Dark Savior: A Dark Bad Boy Romance (16 page)

“You are one lucky girl, you know that,” he says.

“I couldn’t disagree more.” I frown at him. “What makes you say that?”

His smile widens. “You don’t remember?”

I want to shake my head, but the ache from a moment before causes me to freeze where I am. I don’t want to risk another stab of pain like that if I don’t have to.

“No,” I breathe. “Well… sort of.”

“You fell,” he explains.

Well, I know that much. I fell because I miscalculated, and because someone — Kade — startled me by calling my name. Why is he even here this early? He’s never shown up in the morning before, let alone just after sunrise.

“I caught you just in time,” he says without trying to sound like a hero. “But you hit your head on the ladder right after you lost your grip.”

His face darkens. “If I hadn’t caught you, you’d have fallen down like a lifeless puppet. It would have been a lot worse.”

I hit my head on the ladder? That would explain the severe pain, and if it’s true what he’s saying, there really was no chance in hell that I would’ve been able to soften my fall. I must’ve lost consciousness right after hitting my head.

“Wow,” I whisper, tortured by another strike of pain at my temple.

“Wow, indeed,” Kade says, still caressing my cheek. “What were you thinking, Meadow? Why were you trying to run from me?”

“You know why,” I bring forth. “I had to. I’m scared.”

His expression changes. He looks sad, hurt almost. “You don’t have to be scared of me, Meadow. You really don’t.”

“You’re a murderer.”

“I’m not a killer,” he insists, splitting hair. “I’d never hurt you. Never.”

“But you’d lock me up,” I say. “You don’t want to let me go, because you’re afraid I would turn you in.”

He fixes his hazel eyes on mine. “That’s a legit concern, isn’t it?”

“No,” I object. “I’ve had enough to deal with when it comes to talking to the police. Trust me, I have absolutely no interest in those kind of interrogations again. I’ve had enough. I just want to….”

I hesitate. What do I want? What should I want? A few hours ago I wanted to do nothing but get out of this apartment, but even then I had no idea what the long-term plan would be.

I know I want to live. I want to prove to Sonya that her efforts raising me were not in vain. Kade was the one who made me realize this, but do I want someone like him in my life? A man who’s capable of killing?

“Meadow,” Kade says, softly turning my face towards his. “I have to tell you something.”

I look up at him. His face is so serious and determined. Whatever he wants to tell me is important.

“I don’t know if you’re ready to hear it,” he adds. “But I really think you should.”

I arch my eyebrows quizzically. Where is he going with this? I’m scared of what’s to come. My mind is running wild with ideas as he keeps me in suspense for a few more moments. He continues to caress my cheek, gently moving a strand of hair out of the way in the process. His touch is so tender and intimate. The closeness between us is apparent, and if I wasn’t hurting this much, I’d try to get up and kiss him in an attempt to steal the words he’s keeping from me.

He sighs and his expression changes into a mellow smile.

“I killed him,” he says.

“Huh?” I retort, not understanding. “Who?”

I’m asking even though I’m pretty sure I know the answer already. There’s only one person’s death that Kade would happily share with me. But I need to hear him say it.

And he does. “The guy who murdered Sonya. He’s gone.”

“No,” I say, accidentally shaking my head. The shooting pain at my temple reminds me how bad of an idea that was.

“That… that’s not possible,” I say, wincing as the ache keeps ringing in my head.

“Here,” he says, producing a pill from behind his back and handing me a glass of water from the table next to the sofa. “Take this. It should help with the pain.”

I reach for the pill as if my life depends on it. Suicidal or not, I’m not masochistic and hate to be in pain.

“How?” I ask, leaning back into the cushions with his help. “How did you find him this quickly? It’s impossible.”

Kade shakes his head. “I didn’t have to. He was already gone before you came here.”

“I don’t understand….”

“On the day we met,” Kade says, his voice deep and calm. “The dead guy I was about to get rid of. It was him.”

“No!” I repeat. I don’t believe him. “That can’t be true! Why would you say that? Why would you do this to me?”

