Page 9 of Kobalt

I noticed she licked her lips as she eyed my dick. I pointed to the other side of the lake. “They’re down there—on the other side. Me being naked has never bothered you before.”

She pulled her legs up to her breasts and wrapped her arms around them. “That was in the past, Kobalt.”

“I’ve only been biding my time, Kai.”

“For what?”

“For you and me. We belong together; you know this.”

She sighed. “Kobalt, I’ve got a lot of healing to do. What Kevin did, this whole thing—it’s taken a toll on me. I need to find my way back to me before I can think in terms of ‘we’ anymore.”

“Let me help you with that—finding yourself again. Beautiful, nobody knows you like I do.”

“No. I can’t. We’ll just fall back into the way we always were.”

“Is that so bad?”

Rather than answering my question, she changed the subject. “Niagara told me that I could come up here for a while—to escape. She said that no one was using this place.”

I chuckled. “Not sure why she’d say that.”

“Maybe because you’re always traveling.”

“Not always. I spend a lot of time up here. It’s peaceful, quiet, and refreshing. Helps me get my mind in the right place.”

“And it’s not in the right place now?”

“Not really, but I’m good, though. Didn’t expect to have company, not that I’m complaining, but I’ll have to check li’l sis about that in the future.”

“I thought you both owned it. You don’t coordinate schedules or anything?”

“No, we don’t make coordinating schedules. We both inherited it, but Niagara asked me to buy her out so that she could use the money to open her paint bar. When GiGi passed two years ago and left this place to us, Niagara didn’t love it the way I had. She never did. When she was ready to open her business, I offered to buy a house that she could set it up in, but she declined. Instead, she wanted to feel like she’d earned it, so she asked me to buy out her ownership in the farm. I gladly did it, and she hasn’t visited here since.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize⁠—”

“No need to apologize. Why did you need to come here? What’s going on with you?”

“I just need some peace—a place to escape and relax.”

“And you came to a farm instead of a spa? I know you. What’s really going on?” I chuckled.

A soft smile graced her lips, but it belied the slump of her shoulders and the sigh she released. “I’m not always bougie, Kobalt. I-I had nowhere else to go. I’m sorry. If I had known you were here, I wouldn’t have come.”

My stomach grew upset, and a knot of pain formed in the back of my throat as I watched her get up and gather her things. I stood along with her. I hadn’t meant to make her feel bad about her decision.

“Hey,” I stated, gripping her shoulder.

“It’s okay. I’m leaving.” She pulled away from me.

“Listen, you don’t have to go. There’s plenty of space here for both of us. You just had me worried, is all. I know a lot’s been going on with the trial and all. It’s okay for you to be here.”

She nodded and muttered, “Thanks,” with her shoulders pulled back, and marched away, leaving me standing with my dick swaying in the breeze.

“Niagara, why didn’t you tell me that you sold the farm to Kobalt?”

“I didn’t think it mattered. He’s away traveling all the time anyway. Just the other day after his fight, he told Mama and me that he was going to find some solace. Besides, he seldom uses the farm.”

“If that were true, I wouldn’t have just run into him at the lake.”