Page 14 of Things We Burn

There was only one way to answer when Kane ‘The Devil’ Rhodes asked you if you liked pasta after he’d fucked you three times.

“Yes.”

“Great, stay here. I’ll whip us up some.”

Kane leaned down to kiss me.

Not a peck on the lips kiss. He kissed me. Completely. With vigor.

I got the impression Kane didn’t do anything by halves.

That impression was helped when his hand trailed down my naked body to cup me possessively between my legs, fingers exploring the area that was sensitive yet immediately wet for him.

He grinned wickedly as he pushed off the bed and put those same fingers in his mouth.

“Babe, I make a bomb ass fettuccini, but I don’t think I’ll ever taste anything as fucking spectacular as that cunt.”

My eyelids fluttered.

Vulgar. Vigor. I liked it.

“Well, maybe once you try my food you’ll have a different opinion,” I replied, my voice lazy, soft almost.

His grin turned cheeky and playful. “I don’t doubt your capability in the kitchen, but I do doubt there’s a plate on Earth that can rivalthat.”

With that parting note, he got out of bed and left the bedroom. I could only guess that he was going to cook fettuccine naked.

Not something that would’ve been appealing to me in any other circumstances. It was unhygienic and impractical. But the image of Kane doing it was very appetizing indeed.

I sank back into the bed and stared at the ceiling.

He’d ordered me to stay here. No one ordered me to do anything. It was the other way around. Even in the bedroom … up until now.

I’d happily and without resistance submitted to Kane. I enjoyed it immensely, being able to let go of the reins and just enjoy the ride. No pun intended.

But now that the sex had concluded—at least for now, though a carnal and greedy part of me wanted more—I did not want to heed orders. I did not want to stare at a ceiling and guess whether Kane was downstairs cooking naked. I wanted to find out for myself.

Kane, in fact, was cooking naked.

It was the view of his ass, his muscular and tattooed back at the stove that greeted me when I walked into the kitchen—not naked.

I’d put on a tee I’d found in a suitcase discarded in the walk-in closet, clothes spilling out of it. Kane was just staying there, after all, and it didn’t surprise me that he wasn’t the type to keep everything neatly folded.

Iwas the type to keep everything neatly folded and organized. Everything in my apartment and kitchen was color-coded, alphabetized, systematic. Messy men irritated me. Kane did not. For whatever reason.

I’d grabbed the first shirt I could find. It was soft from countless washes, worn so much the print had faded into nothing. It smelled faintly of laundry powder but mostly of him. Because of our height difference, it hit me mid-thigh. I had curves that meant I was never the woman who put on her boyfriend’s clothes and was dwarfed by them. Not that I wasthe type to put on my boyfriend’s clothes. What was the point in that? I had clothes of my own. I’d always thought it was a ridiculous thing that only happened in cheesy rom-coms.

I got it now. The act of wearing a lover’s clothing after they’d just owned every inch of your body. When you smelled of sweat and sex and him.

Yes, I got it.

I put on panties, though. Another thing I didn’t get. Walking around without underwear. It seemed impractical and unsanitary. Especially after sex. Even protected, which Kane luckily had the foresight and sensibility to ensure because I hadn’t even been thinking about condoms. I had no memory of him putting it on the first time, but I’d been a little preoccupied. Even though I was on birth control—for practicality’s sake more than anything—I had never been so reckless or so intimate with someone to have sex without a condom.

My bare feet didn’t make a sound on the hardwood floors, nor on the plush rugs as I followed the telltale signs of pots clanging in the kitchen.

My body felt relaxed and at home as I entered the kitchen to the smell of onions and garlic.

I didn’t say anything to Kane as I watched him move about the kitchen. He did it like he’d done everything else, with confidence, an ease in his movements. My eyes traveled over the tattoo on his back. It was the one piece on his body that was cohesive. It looked like it could’ve been painted on the ceiling of some old church in Europe. In the middle of his shoulder blades was a heart shape, wings behind it and various knives stabbing into it, blood dripping from the heart. Cherub-type angles were on either side of the heart and on the bottom, holding a chalice as if to catch the blood. Flames burned around the scene.

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