by Keta Kendric
His words were a revelation of release and warning. A strange combination of fear and concern kept me glued to my seat.
“After that night, the thought of you would ease the tension and calm the monster inside. For the first time in my life, I wanted more. I wanted to see you again. I wanted to see if I had imagined the brief connection we shared. I discovered that being in your presence, even at a distance, gave me a certain level of solace I couldn’t get anywhere else.
“You became my therapy. I made you the anchor I needed to ground me when I was on the verge of losing my self-control. You were my way of dealing with mental demons. I had also convinced myself that you were so far out of my league that it wasn’t possible that you would even talk, let alone interact with me. Although I didn’t fear approaching you, in my head, it made no logical since to do so. Until you revealed it tonight, I didn’t think you knew I even existed.”
The crease in my forehead deepened. “I have always been approachable and easy going. It’s one of the reasons I became an easy target in my family. What about me made you think that I was out of your league?”
He turned his hands up in an I-don’t-know gesture before he dropped them. “I believe in being real with myself. You are a beautiful woman, inside and out. It radiates from you and pulls people in. No matter where you went, men would stare and ask you out and people wanted to be around you. The fact that even my brother liked you was reason enough for me to keep my distance. Arjen rarely even looks at a woman twice, but you he remembered.
“The way I saw it, you could have whoever you wanted. So, naturally, I asked myself, why would you want me? I had nothing to offer you. We had nothing in common. Honestly, I have nothing to offer any self-respecting woman, but a life in the syndicate, and a partner who puts on guns instead of suits for his job.”
Why was I shaking my head at him when he was right? My eyes closed as I gathered myself. “You are right. But, only about some of it. If you’ve been spying on me like you said then you saw the kind of riff-raff I attracted. The horrible choices I have made with men. Have you seen me truly happy with any of the men I’ve dated?”
“No. But…” He dropped his head this time, and his eyes squinted like he was carefully contemplating his next words.
“But what?” I asked. When he appeared to avoid meeting my gaze, I bent to capture his. “Khane?”
“There were a few times I intervened.”
Intervened? The implication of his words was driving another flood of anger through me.
My breaths grew sharp, and I eased back to eyeball every inch of him. “Are you telling me that you were sabotaging my relationships?”
His gaze met mine this time, his nonchalant expression letting me know he couldn’t care less about the actions he’d taken. “Only the ones I knew would end up hurting you.”
“Explain!” I barked the word through bared teeth. I was like one of those little dogs that attacked the big dogs that could bite them in half with one chomp.
“If I found out the men were already in a relationship or married, or abusive, I intervened. I threatened some. Keith, from a few years ago, was twice divorced and had two domestic disturbance charges filed on him by his exes. Marcos had a long-time girlfriend that would get violent towards the women he had cheated on her with. Liam was an ex-con who had served two years on a rape charge.”
Damn. My eyes widened. I really knew how to pick them. No wonder I wasn’t too hurt when it was time to move on. And here I was thinking I was playing it safe by picking men that looked nice. How could I be mad at Khane for saving me from hurt and heartache? However, I couldn’t let him think I was okay with what he had done.
“Does your brother know you feel this way about me? Have all of those pictures, or that you’ve been watching me all this time?”
He lifted a brow. “You think he would have let you anywhere near me if he knew I was using you as my personal pin-up doll. Watching you to feed my sick fantasies, my dark desires, putting your face on every woman I fucked, using my….”
I held up a hand to stop his rant. “Okay, Khane. Damn. You make it sound so sick and twisted.” He flashed a twisted smile.
“It was sick and twisted, Desiree. If it means anything, I didn’t know who Arjen was marrying until you showed up in my kitchen that first morning. I had never asked him, had no idea who he was setting me up to marry either.”
“You’re not the least bit sorry about what you’ve done, are you? Not ashamed? Don’t care how it looks?”
The unbothered expression he flashed irked my nerves.
“I didn’t hurt you. I kept my distance and didn’t invade your privacy much, two or three times a month. You and I were never supposed to meet. We damn sure weren’t supposed to touch each other. Showing you this, revealing to you who I really am, it keeps you safe. Keeps us in the places we’re supposed to be in, me as your protection and you un-fucked until my brother returns.”
Khane wasn’t that callous, especially with me. I believed he was feigning nonchalance to add to his campaign to push me away.
“Khane, it’s my life, and you’re acting like it was no big deal that you have been in and out of it for years. Look, I appreciate you shielding me from what could have been disasters, but you can’t go interfering in someone’s life like that. You can’t invade someone’s privacy like that.”
A disturbing thought popped into my head, making the tension around my forehead grow tighter. “Your actions make me believe that since you couldn’t be with me, it didn’t matter who I dated, you’d find a way to get rid of them. Is that what you did?”
He didn’t answer, and worst, he still didn’t appear regretful. The sight of him so unapologetic was a slap to my emotions.
“Khane! How could you?” I yelled, breathless. He hadn’t even flinched at my reaction. “Everyone deserves to find happiness. You took away my chances of finding it. Not everyone I dated was a bad person.”
