“Then, over time, I guess as I got older she needed more and more money and it was harder and harder to make it on her own.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Blake said, speaking for the first time since she’d begun. “I’m guessing you blame yourself, but it wasn’t, Kelly. A mom does what a mom has to. It’s instinctive. If I were a mom, I’m sure I’d have done whatever I needed to keep you safe. Plus, costs of life just go up on the year in general. It wasn’t you.”
While she didn’t entirely believe him, the words made her feel better, easing some of the ever-present guilt.
“So she started working for a pimp,” Kelly said, sinking lower into the water with Blake. “By then I was around eleven, so I was starting to get it. God, Blake. Eleven years, she sold herself to the highest bidder.”
He kissed the juncture of her neck, patiently waiting until Kelly gathered herself to continue.
“He got her more work, but the cut he took was hardly worth it, I’m guessing. He was around until I turned 17.” She shuddered at the memory. “Just this horrible, scrawny, meth-addicted louse. She kept him as far from me as she could, but by the age where I no longer needed babysitters, about 13, I had kind of figured some out. And I’d see him sometimes when she left the house, waiting by the car. I didn’t get the sex thing, but I knew he was making my mom do something.”
Blake picked up a sponge, soaped it, and began to move it over unhurriedly, not sexually, more reassuringly, giving Kelly something to take her mind off the painful memories.
“We had a lot of fights as I got older, when I realized,” she said softly. “I hated her for being different from other ‘normal’ moms. I was embarrassed and I was such a little shit. She was doing her level best to give me a good life and I threw it back in her face.”
“You were a kid. She got that,” Blake whispered in her ear, smoothing the sponge up and down her arms, then over her breasts. “Not your fault, baby.”
Her throat closed up and she fought past the lump to finish it. “One night he showed up at our house when she wasn’t home. I opened the door, not knowing it was him, and he shoved his way in and tried some shit on me.”
Blake stiffened beneath her, and not in a good way. His arms tightened around her waist wordlessly.
“He didn’t get what he wanted. Just a really good feel and an eyeful, before Mom showed up suddenly and tore into him. They went at each other so violently that I was afraid they’d kill each other in front of me,” Kelly said through clenched teeth at the memory. “But they didn’t. He staggered out, bleeding, and she stayed home for the next two weeks, black and blue all over. She swore she was going to quit, going to find something else to make money. I dropped out at that point and took a job at the hotel. She was so angry at me for doing that.”
Kelly shook her head and reached for Blake’s hands, moving them over her once more, trailing through the soapy lather he’d worked up, needing his touch badly. As he cupped her breast and slipped one hand between her legs, beginning to slowly touch her inside and out, Kelly closed her eyes.
“About three months after Mort—that was his name—tried to mess with me, Mom vanished. I came home from the hotel one day and she wasn’t there. She didn’t come back that night or the next or the next. They found her dead on the northwest side of the island. Raped. Stabbed. Shot. They butchered her, Blake. Like she was an animal. I couldn’t even recognize her face.” Her voice snapped in half and she trembled with the force of her grief.
“Let go, baby,” he said quietly, continuing to caress her. “I’ve got you. Lay it on me.”
So she did, working her way through her own personal storm while the one outside battered the house every which way. When she’d cried her way through the maelstrom, Blake turned her to face him and slowly, gently, made love to her, his body taking hers in a way that made her cry all over again with his tenderness.
Finally, he scooped her out of the tub, carried her to bed, and crawled in alongside her. In his arms, Kelly fell sound asleep and had no dreams or nightmares, for a change.
Chapter Eighteen
Blake
Blake lay awake long after Kelly had fallen asleep, her breath soft and regular against his chest. Her story had shaken him to the core, to the point where he couldn’t close his eyes without seeing the vile little rat who’d tried to take innocence and then, instead, taken it in an even worse way by killing her mother.
There was nothing he could do or say to make it better. For once in his life, his money could solve nothing. It left him feeling oddly frantic. He was so used to being in control; the notion that he suddenly wasn’t left him on edge.
