ancient blue eyed beast. The Siamese cat blinked up at him, staring him down hard, assessing him.
“I’m a friend,” he said gently. “See, a peace offering.” He produced the dish with the good and medicine mixed in.
The cat strode forward confidently and actually rubbed his leg. It meowed softly, a horrible noise that didn’t sound like a meow at all. He bent, set the food down and gently caressed the cat’s back. It was so ancient he could feel the backbone. It sagged a little at the end and the animal’s hip bones were visible. The cat was long and lanky and he was willing to bet it had looked like that almost its entire life. Age only heightened the signs. The coat was no longer shiny either. It was almost shaggy, oily down the back.
He made sure the cat was eating before he went back to the living room. The woman, the nameless woman, pushed herself to standing. She stared at him with those eyes of hers, eyes that were old before her time.
“Thank you,” she whispered and he wasn’t sure if she was thanking him for getting rid of the garbage or for feeding her cat. Probably both.
He raised a hand to his hair and brushed the long strands away from his face. “No problem.” He actually felt the sting of unfamiliar heat on his cheeks. He felt… undone the way she was looking at him. It was strange and cutting, sharp and intense. She blinked then, freeing him from her spell and let out a relieved breath.
The floor was spattered with blood. It was a little unnerving to say the least. “You got a mop? I can clean that up.”
“I’ll do it.”
He couldn’t say what made him do it. He hadn’t touched a person, at least not in that way, with any kind of tenderness, in four years. He was unable to stop himself from reaching out and gently caressing her forehead. He felt the welt forming there and moved his hand lower, skimming over the bruise.
His heart hammered violently. His entire body came alive and so painfully aware. He skimmed that delicate skin, so very gently, lightly, almost not touching her at all. She was fire. A damn pillar of fire standing there, burning him, consuming him. His hand didn’t feel like his hand at all, his arm burned, his body sizzled with electricity. He forced himself to be gentle when he pulled his hand away.
Her beautiful blue eyes never left his face. She didn’t tremble or jerk away when he touched her. The most incredible emotion shimmered in those blue depths. Trust. She trusted him. She had no reason to. He looked like a badass. She’d seen him do physical damage to another person. She knew what he was capable of, and yet, she sensed he wouldn’t hurt her.
That trust, her innocent, naïve, misplaced trust, did something to his heart. He was damn hard inside. Like a rock. Other than the pain in his head that he never could block out, the nightmares and unguarded moments, the memories that assailed him, he felt nothing at all. No joy, no fear, nothing.
When she looked at him like that, damn it, when he’d touched her, he felt… he felt- alive. Like his heart was truly beating again. He felt his skin and his bones and his blood. He felt that he was a flesh and blood man and not just a shell.
“This is going to be bad,” he choked out as his insides twisted into a hard knot. “I don’t want it to swell up so badly that you can’t see out of that eye. Please, come to my house and let me put ice on it. You can stay there while I come back and clean up your living room floor.”
“I can’t do that,” she whispered. “You’ve done enough. I’ll go to the store and get some ice.”
“Not a chance,” he protested, amazed he could even find words or force a coherent thought at the moment, when his body was doing wild things, things he hadn’t felt in years. It was sheer instinct and years of professional training, he knew, that pulled out the words, that forced his voice. “Just come over. It will be alright. I promise.”
She hedged. Her hand flew to the bruise on her cheek one delicate, manicured finger tracing the outline of the purple swell. She winced. “I… I don’t even know your name.”
He nodded slowly. “Yah. I know. I think now, of all times, we can be on a first name basis. I’m Kian.” Absurdly, he stuck out his hand. She stared at it for a moment before she reached out and gently placed her palm in his. Fire shot up his arm, the flames licking and searing his skin. He managed not to wince or rip his hand away. She dropped her palm back to her side naturally a second later.
“Katelyn.”
“Katelyn,” he repeated reverently, because he couldn’t stop himself. He loved the sound of her name. It rolled off his tongue and filled up the small living room.
“Yah,” she muttered. “Katelyn. I guess we’re even now.”
“What?” His brow raised and he frowned in confusion.
“Well, I picked you off the sidewalk last night, saving you much humiliation and probably a few angry complaints about public drunkenness to the condo board. It might have been the final straw for you, considering your bike is far too loud and obnoxious. I’m sure they’ve received a couple calls about that. So really, if you think about it, I saved you from being evicted.”
His grin started out slow and spread from there. It was amazing, how his facial muscles automatically remembered how to do it. Smile. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done so and meant it. “I suppose we are then. Although I think you’re wrong. I don’t actually believe anyone would call in a complaint about me.”
One of her slim, blonde brows arched in echo of his. “Oh? You seem pretty confident in that.”
“I am. Have you ever heard the term snitches end up in ditches?”
“Oh my god…”
He laughed, a short burst that was also genuine. Isn’t today just a damn day of firsts? “I would never do that. Obviously. I might drive a bike and be tattooed, but I’m not the kind who puts people in ditches. Anyway, I’m also not naïve. I know people don’t like me here and I know they’re scared of me. I think they’re way too scared to report me or make a complaint. They probably think I’d find out about them and come for them.”
