Page 15 of Kane's Kingdom

"You're asking me to move on while the gaps are still on your walls."

His face hardens. "I'm asking you not to let what they did take the rest of your life."

"What they did?"

"Ok, I said that wrong. What my father did."

"And the club let him."

"Yes, I'm aware of that."

The answer comes immediately, without defense or lies, which only makes me angrier. I shove both hands into his chest.

He doesn't move, it's like he expected my anger.

"Say something that makes this easier."

"I can't."

I shove him again. His hands close around my wrists, not hard, only enough to stop me. Heat flashes through me so fast it feels like fury, but it isn't.

"Kane."

His grip loosens, but he doesn't let go. We're close enough that I can see the scar beneath his lower lip, and the chain. It hangs outside his shirt now, dragged free when I shoved him.

It's a cheap death's head, a skull over crossed blades in tarnished silver, one side nicked where I dropped it on the garage floor before pressing it into his palm.

I was sixteen and he was nineteen. My first car had died a week after I bought it, and Kane spent six hours under the hood while my father laughed and called it junk. I found the pendant at a market stall the next day. It cost almost nothing.

I shoved it at Kane because thank you was safer than telling him I had feelings for him. He's still wearing it all these years later.

My wrists go slack. His eyes search mine. He knows what I'm looking at, but he doesn't explain because he doesn't have to.

The room changes temperature. All the rage is still there. My father, King, the wall, the club. But beneath it is the thing I've held down so long it's grown teeth.

Want.

Kane's thumb moves once over the inside of my wrist, and that's all it takes. I kiss him.

There's no softness in it. I kiss him, and for half a second he doesn't react. Then something in him breaks.

His hand catches the back of my neck. The other closes around my hip, pulling me hard against him.

He tastes like restraint finally giving up. I bite his lower lip. A rough sound tears from his chest, and he turns us, backing me into the closed door.

His mouth moves over mine, hungry and punishing, and I give it back. Every year between us burns under his hands.

"Kane," I say breathlessly.

He drags his mouth down my throat.

"Tell me to stop."

I fist both hands in his shirt. "Don't you dare."

His eyes lift to mine. Then he takes me at my word.

He hooks his hands beneath my thighs and lifts me. My legs lock around his waist. The hard length of him presses against me, and I gasp into his mouth. He carries me to the bed.