He hadn’t meant to stake his claim on Kelly so thoroughly—he definitely hadn’t intended to demand that she call herself his—but the fact of the matter was that she felt like his own. It was one of the reasons Nolan’s appearance had made him so crazy. The thought of other man having the privilege of kissing her, touching her, loving her—
He pulled that thought up short. No way. I do not love her, Blake told himself sternly. This is an infatuation. Not love. I can’t love a woman I’ll probably never see again in a few days or weeks.
Even as that settled all wrong inside him, Kelly whispered in the darkness, “You’re thinking way too hard for so early in the morning.”
He looked down at where she was pillowed against him and brushed her lips with his own. “Go back to sleep.”
“You didn’t hear the part about how I became an escort. It’s what I am. Might as well quit denying it.”
“I don’t care what you are. Go back to sleep,” Blake repeated, pulling the blankets more securely around them and listening to the seemingly endless storm crashing outside. He wondered what the island would look like after the hurricane. Wondering about the Magnolia, barely under construction, didn’t bear thinking.
“I was cleaning this guy’s room one day, when I was about 19,” Kelly said sleepily, reaching her hand down to stroke his cock idly, her warm hand wrapping around his width and pumping unhurriedly. “He came back to the room before I was done and stood there and watched for a while. Sometimes people do. They don’t seem to know how to react to my presence in their temporary home.”
Blake lifted his hips to the rhythm of her stroking, swallowing a groan and pumping slowly, pleasurably.
“Eventually he asked if I would have dinner with him. I don’t know why I said yes, but he wasn’t bad looking. So I did, and over dinner he told me about escorting. He wanted me to be his own personal escort, but with benefits. And I wasn’t ready for that. He got pissed and walked out, stiffing me with the bill.”
Kelly slid down his body and began to trail kisses from his hips inward, stopping short of the prize every time.
“I did some research and came to my own decisions about a business that could help me survive. And that was that. Never looked back.”
As she finished speaking, she swallowed him completely, until Blake felt himself hit the back of her throat.
“Fuck!” he cried out in amazement as Kelly set up a hard, fast rhythm, bobbing her dark head up and down over him, taking him deep each time.
Desperately needing a taste of his own, Blake waited until she came up next, then flipped them so her heat straddled his own mouth. Eagerly, he dove in, lapping like a starving man, and Kelly’s whimpers and moans around his rigid cock nearly sent him through the roof.
When it became too much, he pulled her off of him, wanting to be inside her as he came. He rolled on top of her, careful to keep his upper body from crushing her, and looked into her eyes as he thrust slow and deep, all the way inside, holding himself there for a few moments before pulling himself back out. He drew his cock out slowly, almost to the very tip, then he thrust it back into her, deep and hard.
With each thrust, she grasped the bedsheets and he pinned her with his much larger body, keeping her from sliding on the silken bed. Her hands were exploring his body, her tongue running along the crease of his
neck as he continued to pound into her.
Their fucking grew with intensity as he continued to pound into her, and her moans grew louder with each passing moment until she screamed his name in a way that he wanted imprinted on him forever. In him.
“Blake. Blake. Blake,” she chanted, looking up into his eyes. “Blake, oh god, Blake—”
He came powerfully and as he spiraled into an endless pleasure, spilling deep inside her tight, warm body, he heard her cry as she orgasmed around him.
“I love you!”
Chapter Nineteen
Kelly
The awkward silence between them was suddenly thick as a tropical night. Kelly cringed, hating herself for spilling a secret far deeper than her chosen profession, but also not about to apologize.
After a few minutes, Blake rolled off her and onto his back. “How long?”
“Pretty much since day one,” she admitted, missing the comfort of his large body over hers immediately.
“Not a good idea,” he said from what felt like really far away, even when he was right beside her. “I’m sorry if I led you on, Kelly. But I can’t go there.”
She lay rigidly beside him, fighting sadness and fury. “You don’t get to tell me what’s a good idea and what’s not,” she finally said. “And yeah. You did lead me on. No denying it. We’ve been hanging out all this time and you’ve never once said about being afraid of relationships.”
“I’m not afraid,” he protested, and she snorted.
“And I’m not someone who men pay to get their rocks off, even if it’s with words instead of my body.”
