by Danica Avet
Now, replete from sex and food, they lounged together. “This is nice,” he murmured into the quiet of the booth.
Music had started playing downstairs right as he brought Kitty to climax the fourth time. And a good thing too, since she hadn’t been able to hold back her scream of pleasure that time. Pride made Monk puff out his chest. He’d made her lose all control.
“It is,” she answered without moving her head from his chest.
He buried his nose in her hair, inhaling the wonderful, sweet and spicy scent of his mate. “I did good, didn’t I?”
She pinched the skin over his ribs. “Don’t be cocky.”
“Don’t hate me because I make you scream like a banshee,” he teased, tickling his fingers down the center of her back to reach for and squeeze her ass.
They were quiet for a moment, the sounds from below filtering to them. “We should probably go back downstairs,” Kitty said on a long, drawn-out sigh.
Monk frowned at the ceiling above them, something niggling at his mind. “What’s wrong, Kitty?”
She tensed. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m supposed to be downstairs, mingling and stuff, you know, wedding stuff.”
“No, that’s not what I mean,” he said, shifting until he could look at her face. “Something’s bothering you. What is it?”
Kitty pushed away from him and rolled to her feet in one graceful movement. He didn’t bother trying to hold her down. It seemed she was ready to get up. Rolling to his feet as well, Monk grabbed the pack of towelettes he’d found in one of the storage closets.
“Here, I thought you might want to clean up,” he said tossing them in her direction.
He was pissed at her for not opening up to him, but he said nothing else about it. He pulled his clothes on and silently fumed. How many times did he have to beg her for forgiveness for what he’d done as a stupid teenager? But he knew it was more than that. He’d gained some of her trust, but despite everything they’d done together for the past two weeks, she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give him more. It infuriated him since he practically wore his fucking heart on his sleeve for her. Only for her and she couldn’t give him a little assurance by opening up to him.
She finished cleaning herself and dressing before he did and went to stand at the desk where they’d just enjoyed each other. The silence between them was thick and edged with something big. Monk straightened his tie and smoothed a hand over his hair before stepping up to join her in staring down at the crowd below them.
“They look happy, don’t they?” she asked in a hushed voice.
He could see Daisy and Ram feeding each other, their gazes locked. Kitty’s parents stood in line together, Hunter carefully choosing the best pieces of food for his mate. Claudette and Thomas, Daisy’s parents, were two-stepping in the middle of the room, their odd height differences barely noticeable as they moved together as a single unit.
“They all look very happy,” he agreed. Maybe it was the harsh way she’d ignored him, or maybe it was because he was tired of acting as if the past never happened, but Monk breached a subject he and Kitty had been careful to avoid in the last two weeks. “I was always jealous of you and Daisy.”
She glanced at him over her shoulder, her eyes puzzled. “You were? Why?”
“I only had my dad.” He shrugged. “I loved him, you know? But we weren’t close like you and Daisy are with your parents. And then to find out he lied to me my entire life…things just weren’t the same between us.”
Kitty didn’t speak for a long moment, but she didn’t move away either, something that gave Monk hope. “Do you see him much anymore?”
He turned to look at her, resting his hips on the edge of the desk. She kept her eyes on the gym, leaving him with a clear view of her profile. “Dad left Maison Rouge not long after graduation. He gave me the house and moved to Houston. He’d lost his job when the economy went in the tank. He wanted me to go with him, but I couldn’t leave Maison Rouge.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, trying not to sound like an orphan or something equally pathetic. “It was better for our relationship that he left. Every time I saw him, all I could think was how he fucked up the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Kitty’s face paled, but she still didn’t say anything.
Monk bit back a sigh of frustration, his cougar cautioning him to take this slow. “He’s married to someone else now, someone who didn’t try to kill her kids. Last time I talked to him, he seemed happy.”
Her head turned to pin him in place with her sharp eyes. “What made you decide you could finally tell me the truth?”
