Page 29 of Blood Ties
I let out a relieved breath. That hulking, dead-eyed man killed May, and it still makes my stomach twist to think about.
“Then... Knox...?”
Kai nods reluctantly, dark hair spilling down into his face. “This is normally, uh...” His gaze skitters around the room, pausing on the cuff around my wrist, the bed, the sink and toilet. “He keeps his girls here.”
His girls. I pause with a half-chewed mouthful. With effort, I swallow. “But I’m not one of his girls,” I whisper. “I’m...” It makes me feel sick, but I force the word out: “Yours.”
He stares at me, his eyes very dark and his lips slightly parted. Then he closes his mouth and turns away, like he’s ashamed.
I force myself to scoot closer, letting my knee brush against his. He tenses, but doesn’t pull away, so I lean in closer.
“Kai,” I whisper.
He turns his face to mine, our lips only a few inches apart. “I don’t feel right about this,” he whispers.
I want to scream at him.I’m chained up in your basement!Nowyou’re having second thoughts?But I don’t want to push him too hard. So I drop my eyes, bite my lip to draw his attention to my mouth. “I understand,” I say, very quietly. “But you’re all I have here.” I reach for his face with my uncuffed hand, slow, careful—
Before my fingers brush his skin, he turns away and climbs to his feet. “I can’t,” he grits out, and leaves me there alone.
Shit. I curl my fingers into my palm and take a deep, steadying breath.
Is it me? Am I not hiding my distaste for him enough to be convincing? Or is there some other problem I’m not seeing, something internal and deep-seated? I don’t know. But either way, this is going to be a problem if I don’t figure out how to fix it. Because if he doesn’t want me, then I’m expendable.
?Chapter Fourteen
Kai
Tinkering with my carusually helps clear my head.
It’s not reallymycar. Just an old piece of junk with peeling red paint that my Dad and I used to work on together, before he decided I wasn’t any good at it. Now it sits abandoned in the scrapyard. I still play around with the engine, now and again, hoping I can get it running. I took a couple of parts I needed from Felix’s car before I crushed it in the baler.
It’s one of my few escapes from the house. But right now there’s a sick, oily feeling in my stomach that I can’t seem to shake. It’s been there ever since I carried Riley down to that basement. It got worse when I came all over her dirty, discarded shirt before burning it, and now it’s worse still. I can’t deny that I wanted it when she reached out to touch me. I wanted to lean into her, to press my lips against hers like she seemed to be asking for.
It’s been so long since anybody touched me so... gently. And I’ve never been touched likethat.
Yet I couldn’t shake the sensation of wrongness. Like she was only doing it because she had to. Taking advantage of that would make me just as bad as Knox and the rest of my family. But... it’s embarrassing how badly I craved it. Cravedher.
