Chapter Fifteen - OLIVER
We walk down the steps and I have to stop and look at her—just for a second, to make sure it’s all real. Kat’s body is shaking when I pull her tight to my chest. She seems so much smaller than she was four years ago. “I told you,” I say, “that when you came back I’d kiss you everywhere. That I’d still love everything about you. That your scars are my scars. We can own them together.”
She was already breathing heavy when I first approached, but now there’s a hitch when she inhales.
I push her away, just enough so I can see her face. “Are you crying?” She tries to turn away, but my hands automatically come up to hold her cheeks. “Don’t,” I say. “Don’t hide.” Her eyes flutter briefly, then she looks up at me. Tears stuck in her lashes making her eyes glisten with sadness.
We stare at each other for a few moments. Find the familiar and the new there in the shadows of the church. “I knew this day would come,” she says, trying to catch her breath. “But I was never sure which way it might go.”
“Katya,” I say, smiling. “I said I’d wait and I did. I said leave. Do what you need to do. But when you’re done, come back. And you did. It’s over now. You’re here and I don’t care what happens, this moment right now is enough to make me happy for the rest of my life.”
She inhales sharply, shaking her head. But I see a small smile appearing. “How do you know there’s something to be happy about, Oliver? What if everything is just as bad as it was, and worse?”
“I’m a big guy, Kat. I can deal with just about anything life wants to throw at me.”
“I know,” she says, leaning into my chest and burying her head in my leather jacket. “You have always been that way. I just wish I was more like you and less like me.”
“Fuck, no.” I laugh. “No. You’re perfect just the way you are. And I have so much to tell you. Four goddamn lonely years to make up for.”
“Me too,” she says. “But not tonight. Can we play catch-up tomorrow? I just need to make things stop so I can enjoy it a little before it all passes me by.”
“Come on,” I say, leading her towards the bike. “Let’s just get started and we can figure it out as we go. Here. I even have a helmet for you. That’s why I’m a few minutes late. I had to go back inside and grab Ariel’s helmet on the sly. Fucking everyone is over there right now and none of them are too happy with me at the moment.”
“What’s happening?” Katya says as I push the helmet on her head and mess with the chinstrap.
“Nothing you need to worry about. Just old business coming back to haunt us.”
“You say it like it’s nothing,” she says, her fingertips brushing the tears from her eyes.
“Tonight it is nothing. I don’t give a single fuck about anyone but you and me right now.” I swing my leg over the bike, then scoot forward so she has enough room to get on behind me.
The heat of her body pressed next to mine is almost enough to make me sigh. I reach behind and grab her hand. Place it flat on my stomach. “Hold tight,” I say.
“Gonna do tricks on this bike? Afraid I’ll fall off?” she asks, a hint of happiness in her voice.
“Nah,” I say, standing up to kickstart the engine. I look over my shoulder and shoot her a smile. “I just want your hands all over me. Because God knows, my hands will be all over you once we get to my place.”
If she responds, I don’t hear it. Because I rev the engine and take off. She leans into me when we take a corner and I find myself wishing we were about to take a long journey together, just so I can feel the heat of her body.
Sadly, my garage house is two minutes away and I’m pressing the gate remote on my keychain far sooner than I’d like. I wait for it to open, drive though and press it again, sealing us up inside my little fortress.
I press another button on the remote and the last car bay at the far end of the building begins to roll up. I ease the bike into the garage and close it.
When I turn the engine off I sit for a few seconds in silence, not quite sure this is real.
Four fucking years.
The first year I told myself she’d come for holidays. Or maybe summer break. I was so fucking sure of it. Even if it was just to see her sister. But she didn’t. The second year I almost went looking for her address. I dreamed of a road trip. Waiting for her outside an apartment or house. How it would feel to see her as someone other than the person I knew.
But I stopped myself. I know that too much information can be a bad thing. I could imagine an Oliver who was obsessed. An Oliver who wore out his welcome. An Oliver she might come to hate.
So I left her alone. Bided my time. Worked on the business, finished turning this garage into a home. Let my sister become my closest friend and put Kat behind me.
Last year I didn’t think about her much. Or I tried not to. It was hard not to follow her career as an artist. So of course I’d see things. A photograph. Or a painting. Or I’d look at my little buckeye tree in the middle of my living room and suddenly realize it had grown a few feet taller and she’d missed it.