Rubbing the back of his neck with a grimace, Monk tried to think of a way it wouldn’t sound as if he’d trusted Daisy Lynn before Kitty, but nothing he came up with made it seem any better. “Daisy Lynn tortured me for years after you left,” he finally sighed. His lips quirked. “She was beyond pissed off at me for what I did to you, what I did to her.” He shrugged. “Then Ram came along and he made us actually talk to each other. It sort of came out then. She chewed my ass out for that as well because she pointed out, rightly I might add, that you wouldn’t have let anything like I feared happen to our kids.”
She still stared at him, her thoughts closed off. He ran a hand through his hair. “God, Kitty, I was seventeen, okay? All I could see was the way Dad looked when he told me and imagined putting you in his position. Did you know he had to hurt my mother to make her let go of me? Now tell me you would have been able to hurt me, possibly damn near kill me if we had mated and married so young, Kitty.” His voice was harsher than he meant it to be and it made her flinch. “If I would have told you about it, would you have accepted it and gone on? No, because you’re stubborn.” He let out a laugh that wasn’t very humorous. “God, you’re stubborn, Kitty. You would’ve stayed. We probably would have had three or four kids by now, maybe more considering I can’t keep my hands off you, but one day I would’ve snapped. You know it and I damn well know it. When that happened, what would you have done?”
Her face was stark white by the time he stopped speaking, even her lush lips were devoid of color. “We’ll never know the answers to your questions, will we, Monk?” she asked in a low tone. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m needed downstairs.”
She skirted around him, heading for the door. Monk wasn’t letting her go yet. He sprang at her, his hands catching her shoulders and pinning her to the wall. “No, you don’t get to run away again, Kitty. This time we’re going to deal with this.”
“Let me go, Monk,” she said in that careful voice that told him she was barely holding on to her temper. “I don’t want to destroy things by arguing with you.”
He got in her face. “You mean you don’t want to destroy our fuck-buddy relationship? That’s all I am to you, isn’t it, Kitty? I’m just a convenient cock for you to enjoy.” He pushed away from her, his stomach roiling with pain. “I miss the old Kitty. She was a lot braver than you are. She put her heart and soul into anything she did. She would’ve never spread her legs for someone she didn’t love.”
Her hand flashed out, catching him across the face, not in a slap, but in a full-blown right cross. Monk saw stars and stumbled back, his hand over his eye.
“You motherfucker,” she seethed through her teeth. “You miss the old Kitty? Well I miss the old Monk who believed in me. He had faith in me, in how strong I was. He cared about my feelings.” She slammed her hand against her chest. “Now you think you can just turn back time and I’ll be the same girl you betrayed? Think again, Monk. I deserve someone who loves me. This me, not the one who was too weak for you to trust.”
“I do trust you, dammit! I trust you to be strong enough to kill me if you need to.”
Her face went slack. “What?”
He stepped up close to her, his face still throbbing from her punch, and bared his soul. “You’re strong, Kitty. So damn strong and I should have realized it then, but I was scared to tell you about my fucked-up genetics. You’ve proven to everyone that you
don’t need me, but I need you, Kitty Marie. I never stopped loving you and spending this time with you since you’ve been back only made me love you more.” He saw a flash of hopeful pleasure in her eyes at his words and rushed on. “Please give me another chance, baby,” he whispered, sliding closer to her, his hands almost touching her. “Please just let me have another shot at making you happy and giving you the babies you’ve always wanted.”
For a moment, he thought she would melt right into his arms. Her eyelashes fluttered and her mouth softened, but then as though someone had cut off the power, her face closed down, her lips quivering slightly at the edges. “I can’t.” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “I don’t know if I can trust you again. Not like you seem to want me to.”
This time, Monk knew the blood had drained from his face because he felt it actually pool somewhere. Probably on the floor where his fucking heart lay after she ripped it out of his chest. Deep in his soul, his cougar screamed in rage and pain, but Monk didn’t let it out. He’d given her fucking everything. The truth about what he’d done, why he’d done it, and bared his soul to her, but it wasn’t enough. He had a feeling it would never be enough for her.
