Chapter Eight

Kayla

The smell of bacon and eggs wakes me from a deep sleep. I reach out to touch Cash's side of the bed, and I am not surprised to find it empty. I'm half convinced the man is a vampire or some other inhuman being because there is no way he survives on the little sleep he gets.

The fact that he always looks perfect every morning sells my theory on Cash being some sort of supernatural being. I, on the other hand, have the enthusiasm of a tortoise when I wake up. The bathroom mirror exposes my raccoon eyes and hair that looks like it's been through the ringer.

I'm not much better after a shower, but at least I feel human as I follow the smell of breakfast to the kitchen.

I immediately spot Cash standing in the kitchen in only his jeans slung low on his waist, exposing his muscled back and an arm of tattoos. He turns around to look at me, his lips in a smile when my ghostly form flies past him.

"Good morning," I mumble, heading straight to the coffee pot. I pour a cup, slowly feeling more human with every hit of caffeine.

"Feel better?" Cash says humoredly from my side, brushing my hair to the side before leaning down to kiss my neck. "I made breakfast."

"I see that. I thought the kitchen was my thing," I say, grabbing the plate he hands me.

"I can whip up breakfast for my girlfriend, thank you very much."

Girlfriend?

The word gives me pause. Of course, Cash would call me his girlfriend. Perhaps he and I have been that for much longer than we thought. I guess everyone else saw it but me.

"Lana is never going to shut up about it if she hears me call you my boyfriend."

His brows draw in confusion. "How come?"

I lift my fork and bite into the bacon fried to perfection. "She's been calling you my boyfriend for weeks now, and I had the fight of my life trying to convince her that we were not dating."

"Well, now we are, so you better claim it, or I am printing it on a paper and pasting it on every corner of that bar."

I chuckle at his words, slapping his chest when he approaches me, crowding me against the kitchen counter. "Okay, okay. I will tell everyone that I am dating you."

"Good." He leans down and brushes his lips softly over mine, then he wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me flush against him. My pulse picks up speed with his every touch.

He slides his hands down my back before cupping my ass under the shirt I slipped on. I gasp when his fingers bite into my naked flesh sending a wave of heat straight to my sex.

Cash leans down and kisses the shell of my ear, nipping at the earlobe before tracing his lips down my neck. "I want to make love to you, Freckles. All we've done is fuck like animals."

A shudder racks my body at his words, and I struggle to recall what it is we were talking about before this moment. A question is at the back of my mind, but I can't grasp it with him kissing me the way he is.

"Cash—"

"I love you, Kayla," he rasps, lifting me into his arms, and I instinctively wrap my legs around his waist as he easily carries me out of the room, all the while kissing my neck. I tilt my head back to allow him access, and when he lowers me down onto the bed, it's done so gently that it makes my heart ache with affection.

Seriously, how have we gone for so long without this?

"I love you," I say back to him, running my hands over his shoulders even as his lips brush a trail down my body. He pushes my shirt up to expose my aching tits, leaning down to run his mouth lovingly over the aching buds. I slip my fingers into his hair and tug lightly when he runs his tongue over my nipple, pinching the other between his fingers.

"Beautiful," he whispers, squeezing my breast in his calloused palm as his mouth closes hotly over the other. My fingers dig into his hair as he sucks gently at the bead before shifting his attention to the other. His moves are slow and measured. So soft they send a rush of heat pooling in my core. "You're the most perfect gift I have ever received; every last inch of you is beautiful and all mine."

Christ, to hear him speak these words—

"Yours," I whisper, echoing his sentiments. He undoes me with his words and soft caresses down my body, and when he finally settles between my legs, nose nuzzling at my most intimate parts, he wrecks me.

It's different. The way his tongue glides up the center of my sex, licking and sucking me slowly and thoroughly like we have all the time in the world. My back arches off the bed at the slow drag of his lips over my clit, pulling me closer and closer to the edge, and just when I am about to tip over, he stops.

"Not yet, my love," he rasps when I whine, stripping off his jeans while watching me. This is a new side of him he's showing me, and I love it just as much as I love the others. As he settles between my legs, a needy whimper rises in my throat when I feel his shaft prod my sex. "Wrap your hips around me, baby."

I do as he says, wrapping my legs around his hips, my lips parting on a gasp when he slowly sinks every last inch of his thick cock into my drenched pussy. I move my hips needily to meet his thrusts, but he holds me down, rocking slowly into my sex, hips moving expertly over mine, but I am still riding hard the edge of my almost-orgasm that he robbed me of earlier.

Christ, I am too worked up already. I need more. "Harder, please."

