Down to My Soul (Soul Series Book 2) (38 page)

There is no better place than this. Nestled against Rhyson’s chest. The medicine still clouds my head, scrambles my thoughts, but I’m lucid enough to know I’m safe in his arms.

“Rhys,” I mumble into his shoulder, and his arms tighten around me when he climbs the stairs carrying me. “I can walk.”

“Is that why you were knocked out on the steps?” he asks softly. “Because you can walk?”

It’s too dark for me to see his face clearly, but I’d like to imagine that smile he wears just for me is back on his face, even though I don’t hear it in his voice.

“It’s the medicine,” I whisper, pressing into his neck, searching out his scent. “It makes me so groggy.”

“You still have a lot of rest to catch up on.”

I hold my breath when he reaches the landing, so afraid he’ll take me to a guest room instead of the bedroom we share. Instead of the bed where I wake up beside him. I need it so badly. Just his arms around me tonight. Just his touch in the morning. Something that tells me he still wants me, that what he saw on that tape doesn’t change any of that.

He sets me on the bed, turning on the bedside lamp. Our eyes catch and hold for a second before he drops his glance to the floor. His demeanor, his expression—everything about him is a KEEP OUT sign, when he’s only ever been an invitation to come inside.

He pulls the fitted t-shirt over my head, slides my bra straps off my shoulders, reaches behind my back to undo my bra. The lacy black cups fall away, baring me to him. His eyes rest on my breasts like breath, so hot my nipples peak and tighten. I want him so desperately. To take him into my body. To reclaim him and yield to him. His thumb strokes my collarbone for a moment, a muscle bundling along the sharp line of his jaw, but that’s all. He unsnaps my jeans and tugs them down my legs as efficiently and impersonally as my nurse in the hospital only a week ago.

He studies my Tuesday underwear for a moment. It’s Thursday, and I know he’s remembering our night in Berlin. The memory sizzles between us. I want to spread my legs and tempt him. See if my body still holds any sway over his, but I can’t. When he comes back to me, it can’t be for that. He peels the loose plain white t-shirt over his head, the rung of muscles in his stomach and chest chiseled and beautiful. A hint of the “v” at his hips just evident at the edge of his low-slung jeans. He pulls his t-shirt down over me, and I push my arms through until it covers all I want to offer him. Desire penetrates the fog floating around my head, his scent lingering in the shirt enveloping me. I can’t take my eyes off him. I’m panting, the ragged breaths raising and dropping my breasts under the soft cotton, still holding his warmth.

He pulls back the cover, waiting for me to lie down, and then tucking the comforter under my chin.

“You’ve got a few hours left before it’s morning,” he says, his tone flat and wooden, despite the heat brimming from his eyes. “Get some sleep.”

He reaches for the lamp switch, and I grab his arm, forcing him to look at me.

“Do you remember the first night we met?” I ask.

He nods slowly, his eyes filling with the same memory I’ll never forget.

“You glanced up from the piano in Grady’s rehearsal room and looked right through me.” A bitter-tasting laugh lingers on my lips. “Or at least that’s how it felt. Like you saw everything about me in a flash. It was like you brushed up against my soul. I know that sounds melodramatic, but it scared me half to death. ”

“And you ran.” He pulls back until my hand falls away. “I looked back and you were gone.”

“Yes, I ran.”

I grab my nerve and swallow my pride and press into the cold front he’s been giving me since I confessed about the tape.

“I felt you, Rhyson. Even when I ran and resisted and said we could only be friends, I felt you. For the first time since that day at Grady’s, I don’t feel you. Not in that way that was so deep, so fast it felt like I knew you before we ever even spoke. It’s the thought that we’ve lost that because of what I did that scares me. It’s scarier to me than that tape coming out, than not getting to perform for two years. It’s as scary to me as the day my mother died.”

I pour it all out, spilling it into this room we’ve shared. He says nothing. After all that, after I peel back my skin, my flesh, my bone and bare my heart to him, he says nothing. I can’t do this. I can’t be this close to him and feel a million miles away. He just looks back at me unblinkingly.

“Kai, it’s not gone.” He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair, disheveling it even more. “I just . . . get some sleep.”

“Don’t leave me.” I don’t want to beg, but I’d rather sleep on the steps with his music wooing me than in this California king without him. I fold the comforter back, opening a space for him in our bed. “Could you just . . . stay?”

He closes his eyes and swallows, emotion working the muscles in his throat.

“Nah, Pep. I’m not doing that. Not tonight. Not yet.”

“Why?” My voice shakes, even though I try to steady it. “Is it because you saw the tape? And now . . . and now you see him when you look at me?”

He dips his head until our eyes are level, and I couldn’t look away if I wanted to.

“I did watch that tape.”

It’s a pitchfork right though my heart, calling to mind what I know he saw on that video. Drex grinning like a salacious demon, slamming into me from behind. My breasts bobbing with every thrust. My dead eyes.

“Is that why you were breaking things?” I venture, afraid to hear his response, but waiting with bated breath. “Why you can’t look at me?”

“I can’t look at you, Kai, because you lied to me.” His words come sharp and short like wood chips flying off an axe. “When I look at you, it’s not Drex I see. I see lies.”

His words land on me heavy with irony. I started down this path because I never wanted to lose that look in his eyes that’s just for me. And it’s my deception that may change the way he sees me forever. A painful backfire. If I could have that moment back, the one in the barn when I forgave him and our slate was clean, I would confess. I would tell him everything and trust his love. But I didn’t, and now I’m living with the look in his eyes.

