I don’t think he realizes how true his statement is.
“I’ll order.” He heads over to the nightstand.
“Oh and—” I roll onto my stomach to follow him.
“A bottle of champagne and a glass of mango juice.” He picks up the receiver. “I know.”
I smile. I had the mango Bellini the other night at dinner and now I’m addicted. While Kayne orders dinner, I get up and go outside. A few more minutes of lying around and I will be out for the count. Besides, I don’t want to miss the sunset. It’s my favorite time of day. I shrug out of my cover-up and slip into the pool, making myself comfortable on the seat built into the side. I bask in the warm water as the sky illuminates in a medley of blues and purples and oranges and reds. I feel Kayne swim up behind me and pull me into his arms.
“Enjoying the view?”
“It never gets old.” I spin around and gaze at the angelic face capable of so many demonic things, all of which he seems to keep hidden away under lock and key. I straddle his thighs and dot kisses on his lips to distract myself from my esoteric desires. I don’t know how to tell him what I want because I’m still trying to figure it out myself. How do you tell your former owner that you want him to own you all over again? It sounds crazy even to me.
“Why did you join the Army?” I ask curiously. Kayne has been forthcoming about most things, but he does dance around some subjects, like his childhood, expertly. Kayne clams up for a beat before he answers robotically. “It was three hot meals a day and a roof over my head. Not very patriotic, I know, but the truth. I didn’t have many choices then, it was either keep living on the street or enlist.”
“You were homeless?” This is new information.
“For a little while, yeah. Not my proudest moment, but it was better than another shitty foster home.”
“Was foster care that bad?” I ask.
Kayne shudders. “Let’s put it this way, I won the lottery every time for crappiest foster parents.”
I frown. “What was it like?”
He looks away, and I’m convinced he’s shutting down.
“When I wasn’t starving to death or being used as a human punching bag?” he answers bitterly, “Hell.”
“How long did you live on the street?” I scan over his beautiful face, the lines angular, his jaw clean shaven and clenched tight.
He looks back at me, his eyes devoid of all emotion, like he has to put up a wall just to talk about it.
“Six months. That last home did me in.”
“How?” I frown.
Kayne expels a deep breath and closes his eyes. This is clearly difficult for him.
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.”
It looks like he’s considering my out, but he surprises me and continues talking.
“I had just turned seventeen when I went to live with the Millers. My social worker raved about them,” he says detached. “Said they were the best of the best. I didn’t believe a word she said. By that time, I was so broken, so raw, I didn’t believe anything anyone said to me. I was always on the defensive because it was all I knew how to be. They were a pretty young couple, maybe early forties. I remember them being very welcoming. Their house was big and clean, and for the first time in my life, I had a room of my own. I pretty much holed up in it for the first month I was there. Mrs. Miller would bring me all my meals and gave me the space they told her that I needed. Both she and Mr. Miller would try to talk to me, but they quickly realized how far gone I was. It took a few long months to finally believe they weren’t out to hurt me. I was always waiting for them to punish me somehow, hit me, starve me, do something I was used to. But neither of them ever laid a hand on me. They just waited patiently for me to come around. After about three months, I started eating dinner at the table with the two of them and then helping around the house after school. Mr. Miller let me hang out in the garage while he worked on his old car listening to eighties’ music. Mrs. Miller taught me how to do laundry and make scrambled eggs. She was the closest thing to a mother-figure I ever had. And after about six months, I finally relaxed and believed I had found two people I could trust. That’s when everything went wrong.”
“Wrong how?”
“Mr. Miller would go away on business trips periodically. Not for very long, a few days at the most. Mrs. Miller, or Kim by that time, and I were cooking dinner. It had become sort of a thing for us. It was our time to talk. She was really nice, funny, and easygoing. But that night she was acting weird. Usually, she dressed pretty conservatively in sweaters and dress pants, but she had on tight jeans and a button up that wasn’t exactly buttoned up. She was drinking wine and being really flirty. It was odd. And then, while I was cutting peppers, she brushed up against me and it definitely wasn’t by accident. I nearly sliced my finger open. I didn’t like women to begin with, and Ireallydidn’t like it when they invaded my personal space. I tried to move away, but she ended up stalking me into a corner, telling me how attractive she thought I was, and how much she wanted me, and how Mr. Miller, Rob, would never have to know. Ellie, I was horrified. I wanted to escape down the kitchen sink. And then she kissed me and I completely freaked. I pushed her away as hard as I could and then just ran. It was my breaking point.” Kayne laughs crazily. “My first real kiss and it was with a forty-year-old woman trying to take advantage of me.” He looks at me so dejectedly that my heart disintegrates right on the spot. “My trust had been shattered, again. Byanotherwoman. I was done. So I chose one hellhole over another.”
“What was living on the street like?” I search his hollow eyes.
“Fucking cold. And lonely, and hard. But it was safe because I depended on myself, and I was the only person I could trust.”
I am incapable of speaking. So many things are starting to make sense.
“I spent eight hours in the recruiter’s office the eve of my eighteenth birthday just waiting until the minute I could sign. It was the best decision I ever made.”
“Why?”
