Page 218 of Forbidden Lessons

“So that’s someone else’s blood on your face? Are the police going to show up at my house?”

Kai holds out his arms, head bobbing as he scans himself. “It’s paint, Sir.”

I step out onto the porch and drag my finger over Kai’s jaw. He lifts his head, eyes flickering away before settling on me. Then my finger, as I hold it up for him to see.

“Fuck.” He swipes at his face with a hand. Looks at his palm. Swipes with the other hand. “Fuck,fuck.”

My mind goes to the ambulance we passed on the way over here.

Melissa hadn’t said who exactly had padlocked Haven’s collar. I’d assumed it was Kai.

Maybe it wasn’t.

I sincerely doubt the two incidents aren’t related. Which means he was trying to protect her.

Kai flinches when I grab his shoulder, but doesn’t resist when I draw him inside my home. “I think you need to take a shower, Kai.”

When I turn, Haven is left exposed, and she freezes up when Kai steps closer to her. They stare at each other like strange cats, Haven’s hands curling into fists, Kai’s hands opening into stiff blades.

“Haven, turn on the fireplace.”

She starts, turning wide eyes to me.

“Now.”

Kai throws me a quizzical look, but I seize the back of his neck and steer him to my bathroom, not giving him time to ask whatever question is brewing in his drug-addled mind.

“Why is she here?” he asks, sounding so forlorn and confused that I almost pity him.

“More importantly, why areyouhere, Kai?”

I walk him into the shower cubicle like I had Haven. Unlike her, he turns to face me, frowning. “You took her.”

“I didn’ttakeher,” I say, my eyes dropping to his trash bag. I start ripping it apart with my fingers, but he doesn’t even seem to notice. “Ihelpedher. She’s just gone through something very traumatic. I’m simply giving her a safe place to decompress.”

“Safe,” he murmurs, looking down as I tear the last shreds of plastic off his skin. He scrapes his nails over his chest like he’s trying to get rid of the paint. I flip him around, reach past him, and turn on the faucet.

He immediately turns his head up to the spray, and it’s like I cease to exist.

“I’ll go fetch you some clean clothes.”

Kai ignores me, his hands sliding over his face as he washes off the blood and the paint.

I find a pair of sweats and a t-shirt that will fit him, and go back into the bathroom to put it on the counter.

When I look over at Kai, I get the feeling he’s staying in that shower until the warm water runs out. He’s taken off his boxers, lathering soap over himself with long, lazy strokes, swiveling his head around in the spray.

He’s so zoned out, he doesn’t even know I’m here. So I stay to watch for a few minutes, my dick getting hard at the sheer second-hand ecstasy he’s so blatantly experiencing.

“Fuck this,” I mutter. If I’d wanted to become a babysitter, I’d have posted an ad on the town’s bulletin board.

I leave the bathroom, putting my revolver back in its place inside the nightstand. Last night’s bourbon is still here, right beside last night’s glass.

Fuck the ice.

I pour a generous shot and drain it, closing my eyes to better experience the smokey sting sliding over my tongue and throat.

Then I down another.

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