Closer: A Novella (9 page)

“You don’t have to talk about it, Kane. But don’t you dare feel guilty for saving my life.”

It wasn’t much of a life to save, but what she didn’t tell him was how grateful she felt that he was here. She wasn’t alone, and that comforted her.

Carrie would give anything to be sitting in her living room flipping through TV channels. She’d never again complain about the high price of her electric bill, or the Shifter with the funny mustache who used to hit on her at work. The thought crossed her mind about how she’d always wanted children. Being a mom was something that was in her blood; she was so good with kids, and it would be impossible unless she met a careless Sensor who didn’t wear protection. Who was she kidding? They
all
wore protection. No Sensor wanted to take the chance of having a child if the woman wasn’t the right match in regards to having superior abilities, and a Sensor was the only kind of Breed that she could have children with.

“Caroline? Where are you?”

A tear crossed her cheek and trailed beneath her chin. Kane had such a beautiful face for a man, sharp edges around the jaw and the kind of hair she wanted to mess up with her fingers. It was so easy to imagine waking up beside him in the morning; he had the kind of relaxed face that she would have loved to see smiling as he stretched and opened his eyes. Did he snore? Was he the kind of man who made love at first light, or the kind who got up to brush his teeth first? So many things that Carrie would never know. She wanted to kiss him, but wiped her face instead.

He offered her a charming smirk. “Why don’t you tell me what your favorite color is?” he suggested.

“Yellow.” She sniffed and wiped her nose. “What about you?”

His eyes flicked down for a moment. “Blue,” he finally said. “What’s your favorite dessert?”

She laughed and patted his chest. “This is like a date gone wrong. Do you really want to know this stuff or are you just killing time?” Her fingers inched up to his neck and he flinched.

“I want to know,” he said, looking her straight in the eye. It made her stomach flutter nervously, but she decided to play along.

“Strawberry shortcake, no cream, but I like powdered sugar sprinkled on top. What’s yours?”

“Hmm,” he pondered, as if he’d never given it much thought. “I guess nachos.”

“That’s
not
a dessert!” she protested.

“Oh?” His eyebrow arched. “Then what is it?”

“An appetizer. Dessert has to be something sweet.”

His lip twitched and he cleared his throat. “Well then, I guess I’d have to say trail mix.”

“You’re impossible!” She tried to pull away, but he gathered her up in his arms and waggled his handsome brow.

“And
you
are beautiful,” he said in a soft and serious voice.

When Kane leaned forward, he tested her mouth with a brush of his lips. The moment they touched, tiny sparks ignited across her body and a surge of desire swelled inside her. His tongue stroked her bottom lip and then he suddenly stopped. They were a breath apart, staring at one another. The tension was electric and she swallowed nervously, looking at the man she had just met. A man she was contemplating kissing inside her head. Was she nuts? Then again, what did it really matter? It’s not as if any of this was real, and God, how she wanted to run her fingers through his hair and tangle it.

“Sorry,” he said in a heated voice, averting his eyes.

The moment was crushed like a cigarette beneath a dirty boot. Carrie traced her finger along her lower lip.
Maybe he changed his mind because I’m not normal
, she thought. It wouldn’t have been the first time, and maybe that was nothing more than a pity kiss.

She snapped back and spoke in an accusatory tone. “Will you at least call someone to get my body when I die?”

His face paled and a moment later, Kane was gone.

***

Kane ran across the house into the kitchen and swung the fridge door open to look for a beer. Anything to dull the guilt. A bottle of ketchup tipped over in the door and the cold air made the hairs on his arms rise up. Reality slammed into him like a hard fist—if he didn’t hurry his ass up and figure something out, this girl was going to die. Who was he kidding? Not even a Relic could save her in that condition, but it didn’t make him feel any less shitty for not trying. Caroline’s comment wasn’t a request; it was an accusation that he was doing nothing to help her.

Loud voices in the living room almost made him leap out of his socks. When he peered around the corner, he blew out a slow breath. The television was on an automatic timer. The clock on the microwave was blinking five in the morning and he was in the house of a serial killer. Kane wiped his bicep across his forehead, holding it steady for a few minutes while he closed his eyes and regained composure.

His throat was dry so he flipped on the faucet and filled a clean glass with water that tasted of chlorine. Three swallows polished off the glass and he set it in the sink, listening to his stomach growl like an animal. Here he was, wishing that a medium steak would appear. Meanwhile, that poor girl was suffering from a head injury.

Spatters of blood on his shirt caught his attention when he brushed a hand over them. A faint red glow emanated from his fingertips. The stains were dark and hardly noticeable, but his hands lit up on contact. That was part of his Sensor abilities; when they picked up strong emotions, there was an energy glow. The emotional content of the murder was all over him and Kane shuddered, wanting to strip out of his shirt. He began polishing the handles of everything he’d touched, knowing that his imprints were all over the house. Fingerprints, hairs, molecules, emotions.

Jesus
.

On his way back to the bedroom, he stopped cold in his tracks. A blond news anchor with heavy mascara spoke in rushed words about an unidentified body found in an alley. They had a police sketch on the screen and provided a number to call with any information. Time was not about to hang out, have a few drinks, and be on his side. How could he check up on his little sis and send her money if he was locked up in Breed jail? He already felt like a shitty older brother too. He hadn’t visited Sunny in over a year and had even missed her last birthday, which was a first.

Kane went back into the bedroom and patted Caroline’s cheek.

“Enough of this. I want you to open your eyes and look at me. Caroline, can you hear me in there?”

His fingers tested the wound on her head. The bone didn’t feel crushed, but there could be a crack or bleeding inside that he couldn’t see. Why the fuck hadn’t he become a doctor? It wasn’t an uncommon profession among Sensors since they were able to feel the exact symptoms of the patient, but who the hell wants to feel pain all day?

