Kade (NSC Industries) (20 page)

“You’ll be fine for a while longer. Tell me, tell me
why.”

Her face crumpled faintly and she tipped her head in
contemplation, “I’m not even sure if I understand it yet. It’s all quite…
unreal.”

She suddenly looked exhausted and I sat before her,
pulling her legs straight on either side of me so she wouldn’t get cramp in her
calves. “Please, Grace. It might help if you share it with me.”

She exhaled heavily and frowned. “To be honest I’m even
sure where to start.”

“At the beginning?” I prompted and started to massage the
muscles along her legs gently just to make sure the blood was circulating
around her body properly whilst she was immobile.

“The beginning…” she mused quietly. “I don’t even know
where the beginning starts. I thought it started when my father died but it
seems not.”

I nodded. “What about Baxter, how do you know him?”

She smiled faintly and chuckled, “Grant was my father’s
best friend and is my Godfather.”

My eyes widened in surprise as I quickly glanced over her
wounds. “This is just business, Kade. Grant didn’t do this, although he set the
fight up.”

“He’s your Godfather, yet he makes you fight? For what?”

She smiled again but sighed. “Kade, I’m lucky he is my
Godfather, he wouldn’t have let me off with just a beating, and I should by
rights be dead.”

“Well yeah, but…”

“No buts Kade. I know it doesn’t make sense to you but
Grant lost out because I exchanged. He needed to get his reputation back due to
that, so the only way was for him to push me to fight. It wasn’t just a silly
fight between me and Gina; it was organised combat so Grant could show everyone
the reason for his change about killing me.”

“That’s… sick.”

She laughed and her eyes twinkled with humour, “No Kade.
In Grant’s line of work he can’t afford to start changing his mind about what
should be shown as a warning to others, he’d look soft and then where does it
end? He did me a favour, I did him one.”

I nodded in understanding but that didn’t mean I thought
it was right, “Is Grant the man your father told you to get in touch with?”

She nodded and stretched her back so I shuffled behind
her and started to undo the cinches and knots. The pattern left by the Shibari
was amazing and I gazed at the design I had created, the blush of her skin
demonstrating the complex signature I had composed on and around her. It was
stunning but more than that, it enhanced and exhilarated the subtle softness to
her skin as she wore something of
me
.

She started talking as I unravelled each wrap and I
remained silent as she finally opened up.

“Around six months before my Father died he came to me
with the combination to the safe and made me memorise it. He wouldn’t write it
down, too risky he said and at the time I thought he’d gone a bit loopy, with
him being tired and working hard. He said if anything happened to him, I was to
take the contents and run, just run, he said. Of course, the last thing on my
mind when I found them was to do as he had asked. Plus, Marcus was so small and
needed me.”

I started to massage the muscles along her arms and she
sighed contentedly, initiating a small smile to curve my lips with the sound of
her easiness. “Okay?”

She nodded and smiled at me over her shoulder. “Yeah,
surprisingly I am. I thought it might hurt more but it’s a bit of a relief to
finally get it out really.”

I leant towards her and wrapped my arms around her waist
as I placed a gentle kiss on her shoulder, “Good.”

She turned her head and kissed my cheek. The gesture
filled me with a weird feeling but I swallowed it back and let her carry on, my
arms still holding onto her as though I could help her through the painful task
of recounting something that must be crippling her heart.

“Did he ever tell you what he was working on?” I asked as
I moved my fingers onto her back and started to rub her softly with my thumbs.

“My God, that is so good” she moaned slightly and I
shifted to accommodate the slight rise in my cock as she resumed. “Yes. He was
working on a new program for the government, the defence sector or something. I
was fourteen so not much of it sank in at the time but what I did garner from
him was that they had finally after working on it for years, developed an intelligent
worm that could and would perforate any intricate firewall within
milliseconds.”

“What the…”

She turned towards me and shrugged. “I don’t understand
that much of it. Is that good, bad, or what?”

