Page 32 of Slay Bells Ring

I’m breathing hard as I lean over her and grab the same towel I used before to clean her up. I use its cum-free side to wipe those ass cheeks, and then I toss that towel aside, breathing hard all over again.

Holly is measured in rolling over to face me. She breathes hard through her mouth, but there’s a certain twinkle in those green eyes that wasn’t there before. “Okay,” she admits, “that was pretty good. I guess you’re notthatold.”

All I can do is smirk. Smirk and shake my head once. As much as I’d like to banter with her, go back and forth between her, we really should get some rest before nightfall. I simply tell her, “Try to get some sleep.”

Her body hums beside mine. “Now that you mention it, I am a little tired now…” The way her voice trails off, I can tell she’s already on her way to dreamland.

I turn my head and watch as Holly drifts off to sleep. It doesn’t take long. Soon enough her breathing slows andher bare chest rises and falls with the even repose that only comes with unconsciousness.

It’s something I realized before, but it hits me particularly hard right then. Goddamn it.

Everything about Holly fucking Cooper is my problem.

Chapter Fifteen – Holly

I don’t dream of anything, which is just as well, and when I wake up to a world of dusk, I find Kane is already up. The man is already dressed, and he’s busy eating some of the food I brought. Cereal this time.

Hey, I didn’t know how long I’d want to torture the guy. I came for the long-haul.

I moan as I sit up, and as I do so the blanket around me falls, revealing my bare tits. From where he’s sitting in the kitchen, Kane looks over, and his gaze lingers on me—I’m sure I’m a hot mess right now, nothing too nice to look at.

God. What’s wrong with me? I fucked the man I came here to kill. That has to be some record-setting level of stupidity. I trained to torture and maim this guy, not to have mini-marathon sex with him.

I’m so fucked. I’m fucked no matter how you look at the situation. Assuming I get out of this alive, how am I ever supposed to live with myself, knowing I slept with the man who killed my parents?

But… if it’s the same person who wants me dead now that wanted my parents dead, I should blame this mystery person just as much, if not more than Kane. Kane would never have killed my parents if he wasn’t hired to do it. If that person turns out to be the man who raised me the last thirteen years, I don’t know how I’ll handle it.

I reach for my clothes and throw them on. By the time I’m dressed, Kane brings me a bottle of water and a bowl of my own to eat.

“Eat up,” he says. “Tonight’s going to be a long night.”

He’s right. I don’t say anything as I eat the dry cereal and swallow it down with some sips of water. What I wouldn’t give for an Advil right now, or even a Tylenol; anything to help me ignore the dull throbbing in my feet. I wonder how long they’ll take to fully heal?

Kane must be finished with his cereal, because he sits in the recliner near the fire. “We’ll do the same thing as last night. I’ll sit over there while you lay here and pretend to be asleep. If anyone comes through that door, I won’t let him reach you.”

There are zero reasons I should trust anything he tells me, but as I listen to him, it’s my first instinct. Fucking that man must’ve done a real number on my brain. He got me all jumbled up. Totally his fault, and I hate him even more now for it.

Yeah, I’ll keep telling myself that.

“Look,” Kane says, and the weight behind his voice causes me to look at him, and I hate that I don’t see the coldness in their blue depths anymore. I hate that I see warmth there instead. “If you want to pretend nothinghappened, that’s fine. We can do that. I just want us to be on the same page.”

Now he’s… talking about the sex? Honestly, if it was possible to scrub my mind of the memory and pretend it didn’t happen, I could probably live with myself better. But the fact of the matter is you can’t pick and choose which memories to forget. It happened. We fucked. We can move on.

We can move on because it was all different sorts of wrong… but at the same time, it was the best sex I’ve ever had. Hands-down with no close competitors. Kane really is on his own level, even if he does stand on borderline old man territory.

“Well?” Kane asks after a while, when I haven’t said a single word. “Thoughts?”

Instead of telling him I don’t think I can forget about it, I ask him his opinion on it. “What do you think?” If he wants to pretend it didn’t happen, then that’s what we can do—or at least try to. I spent thirteen years of my life hating him. That hatred is still there, simmering under the surface, placated only because of the current circumstances.

I can hate the man and think he’s a beast in the sack, can’t I?

He gives me a smirk, and I hate to report that smirk makes my stomach do something funny. “I was hoping you would decide, but it sounds like you want me to make the decision. I think it would be best if we forget about it.”

Right. He’s right, of course. Can’t argue with him there.

“But I don’t know if I can.” It’s that last, quick admission from him that makes me stare at him, and he must take my look as a question, because he goes on, “I know I wronged you, and you have every right to hate me and want me dead. Hell, I wanted myself dead, too.” He runs a hand along his stubbly jaw. “And I know I have no goddamned right to want anything from you.”

My breath catches for some reason. I don’t know where he’s going with this, but he has my rapt attention. I’m hanging on every word.

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