Page 55 of Torn In Two

“I don’t.”

She so did. But we weren’t there yet. And I’d pushed her buttons about as far as I thought I safely could. There was a vague panic in her eyes I didn’t like.

“Hey.” I pulled her into my arms and kissed her softly.

She melted, kissing me back. “This isn’t what I was expecting when I came here,” she whispered. “I’m not sure how I feel about you working here while beautiful women are…” She eyed the bondage wall. “Tied up, just waiting for you to take them in any hole.”

I chuckled. “You jealous?”

She shook her head. “Jealousy is a sin.”

“Don’t know if you noticed, but we’re in a club called Sinners. No one is judging your sins here, Kara.”

“I don’t want other women touching you,” she admitted. “I know that’s hypocritical of me when Hawk…”

I kissed her again. “No other women are touching me. Not here. Not outside these walls. Nowhere. You’re the only woman I want to touch. You’re the only woman I’ve wanted to touch ever since I met you.”

“I can’t ask you to do that for me.”

“You didn’t. I haven’t been with anyone since I met you. It’s always been you I wanted.”

“What about Hawk?”

I laughed. “You think I want Hawk?”

The corner of her mouth lifted. “Do you?”

“You’ve been hanging out with that shrink friend of yours too much, answering questions with questions,” I grumbled. But then I looked at her and asked another question of my own. “Do you like the idea of me wanting Hawk?”

She let out a breath and turned away without answering the question. “You still need to show me the kitchen.”

I let her go, following her out of the maze, even though I’d barely showed her a quarter of it. I flicked off the lights and resumed the tour. “Bathrooms. They’re pretty nice. There’s showers in there and fluffy towels and robes. And this is the kitchen. Sorry about the mess.”

She didn’t pay the spread of ingredients any mind though. Just wandered around the space, poking at all the appliances and running a finger along the countertops. “This is amazing,” she breathed. “I would have killed for a kitchen like this back at…” She shrugged, clearly not wanting to bring up the cult she’d been living in for the past five years.

I could barely think about her being held there against her will, and the guilt over doing nothing to help her was eating me alive. “I thought you were happy there. We thought you’d gone home to be with your family. I would have come if I’d known.”

She smiled at me and stroked a hand down my face. “I didn’t want anyone to know. I’m the only person who needs to feel any guilt over what happened to me.” She peered past me to the walk-in storage pantry where we kept all the food. Her eyes widened. “What is that?”

I grinned. “Best part of the whole kitchen. It’s like my own mini supermarket.” I walked in, hefting up a huge bag of flour I’d left right in the middle. “You can come in.” I shifted the heavy weight in my arms and tried to maneuver it onto a shelf, so it was out of the way. “Just be careful not to close the door because the lock—”

The door swung shut behind Kara.

I grimaced. “Wasn’t installed properly and we’ll be locked in.”

18

KARA

Panic trickled in slowly, a tiny stream of adrenaline that had me spinning around in the small room and grabbing for the handle that did nothing when I yanked on it.

The trickle quickly became a flood, my chest constricting until I couldn’t breathe.

Hayden’s arms came around me. “Hey. It’s okay.”

Except it wasn’t. It wasn’t at all. My throat felt thick. “I can’t breathe.”

He tightened his grip on me, lowering his face so his gaze was locked on mine. “You can. You were breathing a second ago before that door locked. The air hasn’t changed, and it won’t. This room isn’t airtight. I already locked myself in here the other day and I was just fine.”

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