Katelyn actually giggled. It was high pitched and girly. “Dragging my ex-husband out of here doesn’t help your cause.”
“It might. Anyone who is against scumbags and woman beaters would applaud what I did.”
“Except they just saw a guy in a suit all bloody being hauled out. They don’t know what he did. He only ever did… behind closed doors.”
His rage built all over again. He took a deep inhale and let out the air in a long rush. “Come on. I promise my condo is safe. I’ll give you some ice there.”
He waited, almost afraid, for some irrational reason, that she wouldn’t come. She finally nodded. “Alright.”
Kian led the way, out of her condo, over to his. He let her in, aware that she’d been there just the night before. What must she think of him? In less than a day she’d seen him completely dead drunk, vomiting on the landscaping, a wreck to someone who pounded
the living daylights out of her ex.
He himself didn’t know what to think. About any or all of it. Worse, he didn’t know what to do with the fact that her presence took up his whole kitchen. Her delicate scent assailed him again, the force of her being assailed him. She hit every single unfeeling part, melting the ice that covered and protected him. It hurt so badly it was hard to draw a breath.
What he did best was escape. When the pain inside was too much for him to bear, he escaped. He went inside of himself. Tunneled in deep. Lost himself in whiskey and oblivion. He handed off an ice pack and mumbled something about cleaning up her floor and disappeared. He needed just a few minutes, a few minutes to sort himself out and let those soft spots, those painful feeling spots, freeze back over.
Chapter 10
The First Hot Embers
Katelyn
Ice pack pressed to her cheek, the numbing cold easing some of the pain, Katelyn relaxed into the soft black leather couch.
His house, Kian’s house, looked so different than hers, though the layout was essentially the same. She felt off kilter there, like being in his private domain was more intimate than it should have been.
She was very aware of his masculine presence long before the sound of the front door opening and closing and his footsteps announced that he was back. She slowly swiveled her head around and took all of him in. Her savior.
He hesitated in the kitchen, staring at her, eyes wide like she didn’t belong, like he didn’t expect to find her still there. He smiled softly, something she had the impression he didn’t do often and she relaxed slightly. She shifted the ice pack away from her cheek, up to the welt on her forehead.
Kian moved then, slowly, as if he didn’t want to alarm her. He sat down heavily on the opposite end of the couch. It was a large piece of furniture. It sat perched across from the matching loveseat and a square, espresso coffee table.
He stared at her, his dark eyes burning into her, searching, seeking answers. She finally heaved a sigh. “I suppose you want some answers.”
“No.” He shook his head in denial, but his head said something different. He was assessing her, trying to figure out what was on the inside. “I will tell you that you should go down to the police station and file a restraining order. And get a dog.”
“A dog?” She stared at him in surprise. “Why a dog?”
“So there’s someone to protect you.”
She didn’t mean for it to happen, but tears welled up in her eyes again. Her throat closed up painfully and the bridge of her nose burned. She blinked and those tears spilled over hot down her cheeks, especially in the numbed spots where the ice pack had been.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, embarrassed. She hadn’t cried much. Not since she left Chicago. “I just want to be free of him,” she mumbled when Kian didn’t make a move to speak. She didn’t know why, but she felt she could talk to him. It was more than what he’d done for her. She sensed something inside of him, something tender that no one else could see. A well of hurt and a well of pain, but underneath that overflowing spring, under the tattoos and the beard and long hair, the leather and the bike, she sensed that he was soft. That he had a past far worse than hers. “I want to move on with my life and stop reliving the past. I just… he showed up here and I feel like I’m right back there. Right back to where I left off. He’s undone a year of progress. A year of trying to move forward and pick up the pieces.”
Kian leaned forward. He scrubbed a hand over his face, starting at his forehead and ending at his beard. He smoothed down the ends of the long, dark hairs and gave a shuddering sigh. “I know. Believe me I know. You can’t let him win. You have to push forward. He’s not going to come back around. If you remember anything, remember his face in the moment right before I hauled him out the door. Remember what it looked like when he was the weak one. Guys like him, that’s all they are inside. Pathetic. They know it and they take it out on anyone they can. You have to be strong and keep pushing forward.”
“I know,” Katelyn whispered. “I know that- it’s just… I let him do this to me for so long, before I finally got out. It’s so hard, feeling like this again.”
“Why was he back here, after a year?”
“It was so stupid. I was so stupid. He said he wanted to talk and I knew it was coming. I left while he was at work one day. Packed up and pretty much fled. He knew where I was. I had to hire a lawyer for the divorce. I’m shocked he even signed the papers. I threatened to expose him if he didn’t. I knew that he’d come back eventually, for his closure. I just never thought that he’d…. that he’d be like this again. He was always mean, nasty in that horrible way. He said the worst things, but he only ever hit me if he was drunk.”
“You should never have met with him alone.”
