Page 20 of Hiding In the Dark (The Righteous 4)
He stepped into the living room area and walked over to the bay window to look down at the spot he’d occupied. He glanced around the homey space, the pictures hanging on the wall drawing his attention. There were no smiling wedding photos. In fact, there were no men at all, other than a picture of her and her father.
A longing that still cut like a knife ached in his chest. This could’ve been his life, here with her, but instead, it was stolen from him.
Turning away from the photos, he spotted a wine bottle on the coffee table and started heading over for it, but when he realized Ashley was on the couch behind it, he froze. Ashley was balled up on one of the couch cushions, and she was shivering, the only sign of movement. Making sure to be silent, he stepped closer and picked up the wine bottle to inspect the contents. It was mostly gone.
He looked between the bottle and the woman on the couch. “Naughty girl.” He put the bottle to his lips and chugged the remaining bit of the tasty red liquid. “Not bad.”
He licked the remaining liquid off his lips as he sat the bottle down. He was going to need liquid courage for this. Bending down, he moved a piece of hair away from her face, but she didn’t flinch.
“You have always made me feel insane, do you know that?” Kes whispered as he traced the back of his knuckle down the side of her face.
She murmured something incoherent, but it was not hard to picture it being a few choice words.
As carefully as he could, he slipped his arms under her adorable sleeping form—the thin T-shirt and boy shorts not providing much protection against a chill. But lord, her skin was soft. He gently rolled her toward him and then stood with her in his arms, Ash’s head leaning against his shoulder, and his heart beat faster under her ear.
She murmured a little.
“Shhh, you’re okay.” His lips brushed her temple, and he closed his eyes, breathing her in.
“Kes.”
“Go back to sleep,” he whispered, but he didn’t think she was actually awake—her eyes were still closed, and she wasn’t screaming or smacking him, which would definitely be her response to him in her home.
Ash mumbled, “Why do you hate me?”
He stopped moving and stared at her beautiful sleeping form. “I don’t hate you. I never hated you,” he whispered in her ear. She shivered in his hold, and he smirked as she moaned slightly.
Kes looked around the hallway. He was pressing his luck—he needed to get her to bed. The first door was a bathroom, and the next one looked like a small spare room made up like an art studio, but lucky number three was what he was searching for, the bedroom. Pulling down the blankets with one hand, he laid his little doll down and tucked her in.
She sighed softly, and unable to resist, he laid his lips against her temple. “You’ve always owned my heart.” The words were barely a whisper, but she mumbled his name again, and an ache formed inside his chest.
The temptation to curl in beside her was strong. Kes’s fingers twitched along with his cock at the thought of curling up to that adorable ass, his hand cupping a breast as he held her body close to his.
Before he did something even crazier, he stepped away until he blended with the shadows and slipped back out into the night.
The sun was just starting to rise, the shimmering light bathing the world in a mysterious mix of orange and grey shadows. Kes sat on the roof of Ashley’s apartment building, feet up on the ledge and ass seated on a discarded construction bucket, as he watched the great orange ball rise.
Something you learned very quickly in the Sandbox was you don’t take anything for granted. Not your life, not the food you put in your gullet, and certainly not a sunrise. It meant you’d made it through another night alive and hoped to live through the day to dance all over again.
Unfortunately, he had to get going before the sun made it impossible to sneak down the fire escape. His side tweaked as he stood, making him wince for a moment, but it was nothing more than a phantom pain. It would pass. The first year after his injury had been the worst, but now it was just another reminder that he was alive, whether he wanted to be or not.
Kes wandered over to the metal ladder and slipped down as stealthily as possible, but as he reached Ashley’s window, he had to jump back and lay flat against the wall. He could hear her moving around the small kitchen, her footsteps slow and stumbly. Kneeling, he took the chance to peer around the brick and smirked as she made her way to the coffee pot with her sunglasses firmly in place and hair up in a wild mess on her head. She somehow still looked perfect, and yet she’d push his ass right off the escape for seeing her like that.
Head hurting, Doll?
Once the pot of coffee was brewing, she wandered back out of the kitchen, and he made a break for his escape route. Kes dropped to the closed dumpster lid and then jumped to the ground with a soft thud. He took a step to push the rusty piece of shit back to where it was rotting away before and then shrugged and left it alone.
Why make life difficult?
Kes shrunk into his long coat and sweater, letting them swallow him as the sun got higher in the sky. He yawned as he strolled up the alley toward his home, his eyes scanning the members of the homeless camp that were still sleeping or sitting outside of their small makeshift homes. He protected the people that lived out here, and since he had arrived, the crime and abuse had dwindled. He smirked to himself as he remembered his first round of punishments vividly. His pocket vibrated, and he pulled it out, expecting Trev to be on the other end.
“I told you I don’t know anything yet,” he growled into the phone.
“I have no idea what you are talking about, Son.”
Kes’s stride faltered at the sound of his father’s voice. “How the hell did you get my number?”
“Son, you forget who I am. I know everything. I know you’ve been sleeping in that shitty tent under the bridge, and I also know that you like to take my boat out for joy rides from time to time, although you still refuse to come home. I also know that you are breaking your mother’s heart by not calling her since you’ve been back in town.”