The raw flesh around her gaping wound made his stomach turn.

Kane rushed into the hall and tore apart the bathroom until he found some gauze and one of those Ace bandages. With an armload of supplies, he returned to the room and pressed a cotton ball against the rim of the peroxide bottle, gently dabbing the blood away and cleaning the wound. He watched her serene expression as she took shallow breaths. Kane opened the bedside drawer in search of a tissue. Instead, what he found was a bottle of superglue.

He’d read stories about doctors using superglue to seal wounds—even in the Vietnam War. There was no way he was going to try to sew a needle through there. Shit, he couldn’t even sew a button on his shirt. Kane chewed on his bottom lip for a minute while staring at the tube.

It didn’t take long for him to make a decision. Kane put his gloves back on and carefully unscrewed the narrow cap. He had a good angle and applied it along the edge of the cut, pressing it together tightly. Infections could be nasty and he had to think on the fly. The cut was right on the hairline and easy to see. She’d have an ugly scar, but at least it wouldn’t be on her face.

The Ace bandage wasn’t the best idea, but he managed to get it on tight after two attempts, wrapping it so that he could see her eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m going to fix you up. And when you snap out of this, you’re going to kick my ass for gluing your head together.” Wasn’t that the truth? He almost cringed at the thought.

Kane bit down on the tip of his right glove and pulled it off. His fingers itched to touch her and he wondered if it was a good idea to keep leaving Caroline alone.

She needed a healer. He ran into a lot of different Breeds working for a delivery service, but Kane could never tell which ones were the Relics. Many were healers or consultants by trade because of the specific knowledge they retained and passed down genetically to their descendents. They spent their lives acquiring more information about the Breeds that their family specialized in treating. He didn’t know how that shit worked, but nothing ceased to amaze him anymore. If he knew where one lived, he could leave her on their doorstep.

Yeah. In broad daylight, leave a dying woman in front of someone’s door.
Real sensitive
.

He cursed under his breath and pinched his earlobe. A delicate gold necklace around her neck caught his eye—the chain was so thin that he almost missed it. The pendant or charm must have slid around her neck so he reached for it with his bare hand, forgetting about their link.

Then he was back in her private room.

Caroline faced him with her back to the window. The contact between them felt so natural. Her hair captured the light and a few delicate strands floated carelessly. As he cupped the nape of her neck with his hand, that possessive feeling surged through him again.

Then, the little charm slid forward and stopped his heart from beating.

“What’s wrong?” She looked down at what captured his interest. “Don’t you like it? I wear it all the time even though I’m not fond of gold.”

“Why an anchor?” Kane’s words came out in a raspy voice. He didn’t even notice that he’d been holding his breath.

“I don’t know,” she said with uncertainty. “I saw it in a store years ago and even though money was tight… I just had to have it.” She touched it with the tip of her finger and dropped her hand. “Maybe it just reminds me not to get swept away in all of the bad stuff that happens. I know, it sounds cheesy,” she confessed with a shrug of her shoulder. “But it’s one of my most favorite things.”

He admired her magnificent shoulders, round and confident with all those tiny sun-kissed freckles. Caroline’s eyes were wide and pale brown, matching the radiant color of her hair. It wasn’t just the physical traits that made her attractive, but the way she used them. Her eyes glittered with emotion and her mouth was nothing less than temptation. The moment she parted her lips—so yielding and responsive—he knew that he wanted to kiss her.

Despite the fact that she tried to kill him, Kane’s entire body lit up like an inferno at the idea of her soft body beneath his, smelling her hair, tasting her lips, touching her skin, and hearing his name on her tongue.

“Lift up my shirt,” he said.

Her eyes widened.

“Just do it,” he said with a reassuring nod.

Caroline pinched the ends of his black cotton shirt and slowly drew it up, revealing his firm abs. His job wasn’t an easy one, but all that heavy lifting and time spent outside left him with a toned body. It didn’t belong to a bodybuilder, but he could hold his own.

Maybe it was the way she splayed her fingers across his stomach, or the wild excitement in her eyes, but Kane stepped
closer
.

Just a little.

“Oh Kane, you’re so beautiful,” she said, desire clinging to her words.

God, that almost unraveled him completely.

He stroked his thumb across the nape of her neck in slow movements as she admired him. It was intense to watch her appraise his body; her eyes soaked in every inch of him like a sponge and she was dripping with admiration.

When the shirt was halfway up his chest, he leaned forward. “Lift it up all the way, Caroline. I want you to see all of me.”

She obeyed, pulling his shirt over his head until it was stretched behind his neck. Suddenly, her breath caught.

Kane’s eyes hooded when her finger traced around the dark pattern on his left pec. It was a tattoo of an anchor that he’d gotten on his twentieth birthday.

He went in with his buddies with the intention of getting a dagger or something cool, but when he thumbed through the design book his eyes stopped on the page with an anchor. What compelled him to get that damn thing he couldn’t explain, even to this day. Tattoos were a personal mark and most had a story behind them, but Kane had no valid reason why he refused to leave the shop that day without that anchor inked on his chest. It was the only tattoo on his body.

Was it fate, or coincidence?

“You’re wearing my anchor,” she whispered. Kane stepped forward until the fullness of her breasts molded against him.

There was no asking for permission because her body gave it completely. Caroline widened her legs and he slid his right knee between them, feeling the delicious warmth. His fingers pressed against the back of her neck and he kissed her hard. There was no buildup or tiny pecks to start lighting the fireworks; it was the big show. Their mouths moved hungrily as they tasted and discovered each other. When her lips parted and allowed his tongue entrance, he moaned.