He stared at me for a minute, once again refusing to acknowledge my gratitude. His hand shot out, bouncing with impatience. “Here, I’ll drive.”
“What?”
“Give me your keys. I’ll drive you home.”
My thoughts bumped into each other in their rush to make sense of his offer. “That’s not necessary,” I assured him. “Derrek threw me off, but I can drive myself.”
“You’re shaking,” Killian pointed out. “And you look terrified. Let me drive, Vera, for my own peace of mind.”
“Your bike is here. How will you get home?”
“I’ll take an Uber. Stop worrying about me.”
My hackles raised, the hair lifting off the back of my neck in response to his pushy attitude. “You’re the only one that gets to worry? How are you the boss?”
“I’m the only one stable enough to drive. So, yeah, I get to be boss.”
“I’m fine, Killian.” And because that didn’t sound even the least bit convincing, I repeated myself. “I’ll be fine.”
“Did he hurt you?”
The darkness made the finer edges of his feature blurry, but the fury in his eyes was unmistakable. As was the harsh slash of his mouth and the rigid tension in his shoulders.
Still protecting my past, I tried an easy answer. “I left him, Killian. What do you think?”
He made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. “Not in the generic sense, Vera. Not in the way that all bad relationships end. I mean, did he hurt you? Put his hands on you? Fucking beat you?”
How does he know? That was my first thought. I didn’t have scars. At least not any on the outside. I had been lucky in that.
And I meant that. As screwed up as it was to associate my relationship with Derrek with luck, I knew I had been. There were women far worse off than I had been. There were women who couldn’t just leave. Who didn’t have a savings account to fall back on. Who couldn’t get out. Who were knocked unconscious regularly—or worse.
When I looked at the grand scope of abused women, my case was mild in comparison to some of the true psychopaths out there.
That in no way made what happened to me okay. But I had perspective. And that was important to me.
“He got physical,” I confessed, my words frail and broken and dragged from the deep recesses of my soul, the place I put things I never wanted to speak about out loud. The things I wasn’t brave enough to face. “He didn’t like, I don’t know, hospitalize me or anything, but he was rough.”
“That fucking piece of shit,” Killian snarled. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. His chest lifted with his effort to breathe evenly. “What a slimy, lowlife piece of shit.”
I swallowed against the lump of regret lodged in my throat. “How did you know? I mean, how did you guess that he… that he…”
“My friend Natasha dated him for a few months a while back. She didn’t let it get serious, but she told me some things that bothered her.” He turned his head, showing me the full severity of his profile. “And I’ve worked with him before. We kind of, I don’t know, rose in the industry at the same time. I’ve wondered about him. He’s not right in the head, Vera. There’s something seriously wrong with him.”
I laughed, but it was a desperate sound, adrenaline fueled and easily broken. “Oh, I’m well aware.”
“So Europe?”
Hugging myself tighter, the truth spilled out. “I tried to leave him more than once. I did leave him more than once. But I was stupid. I was...” I wiped my nose with the back of my hand, only just then noticing the tears leaking from my eyes. “I had convinced myself that I loved him. And he always convinced me that he would change. Every goddamn time.”
“Tell me all of it. I want to hear everything.”
So I did. While we stood behind my brother’s bicycle shop on a balmy summer night, covered in darkness and tragedy and mutual hate for the man that had hurt me so deeply, I told him every hard detail of the two years I spent with Derrek.
I opened up about how he’d pursued me while I was still in school. I had been enamored with the adjunct professor that was ten years older than me and so incredibly hot. He’d taken the time to invest in my career and skill. He’d helped me become a better chef, a better person. He’d been so attentive and sweet and charming. I didn’t stand a chance.
We started dating my last year. The day I graduated I moved into his apartment. He’d promised all these great things, everything I wanted to hear. He would keep helping me, introduce me to all the important people, get me into the best kitchens. I just needed a little more practice. I needed to establish a reputation first. So why not start somewhere small? Why not just work up slowly, so people didn’t think Derrek was the only reason for my success?
He tore apart my world little bits at a time. He didn’t like when I went home to Durham by myself, and since he didn’t have the time to take off to go with me, I stopped seeing my family. My friends were all so much younger than him. He didn’t have anything in common with them. So why didn’t we just hang out with his friends? Besides, they were connections I could use.
He needed to focus on his career, so I should probably just work part time. That way I could help him reach the next level. After that, he promised to help me. He promised to throw all his resources at helping me move up. Just after he got to where he needed to be first.
After he’d picked apart my life and isolated me from everyone I cared about or knew… that’s when the physical abuse started. Looking back, I realized the emotional and verbal abuse had started way earlier. He’d subtly slipped in his backhanded compliments and carefully woven doubts until my self-esteem had withered and died. I lost my confidence, self-respect and will to fight.
By the time he hit me for the first time, I’d been mostly convinced that I deserved it. It wasn’t until two years later when he told me to quit my job and informed me that I would be staying home full time, that I realized he was going to take away the only thing I had left—my career.
That was the final straw. I should have stood up for my friends. I should have fought like hell when it had been my family. I should never, ever have let him hit me. But it wasn’t until he threatened to take cooking away from me that I couldn’t stand it for a second longer.
