Page 38 of Slay Bells Ring

“I know. You probably thought you’d be digging into me, or maybe even killing me by now.” He chuckles a dark sound. “I don’t blame you for wanting that. If I was in your position, I’d want that, too.” When he looks at me after that, I detect a note of sympathy… or maybe I’m just allowing myself to get too close to this man.

To like him a bit too much.

To want things from him I have no right wanting.

When I don’t say anything, when I just continue to stare at him, he notices and asks, “What?” His dark brows come together, and he studies me like I’m a puzzle he’s trying to figure out.

There are a lot of things I could say. He already knows he’s to blame for who I am today, for how broken I am, but… somehow, someway, there’s more to it. There’s so much I could tell him, so much I could say—I’ve never felt more alive than I did when we were together, that I stupidly feel safe with him watching over me. All of which makes zero sense, and that’s why I’m struggling so much.

In the end, all I say is, “My clothes.”

Kane practically leaps to his feet. “I’ll get them for you.” He pads around the bed and disappears into the bathroom for a few seconds. When he returns to me, he hands them over as he says, “Here.”

I take them, but I don’t say a word in thanks, nor do I go to actually put them on. I’m frozen in place.

“What is it? Do you need something else? Food? You haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon.” Kane moves to where he set our bags, and his tall frame kneels down as he digs into one of them and pulls out a granola bar and a bottle of water, which he then brings to me.

“Thank you,” I whisper, though, like with my clothes, I don’t do anything right away. I simply set the granola bar and the water bottle on the bed, on top of my clothes.

Kane starts to walk away, but he must sense something’s off, something’s wrong—and it doesn’t involve my clothes or the fact that I haven’t eaten in a while. He is slow to move around the bed, even slower in sitting down beside me, his sole focus on me instead of the TV and the late morning news that’ll soon give way to a Christmas parade. “What’s wrong, little killer?” Maybe I’m just blind when it comes to this man, but it sounds as though he actually cares about the answer.

“Christmas used to be my favorite holiday. The movies, the decorations—the presents.” I turn my head toward the window, and though I can’t see out of it from where I am, I can imagine the Hallmark-like town outside. “I would’ve loved to come to a place like this on Christmas, but now…”

How can I say it without sounding like I’m whining? Like I’m being ungrateful for Kane’s help? I honestly don’t know how to explain the complicated, frustrating feelings inside me.

“Now everything has changed and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Howard was like family to me. I still don’t want to believe it’s him. Add onto all that, if I would’ve done what I went to that cabin to do, you’d be dead and I would be, too. I would’ve been so happy to have finally given my parents’ memory justice, only to die at the hands of another stupid assassin.”

I shake my head once. “And if this works, if we manage to take down Howard and avenge my parents, you say you have enough money stashed that I can start a newlife somewhere, but… what if I don’t know what to do? Or where to go? I’ve never—” I swallow hard. “—I’ve never stopped to think about a future or what I’d want in it. My only goal for the last thirteen years was finding and killing you.”

A sound escapes me right then, and it’s a mixture between a bark of incredulousness and a chuckle full of bitterness. “And here I am, stuck in an old-timey bed and breakfast with you, trying to snap myself out of it—but I can’t.”

“Hey,” Kane’s voice comes out soft and gentle, so unlike his usual tone. He scoots across the middle of the bed to reach me. His hand goes toward mine, but he stops himself as his hand hovers inches away from mine, like he’s thought better of it. Instead, that hand falls to where my knee sits, the only thing separating his hand from my bare flesh the sheets. “Don’t let yourself spiral—”

The only thought I can think is: I’m so fucked up. I’m so fucked up it’s not even funny. I want to tell Kane more, but when I look into his blue gaze, everything else fades away, like magic or something.

I spent thirteen years dreaming of those blue eyes and the face they were set in. They were cold, emotionless eyes—or maybe that’s just how they looked to ten-year-old me. Now Kane’s stare fills me with warmth and thoughts other than murder.

“I’m so lost. I don’t know what I’m going to do.” I feel myself leaning towards him, wanting something I have no right to want. Needing the man who put a bullet in my parents. There’s a special place in hell for me, isn’t there?

God, what’s wrong with me?

Don’t answer that. I already know:lots.

Chapter Eighteen – Kane

The way Holly looks at me, silently pleading, makes something in me stir. I want to grab her, pull her close, and hold her as the day passes us by. Fuck, I want to do so much more than that. I was a man who’d given up everything, a man ready to kill himself, and now I can’t see a path that would lead me back to where I was.

No, the only roads before me all lead to the same place: Holly fucking Cooper.

“Kane.” The way she whispers my name is unlike any who’ve spoken it before. She’s leaning toward me, inching closer as the seconds tick by; I don’t know if she realizes what she’s doing, but I sure as hell do.

I lift the hand I have on her knee—it took me incredible amounts of self-restraint to not touch her before, but now, with the way she’s looking up at me, that self-restraint is gone—and I bring that hand to her face, lightly running my fingertips down along her jaw.

She doesn’t pull away. The only thing she does is let the sheets pulled up over her chest fall, revealing hernaked top half. Before I can think better of it, before I can stop myself, I lean down and press my lips against hers, tasting the subtle sweetness that is Holly Cooper yet again.

She made me a man with an addiction in the span of a few days. She pulled me from the ledge and gave me a new purpose in life. She made me want things I’ve never wanted so badly before in my life.

I kiss her hard, but whether she steals the air from my lungs or I steal it from her, who can say? The kiss lasts for an eternity, and by the time our mouths part, we’re both breathing hard. Our noses touch, neither one of us pulling away.

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