“I didn’t take all of them away. I wanted you happy, Desiree. I was a selfish asshole for interfering in your life, but all I wanted was for you to find someone willing to do anything for you. You deserve someone who wouldn’t be afraid to face your family or the danger that surrounded you. I wanted you to have someone that would protect you with their life, kill for you if they had to. With your family, even though you distanced yourself from them, you needed someone like that.”
“Someone like you,” I stated. I couldn’t argue with him on that point. Having a gun aimed at your face made you think twice about turning down anyone willing to help. “But still,” I continued. “You can’t live someone’s life for them.”
“I apologize for interfering in your life the way I did. It was messed up on so many levels, and I was wrong. But…”
“Khane Vallin, you are something else. You have everyone thinking one thing, when you have more layers than a fucking onion. You’re not sorry at all and could have kept that flimsy ass apology.” My angry words did nothing but cause him to lift a brow.
“What?” I asked. His unblinking stare, made me remember the but he’d added to his sorry-not-sorry.
“You have my brother now. You’re the first woman he has wanted to attempt a relationship with. He will protect and take care of you. You never have to see me again if you don’t want to. All you have to do is tell me to stay away, and I will.”
Why did I feel disturbed at the mention of me never seeing him again? Cause your ass is crazy, that’s why. The man had been intervening in my personal life the way he saw fit for years.
You should be more upset, Desiree. The little voice of reason in my head reminded.
I stood, stuck inside an endless cycle of emotions. One moment I wanted to strangle Khane, the next, I wanted to thank him for saving me from the drama I would have encountered with my poor choices in men. Why did he have to tell me this secret? Why the fuck was the idea of him being my silent protector growing on me?
Jesus help me. I was slipping further int
o my crazy, joining Khane on the flip side of sanity that he liked flirting with.
With one hand propped on my hip, I paced and peered at him every time anger surfaced. He sat in silence, waiting for me to extinguish my frustration and work through my thoughts. I would drop my gaze when something would grasp the anger and pull it back, sending me into a mind-loop of doom.
What Khane had done, watching me all that time, it frightened me. I was scared but not terrified. Was it because I knew what true pain felt like? Was it because I had lived through true horror?
Khane had been spying on me for years, yet he had not harmed me, in any way. In his own chaotic way, he had tried to protect me. Why the hell was I attempting to fold logic around his insane actions?
“Tell me again. Why have you never approached me?” I stood over him like a seasoned interrogator, my arms folded over my chest as I looked down my nose at him.
He had violated my privacy, but I was the one confusing him with my behavior at the moment. I was talking in circles, attempting to make sense of the insensible. I believed he was starting to realize that the sweet, delicate Desiree he assumed I was, was stone cold crazy.
“I knew that you didn’t want to be deeply involved with this type of lifestyle. I also noticed that you usually went for the guys that appeared safe, suits and ties, professional-looking. Nothing about me or my appearance equals safe. I figured if you saw me, really saw me, that you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.”
He expected me to reject him because of his appearance, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. I stayed clear of the men I was truly attracted to because I figured a clean-cut, nice guy wouldn’t have any drama attached to him. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
What the hell was I doing? I was supposed to be giving Khane a piece of my mind, not discussing the reasons why he hadn’t approached me and asked me out.
“You assumed how I would react to you. You were wrong to think that way. You’ve been spying on me all this time, but you only saw what you wanted to see, or you would have known me better.”
My clipped tone with him wasn’t for the right reasons. Was I getting upset because he had never approached me?
“I know you better than anyone because you were the only one I wanted to know. Your favorite color is white because it’s the color of a blank canvas. Whether you sketch, paint, or start a digital project, white is the foundation that inspires your creations. You smile through your eyes when your creating art. It’s when you’re the happiest. You sometimes sit tucked into your couch crying at movies, only its not the movies that makes you cry. I think it was loneliness.
“You always have dinner with your father every other Sunday and you two have only missed three Sunday’s in six years. The picture of the dream house you keep pinned to your vision board inspired me to pick this house. You will warm the same cup of coffee six times before you make a new cup. You have a sex toy that you’ve never used. You take it out, it makes you frown, and you toss it back in the drawer.”
I held up a hand. “Okay. Shit. You can stop. It’s getting creepy.” I was wrong to assume he didn’t know me because it sounded like he could have gone on forever. I aimed my head at the ceiling and inhaled a few deep breaths, realizing that I was more irritated that he hadn’t asked me out more than I was about the wall of pictures he had collected of me.
How crazy am I? I truly believed being an Evans had fucked me up worse than any other thing life could have thrown my way. After all that I had seen and after all that he had revealed, I still wanted Khane. I couldn’t turn the shit off.
I aimed my stiff thumb over my shoulder. “The pictures. They come down. You need to destroy them.”
“I’ll do it tonight. I’ll burn them,” he agreed.
I plopped down next to him on the couch, my knee bumping his muscular thigh as I adjusted.
