Demand (Careless Whispers #2)(14)

“You want to know about the necklace now,” he says, his voice low, terse, his expression stark.

“No,” I whisper. “I want to know what really matters.”

“Which is what?”

“I want to know that we’re real. Tell me we’re—”

He kisses me, cupping the back of my head and dragging my mouth to his, the taste of him wickedly erotic, and almost angry, bleeding into my senses a moment before he demands, “Does that taste real?” And he gives me no time to reply as his mouth closes down on mine again, and this time it’s a claiming, a possession that ends with another demand of, “Do we taste real?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“You aren’t saying it like you mean it.” He lifts me, pressing his shaft inside me, and pulling me down the hard length of his erection. “Let’s try this again.” He shifts himself, burying his cock in the deepest part of me. “Does that feel real?”

My lashes lower, my breath lodged in my throat. “Yes.”

He cups my head again and rests his cheek against mine. “Do you know what I feel? Too much.”

“And yet I want more,” I whisper.

“Now,” he says. “You want more now.”

There is an odd ring of finality to that statement, as if there won’t be more later, but he holds me to him, driving into me, and we are rocking and swaying, and everything else fades away. Wildness takes us again; we can’t kiss each other enough or touch each other enough. Harder and faster, we move, we grind, he drives, and the edge of no return is threatening to steal the here and now. I’m not ready to let go of it, but it’s too late. It’s here, and I cry out, “Kayden!” a moment before my sex clenches onto his cock, and I bury my face in his neck to ride out the sensations.

His arm wraps my waist and he pulls me against him, a low guttural groan coming from his throat, and our bodies shake. Pleasure trembles through me, the world fading, time standing still until I finally return to the present, resting against Kayden, his arm holding on to me.

For a long time we sit like that, huddled together, refusing to accept whatever comes next, until dampness spreads on our legs and reality scrapes away at our escape. Kayden turns me and lays me on my back, leaning over me, staring down at me. “Ella,” he whispers, and I know he feels what I do. We can’t just f*ck away the night. Neither of us can take the unknowns between us.

“When you said that right now I want more—”

“Right now we both want more.” His lips and his voice tighten. “Until we don’t.”

“Until we don’t,” I repeat. The reference to both of our withdrawals implies a much bigger problem than I know of.

“Yes,” he confirms, drawing a deep breath to pull out of me and sit up, giving me his profile. “Until we don’t.”

I grab my shirt lying next to me, pressing it between my legs. “As in when we don’t.” Suddenly needing the shelter of being covered, I reach for the soft brown blanket on the back of the couch, and wrap it around myself. “I guess it’s time you tell me everything.”

“I’d have to know everything to tell you, and I still don’t.” He stands and grabs his black jeans, shoving his legs inside them.

“But you knew about the necklace.”

Forgoing his zipper, he sits on the stone coffee table in front of me, resting his hands on his legs. “I knew about the necklace.”

His cell phone rings, and he grimaces. “Holy f*ck, I can’t even get an hour.” He stands and retrieves his phone from his pocket, answering the call in Italian. He listens a few beats and then replies, before giving me his back and ending the call, tension radiating off of him.

He finally faces me. “Matteo is making Enzo disappear, disconnecting him from The Underground. That means his mother can’t know he’s dead—and I’m not sure if I’m doing her a favor or a disservice.” He scrubs his jaw. “I need a shower to wash some of the death off of me.” He doesn’t wait for a reply or invite me to follow, he simply turns and walks toward the hallway.

I sit there a moment, not sure if I should go after him, repeating his words in my mind: wash some of the death off of me. And I think it’s more about guilt that he wants to wash away. He blames himself for every death that touches his life, including Enzo’s. My mind flashes back to my father lying in a pool of his blood and again, I wonder what I have wondered over and over in my life: could I have done something different and saved his life? Maybe if I hadn’t hidden in the pantry with my mother when intruders came into our home. Maybe if I had stood and fought by my father’s side. Maybe if I had come out of that closet just three minutes earlier. Guilt sucks. Questioning yourself sucks.

No one needs to deal with that alone. And Kayden’s been alone a long time. I think . . . I think that I have, too.

I stand up, allowing my shirt to drop to the ground, and I hold the blanket around me as I hurry toward the hallway, cutting left toward Kayden’s bedroom, our bedroom, cold stone beneath my bare feet. And I know what I had not admitted until now. Kayden had been right. I didn’t want to go back to the intimate place we share until after we had talked. Now I can’t wait to get there, where he is and probably thinks I will not follow. I reach the giant wooden door, finding it cracked open, and since Kayden does nothing by accident, I’m aware of the invitation it represents.