“It’s true!” he insists. “I couldn’t believe it at first either, Meadow. I spent all night doing research on him and studying the cases he was connected to. My buddy, the one who helped off him, he told me that the guy was responsible for a case in Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh. Drunk college girl, all by herself at night, on her way home from a party. I saw the police reports about your sister. Sonya matches his pattern — and the asshole was in Pittsburgh at that same time. It was him. The more I looked into it, the more I became sure of it.”

I stare at him through the blur of my watery eyes.

“They never got the guy,” I whisper, my voice breaking after every word. “They never got him, Kade. No one knows who he was. The police had no clues whatsoever.”

“Yes, but we do,” he says, placing his hand on the side of my face again. “We do, Meadow. I can show you. It was him. Trust me, I wouldn’t tell you this if I wasn’t absolutely sure of it. I’d never do that to you.”

“How can you be so sure?” I ask, my lower lip shivering. “It can’t be… this is so fucked up!”

Kade nods, casting an affirmative smile my way.

“I couldn’t agree more,” he says. “That’s why I looked into it all night. That’s why I’m here right now.”

He looks at me and our eyes lock onto each other as we try to process what this means. I’ve never considered myself a religious person in any way, but this is beyond me. Too many variables were put in place to make it possible for us to meet the way we did.

“I don’t… believe,” I utter, unsure what else to say. “I mean. It was Pittsburgh. Not here. You said you only kill the bad guys from your neighborhood. Why would he—”

“He was from here,” Kade interrupts. “We took notice of him while he was causing trouble here. He was convicted before, but they never got him for the really bad shit. The kind of shit he did to your sister. There were others before her. We know that he took an extended trip to Pittsburgh because we have tipsters over there, too. Well, my buddy does. He told me about her case, but he doesn’t know anything about you. Nothing.”

He considers me with a dead serious expression, as if he was making sure that I’m paying full attention to what he’s saying.

“I told no one about you, no one knows you’re here, no one knows about your connection to the Pittsburgh case—”

“The Pittsburgh case,” I repeat, interrupting, casting a disgusted face at him.

He lowers his eyes in a somber gesture. “I’m sorry. Sonya. Your sister. That was insensitive of me.”

“It was,” I agree. “She’s not just a case. She was… everything to me.”

Sorrow claims me with its cold embrace. Every time I think of her or mention her name, I can feel it closing around my heart like a steel clamp. This pain will never go away, I know that. It will always be there, but I hope to be able to live with it at some point. One day, I hope to be able to fend off the ache with my accomplishments, with a life that would make Sonya proud.

But should I really believe Kade when he says that he was the one who unknowingly laid the foundation for me to move on? Thinking that the guy who took Sonya from me was still running around out there has been a huge part of the hopelessness that caused me to see no way out. If what Kade says is true, he’s my savior in more ways than one.

It seems too good to be true, too much of a fairy tale. A fairy tale with a dark and haunting twist.

Kade looks at me and raises his eyebrows. “You don’t believe me?”

“No,” I whisper. “All of this. It… I just don’t have an explanation, no belief system that would help me understand.”

“How about fate?” he asks, leaning down to place a kiss on my cheek. “I’ll admit, it’s fucking creepy, but what else could it be?”

“Fate,” I repeat, taking in his smell as he hovers over me, his face so close that I can feel his warm breath on my skin.

Words fail me. Instead, I start bawling once again. I can’t believe this. I want to believe it, but can fate be real? What are the odds of me running into the man who took out Sonya’s murderer on the day I wanted to end my life?

Kade is holding me in a protective embrace, gently rocking me back and forth as I try to process the reality of what he just told me. I need proof, I want to see the evidence he’s speaking of. But for now, I really want to believe him. I want to believe that what he’s saying is true. I want to believe that Sonya’s murderer did find his demise at the hands of a man like Kade because I know that this means his death was not a pleasant one.

“How?” I want to know, my voice choked under another wave of tears. “How did you kill him?”

Kade hushes me.

“It wasn’t pretty,” he says. “I can tell you that much. We didn’t let him get away that easily.”

Kade pauses as his body tenses up and his eyes turn into narrow slits.

