Read Online Demand by Lisa Renée Jones - Free Book Online Page A

into slippers. Still cold, I pull on a matching black jacket and then return to the sink to use the hair dryer. As the wet strands become a sleek and shiny dark brown, I wonder if Kayden knows the me that had red hair. If he does and didn’t tell me, that will be a hard pill to swallow—especially since I still can’t remember my past.
    That’s enough to launch me toward the bedroom, and I suddenly stop, staring at the massive king-sized bed I share with Kayden. My mind is searching for the secrets of my past and I have a flickering image of me naked and tied to a bed, and another image of David and me fighting in our hotel room, and I’m not sure why I’m thinking of these two things right now. How do they connect to this room, and this moment? They feel nothing like any experience I have ever had with Kayden. But then, maybe that’s the point: he is different. My instincts about him say he’s different. But if my instincts are good, how the heck did I have those prior experiences?
    Shaking off the questions, I leave the bedroom, entering the hallway with an odd sense of being watched. Ridiculous, since Kayden doesn’t allow cameras in our tower, but I leave the bedroom door open and peer at the high ceiling as I start to walk, deciding I’m just spooked due to Enzo’s death. How can I not be? Still, I rub the prickling sensation on the back of my neck, and it feels like forever before I turn into the living room. Crossing behind the couch toward the kitchen, I find myself remembering those naked, intimate moments with Kayden only a short time ago. The passion. The trust I’d felt for him. And then his words: “We both want more. Until we don’t.” The words send a surge of adrenaline and nerves through my body.
    The scent of freshly brewed coffee teases my nostrils as I reach the kitchen, where I immediately find Kayden standing behind the island. But it’s not him that makes my heart lurch, as usual. It’s my gun that’s lying on the counter between us. And when I should perhaps step backward I find myself charging forward to claim the other side of the counter. “What is that for?”
    â€œYou thought you needed it earlier,” he says. “I want you to have it now.”
    My fingers curl on the tiled counter. “Do I need it?”
    â€œThat’s for you to decide.”
    â€œThat isn’t the answer I want.”
    His jaw sets hard. “If you’re expecting an answer you’ll want, you’d better pick up that gun.”
    We stare at each other, a push and pull between us that has nothing to do with fear or intimidation, and everything to do with a bond we both know is being tested. “I know what you’re doing.”
    â€œWhat am I doing?”
    â€œThe same thing you did outside that church, when you helped me hold the gun to your chest.”
    â€œWhich is what?”
    â€œOffering me the façade of control.”
    â€œYou holding a loaded gun on me in no way equals a façade.”
    â€œI know you now,” I counter. “You don’t give up control, even when you say you are.”
    He rests his hands on the counter, one turned just enough for me to catch a glimpse of the hawk inked on his wrist, its wings spread, the mark of a man whose rules of many must dictate his actions. “There are two sides to this coin,” he says, his words drawing my attention, his pale blue eyes piercing mine. “The me with you, and the me with everyone else.”
    â€œWe barely knew each other at the church.”
    â€œI’d already decided you were mine. You just didn’t know it yet.”
    I glower at him, frustratingly aroused and angry. “I know you haven’t lived in America in a long time, but that’s a very caveman-like, antifeminist statement to make.”
    â€œI wasn’t aware you were a feminist.”
    â€œYes, well, I wasn’t either specifically,