His hands froze next to her waist, hovering close enough he could feel her body heat. His arms fell to his sides. “You’re a cold bitch, Kitty Chambers,” Monk whispered harshly. Her eyelashes flickered at his words, but she didn’t say anything, her face a cool, distant mask. He sucked in a deep breath and took a step back. “Get the fuck out of here. And consider our friendship,” he sneered, “over.”
Monk turned his back on her, not wanting to watch her leave, not again, and turned to face the gym. His superior hearing tracked Kitty’s footsteps as she walked out of the booth and down the stairs. The distant sound of the door closing was a death knell for any hopes he’d had for a future with the woman he loved.
Cold and numb, Monk eyed the bottle of champagne they hadn’t finished. It was the perfect night to get shitfaced.
* * * * *
Kitty moved through the crowd on automatic pilot, every step forcing her to relive the pleasure Monk had given her, but even that did little to dispel the strange buzz in her head. When people smiled at her, she returned the expression, although her face felt frozen. She needed to get out of here. The sounds of people talking and laughing just added to the agony crushing her.
She refused to look back at the booth. If Monk happened to be watching her, she didn’t want him to see the pain she felt. She’d hidden it from him, probably a little too well considering how he’d looked at her, but she wouldn’t be able to hold on to it much longer.
A hand snagged her wrist. “Hey, where’ve you been, you kinky bear?” Daisy asked in a playful tone as she stopped Kitty’s progress to the door.
Swallowing hard, she looked at her cousin with another one of her plastic smiles. “I’ve been mingling. I’m sorry, I thought I could stay, but I want to finish your dress tonight.” She tugged out of Daisy’s hold. “The rehearsal supper is only in a couple of days.”
“What’s wrong?” This time Daisy’s voice was low and hard. She stepped in front of Kitty, forced her to look up to meet her eyes. “What happened to you? Where’s Monk?”
Hearing his name sent another spike of pain shooting straight at her heart. What could she say? He’s upstairs where I left him looking like I’d just stabbed him. She shrugged. “I don’t know and this has nothing to do with him. I’m ready to get back to work on your dress.”
Daisy’s brown eyes narrowed on Kitty’s face, her lips pressed flat. “We’ve never lied to each other and I don’t want to start now. What the fuck happened?”
Some of the people nearby looked over at Daisy’s hard voice, curiosity on their faces. Smiling, Kitty said through her teeth, “We’re not talking about it here. Drop it.”
Daisy reached out and slapped the back of Kitty’s head. “You’re so tête dur! You’ve done something stupid, haven’t you?” Daisy demanded with a glare.
Kitty’s head smarted where her cousin had hit her. She didn’t argue with Daisy though because she was hardheaded. But then so was Daisy. “I did what I had to,” she said through clenched teeth. “And we’re not talking about it here.”
Her cousin’s nostrils flared, but she didn’t say anything else on the subject. “Fine, but I’m going to kick your ass once I’m not wearing these damn shoes.”
Daisy flounced away, or teetered more like it.
Left alone in the middle of the crowd, Kitty forced a carefree grin on her face and looked at the people staring between her and Daisy. “She’s anxious to see her dress,” she told them with a stilted laugh. Understanding dawned on their faces and people went back to their conversations, smiling.
Still holding that wide, false grin, Kitty made her way outside, ducking her mama and Tante Claudette who both seemed to feel the vibes of anger between their daughters. She couldn’t deal with anyone who actually loved her at the moment. Not after she’d so coldly thrown Monk’s love away. She needed space and silence.
Stepping through the doors of the gym, she found neither. A crowd had formed outside the building, a mingling of reporters and tourists and the minute the doors closed behind her, she was mobbed.
“Ms. Chambers, Ms. Chambers, is it true that you’re using fur in your upcoming fall collection?”
“Ms. Chambers, is it true you’re seeing a local who you once dated?”