I snorted and stared in shock at her, “Do you realise
how… delicate a process it is to pierce a multifaceted firewall, especially
within fractional seconds? It is damn impossible.”

 “Well anyway, it wasn’t the fact that it could penetrate
the firewalls that made it so ‘prime’ it was the fact that it could also read
complicated and multiplex codes whilst having no
side effects
as my Dad
called them. The worm was invisible and nobody would ever be able to know it
was in the system.” She shrugged again, “Or something like that anyway.”

My God, she didn’t seem to realise how huge this was.

“Bloody Hell, Grace.” I scoffed in disbelief but she just
pursed her lips casually. “But, what has this got to do with Will?”

She stiffened and sighed before closing her eyes. I knew
she was gathering strength for the last part of the story and I held her a
little tighter, feeding her as much support as I could.

“This is where it gets out of hand.” She turned so she
was facing me and my heart clenched at the grief on her face. “My father
discovered what the government actually wanted to do with this software. I
don’t know what it was because he wouldn’t tell me, but it made him change his
mind about giving it them.”

I frowned at her but she shook her head, “He told them he
hadn’t at the time finished developing what they wanted.”

I nodded and took her hand which was fidgeting with the
other as she grew more upset and started to run my fingers along hers in a
calming action.

“By this time Will had got involved with some… well, some
not nice people really. His and my Father’s relationship was virtually
non-existent, and he needed an in with the right people to get him places.”

My stomach was beginning to clench with where I thought
she was going but that thought was way too fanciful so I swept it off and
waited for her to finish.

“You know the rest of the story, well you do until I stared
working for Liam. He knew what I enlisted for; he could see it in me daily. The
need to find out what happened to my parents, the hunger for revenge and it
took me eleven years to follow the trail to the end of the line.”

“Grace…”

She pulled a deep breath and pulled away, standing in
front of me and I cringed when I heard the rupture of her soul with her final
words. “It led me back to Will.”

I closed my eyes and tried to hold myself together as her
fury radiated round us like an enraged storm. Her wrath annihilated every bit
of oxygen in the room as she physically morphed into something sinister before
me. Her body tightened, her jaw clenched and her eyes misted with a white haze
as her breathing became heavy and laboured. She looked – evil; pure, raw and dangerously
ruthless.

“Grace!” I called as she seemed to transform right in
front of me. I suddenly saw the rage and hatred that fed her veins, the
corruption and malevolence she used to fight with and the sheer fortitude she
flourished with.

I grabbed the tops of her arms and shook her until she
blinked at me. “I…”

“What the hell just happened?”

“I…” she screwed her face up and physically wrestled with
herself until her eyes cleared and she relaxed in my hold.

“Bloody hell, what – the – hell – just – happened?”

Her eyes swam with tears and I cursed myself for my harsh
tone. “Grace, I… Christ!”

“I’m sorry, okay, but I… I got angry.”

I scoffed and shook my head in bewilderment. “You got
angry? You got angry? I’d say you got more than angry. You were damn feral.”

Her face darkened and I could literally feel the anger in
her glare, “Well I’m sorry, okay. It just… upsets me when I talk about it.”

My eyebrows hit my hairline and I laughed in amazement,
“It did more than upset you. You looked… wild, Grace.”

She shook her head rapidly as her own eyebrows rose with
her indignation. “Look Kade, it’s not exactly the easiest of subjects to talk
about. My brother killed my parents just so he could climb the ladder in some
dire criminal gang. You want me to laugh about it? Smile and just say hey ho,
shit happens? But he didn’t just kill them, Kade; he fucking slaughtered them
while Marcus watched from the bloody cloakroom.”

“Ahh shit!”

“Precisely,” she spat back. “So now you also know that
part of my story. Why my younger brother feeds his veins with shit so he
doesn’t have to repeatedly replay his parents murder in his mind.”

