“You were never going to hit me?”
I grinned. “You were ready. So, yeah, I would’ve if you refused to fight back.”
She glared. I grew harder because glaring was good. Glaring meant she had backbone. “And what if I never fought back?”
“Then you’d have a sore ass right now.”
Her mouth hung open, then she snapped it closed.
“It wouldn’t have come to that though. You were ready to fight me. You were just searching for a way to do it. I gave it to you.”
I watched her think about it. London calculated. She wanted every possible solution deliberated before she acted or spoke, except when she got angry. Then she was a missile. I did the same thing. I was dead if I didn’t, because in my business, it rarely went the way you anticipated. And outcomes were variable.
Our outcome was one big variable because she couldn’t stay here forever, and for the first time I was beginning to contemplate the possibility of ending Vault. How to get my sister out? How to shut down the farm and take out the board members? Because doing all that made London safe. It made us safe.
“So, what now?”
I walked over and yanked my knife from the cupboard it was embedded in. “We start over. Grab the bread, baby.”
Then we made grilled cheeses.
Yellow Sheets
WITH MY ARMS crossed, ankles matching, I leaned against the doorframe watching her. A subtle smirk played at the corners of my mouth.
I’d been watching her every fuckin’ chance I had. It was two weeks after our fight in the kitchen and each day she was getting stronger, not in the physical sense, but emotionally.
She no longer moved tentatively and cautiously. Instead, her shoulders lifted and her hips had a natural, delicate sway again. The magnetic draw of my brave little scientist was irresistible. London was the woman who tested all my control.
She was also the one who could hurt me, who would be used against me if given the chance. I could never let that happen again. But for once in my life, I had no plan except keep her here hidden until I did have a plan.
“Are you going to stand there or help me?” she said.
I inwardly smiled before pushing away from the doorframe and stalking toward her. And it was stalking because for the first time in years, I was going to taste her again. She may not know my intent yet, but she would soon enough.
I didn’t bring her to my home on a whim. There was always a purpose and my purpose was to have London again in every way. To make her completely mine.
With London, I had no need to hide who I was. She was the lightness. She was the warmth that built inside me that had been destroyed by the farm. I’d always have parts of who they made me into, just like London would from what happened to her, but both of us were finding a way to live with what was done to us.
She sidled past, completely ignoring me, focused on her project, which was putting together the spare bedroom. We’d finished the floors, sanding, staining, and three coats of varnish. I set up the bedframe and moved the mattress back in and now London was making the bed with fresh sheets.
I strolled over to the opposite side of the bed, grabbed the edge of the sheet to hook it on the one corner while she pulled tight and stretched it to the other.
“It would look much better with yellow sheets. Brighten up the room.” She ran her hand over the cool white surface, smoothing out the wrinkles then tossed one of the pillows to the head of the bed.
“You brighten the room enough. Don’t need fuckin’ yellow sheets.”
Her gaze lifted from the pillow sham she was holding and held mine. “Why did you do it? Put new sheets on my bed that first night?”
I bent, picked up a pillowcase and a pillow and then tugged the sham over the pillow. “Why did you sleep on the couch?”
She tossed the pillow to the head of the bed and shrugged, saying, “Good movie was on.”
I laughed.
It took her a second and she did, too. She already knew the answer and that was why she’d avoided the bed. I’d done it for the very reason she’d slept on the couch. I wanted her thinking of me when she climbed between the sheets.
“Kai.” Her voice was a breathless whisper. “I hated Raven, too.”
“I know.”
“I never want to feel that helpless again.”
“You won’t.” She didn’t ask me how I knew that or argue. She accepted what I told her.
“I want to….”
“I know exactly what you want.” Her body twitched like I’d stroked a match and set it on fire. “Take off your clothes, baby.” A flush rose in her cheeks and it was cute that she blushed at that. After all she’d been through, that simple ability to make her blush settled deep.