This year I haven’t had time to think about her at all. Too much Mister bullshit going on. She’s always there in the background, but I ignored it. Almost half the year was spent jetting from one crisis to another with Nolan, and West, and Pax.
I never forgot about her though.
“Is this all you got?” Kat asks, breaking the silence. “After years of renovation all you have to show for it is an oversized garage?”
“Nah,” I say, recalling my question to her when she was trying to convince me she was badass that first day we met. I swing my leg over the bike and she follows. I take my helmet off and hang it from the handlebars, then take hers and do the same. “I got so much more for you, Kat. Your head will spin by the time we’re done.”
“God,” she says with a smile, morphing into the younger version of her I remember. “Why are you talking about being done? We haven’t even started yet.”
I lean in and kiss her. I close my eyes, thread my fingers into her long hair, pulling her into me. Like I can form her into a part of me if I fit our puzzle pieces together in just the right way. It’s a small kiss at first. Then my mouth parts, my tongue urging her to do the same. And I whisper, “Did you watch me jerk off in that video?”
She smiles into our kiss. “I didn’t just watch you, Mr. Shrike. I joined you.”
“Mmm,” I hum against her mouth. I kiss her again and pull back. Staring at her. “You have such a sweet face for such a dirty girl.”
“You always did like that part of me.”
“I like all parts of you, Katya Kalashova.”
I turn away, keeping her hand in mine as I walk us towards the door that leads to the other garages. We pass through two more bays and then I punch the security code for the lock the main door and open it for her.
I have the lights on an automatic timer—Ariel’s professional security suggestion, plus it’s good for my little tree—so the whole place is lit with a soft yellow-orange glow. I wave her forward and follow her in.
She looks up at my buckeye—which has grown six feet taller in her absence—and beams. “It’s so big.”
I take her hand and rub it against the hard bulge in my pants. “You never complained before.”
She laughs, but she doesn’t pull her hand away. Her fingers tighten around my cock and she squeezes just enough to let me know we will definitely be picking right up where we left off. “Are we still on a pleasure-first, business-later schedule?”
“Pleasure comes from many things. And the very first thing I want to do with you tonight is listen.”
“What?” Kat laughs. “You’re going to make me beg for sex? Will I have to whine? Lavish you with personal compliments about your manhood?”
“Shit,” I say, smiling bigger than I have in years. “No, I just want to look at you for a little. And that might get awkward if one of us doesn’t talk. So that’s you, Kat. I hope you’re ready to confess everything. Because I want all the details starting from the minute you walked out on me at the tattoo shop.”
She sighs and pulls away to walk around the living room. “Well, all I want to do is look at you. And this place.” She looks all the way up at the ceiling and then I recognize the moment she spots the bedroom. Her eyes track the steel railing to the top of the stairs. “I’d like a tour of the new upstairs.”
“You mean my bedroom? You dirty whore.”
Any other girl would slap me for that remark. But not Katya. It’s a joke. She knows it’s a joke.
“If I’m a dirty whore you’re a disgusting pervert. The way you seduced me as teenager.”
“I’d do it again in a second.”
She comes back towards me and places both hands on my chest. “I’ll tell you anything you want, Oliver. But at the end of the conversation there better be a consolation prize.”
I grab her breasts with both hands and squeeze. Our lips crash together, tongues taking the lead this time, and we make out like the teenage lovers we never had the chance to be.
There were no date nights in our pasts. No trips to the movies with friends. No proms or homecoming dances.
I grew up the day my sister went missing and I’m convinced that Katya Kalashova was never a child, even when she was.
I know many things about her. Some she told willingly, some not. But there are too many gaps in her story for it to be anything other than tragic.
“Where did you go? Tell me,” I ask.
“Take me upstairs and get me naked,” she breathes into my mouth. “I’ll talk as long as you can keep your hands off me. So I guess you have to decide, Mr. Shrike. Do you want conversation? Or do you want to do all the things you’ve been missing?”
“Depends,” I say. “Will you leave out the bad parts?”
“Jesus, Oliver,” she says, pulling back.
“Hey,” I say, grabbing her arm. “I deserve the full story. I gave you time. I let you walk out and now you’ve come back. You knew the deal, Kat. You made me a promise.”
