The Insiders by Tijan

FORTY-ONE

I padded barefoot out to his kitchen.

We’d woken twice during the night. Kash reached for me the first, and I had pulled him in the second time. There’d been a third round this morning, in the shower, and I was fully sated. Completely sated. I almost couldn’t move this morning.

I was sore, but it was worth it. More than worth it.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, I saw it was just past eleven.

Kash was at the stove, shirtless, and I had to stop and gawk. No one would blame me. He was standing, half turned away from me, paused in his stirring as he read something on his phone. His shoulder muscles were standing out. His spine flattened in as the rest of his back was corded and—was this an addiction? My mouth went dry at the sight of him. His sweatpants low on those hips. Those same hips that had been moving against mine, in and out, in and out, rotating, going deeper.

His eyes flicked to mine.

I flushed, caught ogling him, and I ducked my head down.

He grinned, putting his phone down. “How are you feeling?”

“Good.”

He watched me as I moved farther into the kitchen, going to the coffee machine. He asked, “You’re not sore?”

I turned, glanced at him. I felt bad saying it.

His grin grew, turning rakish. “You can be sore. I’d imagine you would be. I should apologize, but I’d be lying. I’m not sorry, not at all. Last night was amazing.”

I took out the coffeepot. “This morning, too.”

His eyes darkened, skimming down my face, lingering on my lips, traveling all the way until I could feel his gaze on my ass. I was wearing his shirt, nothing underneath, and the sight made him happy. Lust had started to form.

Pouring myself a cup, I turned, blowing on it a second. My back rested against the counter. I shook my head. “And you’re right. I am sore. I’ll need at least an hour to heal.”

He laughed, turning back to the eggs in the pan. “You like ’em hard?”

I’d been taking a sip, then sputtered at that. Shooting him a glare. “Har har.”

He still chuckled, then grew serious, motioning to his phone. “We have to go to the estate today. I have to deal with Matt later.”

“Can it be later later?”

He studied me a second. “You’re needing a break?”

“From them.” I waved to his phone. “Matt. Yes. Most definitely.” Gazing around, I asked, “Can we have a skip day? Is that a thing?”

“You want to hang here for the day?”

I half joked, “Can we hang here forever?”

His eyes darkened again, somber, and going to my lips. “We can stay here, yeah.” He crossed the kitchen, dipping down for a light kiss. He murmured, “I was thinking you’d like to check in on your mother today, too.”

I pulled back. “I can do that? We can do that?”

He nodded behind me, at his laptop. “You can use that to check in on her if you want. Your mom had a security system installed. I’m assuming you can figure your way in to see her? It has your father’s program to erase your trail, though the bad guys already know you’re with me.”

Bad guys. Right. His grandfather.

I suppressed a shiver, heading over and grabbing his laptop to take to the couch with me. Putting my coffee on the end table, I folded my legs and pulled his computer onto my lap, a pillow underneath.

Now this was heaven.

Kash shirtless. Coffee. Me in his shirt. A night of hot and intense sex. And a computer.

I was almost purring.

Opening it, I saw he already had it ready for me, and it didn’t take long for me to find her security system or to hack in. I was surprised at the security cameras; they were everywhere except—I had to snort—except her bathroom. Of course. Her toilet time was precious. Zooming around, I found her in the living room, snuggled on the couch, a blanket over her. She was lying down. The television screen on channel four, the late morning news on.

Then I noticed the popcorn bowl of tissues on the floor. How she sat up. How she wiped at her face with the back of her arm. How she stood and looked like an eighty-year-old, not the forty-five-year-old she was. Her skin was pale, gaunt. Her eyes were sunken, her cheekbones the same. She reached to pick some of the tissues, and she wavered, her hands shaking.

Pure horror settled in my bones.

She was not good.

I whipped around to Kash. “Did you know this?”

He frowned. “Hmm?”

“I thought you had men watching her. Weren’t they seeing this and reporting it?” I motioned to the computer, my finger pointing.

I was angry. I was livid.

“Kash!” I yelled, when he took too long to answer, turning the stove off and coming over the back end of the couch. His frown deepened as he saw what I saw, and he didn’t respond. “Kash.”

He ignored me, picking up his phone.

Moving to the bedroom, I heard him. “Who’s watching Chrissy Hayes right now?” Then he shut the door and I could only hear the sounds of an argument on the other end. I couldn’t make out the words, but it wasn’t long before it quieted and he came back in.

He stopped in the open doorway, staring starkly at me, cradling that phone like it was a barrier between us. “I’m sorry.”

