Love Kills (Lilah Love 4)

“That’s not fucking true.” I shove at him and force him to look at me. “I love you, but—”

His fingers tangle roughly in my hair, and he yanks my gaze to his. “Do not finish that sentence. Not now. Not ever. There is no but when it comes to us. And I’m going to kiss you right now, because you’re mine, Lilah Love. You do not belong to the fucking Umbrella Man. He does not get to own you. Understand?”

“He doesn’t fucking own me.”

“Prove it.”

“By letting you own me?”

“By doing what you always do and trying to prove I don’t.” He kisses me, and I start out doing just what he dared me to do. I kiss him back with one intention, proving he doesn’t own me. Proving I own me. I alone fucking own me. I yank at his shirt and slide my hands under it, all the warm heat of his body stealing the chill of the rain and death that has haunted me this night. Things that don’t always bother me, but they do tonight. He’s right. Umbrella Man owned me tonight. It makes me angry, so damn angry, and I take it out on Kane. I shove against him, and he lets me. He backs up.

“Un-fucking-dress,” I order.

His eyes darken as he pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it. This man shirtless is a distraction I need. I yank my bag over my head, right along with my badge. My shirt comes next, tossed aside, and by the time my bra is off, I’m against him. I’m kissing him, or he’s kissing me. Whatever. He’s doing what I want. He scoops me up, and he carries me to the living room—he clearly knows I’m in his bed, he doesn’t need to force me there now.

He sets me down in front of the couch, and we’re undressed faster than I was down that alleyway because I fucking hesitated. I shove him to the couch and start to climb on top of him. When I’m there, in control, his gaze rakes over my body, and his eyes meet mine. His lips curve, and I know I’m doing just what he wants me to do. He didn’t want to own me. He wanted me to own me again. That’s the thing about Kane Mendez. He knows I can’t live in his world if I’m weak. I know I can’t live in my world if I’m weak. But I also know he can’t live in his world weak either. Suddenly, I don’t care about who owns who. I just want to know he’s alive.

I kiss him, and it’s no longer a power play. I kiss the hell out of him and then whisper, “I need a break.”

He understands. He always understands. He rolls us, and we’re side by side, him inside me, him stroking hair from my face. “I’m here,” he says. “You’re here. We’re just us right now.”

“Yes,” I whisper, and for the next, I don’t know how long, that’s all there is. Me and him. Him and me. But when we come back to reality, I’m back in that alleyway hesitating, and I know why it scared me so freaking badly.

“What happens when you hesitate Kane?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You can’t afford to hesitate. You are Kane Mendez, and that’s a dangerous name.”

“The difference between us is that when you were gone, I never intended to let you stay away. I hesitated, I still do, because of you.”

“You can’t afford to do that.” I try to get up, and he rolls me to my back, leaning over me. “A willingness to die is not power. It’s not control. It’s a source of stupidity.”

“I disagree.”

“Do you now?” he challenges. “You think a willingness to die helps you? You die, and Umbrella Man lives. Then he keeps killing. Seems like all he has to do is make you do something stupid to win.”

He’s right. “Damn you.”

“Damn him, Lilah. Stop fearing the hesitation. Let it make you stronger. Let it make you smarter. Let it lead to the death of Umbrella Man.”

The idea that there is more to this story, that Umbrella Man might know about that night, about my rape, starts to fester. And I’m good when I’m angry. The idea that he wants to come at Kane, that he is and has, provokes even more anger. “He wants to be the death of you,” I remind him.

“And?” he prods, because he’s good at prodding, at knowing when I’ve only given him half of what’s in my head.

“And,” I say, “I’m going to use that against him.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I’d throw my damn wet and bloody clothes in the trash, but they represent tonight’s memories, and I need every trigger I can come up with that might help me kill or catch Umbrella Man. But I’m not putting them back on. I walk buck naked to the bedroom, right along with Kane, but I detour to grab my bag and badge. They belong in Purgatory. I belong in the shower.

Fifteen minutes later, we’re both in T-shirts and sweats—yes, Kane Mendez and his arrogant self wears sweats—in the kitchen at the island. I’m filling a bowl with Rice Krispies because there’s just something about the snap, crackle, and pop that does my heart good when I set the box down.

