Page 32 of Beneath Your Beautiful
I longed to run my fingers through his hair, press my lips against his slightly parted ones. Sink into his lap and feel his arms around me. I wanted him so badly it hurt. If it had been any other guy, maybe I’d be bolder, and I’d close the distance between us. But this was Killian and he was unlike any guy I’d ever met so I stayed where I was and just watched him sleeping.
His eyelids fluttered open, and I averted my face, but not quickly enough. He knew I’d been watching him, that I’d stolen a little piece of his soul while he slept. Linkin Park’s “Bleed It Out” was playing and he stared at my sound system for a few seconds before he stood and walked to the door, letting himself out without saying a word. I followed him to the door.
“Killian?”
He was out in the hallway already, his back turned to me, shoulders straight, head lowered.
“Yeah?” he said.
“Thanks for letting me sketch your face.”
He turned towards me and opened his mouth as if to speak, but he shut it without saying anything. I stood inside my doorway and watched him jog down the stairs like he couldn’t get away fast enough, before I closed the door and locked it.
I slid down against the door and sat on the floor, wondering why everything was so complicated with us. Why was I drawn to a guy who was emotionally unavailable? Why did I persist in trying to know him better? He ran hot and cold, and he had me up, down, and twisted around.
For the sake of my sanity, I needed to stop thinking about Killian Vincent.
Chapter Twelve
Killian
Mass had ended fifteen minutes ago. I slipped into the pew next to my father in the empty church. Growing up, Seamus had squired me and Connor to Our Lady of Angels every Sunday, intent on guiding us through our spiritual journeys. I’d stopped attending mass years ago, but today Seamus had summoned me. If I hadn’t met him here, he would have turned up at my house or at the bar. I liked to keep my life separate from his. Sometimes I wondered why I still gave a shit about this man. Why did I still cling to the belief that he possessed a sliver of decency? That once, just once, he’d ask me how I was doing and care enough to listen to my answer without railroading me.
“You missed Mass,” Seamus said, stating the obvious. He cast a critical eye over my faded jeans and black T-shirt. I kept my gaze focused on the green marble pillars supporting the archways—the cross above the painting of the Virgin Mary behind the altar. Finally, Seamus stood, knowing he wouldn’t get an excuse or an apology. Facing the altar, he genuflected and made the sign of the cross before walking out of the church with me, the heels of his polished black shoes clicking on the tiles, the sound echoing in the empty church. As everyone knew, Seamus Vincent was a devout Catholic.
We exited the church and I slipped on my aviators to ward off the sunlight. I was operating on no sleep, except for the nap I’d taken on Eden’s sofa. When I’d woken up, I knew she’d been watching me, and I’d gotten the feeling she’d been doing it for a while. As if I hadn’t felt exposed enough already, Linkin Park’s “Bleed It Out” had been playing. My walkout song in the UFC. My cue to walk the hell out of her apartment.
“Why am I here?” I asked Seamus as we turned the corner and stopped by his black SUV. He always had an ulterior motive. A quick phone call would have conveyed the message, but he always insisted on seeing me face to face. An effort to exert control he no longer had.
“Still haven’t heard from Connor?” he asked, loosening his tie. His muscles bulged under his dark suit jacket, threatening to split the seams. The man was built like an ox and had his Sunday suits tailored to fit his frame.
I shook my head. He squinted into the distance, searching for some choice words, no doubt. “He’s probably too strung out to know where the hell he is. That boy is a sorry excuse for a son.”
And you’re a sorry excuse for a father. “Youdid this to him,” I said, my voice low. I rarely called him out for his behavior. It was pointless. I’d never get an apology, and he’d never own up to anything he’d done.
His eyes narrowed into slits. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“I don’t think I did. I thought I just heard you blaming me for your brother’s lack of willpower and discipline. Must have heard you wrong.” He poked his finger into my solar plexus. When my body had been his punching bag, he’d planted his fist in it plenty of times. “As soon as you hear from him, call me.”
Seamus would be the last person I called. His mission would be to knock some sense into Connor. But I nodded as if I intended to comply with his wishes. He ran a hand over his dark, slicked-back hair. In the heat, the scent of his Bay Rum aftershave intensified. Funny how I used to think it smelled good. Now, I equated it with the scent of Pine-Sol.
“Truth is,” he mused, getting into the real reason I was here. With Connor out of the way, it was time to focus on my shortcomings. “I never expected you to amount to anything. You weren’t much of a student. Barely scraped by with passing grades. Always getting into trouble. But you had a good thing going with your MMA career…”
I exhaled sharply. He’d been badgering me about this for an entire year. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he’d taken a keen interest in my career. After all, he’d raised me to be a fighter. He used to watch all my fights and call me afterward to critique my performance. I’d like to think he’d been proud of me, but the words had never come out of his mouth, and I’d given up trying to earn his praise a long, long time ago. “It’s over,” I said for the hundredth time. “I’m not going back.”
“You’re a damned fool for walking away. What if every cop quit the force after they got involved in an altercation? I didn’t raise you to be a coward. Or a quitter.”
There were a lot of things I could have said. Instead, I turned and walked away. He grabbed me by the collar, the fabric of my T-shirt fisted in his hand and yanked me back. My back slammed into his chest, his voice in my ear low and steely. “You don’t walk away when I’m talking to you, boy.”
I shrugged him off and rolled out my shoulders. “You’re starting to sound like a broken record. Get some new material. We’re done here.”
“We’re done when I say we’re done.”
I turned around and got right in his face, using the same voice he’d used on me. “If you want to get knocked on your ass in front of a fucking church in broad daylight, then keep talking, old man.”
Heat flushed his face, turning it an alarming shade of red. The veins on his temples bulged. His pupils enlarged. Classic warning signs that Seamus was about to blow. I laughed in his face. His jaw clenched, and his chest heaved. If he were a cartoon character, steam would be coming out of his ears. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do to me, and he knew it. How frustrating for him that he had no hold on me now. When I was sixteen, I started fighting back. By the time I was eighteen, I stood a decent chance of winning. There was nothing he could threaten me with or hold over my head anymore. Except one thing.
