Page 36 of Lose Me In The Shadows

“Are you done, pretty girl?” Conor called through the door. “We need to find out what you look like as a brunette.”

He was knocking? He was asking permission? What the hell was going on?

Disturbed, perplexed, and annoyingly disappointed, Kara called back, “Two minutes.” She finished rinsing the conditioner out of her hair, turned off the water, and exited the shower, wrapping a towel around her body. She located a blow dryer—and a diffuser, holy of holies—and began drying her hair, feeling almost normal.

The door opened and Conor entered.

“This bathroom is swanky,” she said. “You must owe Marcus a whole hell of a lot.”

“You have no idea,” Conor laughed, going to a drawer and pulling out hair dye. “We’re going to have to give him our firstborn child.”

Child?!Kara was briefly stymied.

He caught her look. “Never thought I’d say this, but the thought of putting a baby in you makes me want to bend you over the sink and fill you up.”

Kara felt herself get fluttery at the idea. The fucking, she told herself, not the rest of it.

“Yeah?” she said, a little breathless as she lifted her chin. “You gonna make me?”

Conor smiled faintly. “Pretty girl, I’m not gonna make you do anything this time. I learned my lesson.”

“What?” Everything in Kara rejected that statement. If there were any time things between themworked, it was when Conor was making her. She needed that from him, the push. She always had. If he took it from her…

“So what happens then?”

“You ask for what you want,” he said. “You wanted power? I’d argue you’ve always had it with us. You had the power to throw our lives completely upside down, make us want you so badly we almost destroyed our relationships with each other. You were the one thing we tried to plan for, but you were always a step ahead of us. But if that’s not enough, then we’re giving you all the power. It’s yours now, explicitly.”

She inhaled, exhaled, tried to keep her temper—and the underlying pain—in check. “Conor, I don’t want to change our sexual dynamic. The problem at the cabin was never the sex. It was feeling like all I was good forwassex. Sometimes you made me feel like all I was to you was a set of holes you wanted to stick your dick in. Who I was, what I wanted…they felt like they didn’t matter.”

Conor stared at her, jaw locked. “You know that’s not true.”

She nodded. “I do now. It took being trapped in a cell, mentally tortured by the man I had an affair with, and beaten up by his henchmen, to realize what I ran from. But that doesn’t change the fact that you stole me from my life.”

He approached her, backing her against the sink. Taking a lock of hair between his fingers, he lowered his voice. “I am sorry. I meant it when we were feeding you. I am sorry for hurting you or making you feel like you didn’t matter. When I say I want you, Kara, it’s not just for your pussy. It’s all of you: the good, the bad, and the bitchy. I am sorry for hurting you, but that doesn’t mean I’m giving you up. That’s for selfless, self-sacrificing men, and you wouldn’t want that anyway.”

“Conor—” she interrupted, but he didn’t stop, pushing her hair behind her ear.

“I can want to keep you and be sorry I hurt you at the same time. I wish you could admit you’re sorry for hurting us, too—and that you want to be kept.”

Her heart raced. Her instinct, of course, was to lash out. Her anger kept her safe. But as she looked at the man before her, opening up, baring himself to her… he’d risked his own freedom to rescue her, hadn’t even asked for a thank you, just accepted it like it was his duty—his privilege, even. This combination of emotional openness and calling her out on her shit reminded her of who he’d been when she’d first met him.

Does your anger keep you safe, really?her inner voice asked, not shit stirring, just curious.Or is it just a habit at this point? It certainly didn’t help you at the Black Ops site.

Touché.

She couldn’t tell him she wanted to be kept. Instead she dropped the towel and said, “Conor, please—I need you.”

He stared at her body, his throat working. “I’m gonna kill that professor for what he did to you,” he said.

She looked down at her bruises. “You already saw them. And you killed the men who did it.”

“They didn’t give the order. And it doesn’t matter that I already saw the bruises. The visual reminder that you were hurt—do you know what it does to me? Seeing you this way, knowing it’s my fault…” he trailed off, shaking his head.

Overcome by the need to stop his guilt, she cut him off. “Then help me. Help me feel whole again.”

His eyes lit—not with triumph, but with relief. He stroked her cheek, his eyes steady on hers. “Strong girl, you’ve always been whole,” he murmured, tender approval woven through his words. “You’re bruised, not broken.”

And then he took her mouth with his. The kiss started off sweet, just playing, asking, lips brushing lips. But then with a groan he coaxed her mouth open and took her, sweet turning to intense. As he kissed her, his tongue conquering hers, he took, and took—and gave, and gave, until she wasn’t sure who was the victor and who was the spoils.

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