Kane's Ransom: A BWWM Mafia Romance Novel (5 page)

No! he snapped at himself, dragging his mind off of the tempting illusion. Remember why you choose to be alone - you want this, you need to keep others around you safe! If you let anyone get too close, they'll find out about your past, and then they'll be in just as much danger as you! You can't do that to anyone else!

Still, even though his mind knew that any thought of Alicia could be dangerous, he couldn't help imagining how her body would feel pressed up against his. He stood a good four inches taller than her, he guessed, maybe even five, so she'd have to rise up on her tiptoes to kiss him. She'd lean in against him, her arms sliding up wetly to wrap around his neck, pressing her small but firm breasts up against his chest. She'd feel his own hardness pushing back against her, sliding in between her legs, as he hungrily kissed back, tasting this girl's youthful freshness in anticipation of claiming her body...

With a grunt, Killian twisted the knob in the shower all the way over to its coldest setting. He hissed as the water abruptly dropped in temperature, but at least the blast of arctic water killed a growing physical reaction down south. He didn't need to hold on to that type of thought, those dangerous distractions!

After drying off and pulling on some fresh clothes, Killian once again grabbed his laptop off of its charging station, slid it carefully into his messenger bag, and then headed out to his motorcycle in his garage. The bike suffered silently through his daily once-over as he checked the tire pressure, oil, fuel levels, and electronics.

Once satisfied, Killian once again climbed aboard the black leather seat of the chopper, opened his garage door, and headed out. He rolled down his driveway, glanced behind him to make sure that the garage door closed, and then headed for the diner.

As soon as he sat down at his usual booth in the diner, however, Killian sensed that something was wrong.

For a moment, he couldn't put his finger on what bothered him. Something in the feel of the diner, in the attitudes of the other patrons, seemed a little off. He frowned, looking around as he shrugged out of his shoulder bag and pulled out his laptop, but it wasn't until Alicia came trudging over to his table that he managed to put his finger on what felt different.

When he laid eyes on the young waitress, however, he could see that she looked vastly different from the previous day.

The day before, he remembered, Alicia had been bouncy, flirty, filled with vibrant life in all of her interactions. When she stepped up to his table, she had grinned wickedly at him, as if the two of them were privy to some secret joke.

Today, on the other hand, it looked as if she could barely even muster a slight upturn at the corners of her mouth.

"Here's your coffee, Killian," she said, putting his cup on the table. He saw her make a wan attempt to smile, but it didn't manage to reach her eyes, which looked red-rimmed from crying. "I don't think that I can guess what you want today, so here's a menu. Just give me a wave and I'll come take your order."

And before Killian could even open his mouth, she turned and headed off, back towards the kitchen.

A few minutes later, when he managed to flag her down to place his order, Alicia still seemed bothered. She appeared to have herself a little more under control, and even smiled back at him as he placed his omelet order, but he could still sense that her thoughts were elsewhere. Killian considered directly asking her what was wrong, but the idea of doing so felt a little too invasive. After all, he really didn't know her that well, he reminded himself. He had no business meddling in her affairs.

Still, her change in attitude kept on distracting him, even after his food arrived and he opened up his laptop.

Half an hour later, he dropped his hands back down onto the table on either side of the laptop with a groan of exasperation. Something wasn't working, and all his great ideas about how to get his novel back on track seemed to have evaporated into nothing but mist. Each word he wrote felt like he needed to drag it out of his brain, kicking and screaming in protest. Now, re-reading his most recent chapter, he sighed and reached for the backspace key.

"Problems?"

Killian glanced up in surprise. Quietly, Alicia had stepped over to his table, and now peered over his shoulder at the screen. He hadn't heard her approach.

"Yeah," he agreed, taking his finger off of the delete key. "Today's a bad one for writing, I guess. My brain feels kind of distracted, and my writing's suffering because of it." He stopped after that sentence, waiting to see if she'd take the opening he'd offered her.

"Distracted?" Alicia repeated, shaking her head. "I guess I know how that feels. I feel pretty distracted today, too."

"I noticed," Killian commented, making sure to keep his tone from sounding at all judgmental or sarcastic. "What's on your mind? You were so happy and carefree yesterday, and today you seem just the opposite."

For a moment, he saw Alicia hesitating to respond. Killian felt that same hesitation, and he wondered if he was overreaching. He didn't have any right to be poking into this young woman's life, and he certainly didn't want to get involved in her troubles, he reminded himself. But still, the question was out, and he couldn't take back the words.

After a second, Alicia sighed, shaking her head back and forth. "Look, I can't talk now, not in the middle of my shift," she said, but she didn't move away from the table. Killian kept waiting, knowing that she wanted to say more.

She moved her jaw back and forth, considering backing out, but he let the silence do his work for him. "But if you stick around until the end of my shift, I could maybe talk to you," she finally admitted. "And maybe it would be kind of nice - I could use someone to talk to about this. I kind of don't really have anyone else."

Even as the words came out of her mouth, Alicia's eyes looked a little wide, as if even she couldn't believe that she was telling all of this to a near-complete stranger. Killian didn't blame her. He felt a bit the same way, talking to her like this. After all, what help could he offer? He opened his mouth, intending to tell her that maybe he wasn't the best person to turn to, that he probably couldn't do anything to help.

