The Kiss Thief

by L.J. Shen

He stared at me with his piercing gaze and seemed to burn past skin and bones and my heart, turning them all to ash.

You’re a collected debt, a retaliation, and, quite frankly, pretty decent arm candy.

something told me that man had not taken one uncalculated step in his life from the moment he took his first breath.

I sucked in a breath, realizing for the first time what we were. A story of a nemesis and a villain with no chance at a happy ending. Where the prince doesn’t save the princess. He tortures her. And the beauty doesn’t sleep. She’s stuck. In a nightmare.

Disloyalty had a taste. It was bitter. It was sour. It was even a little sweet. Most of all, it taught me an important lesson—whatever the four of us had, it wasn’t sacred anymore. Our hearts were tarnished. Stained. And guilty. Unpredictable to a fault. And bound to break.

Betrayal, no matter by whom, cracks something deep inside you. Then you have to live with the pieces rattling in the pit of your stomach.

Not only because of the picture but because she was not going to be easy to tame. And difficult, I’d decided from a very young age, was a flavor I found distasteful.

Technically, it was just a kiss. But I was there, and there was much more to it. More touching. More grinding. More devouring. More feelings I couldn’t pinpoint—far away from love yet shockingly close to affection.

“I do not discuss my business with women, much less my own daughter.” “What’s wrong with being a woman, Papa?” You sure acted like a pussy the day you gave me to Wolfe Keaton.

“You need to weather the storm, my dear. I think you’ll find, after your adjustment period, that you two are so explosive together because you finally met your challenges in each other.”

“Maybe I am the monster. After all, I come out to play at night. But so do you, little one. You’re out in the darkness too.”

One of them was going to kill the other, and I was the poor idiot stuck right in the middle of their war.

I flew directly into my cage, asking him to lock me inside. Because the beautiful lie was far more desirable than the awful truth. The cage was warm and safe. No harm could find me.

With Wolfe, I felt as if I was on fire. As though he could end me at any given moment, and all I could do was hope for his mercy. I felt safe but not secure. Desired but unwanted. Admired but unloved.

I realized with dread instead of glee that, in a way, I was. She no longer saw this house as her home. I was her home now. And I was haunted beyond belief, ready to exorcise my need for her.

After all, there was only one thing worse than losing a close, loved relative to an unexpected death—losing their love and affection while they were still alive.

I am a rusty barbwire, twisted together, knotted into a ball of fear.

I lay there and let him have me. He took my innocence with force, but I couldn’t give him any part of my pride. Not even a small piece of it.

“My heart has room for him. He just needs to claim it.”

a smile hung on his beautiful face, like the moon, and I knew—with a good portion of melancholy—that I was in love with this cruel beast of a husband.

I prayed for one thing that morning—that this wasn’t a sweet lie but a forbidden truth. Lies, I couldn’t deal with. But finding a truth and digging that vein until it gushed out? I was up for that challenge.

“I can’t compare you to people. There aren’t any people like you,” he said simply, his mouth on my neck now.

We were no longer two strangers sharing a roof. We were entwined and entangled, connected with invisible strings, each of us trying to pull away, only to create more knots that made us closer. And he was so sophisticated and quick-witted, I didn’t know how I could keep him, even if I wanted to. Dearly.

Wolfe Keaton was a kiss thief, but it wasn’t only a kiss that he stole. He stole my heart too. Ripped it from my chest and put it in his pocket.

Wolfe always held the power in my relationship with him, and if he couldn’t let go, even once, was this really a marriage, or was it a captive and master, glorified under the flattering light of lust?

he became my favorite thing about myself. I became his reminder that there was something more than vengeance and justice in this world. We were codependent, and we had to coexist. One without the other was a dormant being.