Chapter Three Hundred Fifteen
KENDALL
ON 70%1
Timmons‘ muscles bunch beneath me, his cold cinnamon brown eyes flashing with something that almost looks like hurt before he says, “You just never do as you’re told, do you?”
For a moment, I think he’s going to drop me on my ass, and honestly, he probably would have, except the fleeting reminder of my being pregnant must stop him. “I told you I can walk,” I snap, my mind washing past all the events that led us here and then coiling up my stubborn spine like they should have done the very first time he was ever mean to me. “I know how much you hate to touch me.”
He chuckles, surprising me, his eyes crinkling happily in the corners as a slow sad smile stretches across his boyishly handsome face. “Good to know I came off as clearly as I wanted to. Guess that means it won’t be so hard to convince you otherwise… later tonight.”
“Convince me?” I spout off as he continues to carry me, heading for the staircase that leads back up to the front of the house. “I’m not coming back here with you! I have a very cozy one bedroom trailer that pay one whole thousand dollars a month for – just to call home – and that is where I’ll be going.”
Kendall! Why are you fighting this? He wants to bring you home with him. Let him, you idiot! What the hell are you thinking?
I’m thinking I’m not the worthless trash he obviously thinks that I am, Brain, now shut it.
But I do love the lemon candy smell of him… God help me.
“Fine. Then I’ll stay with you there. The Doc seems to think someone needs to look out for you and whether you like it or not, I have assumed that position. If you’d like to fight me on it, I guess I can always put you in handcuffs and force you to do what I say,” Timmons declares, not even gazing in my direction as he unlocks the side door to his place and steps under the carport that houses his Camaro.
Handcuffs… yummy.
No, no, no, Kendall. Don’t you dare get all hot and bothered by that comment.
But I can’t help it, and before I can even take a deep breath, I feel it. My core heating. Moisture dispersing. And Timmons… tensing.
DOMONIC
After finding the small half rotted rope coiled around a moss covered handle, Quin and I used our combined strength to pull open the hatch of what certainly appeared to be the lid of a rooftop entrance. It’s covered in grass and foliage. Completely camouflaged to this God forsaken bit of island that Logan swore was uninhabited.
“What the fuck?” Quinn gasps as the pair of us stare down into what appears to be a winding staircase.
“Someone lives out here,” I say matter of factly. Tuning my ears in to all noise beneath me, all I can hear are the waves of the ocean so I leap inside without a second thought.
“Dom!” Quinn sputters, glancing around himself as the rain begins, to pelt harder into his eyes. “Are you sure about this?”
“Roman’s not due to wake up for at least another hour. Yeah, I’m sure. Come on, I order him, blinking only once as the rain starts to cascade into the twisted, narrow stairwell beneath me.
You’re the boss,” Quinn complains, filing in behind me as I race for the slight orange glow at the bottom of the tunnel.
The moment he drops the hatch above us, the pair of us freeze and I gaze upward, toward him and the rooftop. “Check it.
Quinn nods, his yellowed eyes aglow in the dark of the cavern. When he reaches up and pushes the heavy hatch up an inch, allowing
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Chapter Three Hundred Fifteen
some of the dying gray of the sky beyond to peek down between us, I’m satisfied and continue my quest downward.
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“It’s heavy, but moveable,” he confirms, releasing his hold on the roof to once again bury us in the damp dark of the odd tunnel.
In the next moment, the pair of us are staring into another tunnel, barely illuminated by the glowing of battery operated lanterns that hang along each wall of the narrowed passage beyond.
But it’s what is visible on the other side that has the two of us barreling naked through the skinny space without a second thought.
“It’s a living room,” I say deadpan, gazing at everything that surrounds us once we’ve cleared that disturbingly thin natural hallway.
“An extremely well decorated living room,” Quinn adds, taking in the immaculately polished surroundings and antique furnishings. “How the fuck did all of this get in here? There has to be another entrance.”
I nod, my eyes taking in the homey and comfortable aesthetic the place emits upon first look. Everything in here is made with an almost Harry Potter kind of extravagance. There’s a tiny breakfast nook on the right of me, along with another open entrance not far to the left of that, the archway seemingly sanded into perfectly smooth edges from the rock that we are most certainly hidden within. Directly ahead of me stands a makeshift fireplace. Completely chiseled into existence from the cave around us and obviously the source of the smoke we scented up on the mountain peak of this place. A bare thread of uneven light filters down into the grate, which might be the only thing about this place that I abhor.
Taking a deep inhale, I try to distinguish what manner of person lives within these walls, but I can’t. Beyond the sweet smoke and ocean, all I can smell is fish. The entire space is lit with what appears to be battery operated lanterns and that’s when I realize something that should have dawned on me immediately.
“The person who lives here. He won’t be gone long, I say, taking in the lights once again. “These lanterns are battery operated. If he wasn’t planning on coming right
pack then-”
“Then he would have killed the lights,” a voice from somewhere around the corner finishes for me. A voice from somewhere… beyond the archway.
How the fuck did I not hear this person breathing until now?
Then again… I still don’t…