"I'll stick around and wait," he heard himself say.

What? That wasn't what he'd intended to say! But Killian couldn't take the words back, especially as Alicia's face briefly lit up with a genuinely grateful grin in response. Seeing her light up, he just couldn't bring himself to take away whatever little spark of hope he'd given her, even if it wouldn't last.

"I'm done a little after one," she told him, taking a half-step forward as if she wanted to throw her arms around him. Obviously, however, such an act wouldn't be proper, and so she instead tangled her fingers together - but the smile that remained on her face, although guarded, shone brightly. "And thank you so much, Mr. Ka- Killian. Really."

And before Killian's tongue could form another word, she darted away, scooping up his mostly empty plate and bearing it off to the kitchen.

Mistake, Killian's mind insisted, and he could feel his better self shaking its head in judgment. He needed to keep himself aloof, avoid entanglements like this. For Alicia's sake, things would be better if he escaped at the nearest possible opportunity. Whatever trouble she faced, his involvement would only succeed in making things worse.

But despite these mental arguments, he didn't move from his seat in the faded diner booth.

After all, he told himself, he'd promised her that he would stay and listen. Maybe, even when he told her after she finished that he couldn't actually help her after all, he'd still bring her some small comfort just from providing a sympathetic ear.

He was definitely not staying, he reminded himself, because of how her whole face lit up when she smiled, making her features glow with a radiant inner beauty. Feeling that way, he reminded himself, would imply some level of attachment to this woman, this waitress. He would remain detached, an observer from the outside.

Just a detached observer, nothing more.

Killian returned his attention back to his novel, trying to distract his thoughts from continuing to run in circles inside his head as he waited. Maybe, he mused, if he reworked the setting so that the characters split up into two groups, he could keep some of the dialogue. That could make sense and fix some of his problems.

He returned his fingers back to the keys and set out to try and fix his rough, most recent chapter.

Chapter six

What in the world was she thinking?

Hurrying back to the kitchen, presumably to drop off Killian's empty plate at the sink, Alicia cursed herself, wanting to reach up and smack herself in the forehead. The voice on the phone, the kidnapper holding her brother ransom, had explicitly told her not to breathe a word of this to anyone! By even thinking of telling Killian about her problem, she was putting her brother's life at risk!

Yet still, she couldn't handle the problem on her own. The hours of sleepless tossing and turning that she'd endured this morning, unable to fall back to sleep after the phone call, taught her that much. Her thoughts just ran around in circles, growing more shrill and panicked but never reaching any real resolution or decision.

Maybe, she tried to convince herself, Killian would be able to help. He always had a quiet, even attitude, but that big motorcycle that he rode hinted that he might have some sort of dangerous past. Maybe he could actually help her track down the men who had kidnapped her brother-

-and then what? she finished the thought darkly. Would she grab a gun, go kill these men, become a hero from an action movie and save her brother? Somehow, Alicia couldn't see this unlikely chain of events actually coming to pass.

She'd already told Killian that she would sit down with him after her shift ended and tell him what was on her mind. Maybe he could tell him some made-up lie, something just to get him off her back. She could lie about some other money troubles, tell her that she was in danger of losing her house, perhaps, or that she just felt really stressed over her piling up bills.

Anything but the truth.

Somehow, though, Alicia knew that Killian would see through a lie. Maybe, in the last few months of seeing each other, they'd gotten to know each other well enough for one person to be able to tell when the other was lying. She wasn't sure if she could read the man in quite the same way, but something about the way his blue eyes rested on her gave her the uneasy feeling that he could see straight through her.

At least, now that she felt herself dreading the conversation with the man at the end of her shift, the minutes went flying by. Although the first half of her shift at the diner had felt excruciatingly slow, the second half sped by as if her entire life was on fast forward. In what felt like next to no time at all, the lunch rush had come to an end, and the clock on the diner wall pointed at one o'clock.

And sure enough, Killian was still in his booth, although he'd closed his laptop computer. His eyes caught hers, and he gave her a slight little smile, almost too slight for her to catch.

Alicia nodded to him, stepping into the back of the diner to let Mr. Aldridge know that she was clocking out. He, of course, didn't notice any changes in her attitude. If it wasn't for the little flap of his hand that he gave her, she wouldn't be sure if he even realized that she existed, that she was talking to him.

Turning back to the front of the diner, Alicia felt her heartbeat increase, ticking faster and faster as she plodded out to where Killian sat. She once again danced briefly with the idea of lying to him, but she couldn't come up with a single lie, nothing that made any sense and that he wouldn't see through.

It seemed, she realized with a sinking feeling, that she'd have to tell the truth.

As she slid into the booth opposite Killian, she suddenly realized that, if she wanted to keep this secret relatively private and just between the two of them, this was not the best place to discuss it. In the diner, despite the constant clinking of plates and utensils, almost anyone could eavesdrop on their conversation and listen in.

"Um, hi," she shyly greeted Killian, only briefly looking up at him. Damnit, Alicia, why in the world are you feeling suddenly nervous?

"Hi," he returned, and that tiny little hint of a smile on his face grew a little wider. Despite the hard lines of his jaw, the stern look of his eyes, that smile was catching, and Alicia felt the corners of her own mouth tug upward a little more in response. That smile, she reflected, wasn't the smile of anyone who meant her harm.