Obsession (Forbidden #2) (12 page)

Thirteen

Kira

It’s early, but I can’t sleep. And I guess that addiction I developed back in Newcastle – when I spent those nights with Neal, and woke up every morning in a world of confusion and denial that meant I started most days before dawn – it’s still here. I can’t kick it. The sun isn’t yet up but I am. He’s still asleep, his beautiful eyes closed to the world, and I look at him. And I let my heart skip that beat and my stomach turn that somersault because he is everything to me now. But the shit we did last night…

I slide out of bed and pick his shirt up off the floor, pulling it on as I head out of the bedroom, through the living room and into the kitchen. This is another room that has an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, and I stop for a second to look outside at a sky that’s now slowly lightening. Manhattan isn’t fully awake yet. I am.

I spoon coffee into the machine and switch it on before making myself a cup of tea. I’m English. I can’t shake that need for my first drink of the day to be tea. But he’ll want coffee, when he wakes up.

I take my mug and pull myself up onto the counter, blowing into the tea to cool it down as I look around me. It’s a strangely cosy kitchen, given its size. He hasn’t gone too contemporary with it either, which is surprising, given what he does. His art background. But it’s quite a dark kitchen, all black appliances and dark wood, with soft, under-cupboard lighting illuminating the grey-flecked marble work surfaces and countertops. There’s a large rectangular table in front of the window which is lit by a pull-down lamp that’s attached to the ceiling, and in the centre of the room is a square island. We’ve fucked on that island. And I shiver at the memory; of the cool marble against my naked skin, the edges of the countertop digging into me as he held me close and fucked me hard.

I take another sip of tea and look down into my mug, staring at the hot, dark liquid as memories of last night flood my brain. I don’t know how we got to that. How we arrived there. It just happened, and at the time it was the most incredible experience. I’d never felt so high, so turned-on; so fucking dirty. And I wanted every sordid, sick second, I did. I wanted it. I wanted him, and Kandi, at the same time. And he
had
me and Kandi, at the same time. It was a twisted mess, and we all got off on it. Just the thought of him between my legs, his tongue inside me while Kandi sucked on my tits… Just the thought of that is making my thighs tingle, it’s making me wet, and I put my tea aside and reach down to touch myself, closing my eyes as I remember him licking me, probing me; remember Kandi’s palm pressing hard against my breasts.

I pull my legs up and open them wide as my fingers begin to gently circle my clit, and I bite down on my lip as I press harder, and it takes just seconds to get there; for the climax to hit, and I place my hand flat against myself as I come in a barrage of rapid waves, my sighs quiet, but the relief is necessary.

‘I hate it when you do that without me.’

My eyes snap open and I see him, standing there in the doorway, dressed only jeans, his dark hair all just-got-out-of-bed-sexy-as-hell and all I can do is look at him, for a beat or two. No man should be that beautiful, but he is.

He walks over to me and takes hold of my ankles, pulling my legs around him.

‘You’ve gotta let me watch, baby,’ he murmurs, his mouth almost touching mine, so close his breath is falling into me. ‘You know I like to watch.’

My stomach clenches as he kisses me, his hands running up and down my thighs. I wanted time to think, to get my head around what happened last night, but he’s here now. He’s taken that time from me; he’s here. And he’s still the same man he was yesterday. I’m still the same woman. We just crossed another line, that’s all.

I close my eyes and hold him tight as he makes love to me, sighing quietly as he sinks deeper into me and I rock against him, burying my face in his hair as his fingers dig into my hips. It’s so easy for us, to flick that switch and go from sordid fucking to beautiful sex, just like that. We do it every day. And I like that that’s how we are; how we live. But something about last night is still making me feel a little uneasy.

And then I feel it start, that distraction, that delicious, slow tingle, and it climbs slowly at first, up my legs, across my thighs, until it explodes within me in gentle waves and I cling on to him. I like it here, in his arms; I like the normality, sometimes. But what scares me is that I prefer the twisted shit we do. Is that wrong? Because normality, it scares me, too. And I know why. I know why I back away from normality, why I can’t go there. But still, what we did last night…

‘Come back to bed,’ he whispers, his breathing slightly shallow as he rests his forehead against mine, his fingers fanning out in the small of my back, his thumb stroking the base of my spine.

‘I’m not tired.’

He smirks, and my heart loses control. ‘Who said anything about sleeping?’

I smile, and squeeze his hips with my legs. ‘We should probably do some work today, Neal.’

‘I don’t feel like working.’

Neither do I. But surely we can’t survive like this, locked away in our own little world forever. Can we? ‘We were away a lot yesterday, baby. I mean, we deserted
everyone
.’

He smirks again, and I laugh. How one man can be so utterly devastating is still beyond me. But he has some kind of control over me that I just can’t get a handle on. And I like it. I shouldn’t, but I do. And that scares me more than loving twisted sex and sick games. Because control is the one thing I promised myself I would never lose. And yet, I’m losing it now, I know I am. But I’d rather that than lose
him
. I can’t lose him.

‘You coming to the office?’

His voice yanks me back from my thoughts and I look at him, all salt-and-pepper stubble and messed-up hair. But those blue eyes – they never cease to take my breath away, their intensity is almost brutal at times.