“He suffered.”

His voice is hoarse and deep, with a dark sense of threat. I’d be scared if I didn’t know that his fury is not directed at me but at the dead man. The rotting asshole who’s responsible for Sonya’s death.

Another realization overcomes me. What if I had jumped? Next to never meeting Kade, I’d also share a watery grave with the last person on Earth I’d want to share eternity with. A cold shiver travels down my spine at the thought of it.

“It’s all good,” Kade whispers closely to my ear. “You’re safe. You’ll always be safe with me.”

His eyes search mine and we look at each other in silence, trying to make sense of this inexplicable situation. Right now, there’s nothing left to be said. No explanations, no revelations. It’s just the two of us, realizing that we were meant to meet the way we did. Whatever power brought us together is bigger than either of us, and I vow not to fight against it any longer.

EPILOG

Kade

~ 
Three years later
  ~

“Kaden, no, I can’t….”

Yes, she can. I know she can. Meadow is squirming under my touch, as beautiful as ever when she loses control over her body and commits all of herself to me. Her eyes are rolled back into her head, her legs spread wide in front of me, refuting her earlier assertion that she was done for the evening. She’ll be done when I say she is, and as long as her body is calling out to me as it is now, I won’t stop bringing her to that ultimate level of pleasure that both of us can’t get enough of.

Her dainty hands claw into the sheets beneath her and she arches her back with appreciation when I slowly shove my length inside of her. Her warm and throbbing center is begging for more, begging for me. Two orgasms are not enough to bring this girl to her limits. I’ve known from the very first time we touched each other. She needs more. She craves more than most and she’s been subject to a lot of disappointments because of it.

Her muscles clench around me as I push myself inside of her warm entrance, relishing every inch. This will be her last one for tonight, and I’m going to make sure that it counts. I’m going to bring her to the heights of pleasure with slow and purposeful thrusts instead of the rushed fervor that defined the beginning of our play tonight.

We have hardly seen each other all week, and while I’m happy to see Meadow as busy and happy as she is, I’ve missed her. I’ve missed her body, her smile that always has that last hint of sadness that will never fade completely. She will always be haunted by what’s been done to her and it drives me mad that there’s nothing I can do about it. I could’ve tortured and killed the guy a hundred times, and it wouldn’t make things better for her. I could kill another hundred assholes and it wouldn’t change a thing for her. My usual resorts are useless in relieving her pain.

But I can do this. I can make her feel the way she does right now. Dizzy and drunk with pleasure, squirming on our bed, calling out to me as her body takes over and sends her cautious mind to rest. Her loss of control is always audited — by me. There’s nothing that makes me feel as powerful as her surrendering to me. The trust she puts in me despite the horrible secrets she’s uncovered is enough for me.

I hold her in place as I’m buried deeply inside of her, filling her with my entire length while she arches her back and takes me in. A desperate yelp escapes her beautiful lips when I reach down to her center, brushing along her swollen nub. She’s super sensitive right now, in a state where most would think they don’t want to be touched like this any longer. But I know how to make her get over that point and reach that place very few know exists.

My touch is as gentle as it needs to be, but still rigid enough to have an impact on her fragile body. She flinches at first, even at the slightest touch. But I’m not blown off that easily. Instead of letting go, I intensify my pressure on her clit, but not with the swift caressing that would have worked in the beginning. I don’t fondle her, but push my thumb on her throbbing center, applying heavy pressure but only moving my finger ever so slightly.

It drives her insane. She groans deeply, her hands forming desperate little white-knuckled fists once again as she squirms with relish, bathing in the mind-robbing bliss I provide for her.

I couldn’t think of a more enticing view. My cock pulsates inside of her, begging for release and the motions needed to reach it. Slowly, very slowly I begin to move back and forth, watching her reaction.

She accompanies every thrust with a deep moan, moving her hips forward as she yearns for me. She’s ready.

My pushes increase in intensity and pace and I begin properly massaging her hot clit while riding both of us to joint climax. Soon, I can feel her muscles tensing up around me, bringing me over the edge with her.