Page 15 of Kane

Another head shake. “No. Well, I do not know for sure.”

“Anjalee.” I cup her chin in my hand, bring her gaze back to mine. “Fine. You don’t wanna tell me, I won’t make you. I’ll just have to deal with ‘em my way.” I let go of her chin, pull her to the side. “Stay here. Be right back.”

She grabs my arm. “Kane, no! They are dangerous.”

I just wink at her. “So’m I.”

“They have guns!”

I just grin wider. “Babe.”

3Freedom

Anjalee

The way he says that word,babe, it holds many different meanings. When I informed him that Jiwan’s men have guns, he just said…babe. Somehow, he made it sound like he was scolding me, as well as teasing me. As if me being afraid of him facing six men with guns is amusing to him.

My lips tingle where his big rough thumb touched.

I grab his arm. “We should just go. This was a mistake.”

He just looks at me, at the men clustered by the elevator. “I can take ‘em, darlin’. No problem.”

I shake my head. “This was foolish. It would serve no purpose.”

“So we go.” He shrugs.

“Go where? I have only been here in your country for one month. I do not know where to go.”

He grins. “Anywhere you want.”

“We came all of the way here for nothing.” I look up at him. “I apologize.”

He just touches my lip with his thumb again. “Babe.” Another grin. “It’s cool.” He looks at me, looks me over, scrutinizing, and I see a light hit his eyes. “I know where to go, for a start. Come on.”

He hauls me back to his motorcycle. He swings a leg on, starting it as I climb on behind him. No sooner are my arms around him than he’s peeling out, into traffic, recklessly fast, it feels to me. He drives at random, it seems, right and left and right and left.

For twenty minutes he rides, and I notice him always watching behind us. Finally, he pulls to a stop in the parking lot of a department store away from the downtown area of LA.

“Kane?”

He turns off the machine, swings off. When I do not follow suit, his huge hands go around my waist and he lifts me bodily off and to my feet. His hands are so large they nearly span my waist. I am not a small, dainty girl, but he lifted me as easily as if I weighed nothing.

“Come on,” he says, taking my hand in his rough paw once again.

“Where are we going?” I ask, trotting to keep up with his long strides.

“Shopping.”

My face lights up. “Oh! I love to shop.”

He grins. “Bet you do, beautiful. But this ain’t gonna be shopping the way you’re used to doin’ it, I’d guess.”

I like his hand in mine. I do not let go, and neither does he. My hand is small in his, like a bird cradled in the paw of a very large bear. Yet, so gentle. The skin on his hand is rough, scratchy. This, too, I like.

It makes my heart beat a little harder. Not as hard as when I am on the back of his motorcycle, hugging him so tightly, more tightly than I have ever held anyone. To be pressed against him like that…it makes it hard to breathe, and makes my lungs not work correctly. I enjoy it, but I am afraid, too. He frightens me. Especially after the lobby, and Jiwan’s men. But I am not afraid of him, not in the sense that I think he could hurt me. I know he will not, I know it with the same certainty as I know I cannot and will not marry Jiwan.

But he frightens me all the same.