“It’s just like any other day,” Kyan said in a low voice. “So get the fuck up because it’s time for your work out.”
I narrowed my eyes as I turned to look at him and he levelled me with a dark look which said he saw my demon and raised me his devil. If I wanted to vent my inner turmoil on him, he was willing. But he was also willing to help me shackle myself to my routine again.
“I need to lock it down,” I rasped, my throat raw and parched as the taste of smoke lingered on my tongue and the acrid stench of bleach hung thickly in the air.
My gaze shifted from his and I hunted out the clock on the wall even though I knew it would be my undoing. If it was nineteen minutes past something, or even just anything other than six am, I was going to lose my shit. And I knew it wasn’t six am. The light beyond the stained glass window was bright and the sun hung low in the sky like it was mid afternoon. I’d probably only slept for a few hours. I never managed more than that. I was always half expecting someone to burst in on me the moment I let my guard down, toss me in the closet, or the trunk of a car, or the pool.
That hasn’t happened in years.
Never say never though.
He can’t find me here.
He can reach me anywhere.
I blew a breath out through my nose, expelling the voices and focusing on the task at hand. The clock. Except there was no clock. No incessant tick tick tick. The wall where it should hang was bare even though I knew I’d cleaned it and re-hung it last night.
My gaze slid to the kitchenette where the time should have flashed on the oven display, but there was a roughly cut square of duct tape concealing it.
“It’s six am,” Kyan growled. “And you’re going to be late for your workout if you don’t move your ass.”
My lips parted as a lick of anger danced along my spine. It wasn’t six am, it was more like four pm, or four thirty seven, or fucking four seventeen, or-
Kyan turned to face me, catching my gaze in his dark brown eyes as he gripped my head between his hands. “It’s six am,” he snarled, glaring at me as he demanded I agree.
My muscles coiled with tension and my upper lip peeled back as I tried to recoil from him, but his grip only tightened and his gaze only darkened.
“What time is it, Saint?” Kyan demanded.
My lips parted on a string of insults and demands of my own where I was going to tell him to stop trying to treat me like a fucking infant and let me handle my own shit as my day went to hell. But there was a small piece of me that wanted to just relent, to stop fighting the gift he was trying to give me and allow him to paint this pretty fantasy for me where I could descend into the peace of my routine and just…be.
It was a heap of shit, it was a pretty lie, it was downright insulting that he thought I needed it and yet…I really fucking needed it. I needed the soothing balm of my ritual to strip away the chaos that had reigned yesterday. I needed time to process the mountainous changes that carnage had brought upon my world. And I needed to allow my control to slip in this one small instance so that I might have even the slightest chance in regaining it over everything else.
“It’s six am,” I breathed and Kyan’s eyes lit with triumph.
“Then let’s go work out until you bust a fucking lung.” He stood and offered me a hand which I took, allowing him to heave me to my feet.
My gaze trailed to the balcony above us where the lights were out and there was no sign of Tatum. I guessed she’d taken to my bed to recover and the thought of her christening my sheets with her presence sent an ache through me.
I wanted to see how she looked in there. Tangled in my bed like a temptress with all of that blonde hair, loose and wild. I’d never had a girl in my bed before. I’d never really spent any time in a bed with a girl. Obviously I never stayed the night with anyone and risked fucking up my routine. But once I’d started fucking girls, I’d soon figured out that I didn’t like tangling myself up in someone else’s body, being spontaneous, letting them trail their hands all over me without warning. No. By the fourth time I’d fucked a girl, I’d done away with that. I liked them either on their knees where I could grip their hair and control their movements, or bent over something so that I could blow their mind and take what I wanted without them touching me at random intervals and throwing off my pleasure with fucking impulses.
But when I thought about taking Tatum like that, it didn’t appeal. If she ever decided to let me into her panties, I wanted to see the look in her blue eyes as I pushed inside her, bathe in the moment when I claimed her and watch as I drove her to ruin. Maybe Kyan was onto something when he spoke about tying girls up. That would definitely make it easier for me to achieve both desires.
Not that there was a lot of point in me indulging in any kind of fantasy about the girl in my bed. There was no way she’d want anything to do with me any time soon. But she made it fucking difficult not to think about it.
Kyan led the way down to the gym
