Page 44 of Primal

We stare at each other for a moment, neither one of us daring to speak or move.

“You hungry, baby?” he finally asks just as my stomach growls obnoxiously.

He chuckles, and the corner of my mouth lifts despite my efforts to keep a straight face. “Maybe a little.”

Lifting myself to my toes, I press a soft kiss to his lips. He grips my hips firmly, the tips of his fingers digging into me slightly as he pulls me against him.

“Then let’s get you some breakfast,” he murmurs against my mouth.

CHAPTER 34

KIARA

“You know, you’re really starting to piss me off, girl,” Yolanda says on the phone later. Zyran is downstairs getting some work done while I’m sitting at my desk on my lunch break. I’m tempted to lie to my boss about being sick so I can clock out for the rest of the day. I just want to be with Zyran.

I sigh and lean back in my desk chair. “I’m sorry, Yo. No one is more frustrated and confused about all of this than me.”

“Why won’t you just leave him?” she asks sharply.

Isn’t that my life’s greatest mystery?

I’m silent for a moment, thinking of all the reasons I won’t.

“I don’t know. I just… can’t,” I say pathetically, rubbing my forehead.

Yolanda sighs heavily into the phone, and I swear I can feel her disappointment. I certainly hear it when she says, “You’re really letting me down, Kiara. I can’t do this anymore.”

I shoot up in my chair so fast it rolls back on the hardwood floors. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that your… whatever it is that you have with Zyran, is stressing me the fuck out. Do you know how hard it is to keep my knowledge of his various crimes a secret? There’s a manhunt going on as we speak because the police think whoever killed Anthony and his friends is the same person who murdered Malcolm and Ahmad. And guess what? They’re right!”

“Listen, I know this is hard on you—” I start, but Yo cuts me off.

“No. There’s no world in which you understand the mental stress I’m dealing with because nothing exists outside of Zyran,” she sneers disgustedly.

A part of me wants to snap back at her for talking about Zyran like that, but she’s not wrong about anything she’s saying. I’ve been so absorbed in him that I’ve pretty much given up all of my common sense. My whole world revolves around him, and I’m powerless to change it.

I can’t think of anything else to say except, “I’m sorry.”

Yolanda just scoffs. “Yeah, you sure are.”

And then she hangs up.

CHAPTER 35

ZYRAN

After making up some excuse to finish my work tomorrow, my boss lets me take the rest of the day off. I can’t stop myself from smiling like a fool as I close my laptop and go upstairs to see my girl. When I reach her office, I see her crying, with her hands over her face.

“Kiara?” I say, rushing over to her immediately. “Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll kill it.”

She looks up at me with the saddest look on her face, and all I want to do is hold her.

“No, that’s why this is happening,” she laments.

I try to run a soothing hand along her back, but when she pushes me away, I immediately know.

Yolanda said something to her, got into her head about me.

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