Room Twenty-Two: Hide and Seek

Kian and Ronan wince and burst out laughing.

“I’ll get you for that, Kitten,” Axel wheezes.

“You’ll have to catch me first!” I yell before running down the parking lot. I don’t get too far before Axel grabs me around the waist and lifts me off the ground.

“Kitten, if you want my dick to stop being hard for you, you’ve gotta stop runnin’ from me. You’re turning me on with all this chasing.”

“Fuck you!” I yell.

“That’s the spirit, Kitten.”

The audacity of this man. To think the entire world revolves around him. “How are you gonna manage that, Axel? Are you a rapist now?”

“Nah, I’ll never rape you. I’d fuckin’ shove a broken beer bottle up a guys ass if he ever tried to force himself on a woman. But you’ll never say no to me, Stella. I bet if I touched my pussy, it'd be drenched.”

“It’s not your pussy.”

Axel laughs. “Sorry, our pussy.”

“MINE! IT’S MINE!” I screech.

“You keep telling yourself that, Kitten. But we both know we excite you, and the things we say and do to you make that cunt so wet you lose your damn mind.”

I fucking hate him because he’s telling the truth.

“Enough,” Kian says, his hand on Axel’s shoulder. “Give her a minute.”

“That’s rich, you telling me to calm down,” Axel says, his voice low and lethal.

“Get your hands off her, Axel,” Ronan demands. His voice is bitter, more lethal than I’ve heard before. “She needs to relax. We worked her hard today. She’s not a fuckin’ blow-up doll.”

Axel’s blue eyes blaze before he lets go of me and walks away.

Kian’s fingers twist in mine, holding my hand tight as if he’s afraid I might disappear. “Let’s go get you cleaned up.”

Kian’s room is nothing like I would expect. The walls are painted in vibrant colors that depict such passion it takes my breath away.

Kian, the man who normally sports a scowl and grunts when speaking, seems to value beauty. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. “Who painted these murals?”

Kian drops my overnight bag beside his bed and looks up at me. “I did.”

“You paint?”

“Paint, draw, sculpt.”

I trail my fingers along the girl with the dark hair etched in the mural. My eyes wander, and I notice the same girl on every wall. “Who’s the girl?”

He gazes at me, tilting his head slightly to the side with a perplexed look as if I’m asking an idiotic question. “You.”

Chapter Fourteen

KIAN

I should have lied when she asked who the girl in the murals was cause now she has a faraway look in her eyes as she regards my work. I don’t want her thinking I’m some prince and she’s Snow White, singing and dancing with the birds and other animals in the forest. If this is a fairytale, I’m Rumpelstiltskin or The Wolf. She’s not safe with me because I’m not safe with me. There’s a darkness lurking inside me, a twisted, all-consuming desire. It’s the part of me she should be afraid of because it’s the strongest when she’s around.

“You paint?”

“I have since high school. I used to sketch before that.”

“How long have you been painting me?”

I’m relieved she doesn’t ask why she’s on every painting. I answer truthfully. “Since the first time I saw you. Your senior year. You were in the locker room, your eyes wide as you watched. You looked scared, but you didn’t run or hide. You watched us with a sense of awe, which started my fascination with you.”

“More like an obsession,” she whispers.

“Is that so bad? Having three grown men obsessed with you?”

Confusion flickers on her stunning face as she looks at me. Her eyes flash to the easel set up by the large glass window. “Will you show me what you’re working on?”

“Let’s get you cleaned up before we do anything else?” I reach out for her hand, and to my surprise, she takes it with no struggle.

She sits on the leather bench in the washroom's corner. I’ve got no idea why it’s there. Rich women like random shit, and the interior decorator Axel hired has eccentric tastes.

I run the water in the giant bathtub. “‘You want bubbles?”

“No, I’m not sure I can relax enough here to enjoy it.”

I don’t like that I make her tense. She shouldn’t be afraid of me, of us. In reality, she’s the only person who shouldn’t be. “Get in the tub, Sweet Girl.”

She doesn’t move. “Can you turn around?”

“No. You’re fuckin’ beautiful, and I enjoy looking at beautiful things.”

“I’m far from beautiful.”

“Stella, every inch of you is perfect. From your big tits to your sexy heart-shaped ass. I dream about your thick thighs wrapped around my neck while you ride my mouth to orgasm.”

I pull her to the large floor-length mirror and slip the straps of her dress off her shoulders, so it slides down her body and pools at her feet. “Open your eyes, Stella. Look at yourself.”