I got the bags and walked through the door, seeing Lilah sitting by the open fire, fiddling with her hands. She smiled in relief when I walked in. I drank in the sight of her and sighed. The bruises on her face were really starting to show.
Placing the bags down, I walked to Lilah and squatted to inspect her face, my finger running down her cheek. “How you doing?”
“I am tired, but I am okay,” Lilah said, nuzzling into my hand. My fucking lungs constricted as she did.
Lifting my other hand, I ran my thumb down her cheek, her big blues fixed on mine, her lips parting slightly with my touch.
A cough sounded beside me, and Lilah jumped back, breaking the touch. Sia was watching us with an uncertain expression on her face. She asked, “Would you like a hot cocoa, Lilah?”
Lilah frowned and looked to me. “I do not know what that is. Ky, shall I try?”
“How about you stay here by the fire and my big brother can help me fix the drinks?” Sia suggested, enthusiastically.
Lilah nodded and settled back on the loveseat, her gaze going straight to the fire.
Sia grabbed my arm and pulled me into the kitchen, whipping around to face me. “What the fuck’s going on, Ky?” she whispered angrily. “‘Cause I suddenly get word you’re coming for a few days, and you turn up with some chick looking like she belongs in a horse and buggy in Pennsylvania, asking permission to drink and not knowing what motherfuckin’ cocoa is!”
Her brown eyes widened and her hand went to her mouth, the blood draining from her face. “Oh no, she’s not being trafficked or something of that sort, is she? Is that why she’s here?”
I groaned. “Why the fuck does everyone keep asking me that!”
Wrapping my fingers around Sia’s wrist, I moved her hand from her mouth and said, “It’s club business, Sia. You know the code. But she ain’t no trafficking bitch.” I checked behind me to make sure Lilah wasn’t close and leaned in to say, “We rescued her from some end of days sex cult ‘bout two months ago and she’s not been real good at adjusting to life outside.”
Sia’s eyes went abnormally wide. “Shit! And the bruises on her face?”
Fighting back a wave of anger at Tiff and Jules, I said, “Attacked at the club. Pair of bitches I’d been fucking got jealous and fuckin’ assaulted her. Treated her like motherfuckin’ free *.”
“She isn’t?” Sia asked, watching me closely.
“No, she fuckin’ ain’t,” I said, my voice, even to me, sounding deadly. “You’ve seen her, she’s fuckin’ beautiful, perfect, she ain’t like those sluts. Nowhere fuckin’ near.”
“So your man slut ways finally bit you in the ass? And that poor bitch had to suffer for it?”
Rage made me she red. “Don’t fuckin’ remind, Sia. It took all I had not to rip those sluts apart. They pinned her to the bed and fuckin’ touched her, beat her. I ain’t ever hit a woman in my life, but I almost did tonight. I can’t bear that she got attacked because of me.”
“And the sluts?”
“They’ll be dead by now. They fucked with the wrong bitch.”
Sia nodded slowly, knowing the rules of club life, then dropped back against the wooden countertop. “I can’t… I can’t believe it.”
Joining her against the countertop, I said, “Yeah, I know. Pretty fuckin’ farfetched, huh? I mean, a fuckin’ cult! My bitch being attacked by jealous club *!”
Sia huffed a laugh in response. “Well, yeah, it is crazy, but that’s not what’s unbelievable, big brother.”
Furrowing my brows, I asked, “What?”
She nudged me with her elbow. “I can’t believe the high and mighty Kyler Willis, at age twenty-seven, has fallen in love!”
Every part of me froze and my mouth dropped. “Fuck off, Sia,” I managed to rasp out. But my heart was thundering in my chest and my palms were sweating.
Fuck, did I have a fever or some shit?
Sia began to laugh at me. I checked my head with my hand. She pulled down my arm and rolled her eyes. “Ky,” she said, “you ain’t sick.”