Killian had been winding tighter and tighter during my history lesson. His entire body looked ready to explode, a ticking time bomb of vengeance and justice. Beneath the milky moonlight, he was an avenging angel, nothing but hard lines and solid, unflinching resolve. “So you fled the country?”
“It sounds more dramatic than it is. I wasn’t afraid he would hunt me down or anything.” I thought of him outside my food truck refusing to leave. “Although maybe I should have been. But Europe was more about finally doing something for me. Finally, just, I don’t know, crawling out of the hole I’d dug for myself. And cooking. It was a lot about cooking—the one thing I loved enough to protect from him.”
“What do you mean?”
I shook my head, so humiliated… so wholly ashamed. “I couldn’t leave him, Killian. I physically couldn’t. I don’t know what was wrong with me, but I just couldn’t do it. I was afraid, yes, but it was more than that. It was like he had this hold on me that I just couldn’t break. No matter how hard I tried.”
He stepped closer to me, facing me again, watching me so closely I could feel his gaze on my skin, soothing the demons that still haunted me, calming my tattered heart—healing my battered spirit. He understood. “It wasn’t your fault, Vera.”
My eyes slammed shut as more tears poured out of me from a well that was so tainted with hurt and betrayal. Derrek was supposed to be my happily ever after. He was supposed to give me everything I’d always wanted—the blissful relationship, the financial stability, the hand up in my dream job. He had promised me love and given me pain instead. He’d promised me the world and locked me in prison.
I thought he was the answer to every one of my prayers. But he’d turned out
to be the devil in disguise, the demon that ate at my soul and destroyed my hope.
But the worst part was that I let him. In my desperation to grasp the things I’d put on such a high pedestal, I’d let him bulldoze me. I hadn’t even put up a fight.
And for that, I blamed myself. More than I blamed him.
Killian’s hand smoothed over my jaw as he cupped my face gently in his overwhelming hands. His calluses scratched along my skin, but his touch was so gentle it made my heart hurt with a longing I couldn’t define. He leaned closer until I could feel his breath on my lips. His beard scratched at my chin, and his scent filled the air around us.
“It’s not your fault, Vera,” he repeated. “You didn’t make Derrek hurt you. He did that. He chose that. He decided to be the evil piece of shit that hits women and uses his size and stature to trap them. He has to answer to that. Not you. Not fucking you. It is not your fault.”
A slow tremble worked its way through my body. It was one part surprise and two parts relief. I hadn’t realized the hold guilt had on me. Or the crippling shackles of blame.
I hadn’t realized I needed to escape that prison as well.
Killian’s grasp tightened on my face, his thumbs sweeping over my cheeks to collect the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. “Tell me you understand. I need you to say the words.”
“I can’t,” I hiccupped. “I want to but I can’t.”
He pulled me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me and holding me against the hard safety of his body. “You can,” he promised. “However you see yourself or remember yourself is a lie. He hurt you Vera, and that is unforgivable. But what you did? Staying? Staying when you couldn’t see a way out, when you lived in fear, when he lied to you over and over and over, that wasn’t wrong. You didn’t do anything wrong. That’s his voice in your head, not yours. He’s still feeding you the lies that kept you trapped for so long. You’re brave. And you’re strong. And you’re so damn resilient. It might have taken you longer than you wanted, Vera, but you did it. That makes you the hero of this story, not the victim. You’re the survivor. You’re moving on.”
I pulled back, opening my eyes to meet his gaze and it was one of the bravest things I had ever done. He held me there, captivated by his faith in me, by the grace and gentleness that was in such contrast to everything else I knew to be true about him. He wasn’t judging me. He didn’t think I was pathetic or weak or used. And he was asking me to see myself how he saw me.
It wasn’t a switch that could be flipped. I didn’t immediately feel like the brave, strong woman he promised I was.
But I took a step in that direction.
“Thank you.” I licked dry lips and pushed through the emotion, trying again. “Thank you for being so kind. For saving me not just from Derrek tonight, but from me.”
His head dipped toward mine, his arms tightened around me. “You still don’t see it. You don’t know how incredibly talented you are. You never needed Derrek to introduce you to anyone. Your food would have done that for you. You didn’t need him to validate you. You didn’t need his approval. You’re brilliant, Vera. So naturally talented, you put me to shame. He saw how utterly precious you were and tried to capture your magic for himself. But he underestimated you. You’re meant for more than him. More than the food truck you’ve sentenced yourself to. You’re meant to shine, Vera. I saw it the first time I met you. You shine so fucking bright.”
He closed the distance between us, pressing a kiss to my cheek. As soon as his lips touched my skin, a shockwave rocked through me. My fingers curled around clumps of his black t-shirt and I tipped into him, our bodies settling against each other as if letting out a satisfied sigh.
I didn’t pull away. I couldn’t. He had given me back a piece of myself that I’d been unable to find. He’d given me a gift that I would cherish for the rest of my life.
His lips lingered on my cheek, brushing once, twice, slowly peppering my cheekbone with the sweetest kisses. I shivered at the gentle seduction of it, the brush of his beard against my face, the fullness of his lips tasting my skin, the salty tears that had only just now stopped falling.
