“Because that last hit is the one that guarantees they don’t come back looking for more. It’s the strike that lets them know I could keep kicking until they were dead if the notion took me and they wouldn’t be able to do a fucking thing to stop me. It’s really the only one that counts in the whole fight.”
“Wow, Kyan, that’s so beautiful, it’s like poetry. Maybe you should have gotten me a bunch of flowers to go with it,” she mocked.
“Oh yeah? And what flowers would the pampered little rich girl want? Some fancy endangered orchid that would cost more than some cars no doubt.”
“Pfft, hardly. But if you’re buying me flowers I’ll take forget-me-nots.”
I laughed right in her face and turned my back on her so that she could untie the rope biding my wrists. “If you’re looking for a guy who will buy you flowers then you’re seriously off base with me, baby. I’ll take you out to illegal fight pits and drink you under the table on dirty whiskey. I’ll play your body like a fucking instrument and make you feel the kind of pleasure that blinds you. And I’ll make your heart beat so fast that you’re breathless all the damn time.” The knot came loose and I turned to face her with the rope in my hand. “But hearts and flowers? Naw. That’s never going to be me.”
“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it,” she said airily.
“You wanna take your own advice some time,” I replied casually.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That I know what game you’re playing with me and the other Night Keepers.” I twisted the rope between my hands in well practiced movements as she arched an eyebrow at me while I tied a handcuff knot with deft precision.
“What game is that?” she asked, her gaze falling on the rope as I created the two loops with it.
“This perfectly crafted seduction you’ve got going on for each of us.”
She scoffed in mock outrage, narrowing her eyes at me. “I don’t want to seduce you. Any of you,” she growled. “You’re all monsters who have made it your mission to make me miserable for something I’m not even responsible for.”
I looked at her for a long moment, taking in the raw honesty in her before nodding in agreement. “Okay then.”
“That’s it?”
“What more do you want? You don’t want me. You don’t want to be a part of our family. So what is it you do want?” I finished the knot and she eyed the loops as she gave some consideration to exactly why I was so good at tying that particular kind of knot.
“Honesty,” she breathed. “You want me to see the real you? Then give me something real. Give me the things that make you, you. Not this monster bullshit you show everyone else.”
I looked into her blue eyes for several seconds, the anger I’d been harbouring towards her softening as I considered that. I was angry about the truth she’d seen in me without my permission. But maybe offering her some of it on my own terms wouldn’t be so bad.
“You wanna trade truths with me, baby?” I asked her in a low voice.
“Why would I trust anything you have to say?” she asked, but the look in her eyes said she wanted to.
I glanced at the crowd surrounding us and jerked my chin towards the trees before stalking away into them. I didn’t know if she’d follow me, but I wasn’t offering up anything with an audience. If she had questions she wanted to ask me then she could follow me into the dark to ask them.
I stepped into the forest and soft footsteps told me she was following.
I headed on until the light of the bonfires barely reached us and turned to wait for her beside a towering oak.
She moved to lean against it as she waited to hear what I was going to say and I was struck with the desire to dominate her space. I couldn’t help it. Something about her just drew me in like that and didn’t want me to leave. And with the rope still twisted between my fingers, it was hard to stop my mind from conjuring images of the ways I’d like to bend her body to mine.
“Do you just do things like this to try and scare me?” she asked, looking around at the trees.
“What’s the matter, baby? You don’t like being out here in the dark with the big bad asshole?”
“It’s not that. I just think, you do things like this because it’s part of the act you put on.”
“Act?” I scoffed. “Baby, if you’re trying to kid yourself into thinking that I’m not as bad as I seem then think again. I’m a product of design guaranteed by DNA.”
“Because of your family?” she asked and I fell still as I twisted the knotted rope between my busted knuckles.
“Yeah. Are we really swapping truths here, or are you just looking for a peek beneath the hood of my brain?”
“What do you want to know?” Tatum asked with a slight frown that said she wasn’t sure she wanted me to know anything.
“Right now? I think I’d rather tie you up and do bad things to you than ask you about why you don’t want to believe your daddy is as bad as the whole world thinks he is.”
Her lips popped open at that request and she stared at me like my words had shocked her. But I’d said far worse to her before and had her body at my mercy more than once too. And with my blood heated from the fight and her standing there looking at me like that, there was a
