Page 435 of Once Upon a Fable

He nuzzled my nose with his. “Seeing you that first day made me feel everything all at once. I went from feeling nothing to being bombarded with lust, hunger, anger, annoyance, and everything in-between.” His stare buried its way into my soul. “I tried to kill you, not because I hated you...but because I didn’t know how to cope with what you made me feel. And you make me feeleverything, Gem. You made me come alive.”

Immediately, my racing thoughts calmed. The way he looked at me couldn’t be faked. His love for me blazed all over him. His trust that I’d guide him on this new path made me ache with a different kind of desire.

He trusted me.

After everything he’d been through, hetrustedme, and that...God, that was absolutely priceless.

All my worries evaporated, and I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him.

I’d only meant it to be a quick peck, but his arms tightened around me, and his lips parted beneath mine. His tongue lashed out and dived deep, licking me.

I moaned and opened wider, welcoming him to kiss me deep and swift, arching back in his arms, pressing my belly to his cock, growing wet and needy and breathless.

He backed me against the door, wedging me against the wood as his hips ground into mine, and his mouth did wicked things to me.

He groaned as I bit his bottom lip, my entire body burning up.

If any neighbors looked out their windows, they’d see two people mauling each other. Gone were the days when we could be naked in the sun with no one to see us, able to run and fight and figure things out without someone reporting our uncouth dating practices.

Kas thrust his hardness against my belly, grunting against my lips. “Open the damn door, Gem.” The need dripping from his dark tone made my body clench and caused an inappropriate laugh to fall from my lips.

Breaking our kiss, I panted, “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“What? That I’m seconds away from crawling inside you?”

“No...that you’re here...with me.” I tucked a long strand of hair behind his ear, loving the way he shivered under my touch. “It feels surreal.”

Kas reached around me and turned the doorknob.

The lock was already open, and the door swung wide, revealing aslight lavender smell in my quaint little home. “Get inside.”

I turned around and tripped over the threshold, my gaze skipping over my familiar possessions. My brother had obviously been here, wild with fear and messy with looking for clues on where I could’ve gone.

My side table had all its paperwork pulled out and scattered on the top. My kitchen had been the dumping ground for his search of drawers and knickknacks as if each one was a compass leading him to me.

My spare tablet was on the coffee table along with the charging cable as if Joshua had sat there for hours, scrolling through my social media and YouTube channel, desperate to find a mention of me.

God, my poor brother.

The stress I’d put him through.

Kas drifted forward, his eyes locking onto the mess as questions quickly replaced our previous desire. He turned to me, his large presence vibrant and vicious in the homeliness of my feminine living room. “I know you’re not as tidy as me, and you only cleaned the kitchen the night you were going to run because you saw how much it upset me, but Gem...if this is how you live, I guess I have two jobs in which to pay you back. I’ll be your gardenerandyour cleaner.”

I threw an unopened electric bill that Josh had left on my side table at him. “Ha-ha.” As I brushed past him, tiredness suddenly filled me at the thought of how much tidying I’d have to do. So much for wowing Kas with my mortgage-free home. “Josh has a key. He would’ve looked for hints on where I’d disappeared to.”

Kas wrinkled his nose as he scanned my white couch covered in notes and balled-up pieces of paper to the open-concept kitchen with its Norwegian ash cupboards and stainless steel countertops. “So messiness is a family trait? Good to know.”

I shrugged with a guilty smile. “He was worried about me.”

His face fell. “And he was right to worry.”

“But he doesn’t have to anymore because I’m home.”

“With the very man who trapped you.”

“Yes, well...he doesn’t need to know that, does he?”

Kas’s eyebrows drew into a strict line. “You don’t plan on telling him the truth?”