Taking a deep breath, I let the air coat the window in an opaque cloud. Lifting a finger, I started to write a name. Cece. My little sister. My sweet, long dead sister.
Shaking myself, I shut my eyes and focused. The memory of the hurt, the pain, the suffering... that would help me. I needed to be reminded of what I was doing. Why I was doing it.
My reason for living was to get revenge. Nothing should distract me from my purpose: finding that man and seeing the light fade from his eyes.
Behind me, I heard a small sound. My intuition prickled sharply. I turned, finding Kite standing in the wide room. His reddish hair glinted in the sunrise, but the light hardly penetrated his coal-black eyes. Eyes that reminded me of my own, but in color, only.
Even if I was out for blood... I was nothing like Kite.
He smiled, tilting his hard jaw and casting a shadow down his throat. He was wearing nothing but a pair of loose shorts. All too suddenly, it was very warm in his apartment.
The knob on his deliciously long neck bobbed when he spoke. “You're up early. I'm starting to wonder if you ever sleep in.”
Careful as I could be, I wiped my palm over Cece's name on the window. I saw Kite's glance, hoped he hadn't seen. “It's hard to sleep in, these days. Lots on my mind.”
Softness touched his face, and I regretted saying anything. Kite was many things, but the most surprising was the side of him that coerced me into opening up.
What had happened to the me that was cold and closed off?
Had she ever even existed?
Stop it, I demanded internally, even as Kite approached. Quit wondering about how you've changed. It isn't important.
But I knew that was a lie.
Kite leaned on the window, the muscles on his bare chest tightening with the motion. He was unfairly gorgeous. “You want to talk about it?” he asked, managing to make me forget—just for a second—who he was.
What he'd done and what he would do before this was all over.
He rested his fingers on his own biceps. The knuckles that bore his unique tattoos, reading 'swim,' glowed in the sunlight. Those palms could strangle a man in a blink, or pull a trigger and send a bullet straight into a heart.
Hands that could slide over my body and make me moan.
Fuck.
Clearing my throat, I put on a frail smile. “Nothing to talk about, don't worry. It's fine.”
“You're sure about that?” His eyebrows went up doubtfully.
I started to shrug, then flinched at the tight muscles. “Well, alright. I'm not entirely fine, but I can thank you and Jacob for that.” Grinning, I pointedly peeled my pants up to show him the bruise on the inside of my knee. “Paint balls aren't exactly feathers.”
Chuckling low in his throat, a sound that stroked up my spine, he unfurled his arms. “That doesn't look so bad.”
“Excuse me?” I scoffed, letting my cuff fall back to my ankle.
His shadow grew over me, erasing the sunrise and making me forget light even existed—that anything existed—beyond his wicked smirk. How had he backed me against the glass? Dammit, he moved too gracefully.
“I think,” he purred, one hand coming down on the window near my temple. “I've left marks on you with my teeth that were worse than that.”
A ripple darted through my chest and down to my lower belly. Pure heat, it threatened to turn me inside out. Here it was; this was the side of Kite that pulled me in and made me forget just what he could do to me.
No, I thought grimly. This side makes me remember what he HAS done to me.
My attempts to resist Kite had floundered early on. With time, it only became more difficult. My body had imprinted on his existence. That muscle-memory made my breath short, heart swelling into my throat.
He saw the reaction he was getting, and his lips just spread further. When he spoke again, his tone was low and gritty. It scraped through my nerves. “I recall you getting hit with a paint ball somewhere else.”
When he touched the side of my neck, I jumped. His chuckle turned my skin pink.
“Where?” I managed to ask.
Kite flared his nostrils, palm crawling down and down until he was holding the bottom of my shirt. “Around here. Somewhere... ah.” The cloth peeled up, exposing my stomach, the bottom of my bra.
I knew the welt he was speaking of. The discoloration was the size of a quarter, sitting on the dip of my sternum. Kite breathed out, tracing his thumb like a whisper over my skin.
“Yeah,” he said, meeting my eyes. “This is the one. Want to know a secret?”
The beating of my heart helped me weigh the seconds. Kite had so many secrets. From his tattoos to his history with Jacob... I was constantly eager for answers. “If it's about you, yes. Always.”
He froze, considering me again. I liked surprising him, it felt good to be on the other side, for once.