Free Khan by Kathi S. Barton Page B

or we are to restrain you.” The man by
the outside door spoke again. “I don’t want to have to shoot you, Mr. Bowen,
but I will if I have to.”
    He was ready to tell them to go for it
when Caitlynne and another man he didn’t know came through the door. She didn’t
look happy, and the man beside her looked livid. He lifted his chin. If she
wanted to take him on, then he was more than in the mood for it.
    “There have been two murders. Brutal
ones. Senator and Mrs. Barr were murdered sometime yesterday in Mrs. Barr’s
home. Her throat was slit and he was bludgeoned to death with a poker.” She
came into the room and he noticed then how pale she was. “And I brought her
here.”
    He was confused for several seconds. He
didn’t know who she was referring to until he remembered that Walker told him
the man’s name that was stalking Monica. Barr. His parents were dead.
    “Did he do it?” She nodded as she fell
into a chair. “Do you know if he’s aware that Monica is here?”
    “I don’t know. He might not be, but when
he doesn’t find her there, he’s going to come here. He knows who I am and how I’m
related to you. He’s going to figure out eventually where she might be. I have
to send her away. Somewhere that no one knows where to find her until we find
him.”
    “I’m not going to let you do that.” He
looked up when one of the men shifted on his feet, but didn’t lower his gun. “I
can’t…she’s pissed at me right now and will probably welcome him with open arms
over me, but I can’t let her go.”
    “Everyone in the household knows she’s
pissed at you, Khan. You fucked this up, and now I have to protect her. Go back
home. You can’t fix what she doesn’t want fixed.”
    He slumped in the opposite chair from
her as she continued ripping his heart out.
    “You can’t learn to shut up, can you?
You just had to have the last word, didn’t you? Why?”
    “I don’t know how to be with her.” He
got up to pace and noticed that the men were gone. “Christ, I don’t know what
to do. What the fuck am I doing with a mate anyway? I can’t please her except
in bed and then I hurt her. She said I didn’t, but she was out for so long. How
is it that I’m such a fucking asshole even when I try to be nice?”
    “It’s called breathing and thinking
before you open your mouth.”
    Khan looked up at Monica who looked like
she’d been crying.
    “Why do you feel it’s necessary to say
whatever is on the tip of your tongue? Can’t you just say to yourself, ‘will
this hurt her feelings?’ ‘Will this make her want to bash my head in and have
her dance in my brains?’ It’s tempting every time you say something that pisses
me off.”
    “You say stupid shit too.” She turned to
walk away and he called her back. “Please, I’m going to try, but I’m not going
to change overnight.”
    “And you’re not going to change at all
if you don’t try. I can’t have you bullying me, Khan. I’ve put up with too much
as it is. I’m not as un-normal as you are, but I do have feelings. Feelings
that get crushed when you treat me this way.”
    “She hurt me.” She turned back to look
at him. “When she left me, she hurt me, not by what she did, but because she
had hurt all of my family too. I’d failed them because I’d fallen for a human.”
    “And that is my fault how?” She didn’t
leave when Caitlynne and the others did, but sat down. “I didn’t do anything to
you but try to keep out of your hair. You kept bringing me back and pushing me
away.”
    “Yeah, a yo-yo.” He wanted to reach for
her hand, but was afraid she’d jerk away from him. “But it was more than that
with Roseann. She had taken not just our secret, but my dignity and my pride.
She’d told me that I was less than a man for not doing as she’d wanted and
that…”
    “And what? What did she say to you?” She
took his hand and he laced his fingers into hers. “Tell me all of it, Khan.”
    “The first time