Heart Thief - Ker Dukey Page 0,23
that’s nice.” I take her banana and throw it in the trash. My balls are painfully tight in my slacks.
Exhaling a long breath, she shakes her head. “No, we’re more than friends.”
Fuck.
“What do you mean more?” Cash asks.
“He asked for my hand in marriage.”
She talks like a lady from the eighteen hundreds.
It shouldn’t make me feel like putting my fist through the wall. This is ludicrous, yet here we fucking are. “Is that why you ran away?” I ask, my tone biting.
“Partly,” she dips her eyes to her lap. “Eli has always had plans for us since I was thirteen years old and he gave me my first kiss.”
I knew she was familiar with intimacy. She didn’t flinch away from contact like I remember Clara doing with my brother. “I thought you weren’t allowed to be intimate with each other before marriage? Clara said that included kissing.” Cash frowns.
“Eli doesn’t mind breaking that rule, and I…” she sighs, “I’m not like my father. I don’t believe as he does. I think life should be experienced. Sensations explored. I want passion, adventure. I want to live.”
I knew there was something different about her. You can feel her need to explore and discover what she’s been missing out on. There’s an aura all around her.
“But you didn’t want this with Eli?” I ask.
“I didn’t feel that with Eli. There has to be more. I can’t believe what I feel when I’m with him is desire—passion is love.” She almost weeps with the need to be told she’s right.
“He didn’t fulfill your needs,” I growl, my dick fully awake in my slacks.
“I don’t think so.” She looks confused, perplexed.
“Did you come when you were with him?” I ask.
“Colt,” Cash warns, getting up and tugging me into the kitchen. I reluctantly allow him to do so.
“What kind of fucking question is that?” he groans, pushing a hand through his hair.
“An honest one.” I jerk a shoulder.
“It’s inappropriate.”
“Since when have you given a shit about what’s appropriate?” I almost laugh. When did he get knighted in sainthood?
“Just go easy on her, okay?”
I hold my hands up in surrender and smirk when he loosens the collar of his shirt.
Her talking about sexual fulfillment is getting to him too. We go back through to the living space.
“So, Eli not being good at sex was only part of the reason you fled, what was the other?” I ask, ignoring my brother’s death glare.
“I have nothing to compare Eli too, so it’s unfair to call him bad, but yes, there was another reason.”
“And that is?” Cash asks before I can say anything ‘inappropriate.’
She unclasps the necklaces from her neck and drops them into Cash’s palm.
“Clara was wearing this the night she left and didn’t return.”
“It wasn’t on her body.” He frowns, examining the chain.
Mona leaps to her feet, moving away from him. “How would you know that?” she gasps, fear taking over her features. I don’t want her to fear us.
“He discovered her body,” I say for him, edging forward. He clutches the necklace, his head disappearing into his hands.
“It was the worst night of my entire life. Still is,” he chokes out.
“If she left the island wearing that, but it wasn’t on her body, how did you get it?” I ask, watching her to see if she’s going to break.
“It was on my doorstep wrapped as a birthday gift yesterday.”
Cash stands abruptly, making her jump. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means the killer took it from her body and is now taunting her sister with it.”
Cash’s eyes cut to me. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t?” Mona asks, still wary of us.
“Sit down, Mona. Let’s finish the story of how Cash met your sister. You have nothing to fear from us. We’d never hurt you,” I assure her, wanting it to be true.
She keeps her distance but sits.
“Our mother got sick,” I say, void of emotion. It destroyed us when she fucking abandoned us, our father telling us she didn’t care or love us. We were five years old. My sorrow grew into anger and resentment, but Cash just grieved the loss of her.
“She came to see us. That’s how we found out about the kid, Eli,” Cash adds.
“When it came down to it, your father said Jesus would heal her, but she knew that was fucking crazy. She needed doctors, hospital treatment.”
“That’s why she left?” Mona asks.
“She went back after my father paid for treatment.”
“But she didn’t come back.” Mona shakes her head.
“She did,” we both say