Page 124 of Kill for a Kiss

I didn’t know she was Kayla Knight, I swear! She used a different name.

You’d take my side, right? You were always my favorite middle brother.

I snort under my breath, shaking my head. Fucking Stan.

Even now, he’s doing what he always does, ripping into the tension just enough to let me breathe again. He doesn’t know it, but that’s the only reason I don’t chuck this phone into the ocean.

I hate seeing the image on this screen. His happy face right beside Elle’s. I know I could change it, but I love seeing her face too much to do that. So I close it gently. Put it back in my pocket. And stare at the moon, pale and glowing, completely unbothered.

This place has been a sanctuary. A fever dream of warmth and whispered promises that don’t ask for anything back. But it won’t last. Nothing good ever does, considering the real monster’s still out there, still pulling strings.

I breathe deep, knowing that I’ll have to prepare for the worst.

Walking back into the shack, I see Elle. My Elle. Resting as if the world isn’t falling apart around her. It never should’ve. I’ll do everything it takes to make sure it never will again.

Yeah, I’ll prepare for shit to hit the fan. But I’ll also enjoy every stolen moment I can get with Elle. I don’t care if that makes me selfish. Sliding beside her under the sheets, I press my smirk against her warm, supple skin and breathe her in. I’ve never been this fucking happy in my life.

30

Elle

The next evening

I can hear the rain outside. Drops tapping onto the tin roof protecting us. Sterling and I have been stuck inside the shack because of the wet autumn weather. But it’s the perfect excuse to be right by his side the entire day.

On the nightstand, I look at Stan’s wristwatch resting there. I haven’t been wearing it. I noticed how subtly upset Sterling gets whenever I wear it. So I stopped. But I do look at it from time to time, merely for the fact that there aren’t any clocks in the shack.

At this moment, it’s seven in the evening, in the middle of a brisk September. The bed is warm with the memory of dinner, of smiles that felt so soft that my heart feels full.

Sterling sits against the headboard, half in shadow, his skin kissed by the firelight. The way he watches me, steady and unblinking, makes the rest of the world fall away until there’s only this moment.

I crawl toward him without thinking, drawn the way I always am when it comes to him. I press myself to his side, feeling how he breathes deeply when he pulls me even closer. The quiet between usfeels like it could last forever if we let it.

His hand drifts over my spine. I close my eyes, sinking into his touch. I could stay like this. I want to. But I know what’s coming. He offers more than himself on nights like this, when the world feels far enough away that it’s easy to pretend we’re the only two people left breathing.

His fingers still briefly against the small of my back, then start moving again, slower this time. “I’ll tell you,” Sterling murmurs, low and rough, like the words cost him. “Whatever you want to know.”

I feel it in my chest first. This quiet breaking of something I’m not ready to name. The offer tempts me more than it should. It always has. But lately, it’s been harder not to take it.

Still, I hesitate. Because the truth doesn’t feel safe. It feels rather unforgiving. And I’m afraid if I remember it all, I might lose moments like this with Sterling. Where Sterling’s arms are my shelter, where the past can’t touch us, where I’m his and he’s mine. And he won’t leave me because he thinks that’s what’s best for me.

That’s the possibility I’m terrified of the most. That he’ll ask me the way Stan said it to me back in the cabin. If I wanted it, he’d disappear.

But just as Stan was wrong, Sterling would be too, because all I want is for Sterling to stay. I can’t part with him. Not now, not ever. Not even if the truth is a harsh reality where the world won’t welcome us with the same warmth.

I tuck my face into his chest, breathing him in. “You don’t have to,” I whisper, the words slipping out before I can second-guess them.

He doesn’t answer right away. He continues to trace circles against my skin. “I know,” he says, quiet and certain.

I tilt my head up and find his gaze already on me. Heavy and steady, so full of things he’ll never say unless I ask him to. “I’m scared,” I confess, barely breathing out the words.

He brushes his fingers along my cheek. “Be scared,” he whispers. “But stay.”

His mouth finds mine a moment later, slow and devastating, kissing me in this fleeting, fragile moment. But I want to stay lost in the dream a little while longer.

When he slides over me and peels away the layers between us with careful hands, I let him take me deeper into the only kind of memory I want to keep. The one we’re making now, where I move before I can lose my nerve, feeling the raw strength of him inside of me.

He waits, head tilted low, letting me decide how this goes. He’s offering himself without reservation. The sheet is soft in my hands, trembling slightly from the beat of my heart.