My eyes are practically pleading with his, and it seems that's all he needs to hear before he is ramming me into the bed so hard, it creaks under us. Sweat shines on his forehead, and his eyes darken as he slams his cock into me, making my eyes roll back from pleasure.

"Fuck, Kayla, you're so fucking tight," he grinds out hoarsely, rocking his hips hard against mine and slowly building back up the orgasm, except this time, it feels stronger, threatening to wreck me, but I am not going down alone. I scratch my fingers over his skin, grazing his nipple, which sends him bucking against me, a rough moan slipping from his lips. "Fuck, fuuuck, baby, you almost sent me shooting."

So I do it again as he pumps his rigid cock into me, faster and harder until we're both panting for air, so close to the edge that I can read it in his eyes. He grabs my wrist and cages my hands over my head as he jackhammers his cock into me until we're both coming. It erupts out of us like a volcano, my scream mingling with his roar as his muscles seize over me before burying his seed into my womb. My back arches off the bed as stars explode behind my eyelids from the intensity of the climax, my sex pulsing around his still-hard shaft and milking him of his last drop.

"Love you," he pants, brushing his lips all over my face. "You're mine. Forever."

"And you, mine," I respond, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and pulling him hard against me, not caring for the fact that he is built like a mountain and could easily crush me. All I feel is warmth.

Safe and warm.

***

It happens right outside the bar a few seconds after I kiss Cash goodbye. I watch as he rides off with the promise to pick me up later, and seconds after I've turned around, I feel strong arms grab me from behind.

It all happens too fast.

One second, someone is grabbing me from behind, and the next, I am tossed into the back of a car.

It doesn't register that I have been kidnapped until the car is pulling away, and I have missed my opportunity to scream, and even then, it's too late. My kidnappers place some smelly cloth on my face, and I slowly slip into a dark abyss.

I dream of my mom. I don't usually do that. I lost her when I was so young that I fear my memories of her are slowly fading away, but this time, her face is as clear as day.

She has long dark hair and a smile so bright, it rivals the sun. Her eyes are brown, like mine, and she is so soft when she hugs me close to her.

"Mom," I whisper, finally back in her arms. "I missed you."

She doesn't say a word, simply smiles back at me, and I want to gush to her all about this man I am in love with when she starts to fade away. I call her back, screaming and yelling for her to stay just a little bit longer, but she fades into the light, blowing me a kiss before she does.

I wake up with a start, sweating and shaking, expecting to find myself back in my apartment, but instead, the bed doesn't feel familiar. In fact, it's hard and lumpy, and it takes me a minute to realize it's not a bed I'm actually on, but the floor.

"Mom, I think she's awake," says an annoyingly familiar voice.

"The little bitch slept all afternoon. I told you not to drug her too heavily." I cringe at the hard voice I've come to associate with my stepmother. She is a hard woman with eyes as cold as ice, but not in the same way as Cash's. Cash can be cold, but he is not cruel or mean. My stepmother's face would probably make a baby cry, which makes me wonder what my father ever saw in her. How did he go from an angel to the devil incarnate?

"I'm telling you, Ma, it's a good thing we grabbed her before that biker showed up and punched me again. He broke my nose, and now I'll have to get it fixed, but we don't have any money."

Henry's words take me by surprise, and I struggle to sit up so I am facing the three people seated on the bed. I groan when my head throbs, and I fight the urge to be sick or fall back to the floor, choosing instead to lean up against the wall.

"What do you mean you don't have money?" I ask against my better judgment, and the trio turns to me.

"None of your business, bitch," Mark says, and I glare at him before turning my attention back to my stepmother.

"My father left everything to you. What do you mean you don't have any money?" My stepmother glares at me but doesn't respond, which sends bile rising up my throat. "How could you be so careless with the things he left you? He loved you."

Grief causes a painful lump to form in my throat. When my father decided to leave everything to this woman and her adult kids, I was hurt, but I figured he must have had his reasons. When they kicked me out, I was crushed and broken inside, but I never went back to plead for them to take me in. For them to imply that they carelessly wasted all the money he left them is the first real cause of anger I experience. Heck, I don't even care that they kidnapped me, only that they cruelly disrespected something that wasn't theirs in the first place.

I don't know what comes over me as I lunge at all three of them, using my nails to viciously scratch at any skin I come into contact with. I punch and bite and tear at everything in my way as I scream my lungs out, hating these three like I've never hated anything in my life before until they manage to overpower me, tying me down this time. I take satisfaction in the fact that they're all bleeding.

As I fall back down on the floor, my hands and feet tied with bedsheets, I swear on my mother's sweet soul that whatever these animals want from me, they'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands.

And when Cash catches up to them, I won't stop him this time.

They deserve whatever's coming to them.