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.
Nothing about us could end well, but time had never mattered before, and now there was a reason… because what I had with London was timeless. There wasn’t an end.
Her arms crossed, fingers curling around the bottom edge of her shirt, which was my shirt. With a slow, sexy glide, she pulled it over her head, her hair lifting then falling to settle down her back.
God, I’d missed her. I needed my hands in her hair again, my lips on her skin, her naked writhing body beneath me as she screamed with pleasure.
I raised my brows when she stopped and she got that little defiant look to her face that made my cock jerk. Yeah, she was my braveheart again.
“It’s only fair.” She nodded to my chest.
I grinned. “Then come undress me, baby.”
I remembered how her fingers played with the buttons, fitting them through the holes before they popped out that night in her loft. The way her hands had slid up my chest over my scars without hesitation. How her head fell back against the door, neck exposed as she moaned when I sucked, licked and tasted every inch of her pussy.
“London. Now,” I growled.
She crawled across the bed toward me, kneeling on the edge and then reached for the bottom button of my shirt. I couldn’t stop myself from touching her any longer. In the beginning, she had been easy to resist being Raven, but over the last few weeks as the pieces of London shone through, it had been hell. And now, seeing the smoldering desire in her eyes, it took everything I had not to just throw her down and sink inside her.
I slid my hand up over her collarbone to beneath her hair, curling my fingers around the back of her neck. It was a power position, holding her like this and I wanted to see her reaction.
But there was no fear or submission as her eyes sparked with need. Her knuckles brushed against my chest as my shirt parted and my skin tingled. “Fuck, I missed you.”
Her breath stilled along with her hands and our eyes met. It was the same look as the one that made me walk out on her on at her loft. Beneath the heat was the unmistakable need for something else.
I abruptly grabbed her wrist and put it to my back jeans pocket. “You feel that?” It was the piano wire in my pocket. She nodded, her eyes wide but still burning with desire. “I’m still a part of that.”
She pulled her hand away and I let her. “But if you left—”
I chuckled, but there was no amusement to it. She was going to say, if I left the people I worked for. “You don’t leave them. If you do, it’s in a body bag. Although, that is too polite.” I had to be cruel to get my point across. “That is after they’ve cut you up and made you beg for the pain to stop.”
Surprisingly, she took what I said well, but I did see the mild shiver. London had seen and experienced pain and knew that this world wasn’t filled with fairies and white flying horses.
Her fingers went back to undoing my buttons until my shirt fell open and she slid it off my shoulders. “Do you… like what you do?”
Hmmm, did I like it? Did I enjoy killing people? A question I never cared to contemplate before. Never cared enough about anything or anyone to consider it. “Yes,” I replied and that made her back stiffen and her hands pause. “And no. I enjoyed killing Jacob. I enjoyed watching Alfonzo die and wished I’d been the one to kill him.”
She lowered her head. “Kai, why are we here? What happens now?”
I slid my hands down her back to the clasp on her bra and undid it. The white lace slipped forward and dropped between us. “I’m going to fuck you and make you quiver beneath me. A few times.” I picked her up under the arms and tossed her down on the bed. “No more questions, baby. Not now.”