“I’ve never had someone invest that kind of time and attention in me. Had I known you were interested, I would have saved you time and paper.”
He went still, not even moving his eyes as he stared straight ahead, realizing his ploy to drive me away hadn’t worked.
There was too much on the other side of his crazy for me to cast off. The man had literally purchased my dream house base on the picture of it that I kept on my vision board. He claimed I had sparked some type of epiphany in him so that he would grasp a hold of more meaningful things in his life. He had been using me as his anchor, his therapy, and his constant for six years. The man probably knew me better than I knew myself.
I leaned in, easing deliberately closer, his warmth wrapping around me instantly. “You should have approached me, Khane. If you had, you wouldn’t have had to get yourself off to a frozen replica of me. If you had asked me out, I would have said yes, and we wouldn’t be here fighting our attraction because of my arranged marriage to your brother.”
He swallowed, his gaze locking with mine. He had that expression, I’m in so much fucking trouble. Yes, he was in trouble, and so was I.
I sensed him shuffling through the pile of thoughts stacking up in his head to gather his words. I was upset with him for spying on me, for taking pictures of me without my knowledge, and for not approaching me. In a way, I think I was also blaming him for our current situation.
Would I have gone out with Khane if he had asked me out before now? Without a doubt.
18
Khane
Speechless. Desiree had me so messed up that I couldn’t form a word, let alone a sentence in reply to the comment she made about the possibility of us. I was starting to figure out why I had never tried to understand women or forge something as confusing as a relationship with one. They were such alarming creatures. Unpredictable as hell. Logic and reason did not apply, especially where Desiree was concerned. For the first time, in a long time, I was lost.
Her aura was unstoppable, a force of nature that made me dizzy as she breezed past my defenses like I’d not applied any. She inhabited me and settled deep within, like a reflection of my soul. Her words, her kiss, her touch, her.
I hadn’t wanted to interact with her outside of being her protection for the sake of my brother, but I was a servant to the power she had over me. It was too strong. It was too good. She was nothing like the many hells that had inhabited my life and left me raw, damaged, and uncaring.
At first, she healed me from a distance. Watching her and seeing her thrive in a world built to rip her apart gave me hope for my own monstrous existence. Now, she was feeding the wicked connection we shared, fixing me with her presence, saving me with her warm spirit.
I couldn’t resist the world she kept pulling me into, a dimension all on its own. I was fighting to resist her, but a part of her was already inside me, possessing and doing with me as it pleased.
If I didn’t believe Desiree before, I did now. She wasn’t playing a game with me. The woman of my dreams, of my every fantasy, shared the potent chemistry swirling between us. The idea that she saw me as more than a monster blew me away because it was usually all anyone ever saw.
She hadn’t shied away from any of my dysfunction. It almost appeared she embraced it like she had been waiting for someone who didn’t follow the typical script. My behavior and actions scared and angered her. However, I hadn’t taken into consideration that her being an Evans gave her the mental strength to deal with someone like me. She had faced much worse than me spying on her and feeding my wicked obsession for her.
Desiree seemed to handle my crazy well. Should I tell her that my house was armed with enough tech, spy, and weapons to fight a number of different types of wars. The only reason I’d felt comfortable leaving her alone in my house was because the place was one gigantic safe room. I could lock the house down and watch every space inside it from the watch on my arm. Should I tell her that I had never stopped watching her, even while she was in my home? You’ve told her enough, the voice in my head sounded upset.
A cute little squint rested on her face as she was observing m
e again, studying me like an artist putting the finishing touches on their most inspiring piece. She was upset with me, but she was also conflicted as her face pinched tighter in thought.
“Make no mistake about it, I’m outraged and angry at you, Khane.” She paused, glaring with a hint of confusion riding an emotion I couldn’t read. Even in anger, she was beautiful and unusually calm for what I had unleashed on her.
“I know you did this show-and-reveal session with me as a way to sway my attraction to you. It didn’t work. I’m still attracted to you, even more so than before, if you can believe that. Do you know how many women would kill to have a man that they desire, be fascinated with them in the way that you claim to be fascinated with me? You stalked me for six years, embraced your inner crazy, but never once touched me or endangered me in any way.”
What was happening right now? What was she saying?
“Your past, your deadly reputation, the graphic display of torture you lured me to see in your basement, you stalking me and taking all those pictures. I don’t know if I’m naïve, dumb, or just plain crazy, but I should be afraid of you, terrified actually. However, I’ve never felt safer with anyone else. I’ve never been more relaxed around anyone. I’ve never connected with anyone so fast. For as deadly and vicious as I know you can be, you allowed me to see that you can be just as sweet, and patient, and good. You allowed me to see all of you, Khane.”
How was I supposed to reply? The implication of what her words truly meant had caused me to go still. She was proving to be as unusual and off life’s manuscript as I was. Was it possible that I’d been stalking and taking pictures of a woman that had been tailor-made specifically for me?
The first time she kissed me, she nourished a hunger I had never known how to feed. She watered a thirst that I had learned to live with because I’d never known what it needed.
