Kane’s gaze darkens, and he gives me one of those animalistic once-overs that tells me I’ve affected him. That I have control, not him, and that’s what I fucking need right along with the escape. Control. He drags me to him, fingers tangling in my hair, hand on my breast, even as his mouth is back on mine. There is this wildness between us, and I could say it’s forbidden, but it’s not. It’s just how we are together, but this time there is a desperation that doesn’t feel like it’s all me.
He lifts me, and my legs wrap his hips, my fingers diving into his hair, but when he starts toward the stairs and his bedroom, I pull back. “Not the bedroom.”
“Sorry, beautiful. I’m not stopping. Punish me if you like, but wait until you’re naked.”
I pant out a breath, my fingers digging into his shoulders, my awareness of what he’s trying to do more than certain. He wants me in his bed, which I know he equates to some sort of ownership. But he keeps charging upward, and I just want out of my own head. My cell phone rings, and that is enough to have my lips press to his again. I want out of the world that I’m living inside and into the one I used to live inside with Kane. He enters his bedroom, walking across the gray-tiled floor and up the steps that lead to his bed. I release my legs, forcing him to let go of me, and when I would step back, he shackles my hips.
“To be clear, Lilah,” he says. “No one else has been in my bed since you left.”
“So you fucked Samantha downstairs.”
His hand is suddenly behind my neck, and he drags my mouth to his. “Samantha—”
“Was a fuck,” I say. “Or ten. Or however many. I get it. Stop talking and just fuck me already.” I reach for his pants, and while he kisses me, I touch him in every way I know he wants to be touched, in all those ways that makes me the one in control.
“Undress,” he orders, setting me away from him.
“You first,” I order, and when my damn phone rings again, I pull it from my pocket and throw it across the room. I look at him again, and suddenly there is no “him first” or “me first.” There is just now. I need us both naked now. “I’m tired of waiting,” I say. “Together.”
He gives a nod, and that is exactly what we do. We strip together and I finish first, waiting on him, and when I have the opportunity, I shove him back onto the mattress. But I don’t get the upper hand on Kane. He pulls me with him, and when I fully intend to climb on him and ride him, he rolls me over and settles on top of me. “Do you hate me now, Lilah?”
“At present, the potential of an orgasm exists, so no. I do not. If you fail in that department, yes. I will fucking hate you all over again.”
“I didn’t ask last week, but you can’t—”
“I’m not going to have a baby, Kane. I still get a shot, and come on, you and me and a baby would be about as fucked up as—”
He kisses me and slides inside me, and I’m there in that place where there is nothing but him. He brushes hair from my face and whispers, “I wouldn’t want you to hate me.” And then he rolls us to our sides, no longer taking control but not giving it either. What he does is every little trick he ever learned about what turns me on. And that’s the thing about Kane: he actually cares what turns me on. He actually knows.
It’s not fast, this encounter between us. It’s slow, alternated with frenzy, and then slow again, the way I need it to be. That way I stay out of my own head for as long as I possibly can, but finally, and yet too soon, I shudder to that place that is always so damn perfect just before the end. Neither of us moves for a full minute, or two, or longer. I don’t know. Kane finally squeezes my ass and pulls me to him. “Now you can’t hate me.”
The many reasons I can’t be with Kane hit me hard: He’s a criminal. I’m an FBI agent. He buried a damn body without asking me. And yet I still fucking love him. And on a day like today, I know love cuts. I need air. I need space.
“I don’t hate you, Kane,” I say, because that’s the easiest way to explain what I feel. “Not all of the time.” I roll away from him and scoot to the edge of the bed, grabbing tissues because us girls get all the mess. That’s how it is. Men fuck. Women get fucking messy. I’ve just tossed the tissues when my phone rings again, the sound like a punch that drags me fully back into the hell that brought me here. I need out of here. I need to leave.
And that’s what I say. “I need to go.” But as I try to stand, Kane grabs me, and suddenly he is sitting beside me.
“You don’t want to leave. I don’t want you to leave. Who are you trying to please, Lilah?” He doesn’t give me time to answer, adding, “And you want the answers I can now give you.”