He’d told me I was bright, but not compared to him. He was the sun, and I was a flower turning my face to his heat. He was the stars in the clear summer night sky, and I was the stargazer mesmerized by the mysterious beauty I would never fully understand.
I turned my face toward his, seeking those lips that were driving me crazy. He let out a shaky breath, catching the corner of my mouth as soon as he could reach it.
Someone whimpered, but it couldn’t have been me. I had never made that sound before in my life.
The next time he kissed me it was a real kiss, mouth to mouth, lips caressing lips, tongues seeking tongues. I melted into him, fully alive again for the first time in years.
He tasted as perfect as possible, all masculine need and hungry desperation. His mouth moved over mine, fully in charge, fully committed to kissing me as thoroughly as possible.
My hands wound around his neck, desperate to hold onto something stable as my knees trembled and my belly flipped and my core coiled, heating with delicious warmth.
He just kept kissing me, deepening until his tongue did wicked things to mine. His teeth nipped at my bottom lip, and then he licked a slow path that pulled another needy sound out of me.
His hands pressed me closer to him, while he walked me and leaned my back against the car. He held me there, trapped against the cold, dew-covered door and his hard, muscled body. His thigh slid between mine, not aggressively, just enough to tease me into wanting more.
I wanted him closer, harder. I wanted to strip his clothes off him and throw myself on top of him. This tension had been building and building between us. I didn’t know if it was my emotional breakdown that had finally pushed us together or if we would have always ended up here, unable to resist the pull between us.
I’d tried to ignore it. Ignore him. But he’d never let me ignore the fire between us. He’d never let me get away with pretending we didn’t want this.
And God, did I want this.
His mouth left mine to drag slow, sensual kisses over my jaw, to the tender spot just below my ear, down the column of my throat, where he spent a delicious amount of time at the hollow between my collarbones.
When he finally brought his mouth back to mine, we were nothing but lips and tongue and desire. His teeth bumped into mine as we learned the contours of each other, as we familiarized ourselves with each other’s body and mouth and need.
It was everything a first kiss should be—irresistible, voracious and too short. Way, way too short.
He finally pulled back, and I slumped against him, breathing heavily and tingling with desire. My lips were swollen in a way they hadn’t been in a very long time, and my stomach jumped with nerves and need and a thousand lust-filled butterflies.
He panted just as heavily as me, his arms still wrapped around my waist, supporting me so I didn’t tumble over. His voice rumbled against the top of my head when he finally spoke. “You’ve wanted to do that for so long. I’m surprised you held off for as long as you did.”
I smiled, surprisingly comfortable with his familiar arrogance. I didn’t even bother standing up. I just smiled into his chest, inhaling him again and again. “I thought you’d be a better kisser, though. I’m trying not to be disappointed.”
His chuckle vibrated his chest, and I closed my eyes at the sensation. God, I loved to make him laugh. “Since you won’t be able to keep your hands off me now, I guess we’re just going to have to keep practicing.”
I finally stood up, hoping he meant right now. “I guess so.”
He looked down at me, his dark eyes heating. “Not tonight, Vera. I need to get you home.” I must have looked disappointed because he laughed again. “There will be more. I promise you that. But not after you’ve had to face your darkest demon. Not when Derrek is still infecting the air. Not after I’ve just decided on first-degree
murder.”
My blood turned to ice. It was that simple. Derrek still had the power to ruin every one of my moods, no matter how blissful or flawless. “Don’t go to jail for him,” I pleaded. “That wouldn’t be fair at all.”
Killian didn’t seem convinced. “Let’s get you home. I don’t want to talk about him anymore tonight.”
I tried to do the decent thing one more time. “You really don’t have to drive me. I know it’s inconvenient for you.”
“Get in the car, Vera,” he ordered, turning me toward the passenger side. “There’s a goodnight kiss in it for you if you play nice.”
I was ashamed to admit that got me moving. “You should know I live with my dad.”
“He won’t mind,” he countered confidently. “He likes me.”
“You’re so cocky.”
He flashed me a grin across the top of the car. “And you love it.”
I rolled my eyes but didn’t verbally respond. He was right. I did love it.
“Fine, you can take me home,” I allowed. “But you better not be stingy with this goodnight kiss.”
He smiled. Drove me home. And fulfilled his promise.
Very generously.
Chapter Nineteen
I smiled before I even opened my eyes the next morning. Yesterday had been traumatic on so many levels. I still had to deal with Derrek in a very real way. I had to make sure he knew he could never come back to my truck or my city or bother me ever again.
Until then, I chose to let Killian be the dominating headline of the morning. I lay there in the twin bed from my childhood and curled my toes into rumpled sheets.
It didn’t seem possible. This man that had gone from idol to enemy, to reluctant friend, to fantastic kisser.
And not only had he kissed me beyond all reason and rational thought, but he’d given me back whole chunks of myself that had been missing. He’d said words I’d been too afraid to think and truths that had felt so wholly out of reach, I never believed they could be true for me. I’d purged some of my hurt and loathing.