I was terrified of what he’d do next.
I saw the way his head turned slightly from the impact of the slap and the way his body went rigid.
Then nothing. No other reaction.
A slow, terrifying silence settled between us.
I wiped at my tears with the back of my hand, but they kept coming. “You never listen,” I whispered in a breaking voice. “You never fucking listen.”
Tears poured down my face, my chest rising and falling with shaky breaths. My throat felt so raw, my voice barely holding together,
I could still feel the sting in my palm, the burn where my skin had met his, but Kester-he hadn’t moved. Hadn’t flinched. Hadn’t even fucking blinked!
“June is already hurting. Claire is hurting.” I clenched my fists, forcing myself not to say ‘his’ name. Not to drag Jake into this. “This is already bad enough.”
I swallowed, my body trembling. “And worst of all… I’m starting to feel things I shouldn’t. That wasn’t the plan, Kester. It was never supposed to be like this.” I took a staggering step back.
He still didn’t say a word, but I could swear I saw a reaction in his eyes when I mentioned that I was feeling things 1 shouldn’t feel. But he masked it immediately.
My words dried up, swallowed by my sobs.
The silence was killing me.
I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes, trying to steady my breathing, trying to make sense of the war raging inside me, but it was all useless. The moment I dropped my hands, another sob wrenched its way up my throat.
I shook my head, barely able to speak through the mess of tears. “If-If Dad ever found out…” My lungs seized painfully. “If Mum ever knew… She would be heartbroken, Kester. She’d never forgive me.”
I let out a bitter laugh between my sobs, shaking my head. “We have to stop. We should’ve stopped a long time ago.”
I was falling apart in front of him, quickly unraveling at the seams. And still-he didn’t say a word.
My breath came in short, ragged bursts. I didn’t have anything left to say. I was exhausted. Drained. I felt like I had just ripped my heart out and handed it to him, only for him to stare at it like it meant nothing.
I made to walk away when he closed the distance between us. I barely had the time to react before his arms were around me, pulling me into him.
A choked sound left my lips as his warmth engulfed me, his broad chest pressing against my trembling body.
No… I whimpered, weakly trying to push against him, my lists pressing against his solid frame. “Kester, stop.”
But he didn’t.
Instead, he pressed his cheek against the top of my head, one hand cradling the back of it while the other rubbing slow, soothing circles against my spine.
“Hush,” he murmured, “It’s going to be fine.”
A sob wracked through me.
“I promise,” he whispered, his breath warm against my hair. “It’s going to be fine.”
The first thing I registered was warmth. A slow, consuming kind of warmth that made me hesitate before fully waking up. It cradled and surrounded me as though I had been wrapped in something solid yet impossibly gentle.
The second thing was the steady, rhythmic thumping beneath my ear.
A heartbeat.
Kester’s.
My lashes fluttered, the dim lighting in the room slowly filtering into my vision as I stirred. My cheek was pressed against the hard expanse of Kester’s chest, my body curled against his, and realization struck me like a bolt of lightning… I had fallen asleep on him.
His arm was wrapped securely around my waist. His other hand, the one tangled in my hair, stirred the moment I moved with his fingers threading through the strands in a slow, lazy motion that sent shivers skittering down my spine.
He was awake.
The entire time.
He had held and caressed me until I slept and woke up.
The realization made my stomach tighten, heat pooling beneath my skin in a way that had nothing to do with the warmth of his embrace. My fingers, which had somehow fisted lightly against his shirt in sleep, flexed slightly. “You’re awake.” He asked in a gruff voice.
I swallowed, my pulse skittering. “You stayed awake all evening?”
His fingers paused in my hair for a brief second before he hummed a deep sound that rumbled in his chest.
“You wouldn’t let go,” he murmured, his lips brushing against my forehead.
I sucked in a slow breath, my fingers curling against his shirt again, gripping it lightly, “Kester…” I didn’t even know what I wanted to say, what I was supposed to say.
I had fought him. Shoved him. Slapped him. Screamed at him. And yet, here he was, holding me like I was something so fragile. Like I was something he would never let slip through his fingers. o with that.
I didn’t know what to do with that.
I felt his hand move, trailing lightly down my back, his fingers tracing the ridges of my spine. “How are you feeling now?”
How was I feeling?
The question was almost laughable. I should’ve been a mess-hell, I still was-but there was something about this moment, about his warmth, about the way his fingers never stopped their slow, soothing motion, that made the storm inside me feel… distant.
“…Better,” I admitted, almost reluctantly.
His hand stilled for a moment before resuming its slow path down my back. “Good. Because I still want to show you that surprise I was talking about.”KESTER.
I hadn’t slept. Not even for a second… I almost lost it. But I didn’t because it was Kasmine, after all. She’s the one thing that keeps me tethered. My antidote.
If it were anyone else, I swear, I’d have taken their heads off by now. The maids would be scrubbing the blood off the marble floors already.
I had been lost in thoughts all the while she was sleeping on me. Her soft snores broke through the static in my mind, calming my racing heart.
It’s always been this way for the past five years now. Her very existence is my calm.
She tames my demons, even without her knowing. Little wonder I kept taking her belongings and stacking them up in my room over the years.
But that fucking slap… Her hurtful words…
It broke something in me.
I felt it snap the moment her palm met my face.
For one breath-for one fucking second- I saw red. She had no idea how hard I fought it. How much it took to keep my hands at my sides when every instinct in me screamed to remind her who the fuck I was.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
Because if I did, I’d lose her. For good. And that? That would fucking destroy me.
So I let it burn. Let the rage curl under my skin. For her. Because she was the only thing that holds me together, and if I break, I don’t know if I’ll ever put myself back
Every so often, I ran my fingers through her hair, pressing light, absentminded strokes down the length of her back
She had cried herself to exhaustion. Shaken, broken, falling apart right in front of me. And yet, in the end, she had let me hold her. She had let herself fall asleep in my arms.
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