I nod, and he smiles, and then I realise Barry might be there. At the Cannon Brothers offices. Well, he’ll almost definitely be there. Now Neal’s taken more of a back seat at the gallery he’s there most of the time. And he’s the last person I want to see, but letting him know he gets to me, sometimes… No. That’s not something I’m prepared to give him.

‘You hungry?’ Neal asks, disentangling himself from my legs and stepping back, and I watch as he opens the fridge and grabs some eggs before sliding out a drawer and taking out a large frying pan. ‘I do a mean scrambled egg.’

I slide down from the countertop and lean back against it, folding my arms and smiling as he cracks eggs into a bowl. It’s actually the first time I’ve seen him cook. I’ve been here in his Manhattan home for a few weeks now yet I’ve never seen him cook in this kitchen. We’ve always eaten out or ordered in, and I’ve only just realised that. How different my life has become since I arrived here. Since I entered Neal Cannon’s world.

‘What’s so special about them?’

He looks at me, and smiles. ‘You’ll see.’

I continue to watch him as he grinds pepper and adds milk, my eyes transfixed on the muscles in his arms as he whisks those eggs hard.

I fetch some plates from the cupboard beside me and take them over to him, gently touching his waist as I lay them down on the counter, and his skin is warm and taut and I think I want him to cook for me more, as long as he always does it shirtless.

‘The secret is a handful of the best parmesan bought from an incredible little Italian deli two blocks from here.’

He turns his head slightly and catches my mouth in a quick kiss before he turns his attention back to those eggs, sprinkling a generous measure of cheese over them and stirring it in. Then he dishes up, and sprinkles another handful of cheese over the eggs. They smell amazing, and even though I wasn’t really hungry before, I’m kind of getting there now.

He places a hand on my hip and gently pulls me against him, scooping up a forkful of eggs. ‘Here. Taste this.’ I close my eyes as he feeds me, and it’s the most surprisingly erotic thing – to be fed eggs, by him. ‘See? I told you I make a mean scrambled egg.’

I open my eyes and smile at him, kissing him quickly. ‘Yeah. OK. I’ll give you that.’

We take our plates and sit down at the table. It’s starting to get light outside now, and it’s nice, just sitting here, eating breakfast, watching as the city below gets ready to start another new day. It feels normal. But I’m still not sure normal suits me, or him. I don’t think normal was ever meant to be, for me. And he’s been there, once, I know he has; he’s tried it. But I don’t think he’s ever gone back. Not since his wife died. And now we’ve found each other; now we’ve created our own world to exist in, normality doesn’t really visit us all that often. And even though this is nice – this is a little respite from the constant fucking and the sex games we build our lives around now; this is nice, but it’s temporary. I think we both know that.

‘You and Kandi…’

His voice once more drags me back from my thoughts. ‘What about us?’

‘You’re just friends. Right?’

I narrow my eyes as I look at him. He knows. It’s obvious. So I’m not going to lie.

‘We’ve been more than that. In the past.’

He holds my gaze. Even as he takes a sip of coffee he’s looking at me over the rim of his mug and I feel his stare pierce my soul, it’s that deep. That intense. ‘Not now though, huh?’

‘What do you want me to say, Neal?’

‘How long were you together?’

I stare at him, and his expression is a little different now. Not mistrusting, exactly. No. I’d say he seems, I don’t know – scared. Threatened? Maybe that’s a better word.

I look down at my plate and absent-mindedly scrape my fork through the remnants of egg left on there. ‘It wasn’t a relationship as such.’ My voice is quiet, and I don’t look at him as I speak. I don’t want to. I’m not even sure he needs to hear all of this, despite what Joey thinks. ‘When we met it… it wasn’t long after everything had happened with…’ I stop talking and swallow hard, looking up and out of the window. Dawn really is breaking now, almost comforting in its warmth as a deep orange glow fills the sky over Manhattan.

‘Kira, I’m sorry…’

My head snaps back to look at him, but his gaze has dropped. ‘No. You wanted to know, so I’ll tell you.’

He slowly raises his head, and our eyes meet, and that connection that hasn’t once let its grip on us loosen is still there; still strong and so very real. It’s terrifying. Because I’m not sure what it would actually take to break it. ‘I saw you both, together. In our office, at the club. It was opening night, just after you’d been out there, doing your thing.’ He pushes a hand through his hair, his eyes still fixed on mine. ‘You were naked, in front of the mirror, and she was touching you, and the way you…’ He drops his gaze again, and it’s definitely a strange kind of fear he’s giving off. I don’t think he’s angry. I think he really does feel threatened. But what he doesn’t know is that I feel threatened, too. After last night, of course I feel threatened. ‘You looked as though…’ He glances up, and I don’t know what to think. What he wants me to do. I don’t know what he wants from this. ‘It looked as though you might still have something going on.’

‘We don’t.’

‘Do you need her?’

‘For sex? No. Not anymore.’

‘But you did. Once.’

‘Yes. I did. Once.’

He says nothing for a couple of beats, but his eyes never leave mine. And I can’t read his expression, I really can’t, and that makes me slightly nervous.

‘When I met her, Neal, everything that had happened with Simon – it was still very raw. I was still dealing with it, and all the repercussions…’ I trail off again and I break the stare, turning my head to look back out of the window. ‘I was still
pretending
to deal with it. All of it. And I wasn’t really dealing with it all that well, and Kandi she – she was there, you know? And she was kind, and she cared…’