She scoffed and reared into my face, her own face twisted
with both rage and exhaustion. “It took me eleven years to find him Kade,
eleven long, excruciating and gruelling years to find my parents murderer. And
do you know what I did when I found Will?”

“No” I whispered quietly because I knew her revelation
was going to tear me in two.

“I laughed.”

Well I wasn’t expecting that.

“I laughed because if I hadn’t I would have broke. It
would have finally finished me. After all the years of dragging myself from
person to person, hunting and killing each and every one, I finally reached the
end and it felt like God had stuck two fingers up and said ‘Deal with it now
bitch!’ and I knew, no matter how much their death haunts me, I wouldn’t be
responsible for his.”

I grabbed her and pulled her in to me as she did, at long
last, break. Her choked gasps for air tore through her hatred and in the end
gave her the release she craved for as she fell into me and held on for her
life.

She wrapped her legs around my waist and her arms around
my shoulders as she clung to me and I walked us backwards to the bed so I could
support her devastation and not crumble under its intensity.

She sobbed into my neck as she tried to bury herself
inside me and find her peace with both herself and the shit life had thrown at
her, but I just held on tighter and drew it all from her as her tears soaked
not only my clothes but my spirit. How much more was there? She had suffered
for years and I silently promised her that she wouldn’t experience any more
hurt or hatred.

She needed to let go once and for all, and the only way
to do that was to forgive herself for the years of carnage she had left in her
wake as she sought retribution and justice.

Kade held me tightly. It was strange, I’d never been held
like this before but that was probably due to the fact that I never
let
people hold me like this.

He smelt good, warm but fresh and I swallowed as a heavy
throb pulsed in my belly. He was soft, which was rather surprising because even
though he sported some serious muscles, his body was lean and trim.

His arms enveloped me further and I nuzzled into the
crook of his neck and for once took what was offered. His hands pressed into my
back and I abruptly remembered I was still naked and I clenched my fists,
taking the material of his shirt in my grasp.

I noticed the rate of his breathing increase a little and
my arousal matched it, the throb now spreading between my thighs and pulsing
with demand.

I couldn’t help myself as I opened my mouth and tasted
his skin, the salt of my tears mixing with his unique taste as I slid along his
neck and sampled more of him. He groaned weakly when I traced the edge of his
jaw with my tongue and made my way further towards his mouth.

His hand rose and he took hold of the ponytail he had
given me and yanked my head slightly back. I gasped as my eyes found his and
they blazed with arousal and need. “Kiss me” he demanded harshly when he pulled
on my hair and bought my mouth to his, “Kiss me, Grace.”

I obeyed with a fevered passion as I gave him what he
wanted. His lips were firm under mine but they moved freely as he worked me and
took over completely as he claimed me dominantly. His tongue slid into my mouth
and wrapped around my own until we were both moaning and grappling with each
other. He possessed me expertly as I started to slide across the erection in
his jeans and attempt to alleviate some of the pressure building inside me.

“Wait!” he ordered as he pulled away from me and I gasped
as I suddenly found myself face down on the mattress.

His hand came down with a sharp crack on my backside and
I growled over my shoulder at him. “Fuck me, damn it, I need you.”

He shook his head slowly and smirked at me as he boxed me
in underneath him and his mouth settled at my shoulder. “When you are naked and
under me, you are mine, Grace. You take what I give you but you will learn some
damn patience.”

His words slammed through the very centre of me and starved
me more, my whole system was alight with both expectation and need but I knew
this was how we both needed it. He knew my life had been one long fight and
burden so he set me free and took control, giving me the abandon and
renunciation I craved for.

His teeth grazed along my shoulder blade until his mouth
reached the nape of my neck and he bit down gently.

“Oh God.” I was struggling for breath as my arousal
flooded the whole of my body and tightened everything within me. “Please, oh
god, please.”

His lips ventured down the groove of my spine and I
shuddered each time his tongue flicked against my skin and brushed the sweat
starting to form as my body blazed intensely.