“Are you moving back to Maison Rouge?”
“Murderer!”
The word was barely spoken before a tide of something red and wet was launched directly at Kitty. She only had enough time to close her eyes before a wave of red paint splashed over her. She could hear the horrified gasps of the tourists, the frantic shouts of the S.H.A.F.T. members, and the continuous clicking of cameras as everything was caught for the public’s entertainment.
Reaching up, Kitty wiped the paint from her eyes and blinked at the roiling crowd in front of her. Several of the locals who hadn’t come to the party grabbed the activists, holding them while sirens wailed in the distance. The reporters were torn between keeping an eye on the struggles of the locals and the activists, and going for Kitty’s blood.
With the combination of her earlier scare, her bruised heart and being accused of using fur in her designs, Kitty had had enough. “You want to see my fur coat?” she shouted to the crowd.
Everyone turned to look at her and Kitty let her bear come out. She saw eyes widen in shock seconds before she fell on all fours, letting out a roar of rage. People scattered. The shifters in the crowd, especially those with S.H.A.F.T. shirts on, shifted and ran for their lives. The humans ran for vehicles.
Kitty lumbered down the red carpet, her head swinging from side to side as the sense of being watched came over her again. The bear snorted. Of course she was being watched. The reporters had only gone far enough away that they could still run, but her keen ears picked up the sounds of cameras clicking and voices talking into microphones. Let them report that she’d gone rabid. She didn’t care. Everything in her life was ruined.
She stopped and roared again, this time from anguish. The bear wanted to go back through the gym doors and track Monk down, mark him as hers and have cubs with him, but Kitty yanked on the beast before she could follow through. She hadn’t lied to Monk. She couldn’t trust him not to hurt her again. Especially since she knew the love she felt for him now was a hundred times more powerful than it’d been when she was a teenager. If he betrayed her, it would destroy her. Coming home had been a mistake because all it did was show her how empty her life was without him in it and despite her independence and self-confidence, she still didn’t have the balls to go after what she really wanted. She was a coward.
Ignoring the clicking cameras and the whispered voices all around her, Kitty shambled across the parking lot heading for the woods. She needed to be alone. The farther she moved away from the gym, the quieter things became until the only sounds were those of the smaller anim
als scurrying through the undergrowth around her. She scented their wariness of her, but they weren’t of any interest.
A bear with a lot on her mind, Kitty roamed the woods, winding her way in a circular route to the spot where she and Monk had first made love. She’d been so stunned to find out he’d bought the property after she left, she hadn’t known how to react. It had seemed so much easier to keep things physical between them, but she should’ve known she wouldn’t be able to hold out against him for long. Monk had always been her weakness from the moment they met when they were in elementary school.
Pushing through the thick brush surrounding “their spot”, Kitty trundled into the clearing where she’d spent so much time with her mate. And he was her mate. She plopped her heavy ass on the ground and snuffled. His scent was all over this place and it soothed her bear somewhat. Stretching out on the cool ground, she rested her head on her paws. There was no use denying it. She loved the man and her bear loved the cougar but she had to be practical.
A, if she mated him, Monk freely admitted he might try to kill any children they would have. Her bear huffed at the thought, protective instincts rising to the surface. He was right that she’d kill him if he tried, but it would destroy something inside her to do it. And it would leave her to raise their cubs alone. He might have faith that she was strong enough to bear it, but Kitty doubted she could go through something that traumatic and come out sane.
B, her work, the only thing that had kept her going, was back in New York. Yes, she could work from Maison Rouge if she had to, but it would severely limit her resources. Or would it? Her furry face scrunched up in thought. She was well-established, not a household name by any means, but she was getting there. Maybe she could expand her business, open a boutique in the area to sell her designs here as well. Her plans to get her designs to more people wouldn’t have to change. She could travel back to New York if needed, or her contacts could fly to New Orleans. It wasn’t as though it was impossible to work from her hometown.