“Oh shit,” I say, thinking of my bloody clothes again that I almost threw in a trash bag. “How is Jay?”

Kane grabs the box and continues to fill our bowls. “Good enough to tell me to tell you ‘Fuck you, Lilah Love.’”

“Well, that’s good,” I say, pouring milk in our bowls, proving, once again, that anyone who says I can’t work well with others is full of shit. The snap and crackle that follows is instant music to my ears and stomach, considering how hungry I am. “Kind of sad how scared he is of you,” I say, sitting at the barstool next to me and taking a big bite of cereal.

“Anyone protecting you needs to be scared of me,” he says dryly, claiming his stool, too, and digging into his cereal as well. “But they’re usually scared of you.”

I snort. “Whatever. It was you who freaked him the fuck out. He was a problem tonight. It affected when and how I dealt with that situation.” I take another bite and wave my spoon at him. “Your ability to create fear in others might not always be your best foot forward.”

“You never thought I was scary.”

“I always knew you were scary, Kane.” I soften my voice and mumble, “I just liked it a little too much.”

“Enough to put a ring on your finger.”

“That I took off,” I counter, that night still there between us, and it’s a barrier, it is, it has been for years, but it’s shrinking.

“Because I buried a body for you. Some might think that’s romantic.”

God, I sort of do. “Most would not.”

“And then there’s you, Lilah Love.” He hesitates and gives me one of his “I still have the ring” looks.

He still has the ring. I flashback to the crime scene and set my spoon down. “Are we really going there right now?”

“You know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t go there over Rice Krispies. I’m just stating a fact.”

My chest punches with the memory of taking off that ring and how damn much it hurt. Kane has always had a way of making me feel more human and less human than anyone else on the planet.

“I thought of that damn ring while in a dead woman’s apartment tonight with her dead sister in her bed.”

“He put this one on the bed, not the floor?” he asks, proving, as always, that the facts of my cases phase him not one little bit and that he goes where I go mentally with an ease I expect from no one else.

“Yes, and that’s a message I haven’t figured out, but we’ll come back to that. The ring—”

“Yes, the ring. Tell me why you thought of it in that apartment.”

I turn away from him and take a bite of my cereal, thinking about the question, thinking about the past. “That night,” I glance over at him. “I was really happy you were coming home early. In the past, every time I think of that night, I think of all the bad, I think of the body and the knife and—that exchange we had before I was grabbed—that familiar wonderful way we were—”

“We’re still those people.”

I reject that idea. “I’m not the same person.”

“You’re better.” He turns me to face him. “You are better, Lilah.”

I turn to face him. “I found out I could kill and like it t

hat night.”

“No,” he says. “That’s not who you are.”

“And what if it is?”

“You know what I think?”

“Why are you asking? We both know you’re about to tell me.”

“You use the moment you killed him to block out other parts of the night. It’s easier for you to accept that part of you, to even vilify yourself in a broader way than it is for you to accept what he did to you. You’re not that upset over who and what you are, Lilah. That person makes you damn good at your job. The monster you’ve made yourself is a way to hyperfocus on anything but the rest of that night. That’s what I think.”

He turns away from me and starts eating. I want to be angry or reject his words, but I can’t. I don’t even try. I’m not sure if they’re right or wrong, but they don’t feel wholly wrong, that’s for sure. And so, I, too, turn away from him, and I start eating. I don’t linger on his opinion, I can’t. There are other words in my mind. The words on that poster, the song lyrics. That damn song was playing in the parking lot. And I didn’t remember it until tonight because he’s right. With all I’ve remembered about that night, there is still a lot I’ve blocked out.

“I hate when you’re right,” I say.

He glances over at me. “Because you hate to be wrong.”

I give him a small smile. “I do hate to be wrong, don’t I?”

He laughs, a low, deep rumble, before he says, “Understatement of the year.”

I laugh, too, and this is one of those moments with Kane I missed so damn much. The moments when we find a way to laugh in the middle of hell burning around us. The laughter never lasts though. It can’t last now. I shove aside my bowl, and I stop avoiding the past and where it took me tonight. Where it takes us. “He knows. Umbrella Man knows.”