Perfect Ruin (Unyielding #2)(52)

“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 f*ckin’ 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 f*ckin’ 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.

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 *.

“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.