“Is that all you want from me?” she says, scowling. “Details?”
I’m guessing from her reaction she thought this might be easy. She thought she might talk her way out of it. Maybe I’d forget. But there’s nothing easy about what tore us apart. Instead of fighting with her, I kiss her again. And then I look her in the eyes and say, “I’m dying, Kat. I’m dying for the details. You have to know that.”
“It won’t change anything.” She bites her lip. “I’ll tell you and nothing will change.”
“I’m betting it will.”
“You want to kill him? Still? After all these years? Maybe he’s already dead?”
“It would be easy enough to find out, Katya. All you gotta do is give me a name.”
“Tomorrow,” she says. “Tonight I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing since I left. But I don’t want to talk about him until tomorrow. Just make me happy for one night, Oliver. Just one night where there’s nothing between us. No agenda, no revenge, no past, no future. Just now. I need to be in the now.”
If I wasn’t so damn horny, I might have more fight in me. Think up some add-on conditions or make her give me one detail right now, just to make sure she knows I’m serious.
But I am dying for this girl. Dying. My dick was hard the second I saw her at the church.
She reaches for the hem of her sweater and pulls it up over her head, dropping the soft cashmere to the floor. Her breasts are round, like ripe melons. And they push against her lacy black bra like they might burst through.
“Do you want to know what I was saying in that video I sent you this morning?”
I have to force my eyes from her breasts to find her face. “There was no talking in that video.”
“I didn’t record it. But I was telling you about my life. I’ll tell you what. I’m gonna throw you a bone tonight, Mr. Shrike.”
I burst out laughing. “Are you now?”
“Yes,” she says. “If you want details then I’ll tell you what I was so excited about in that video. I’m gonna start with today and work backwards.” She reaches around behind her back and unclasps her bra, letting it fall down her arms and join the sweater on the floor.
I stand there, struck by her natural beauty. She has no scarf on, so her scar is clearly visible. It heats me up, and not in the way her hand on my cock does. It enrages me to look at that scar.
Kat knows this. She grabs hold of my hand and places it on her breasts. Rubs it around her nipple.
She has always been erotic, even back when she was still seventeen. She said no a lot that first night. But she said yes a lot too. And by the time the next morning rolled around, it was like we’d known each other our whole lives.
“Tonight I need sex, Oliver. And I need to keep my secrets for another day.”
“Why?” I ask. It’s irritating me. I expected her to be more forthcoming. I didn’t expect I’d have to negotiate my way through this deal again. “Tonight, tomorrow, what’s the difference?”
“Because I want to be happy. Just this once. And if you want promises about when I’ll be willing to tell you everything, then I’ll agree. Because I love you. But it will taint my night. If I have to make promises to you right now, then I’ll worry about it. This night will turn into something stressful instead of the relief I really need. So choose carefully, Mr. Shrike. Do you want happy or do you want satisfied? I’ll give you anything you want, including the name you’re desperate for. But it comes at a cost.”
I scrub my hands down my face and say, “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable, Katya. I’m just trying to know you better, that’s all. I want all our secrets on the table. I want them to pour out of us. Like a dam breaking. Water spilling over riverbanks, crashing into trees, and washing things away.”
She sighs. “God, you always did have a way with words.”
“And now you do too,” I say, meaning her art. The art I inspired. The career I gave her so that she could leave the idea of sex work behind her.
Katya leans into my chest again, her face right under my chin as she tips her head back to look me in the eyes. “You have always wanted what’s best for me, Oliver. That has always been your weakness. Because I’m going to use it against you right now.” She kicks off her clogs, unbuttons her jeans and shimmies out of them. She pulls her socks off and flings them in the puddle of clothes. “Do you want me happy? Or do you want my secrets?”
“Bitch,” I say, shaking my head. “You’re such a bitch.”
“A dirty bitch, Oliver. Your dirty bitch. So why not just—” She slips my leather jacket down my arms and lets it drop to the floor with a heavy whoosh of air. Then pulls my shirt up over my head until I help her take it off me. “Why not just go along and pretend with me? Pretend everything is great.”
“It is great,” I say, gently swiping a piece of hair away from her eyes. “I don’t need to pretend. In fact, it’s better than great. It’s perfect. We are the perfect match.”