“I know. I know that, but he wouldn’t have met me anywhere else. I just wanted to get it over with. I’ve been moving forward this whole time, but he’s always been there, hovering in the background. I wanted to put him behind me once and for all. I was going to be more prepared. Record it all so that if I went to the police they’d believe me. I… I didn’t think he’d be waiting for me when I got home. It makes sense though. He probably sat out there all day just to catch me off guard.”
“Of course. Guys like him, they feed off fear and intimidation. You saw what he was like when the tables were turned.”
“Yes.” She gave a tremulous smile. It made her feel… she didn’t like the way it made her feel when she recalled John’s bloody face. She felt satisfied. Like justice had been served to him in the only way that he deserved. “I’m just so thankful it’s over.” A fresh wash of tears started down her cheeks. “I feel like maybe I can finally move on. At least when these bruises heal… I- how did you know something was going on? Why did you come in there?”
Kian’s lips turned up in a wry smile and she realized how much she liked them when he did that. Smiled. They were fuller then, even more alluring. Stop it. This is so not the time or place. Never- that was the time and place.
“These walls are thinner than you think. I could hear the yelling and then I heard this dull thud and I just knew something was wrong. I have- uh- experience dealing with this kind of thing. It didn’t take more than that to set me off.”
“I’m glad you came when you did. He was choking me before he threw me into the wall. Before he hit me. God, I thought he was going to kill me.”
Kian’s lips thinned right out. He blinked hard, those dark eyes assessing her once again, but there was compassion in their depths. “You never, ever should have been there alone.”
“Yes. We’ve gone over that.”
“He’s gone now. We’ve been over that too. I know he’ll never come back. If he does, you let me know.”
“It won’t. John is a coward underneath it all. He was this charming, amazing man when I met him. I should have known better. I should have known it was too good to be true, but I was young and stupid. So incredibly stupid. It took me much too long to leave.”
She couldn’t stop the tears. It was like the floodgates burst open. They were hot, so very hot. It was almost a relief to finally cry, to let those tears spill over, to take all the pain that was wrapped up inside of herself and let it out.
Unfortunately doing it in front of him was completely humiliating. She set the melting, sweating ice pack down on the couch and used both hands to wipe her tears. She gasped when her fingers grazed the bruise on her cheek. He was right. It was bad. She didn’t have to look at it in the mirror to imagine what it looked like. She knew from experience it was already a dark purple smudge, blooming over her pale skin.
“I’m sorry,” she said huskily. “I’m a mess.”
Through her watery tears she realized that Kian shifted on the couch. He moved closer, dangerously close. She was all too aware of his massive, imposing presence, of the gentle burn in his dark eyes, of the set of his shoulders, his strong hands, hands he must have washed since they were clean.
&nbs
p; Her eyes flickered to his mouth, to the lips she was so utterly fascinated by. He had a beautiful mouth, she decided. Those lips parted, just enough to let a hiss of breath slide through.
His hands, those huge, masculine hands, hands that had protected her, saved her, reached out and took hers. He was gentle, barley touching her, as though she would shatter at his touch. As though she would react badly, push him away. Those fingers were so very warm, the latent strength flowing through her, solidifying her in a way that was both shocking and startlingly intimate.
Her mind refused to process what was happening. A wicked heat pulsed through her veins. Her heart pumped hard, sending blood to every nerve and cell at an alarming rate. A reckless sense of abandon ripped through her as his hands left hers and slowly, so very gently, cupped her chin. Her entire jaw fit in his palm.
He tipped her face as he moved in, the heat of his body bracing, alarming, terrifying and so very, wonderfully, alive. Hard desire unfurled in her belly. She felt, despite her appearance, very much like a woman. And she was painfully aware that he was all hard muscle and powerful masculinity.
His face lowered, his mouth gentle, enticing. A shiver tore through her when the warmth of his mouth touched hers. He was gentle, so very sweet and tender. He tasted her lightly, caressing her with his tongue in a gesture that was bold and shockingly strange. He was delicious, all raw male and just below that, a hint of spearmint.
Heat built wildly, rapidly, sweeping through her limbs, her stomach. He parted her lips with his tongue, the building force in the very being of her growing. The lightning bolts of desire and hard arousal parted her lips. She opened her mouth and gave him access. His tongue found hers and stroked it hard, demanding, nothing slow about it, but entirely sensual.
She lost herself in him, in his strength, in the taste of him, the dusky arousal that grew, the intoxicating heat that consumed every single one of her senses. It wasn’t right, but it was pure and utter bliss. It didn’t make sense, but she didn’t want it to. No, in that moment, she wanted to just be. She wanted to feel like a woman again, like she meant something to someone. She wanted to hold and be held, to open herself up and let him save her all over again. She wanted to cut her heart open and bleed out all her loneliness and sadness and fear, fear that John had ruined her for this ever again. For trust and for pleasure. She wanted him there, inside her heart. She wanted this memory, this time, this regret that would replace all her past regrets.
Hot Ink: All 3 Tattoo Shop Romance Books + 2 Exclusive Bonus Stories Page 6
