Take (Need #2)(68)

Dad hasn’t seen my tattoos, and I don’t ever want him to if I can help it.

I pull open the sliding glass door and step in. The air conditioning makes me shiver while the voice I hate echoes off the walls. He steps into the kitchen and jumps when he sees me.

“Brayden, you scared me.”

“Sorry.”

“Night swim?”

I nod. “It’s nice and warm out tonight.”

He glances around, his gaze scanning me as I run the towel over my hair.

“Is your sister home?”

She’s not my sister.

I shake my head. “She went out with some friends.”

He nods, still eyeing me. There’s doubt in his gaze, and he’s right, but I’m not going to let him know that.

“You’re home early.”

He shakes his head. “Somehow got out of the house and all the way to the restaurant without my wallet.”

“That sucks.” I hate our small talk. It’s too forced. I also hate how his continued presence is keeping me from Kira.

“Steven, did you find it?” Sonia asks, coming around the corner from the direction of the half bath. “Oh, hi, Brayden.”

I wave at her as she grabs onto my father’s arm. “We should get going, we’re already really late.”

The lines around his eyes crinkle, and his lips form a thin and downturned line. “You think I don’t know that?” he asks through clenched teeth.

There’s venom in his tone and my first instinct is to put myself between him and her.

Sonia starts, but quickly recovers. “Have a good night, Brayden.” She gives me a soft smile, then turns to him. “Come along, Steven.”

I watch them walk into the garage, staying completely frozen as I listen both for the garage door to close and their car to speed off.

The adrenaline coursing through my body has me so jacked up that the only way I’m going to both calm down and alleviate the blue balls I’ve got going on is to go find my girl and finish what we started.

I take the stairs two at a time, rushing up to find her. When I get to the top, only the hall light is on.

“Kira?”

Nothing.

I check my room first, but it’s empty, then turn the handle to her door.

She’s there, sitting in the middle of her bed, wrapped in a towel, staring at me with wide eyes that are glowing from her phone.

“Are they gone?” she asks, whispering.

“Yeah.”

She leans over and turns on her bedside light. “That was close.”

I nod. “Exciting, too.”

“No, not exciting at all.”

“You’re telling me that the thrill of getting caught didn’t turn you on just a little?”

She squirms where she’s sitting. “No, it didn’t.”

Her cheeks are flush and as I dip down, I can almost feel how turned on she is. “I call bullshit.”

“You’re full of shit.”

I chuckle. “Don’t go denying it too strongly.” I lean over her, pushing her down onto the bed, my lips running across hers. “Now, where were we?” My big toe bumps into something, causing a stinging pain to zing up my foot. “Shit!”

I pull back and use my foot to feel out what I hit. My toes catch onto the edge of what feels like a frame. Rising up on my straightened arms, I curl my toes around the object and drag it out from beneath the bed.

“Brayden? What are you doing?” Kira stares up at me with those beautiful, confused hazel eyes.

I tilt my head and look down at the ground.

The world shifts in an eerily familiar way.

Silence comes next, the type of silence that comes from deep within. I can’t move as my eyes take in the picture at my feet.

A picture that’s shredded, only bits and pieces of it hanging onto the frame.

It’s the picture I bought her for her sixteenth birthday. The one I picked out after wandering around the mall like a lovesick fool, missing her so damn bad that I could barely breathe from it.

She sliced it up. Ruined it. And it wasn’t something done in a single moment of destructive rage.

This was deliberate. The slice patterns are too cohesive not to be premeditated.

I don’t know how long she’s been cutting that picture up for, but she’s done it many, many times.

Kira hasn’t budged, nor has she tried to see what it is that I’m staring down at.

I have a feeling she knows very well what it is.

We’re quiet for a few minutes. I can sense her staring at me while I continue to look at her handiwork.

“What?” Her tone is low but hard as stone, and there’s a hint of mockery in it. “Don’t tell me that upsets you.”

“It does,” I admit, looking up into her eyes. “But not because you did it.”

“Why, then?” She’s trying to keep her expression neutral.

“I did this, okay?” I motion at the floor. “You think I don’t know what this is?”

Kira sits up a little straighter, almost like she’s trying to get away from me.

I finally move, my hand snapping around her ankle to keep her in place.

She huffs, but doesn’t try to break my hold. “In your opinion, what is this?”