I was on my feet, his computer dropped on the couch. His shirt grazed the tops of my thighs. “What’d they say?”

“She’s not eating. She was devastated when she woke at the hotel. No one reported to me, and I was distracted.” His eyes wavered, the ends of his mouth tucking in. He was cringing.

A wave of shame flooded me.

I was distracted too. This wasn’t just on him.

I sat, my legs numb, folding underneath me. I cradled my head in my hands. “I should’ve asked. I should’ve bugged you. I … was…” I’d been focused on the possibility of a new father, siblings for the first time. A new family.

A sob was wrung from me, and then Kash was there. He was lifting me, sitting me on his lap. He wrapped his arms around me, his head folding over mine.

He whispered, “I’m sorry. I am. I’ll make it right. I will.”

“Kash.” He couldn’t, unless he told her where I was. “I thought she knew I was okay?”

“She was supposed to have been told. I’ll figure out the breakdown. I promise.” He brushed some of my hair from my forehead, kissing me there, then my cheek, finally my lips. “I’m so sorry.” He ended, resting the side of his face against the crown of mine.

After a moment in silence, he jostled me a bit. “Tell me about your mom.”

I sat up, giving him a look. “You probably know everything.”

He grinned. “But not from you. I want to know from you.”

It felt odd to talk. While I was growing up, not many people asked for my free thoughts on someone or something. I was asked where Chrissy was. I was asked what school I was going to. I was asked what scholarships I was trying for. I was asked who my friends were, what grade I got. I was asked questions to put me in a category so others understood me, but questions like this were far from normal, and that made me feel embarrassed. There’d been a drunken mistake in college, and a clumsy kiss when I was lonely one night, but that’d been it for guys. And I hadn’t had close friends growing up. My cousins were the outgoing ones. They were popular, going to parties. I’d been the “brain.”

Maybe another reason I migrated toward the computer.

I understood that world. The outside world, not so much. This world.

I was suddenly feeling tongue-tied.

Kash noticed, his eyebrows going up. “What’s wrong?”

“All that’s happened. I just realized you’re my first guy guy.” If we were even that, and I was really shy now. What if we weren’t? I was so late to the game here.

“Hey.” I’d looked down. He tipped my head back up. “You said not just for one night. In my book, that makes me your guy. Got it?”

“Got it,” I whispered, and I knew he could feel the heat radiating from my body.

His thumb spread over my cheek. “Tell me about your mom. I want to understand her through you.”

So I did. I told him she was a Gemini, how she took that to heart. She had the “mom” side that was strict and prideful. No help from anyone who might have strings attached. She had learned that lesson somewhere along the line. I had to go to school, go home right after. She didn’t like not knowing where I was, even if she was working the second shift. She’d call the landline by four every afternoon to make sure I was home, and would call on each of her breaks so I didn’t have time to sneak out and get kidnapped—her words, and the significance was now just setting it.

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“She knew. You’re right. She knew. She was worried about me being taken.” My chest tightened. “I thought that was just something every mom worried about, you know, just being a mom.”

“That is something every mom worries about.” He was watching me intently. “Just had an extra meaning with her, that’s all.”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me about the other side to her.”

He was prompting me, still gently. He didn’t want me to sit and stew so my guilt would flare up. I was here. She was there. She was hurting, and I’d been the cause. But after he said my name again, I told him about her other side.

“Single moms, young moms, they don’t want to grow up sometimes. That was her too. I mean, she was. She was grown up. But in other ways she wasn’t. I was the one who didn’t want to party on New Year’s Eve, and she did. I didn’t like to go trick-or-treating. She did. She’s everything I’m not, honestly. Ditzy at times with social things, everyday life things. Money, parenting, work, that stuff she’s great at. Everything else, not. But she’s fun.” I was grinning before I knew it. “She got tipsy one night at the VFW and she was playing peekaboo with me from outside the house that night. I thought it was so funny.

“She likes adventures. You know that story on the news, of the woman who drank wine out of a chip container in that discount store, riding around in the cart? That’s something she’d do. She wasn’t reckless. She’d be smart about it. But yeah, she liked doing silly things like that. Like getting pulled on a sled behind a lawn mower because we couldn’t afford any other way to do rides like that. Or building forts in the living room and sleeping there for a few nights. Ghost stories. Sneaking up on her friends when they’d go camping and scaring them. Things like that.”

I was missing my mom. I was missing her a whole lot.

And after I finished talking, when the tears rolled down—the good but missing kind—Kash picked me up and carried me to bed.

We stayed there the rest of the afternoon.