Not the one I need most right now. “I need to talk to my brother, Kane,” I say, pulling against him.
He holds on. “Not now. Not in your current state of mind.”
“I need to know where he stands. I need—”
“Not now. Wait until you come down from the anger and the shock.”
I start to get up again.
“Lilah,” Kane warns.
“I’m not going to leave.” I look over at him. “But I want to get dressed.”
He pulls me to him and kisses me before letting me go.
“I swore you’d never kiss me for the hell of it ever again.”
“And now?”
“And now, I just want to get dressed.” He inhales and lets me go, but I sense his frustration, even his anger, as if I’ve used him when I have not. I wish it were that simple with Kane, but it’s not.
I lean in and kiss him, my lips lingering on his for a moment before I say, “And now—that.” I pull back then and stand up, walking to the foot of the bed to start dressing. Kane does the same, and by the time I’m awkwardly aware that I have a badge, gun, pants, and boots on with no bra or blouse, Kane has left the room shirtless and returned, fully dressed, with my clothes in hand.
I accept them without looking at him and finish dressing, while my phone once again rings. Kane grabs it but doesn’t look at the number, and when he offers it to me, he catches my hand. “Facts before conversation. There is much I can tell you about the Society that you now need to know.”
“Are you part of it?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t follow anyone else’s lead. Because no one owns me, just like no one owns you, and that makes us problems for the Society. Let’s go talk.”
I nod. I don’t ask where he wants to talk. I know.
Together we walk out of the bedroom and up another level of stairs to Kane’s attic, which he had converted into an office for me: my Purgatory when I was staying with him, which before my attack was often. I enter the room, taking in the giant gray wooden desk, the chairs in a corner, whiteboards and bulletin boards covering the walls. Memories slam into me, all those nights and days I stayed in here, working, chasing killers. All the times that Kane listened to me talk through my thoughts and gave me the perspective of a man who grew up in the center of a crime family. Murphy’s words come back to me: He’s a resource. I know this. I just don’t understand why Murphy knows it. What don’t I know?
I walk to the desk and sit down behind it. Kane walks to one of the corner chairs and sits down. I roll around and face him. “You said you have friends in law enforcement outside of me.”
“Yes,” he confirms. “I do.”
“Who?”
“Why?”
“Is my boss one of them?”
“No,” he says. “Your boss is not one of those people.”
“He knows I’m here.”
He arches a brow. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He says that the enemy of my enemies is my friend, and that you’re an enemy to everyone but me. Why would he say that to me, Kane?”
“Aside from the fact that it’s true, you’ll have to ask him that question.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the Society?”
“I told you. You don’t get
to die, and I know you, Lilah. You’re dogmatic in an in-your-face kind of way about what you want. And I fucking love it. It works for you. It works for me, but you can’t approach the Society that way.”
“I don’t need you to make my fucking decisions for me, Kane.”
He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “This isn’t one killer you’re going head-to-head with. This is a massive group of killers, far more powerful than me. And you ask me why I allow myself to stay aligned with the cartel? Because that cartel gives them pause. It gives me the power to punch them in the throat, even if I can’t destroy them. And there are those whispers on the borders about me ordering mass killings. They work for me, and for you, because they give me a level of control and power.”
I don’t let myself think about the implications of what he just confessed. I focus on the enemy in front of me, against me. “My father said that they rule the world. That they are that powerful. Is that true?”
“Yes. That is true.”
“And they’ve tried to recruit you?”
“Yes.” He offers nothing more.
“Is Pocher one of them?”
“Yes.”
“Damn it, Kane. He’s backing my father, and you didn’t tell me?”
“If you would have gone after them, and if you go after them now in the wrong way, not only will we never prove they ordered your attack, you will end up dead. So no. I did not tell you. The time was not right.”
“Would you have told me?”
“Yes. I would have.”
“When?”
“When you trusted me enough again to listen and not get killed.”
“All right. I’ll accept that answer even if I don’t like it. Now tell me about the tattoo.”