She seemed to catch on to that fact and let the subject go with a crease forming between her brows.
“So where is the eagle going to live once you’re happy with him?” Tatum asked, glancing down at my bare chest for a moment.
I used my grip on her hand to tug her fingers to my stomach, pressing them against my flesh and using my own hand to push the waistband of my sweatpants even lower so that her fingers skimmed down over the unbranded skin which ran over my pelvis.
She took over the movement, fingers circling over the skin which should have been beneath my pants as her gaze moved back up to meet mine and my dick continued to throb between her thighs. There wasn’t much chance she couldn’t feel it, but neither of us had said anything about it or made any move to part from each other.
“Kyan,” she began slowly, my name on her lips almost a plea as she watched me for my reaction.
“Yeah?” I asked, not moving a damn muscle as I waited to see where she was going with this.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what you told me earlier… About what Deepthroat did to you-”
“I don’t wanna talk about that,” I growled in warning, but that fire in her eyes said she wasn’t going to drop it.
“I just think-”
I caught her waist between my hands, lifted her off of me and dropped her on the bed so that she fell back against the pillows with a squeal of surprise.
“I’ll get out of your way so that you can sleep.”
Before she could even scramble upright, I was out of bed, snatching my sketchbook from the nightstand and striding from the room.
“Kyan!” she called after me, but I ignored her, tossing the door shut behind me and striding out into the central part of the church.
Blake and Saint had taken themselves off to bed already and the darkness hanging over the place gave it an eerie feel. I headed down to the crypt with my blood pumping angrily as I tried not to think about what that fucking asshole, Deepthroat, had done to me. All my life I’d been subjected to all kinds of fucked up shit, born witness to death and violence so many times I couldn’t count it. But I could count the amount of times I’d found myself vulnerable and unable to defend myself, at the mercy of some fucking girl I’d never even given much thought to, let alone seen as a threat. But wasn’t that just the way life liked to fuck with you? I was given all of the tools necessary to defeat almost every demon imaginable and then the thing that nearly takes me down was something I never even would have imagined happening. Some fucking rich girl used to getting whatever the fuck she wanted and refusing to hear the word no. The thought of her hands on my body while I was out of it made my fucking skin crawl, the idea of what else could have happened made me want to fucking vomit.
I found a bottle of Jack Daniels and leaned back against the cold brick walls as I unscrewed the lid and tipped the whiskey between my parted lips, enjoying the burn of it on the way down.
My hard on was sinking fast with thoughts of that bitch; Deepthroat was more than enough to put a dampener on it and I gave myself a few minutes to fucking wallow as I drank.
When I’d swallowed around a quarter of the bottle, I screwed the top on it and placed it back where I’d found it before stalking upstairs with a warming fog of alcohol numbing that unpleasant prickle which had been creeping along my skin.
I flopped straight down on the couch, shoving my sketchbook in between the cushions as I threw one arm over my eyes and pushed another into my pants to cup my junk.
Sleep at least was an oblivion I could rely on and my breathing grew deep within minutes as I gave myself to the darkness and let it pull me away from reality.
***
I woke to the warmth of a soft body pressing against mine in the night, my head resting in her lap as she sat up and her fingers tangled in my hair.
Tatum murmured sleepily as I rolled over to look at her, her head tipped back against the cushions as she slept soundly on the couch with me.
I had no idea when she’d appeared and the why was enough to make my chest tighten. Why did she give a shit about me after all the things I’d done to her? Why would she have come out here to comfort me when she knew exactly the kind of monster I was?
She shifted in her seat as I watched her, her neck tipped back at an awkward angle and I sighed as I pushed myself to my feet.
I leaned down to pick her up and she mumbled something sleepily as she curled against my chest.
“Tell me about it, baby,” I muttered as I carried her back through the church to my room.
I placed her down on the bed and made a move to leave again, but her fingers caught mine before I could go anywhere.
“Stay,” she breathed, her eyelashes fluttering sleepily as she looked up at me and as she tugged on my fingers, I found myself giving in and letting her pull me down onto the bed beside her.
She scooted back to make room for me and the moment my head hit the pillow, she curved herself against my body, her head on my chest, leg curling over mine and fingertips brushing against
