Ick Factor (Seasons of Revenge, #4)

by Morgan Elizabeth

I looked up at her and it was like something had shifted and I needed her to be mine.

If laughter is medicine, Katrina’s is my cure.”

Theo parks and then gives me a look as he reaches for his door handle, and somehow, I know that look means stay the fuck where you are, so I don’t move. He walks around the car, opening my door for me.

“I got you stuck in this situation; you get whatever you need. Make it hurt, kitten.”

The next day, Katrina storms into my office at noon, her face red with anger and irritation. My mind runs through all of the things that could have made her so mad and without thinking twice, I start to match each with a solution, something I could do to counter it.

We’re out of the coffee she likes? I’ll send her to the shop down the road or, better yet, go myself. A client is giving her a hard time? We’ll cancel the contract. Maybe Warren said something to her again? Fine, I’ll let her execute the more illegal options on her revenge plan. Her landlord raised her rent? I’ll buy the building.

“Because I like you! I like you, Katrina, and that’s why I don’t want you getting hurt. You’re a good fucking person and a great fucking friend, and I like you. Am I so goddamned impersonal you can’t even see that?”

“I know more than you think I do, Warren. I know you’re planning some kind of bullshit and you’re hanging your hat on getting the job by fucking over Theo instead of, oh god, I don’t know, doing your fucking job and doing it well.” I let a slow, wicked smile spread over my lips. “But what you didn’t anticipate is me. I’m as loyal as they come, and I’m fucking insane. Theo might want to play this clean and keep things good, but me? I'm happy to play in the mud with you. So before you try anything, before you try and fuck with my fiancé and his legacy, just know that if you go low, I’ll tunnel to the core of the fucking earth.”

“I have it for you,” he says succinctly like it’s obvious.

“I want you to be mine, Katrina,” he says, and my pulse stops. “But if I can’t have that, I want you to be you.”

This has been real since the fucking beginning. Since the day she walked into my office for an interview. We’ve always been endgame. I’ve just been too stupid to see it, and she’s been too scared.

“I’ve come to learn that if I want you, I have to take all of you, Katrina. And I like every bit of you. You are chaos, and somehow, when you’re around, I like a little bit of chaos.”

“The amount I like to fuck you, I don’t think the DOJ would allow.”

“Honey, I need you to slow down and explain, okay? I’m happy you’re excited, but you’ve got to tell me what’s going on before I can get on your level.”

“You can’t tell me, Katrina. You can’t. You can tell yourself this is going to end until you pass out, but when you wake up, I’ll still be here, waiting for you. Because you’re mine. And I take care of what’s mine, be it your body or your mind. We gotta get your mind straight, but right now, you can watch me control your body.”

“You hid your heart from me. You hid your softness. You hid the part of you I want to protect most of all. And if you let me, Katrina, I’ll do it forever, protect your soft spot. I’ll do it until you’re so tired of me, and then I’ll work to keep protecting it, because I know that just means somehow, I got deeper and you’re scared again.”

“What if it happens?” I whisper my biggest fear into the dark. “What if this goes great but we hit nine or ten or fifteen and I get the ick?” “Then we talk about it. Then we work through it. There is no such thing as perfection, Katrina. We are never going to be perfect. Humans are flawed. Couples are flawed. The difference is if you’re willing to work for it.” He cages me in place, doing a push-up and pressing his lips to mine quickly. “And I’ll work to the bone on this, on us, if it means I get to kiss you whenever I want, if I get to see your face when you’re sleeping in my bed, if I get to hear your laugh in my home. If I get to love you, I’ll do what I have to do to keep you, Katrina.”

“I’d crumble without you, Katrina. Have to make sure you’re well-nourished so that doesn’t happen.”

“At least you weren’t being framed for embezzlement,” Liv says with a half-hearted smile, reminding her of the time her douche of an ex did just that.

“Glitter makes everything better.”

“I would greatly appreciate it if you didn’t speak to my woman like that ever again, Michaels,”

“Leave it on, Kat. My ring does not leave your finger, except for when I put a new one beneath it.”

“I won’t take your ring off, but I want a proper proposal, Theodore Carter. Saying ‘here’ in my shitty apartment parking garage and giving me a ring is not what I’m going to tell our kids one day.” When he sees it, he smiles wide.

“Wanna play Barbies?”

“You can be Ken, and I can be the box you come in.”

“A Revenger never retires.”

“Don’t play dumb. It isn’t becoming on you.”