Page 23 of Demons & Damnation

Kyla bit her bottom lip and shook her head.

Lowering his voice into a gruff command, he said, “Open them. Now.”

Kyla sucked in a deep breath, letting out a sob at the same time, shaking her whole body. She opened her eyes, allowing her tears to run free. “Are you happy now?” she asked, her voice laced with sarcasm as she wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand.

Dylan took her hand and pushed it back to her side. Cupping her cheeks with both of his huge hands, he brushed her tears away with his thumbs whilst forcing her to look at him. “I’ll be happy when you trust me.”

“Why?” she asked, her face screwing up into a ball of anger and confusion. “Is this some kind of game to you, Dylan? Is it some sort of challenge to get me to hand over my heart and soul to you so you can toy with it and do as you please? So you can break me all over again? Is that it? Is that what you want?”

Dylan frowned, his eyebrows furrowing together. “Do you really think that of me? That I would ask for your trust, for your heart, only to view it as a trophy and not as something to treasure?” He dropped his hands from her face and sighed. “I thought you knew me better than that, Kyla.”

Kyla shook her head. “We don’t know each other, Dylan. We know each other’s bodies, sure. We know how to have great sex, but we don’t know each other. You don’t know my favourite colour or my favourite food, my most hated actor or my most hated smell. And I don’t know those things about you either.”

“Purple. Chinese. Ben Affleck. Cherries.”

Kyla held her breath. Her head spinning at a million miles an hour she didn’t know what to think. He’d shocked her for sure. “Well,” she whispered. “You didn’t have to fuck me silent that time.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Kyla. I just want to love you.”

Kyla dropped her head and closed her eyes. Huge racking sobs took control of her body. Wrapping her arms around her middle, she cuddled herself. “You need to leave,” she said.

Dylan ignored her completely, instead enveloping her in a crushing bear hug. “If you want me to leave,” he whispered. “Then you need to force me out of that door yourself.”

As Kyla felt Dylan’s arms encompass her and block out the world around her, a little shard of ice melted from her frost hardened heart. The way Dylan held her, with a tender yet strong embrace, sent shivers straight to her soul. She knew he cared for her more than either of them had anticipated.

For the first time in a decade, Kyla crumpled and allowed her sorrow to be comforted by someone else. What scared her even more was the fact that she liked knowing she had a rock of stability willing, and wanting, to be hers.

Chapter 11

Kyla cried herself dry. Until her eyes were red and the size of golfballs and she had no more energy left to give.

Dylan lifted her up and carried her upstairs. When he reached the top of the stairs and saw the wood from last nights antics still all over the place, he headed into Kyla’s bedroom and set her on the bed, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Picking his way towards the bathroom, he put the plug in the bath, turned the hot tap on full blast, the cold tap a quarter of the way, and poured in half a bottle of Radox, just how she liked it.

As the tub filled, he made swift work of clearing the wood. When most of the chunky parts were to one side, the bath had filled already. He switched the taps off and went back to Kyla. He found her laying on her back, eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling, not even blinking. The gentle rise and fall of her chest told him she was still alive. He couldn’t deny he had thought the worst for a brief second.

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