“Rhys, I forgave you because I loved you, but I didn’t have to. We’re not entitled to forgiveness. That’s what makes it a gift.” I make myself look his disappointment in the eyes. “I’m asking you for that gift, not because I deserve it, but because I need it. I need you to forgive me.”

My words thaw something in his eyes. Not completely, but something softens. Something melts infinitesimally before he swallows and looks away, his frown almost a reminder to himself that it’s too soon to let go of his anger. That it’s too soon to relent.

“Yeah, you forgave me. After I texted and called you for two months with no answer. I just found out about your lies a few hours ago. Seems to me we’re just getting started. Give me some time and let me focus on fixing this shit.”

He turns to leave, and I hope the words that have always moved him won’t fail me now.

“I live you, Rhyson.”

He looks over his naked shoulder, one brow lifted.

“Aren’t you the one who said sometimes love isn’t enough?”

“I was wrong,” I rush to say. “Rhys, I was wrong about that. If you love someone the way we love each other, it is enough. It
has
to be.”

He starts toward the door, and I barely hear his last words, but I do.

“Well, now we’ll get to see, won’t we?”

BETWEEN THE STRAIGHT-BACKED CHAIR BY KAI’S
hospital bed last week, the couch in Glory Falls, the dusty, lumpy mattress in the shed, and sleeping again under my piano last night, I haven’t been in a bed in what feels like weeks.

I’m like a homeless person living in a mansion, minus the shopping cart. I sit up slowly, making sure nothing hurts. The floor is worse than Aunt Ruthie’s couch. Just days ago I woke up with that damn cushion like a springy knife in my back and Kai curled up to my front instead of in her nice, comfy bed up the hall.

Only days ago I thought we were on the right track. In addition to being in the best place we’ve ever been in our relationship, or so I thought, she had given me permission to get her out of the shitty deal with Malcolm. She was coming to work with me at Prodigy. She promised to marry me when the time was right. We even talked about
kids
.

It was heaven that all went to hell with just a few words in a few moments. Words Kai should have said to me weeks ago. I know I had a strong reaction when I first found out Drex and Kai had a one-night stand. I understand her hesitation, but to lie to me for this long? To set a plan in motion . . . and I use the word “plan” loosely . . . that would leave me in the dark completely about something so important? A secret she would have kept from me forever?
That’s
our problem, not the fact that someone is threatening her with a sex tape.

But damn if that video didn’t cut through me like a scythe, leaving a curved trail of guts and emotions. I knew Gep would need to see it, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to. I only made it through a few seconds, but I wish I could take those seconds back. Like I’m gonna watch some punk ass fucking my girl for five minutes. Even if it wasn’t Drex I couldn’t do that. Each frame was a nail drilling into my eye, an anvil swinging at my head. And that smug smile on his damn face, I’ll punish him for that. I’ll punish him for making the tape at all. I’ve never felt this level of unadulterated hatred for anyone. Not even for him, but doing this to Kai goes too far.

Even if I can barely be civil to her right now.

I know I have to find a way to forgive her. She forgave me. I get it, but it doesn’t change how betrayed I feel. How galling it is to know that once again she trusted San with something she didn’t give me. That she held a threat in the palm of her hand in that shed and lied to me outright about it. Every time I’m with Kai I feel emotionally naked, like she has unrestricted access to every part of me. I don’t want to hide anything from her, and that was only possible because I thought she felt the same.

But she didn’t.

And I’m really struggling to get past how I deceived
myself
that she felt that, too.

When I saw her curled up last night at the base of the stairs from my music room . . . God, I just wanted to fuck her right there on the steps, to bury my body so deep there would be no room for even vestiges of anyone else. To exterminate all the termites chewing through my brain after seeing Drex with her in a way that only I should ever be with her. But I couldn’t do it. Sex between us right now would do exactly what Kai thought it would have done before. It would give us a false sense of intimacy. Give us a false sense of rightness. Because nothing is right, not right now.

In addition to the knotted muscles in my back, I’m starving. And there’s not much time to eat. I have to hit this day running. Gep assured me he’d find Drex where San and his minions failed, and I need to be ready to move as soon as he does.

And when I find that motherfucker . . .

After a quick shower, the sight of Kai already in the kitchen truncates the thoughts of how I’ll punish Drex. Several delicious scents hang in the air around her. The smell of strawberries from the jar of preserves open on the counter tangles with her cinnamon pear soap. I smell the toast popped up in the toaster mingling with the rich roast coffee brewing. The sweetest and most addictive scent is the most subtle—just Kai. Just whatever chemistry mixes in that tight, petite body to make her skin, unadorned, smell the way it does without soap, perfumes, or anything else. I can never get enough of it.

Kai’s at the stove, back to me, so I have a few seconds to study her. Skinny jeans mold her toned legs and cup that round ass. Her favorite wedge-heeled Converse give her a few inches, but I know she still won’t make it past my chin. A cropped Kelly green sweater flashes just a strip of her slim back, and I know when she faces me, I’ll see her stomach, flat and subtly muscled. Her hair drapes over one shoulder, and I want nothing more than to have that dark, wavy mass poured over me while she takes the top and rides me until we explode into a hot Milky Way, lost in a galaxy where it’s just us. The sweater hangs off one bare shoulder, and her skin is melted honey gold fitted over delicate bones. She’s probably not wearing a bra, and any other day I’d send my mouth searching under that sweater and make love to her nipples until she collapsed in my arms, all weak knees and hungry hands.