Page 22 of Demons & Damnation

Dylan: I’ll be there in ten.

Kyla sighed and rolled her eyes.

Kyla: No. Not everything has to be done right now, at a hundred miles an hour. Wait.

The message delivered. Two minutes later, it still hadn’t been read. Kyla started chewing on her fingernails. Was he coming over? Had he not read it because he was driving? Or had he read it on his notifications bar and decided to ignore her?

She headed into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. Tea always calmed her nerves, or perhaps it was all the sugar she poured into it. Flicking the kettle into life, she stared mindlessly at the blue light, watching and listening to the kettle heat itself up.

As the water boiled, and the switch finally flicked itself off, her front door burst open to reveal none other than Dylan Mohun standing in her doorway. A gust of spring air blew through the open door, ruffling his finger length chocolate coloured hair into a sexy ruffle.

Kyla whirled around and folded her arms over her chest. “I told you not to come. And I swear to God if you’ve damaged that door,” she said, pointing at her front door. “You are paying for it.”

His dark eyes softened with a touch of care, compassion almost, something Kyla had never seen on him. “I don’t care,” he said, his voice low, barely above a whisper. “I’m tired of playing games, Kyla.”

Kyla’s heart jumped inside her chest, did a triple somersault, and then leapt into a galloping rhythm. Even his tone of voice was soft, his words careful. He’d opened up a door inside him that Kyla wanted nothing more than to close.

“Shut the door please. You’re letting all the heat out and I’ve spent enough money trying to keep this place warm.”

Dylan swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as shock and surprise filtered across his handsome face. Without a word, he did as asked, closing the door. He walked into the kitchen, his eyes fixed on Kyla, watching, waiting for her reaction, wondering if she would be receptive or tell him to leave.

He stopped at the kitchen doorway, leaning his bulky muscled body against the doorframe. Folding his arms across his broad chest, Kyla couldn’t help but let her eyes rove over his fine form.

Wearing a charcoal-coloured shirt that stretched across his pecs and clung to his torso like a second skin, the various tattoos adorning both of his arms were only highlighted further by his tense muscles. This did nothing but distract Kyla from the current problem and only made her want to run her tongue in all the grooves, maybe with an ice cube or two. She’d licked the sweat from his body on more than one occasion.

“I can see the fear on your face,” Dylan said, keeping his voice low and quiet.

Kyla snorted. “Then you clearly can’t read me very well because right now all I’m thinking about is running ice all over your body with my tongue.”

Dylan dropped his arms to his side and closed the distance between them in three quick strides. Grabbing Kyla’s upper arms, he gripped her tight and kept their eyes locked. “Don’t do that,” he whispered.

“Do what?”

“Turn everything sexual to avoid the real problem.”

Kyla rolled her eyes and looked away, staring at her white kitchen tiles. She noticed that some of the grout had started to gain a yellowish tint and made a mental note to add grout whitener to her next Amazon shopping spree.

“Kyla,” Dylan said, squeezing her arms. “Look at me.”

Kyla waited a few seconds before turning her attention back to him. “What?”

“Did you think this was just fun to me?”

“Well, yeah. Why would I think any different? We both agreed NSA at the beginning, remember?”

Dylan pressed his lips together and let out a sigh. “No strings attached. Yeah, I remember. But you didn’t think that after all these years it might have developed into something more? Hell, surely that night with Jack proved that.”

Kyla raised an eyebrow as her breath hitched in her throat. “But...but we’d only been having sex for a few months back then...that was years ago.”

Dylan shrugged his shoulders. “I was hoping you would eventually start to feel something.”

Water pricked at Kyla’s eyes, burning its way to the front of her vision. “I can’t,” she whispered, glancing down at her feet. “You know I can’t allow myself to do that.”

“Kyla,” he whispered, letting go of her left arm and tilting her chin up with his index finger. “Yes, you can. You trust me, right?”

Kyla squeezed her eyes shut as he lifted her face up. She could feel the wall of water building behind her eyelids and she knew the instant she lifted the barrier, a river of tears would stream down her face. “You’re asking me for a different kind of trust, Dylan,” she replied, her voice cracking.

Dylan released her other arm and touched his thumb to her left eyelid, wiping over it. A sliver of water touched his skin, confirming what he knew. “Open your eyes, Kyla,” he said, his voice soft, as if speaking to a child.

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