Getting up, Kelly pulled on her old nightshirt, feeling exposed and vulnerable suddenly. Blake sat up and leaned against the headrest, watching as she came back to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Ever been married?” she asked bluntly. “Or dated?”
“Dated. Marriage … I haven’t found the right person,” he replied. “Maybe I’m not made for marriage. I don’t know.”
“I could be that right person. We’re really good together, Blake,” she said in her usual blunt style. “But I’m guessing you’re afraid you’ll turn into your brothers and neglect your business.”
“It’s important to me,” he reminded her unnecessarily. “I gave my father my word that I’d treat the business he built like it was my own. And now it is.”
She nodded. “So I’m here and you’re there. And even if I found a way to move there, even if I left everything I’ve ever known to be with the man I love,” she watched him shift uncomfortably, “you still say no chance.”
“In the real world, we have nothing in common,” Blake said quietly. “I don’t know how it would work, Kelly. I honestly don’t.”
“And you don’t want to try to figure it out.”
“I have to deal with my business first. Get the Magnolia built. Dig us out of the slump from last year’s scandal. Then maybe—”
“No,” she cut in firmly, even as her heart splintered. “I’m better than a ‘then maybe.’ I’m not going to wait around for a man who can’t prioritize me. A man who might never make time for me when he’s not on an accidental vacation. A man who doesn’t see what an idiot he’s being.”
She got to her feet once more and walked out to her living room, staring out at the hurricane as it continued its deadly assault. Blake receded slightly in her mind as the sight filled her with worry. Hurricanes weren’t usually anywhere near this extensive. This one seemed to be worsening in fury, rather than gradually starting to die down. Her home was built on high ground and was reinforced for just such seasons, but nevertheless, she wondered—
“Does the island ever get evacuated?”
She jumped slightly at Blake’s unexpected appearance. “Not in my lifetime, but this doesn’t look good,” she replied. “There hasn’t been any kind of warning though. So all we can do is sit tight. You’re stuck with me until it simmers down enough for it to be safe to walk outside.”
He joined her at the window, peering out. “I don’t mind being here with you. I care about you, Kelly.”
She sighed and dragged her hands through her hair. “Caring isn’t enough. I knew better than to put myself out there, but it is what it is. I can’t regret falling for you, Blake.” Turning, she met his gaze squarely. “So you’re going to leave and do your thing and forget all about me. Fine.”
“I won’t for—”
“Yeah. You will. But I’d like to remember you.” Kelly gestured at the wall. “I lied about something else. Those are my paintings.”
Blake looked in surprise at the wall filled with her work. “Seriously? Kelly, those are really good.”
“Thanks. Can I do an abstract of you?” she asked. “I don’t do portraits or anything very realistic. But I’d like to capture your essence, not to sound too hippie or anything.”
He shuffled awkwardly and for a moment she thought he’d say no, but then, to her surprise, he nodded. “Okay. Yeah. What do I do?”
Chapter Twenty
Blake
“It’s wrecked. Completely.” Blake paced back and forth restlessly, the phone to his ear, the Magnolia’s work crew watching uncertainly from not too far away. “There was nothing here when I first arrived and the minimal progress that had been made got blown to hell by three days of hurricane. It’s gone, Cole.”
On the other end of the line, Cole cursed profusely. “So now what?”
“Now we regroup and figure out whether it’s worth starting over yet again.”
In spite of yet another disaster to clean up after, Blake was in a sort of numb state of mind that was allowing him to somehow keep moving even after ending it with Kelly.
Of course, ending it meant they’d been something, and he kept telling himself they’d been friends and lovers but that that was it. In his own way, he was erecting a wall similar to the one Kelly had built to shield herself from the societal implications of her profession, and he knew it. What he didn’t know was how to do things differently.
“So are you coming home?” Cole asked, and Blake looked around at the battered landscape, at the toppled trees, uprooted grass, sand dunes with the deep scars from the previous day’s winds, and thought that he felt similarly beaten to pieces.
“Yeah. Soon as planes are flying again, I’ll be headed back. We can figure things out once I get home. How’s Dana, by the way?”
“Queasy constantly. Getting moodier by the day, it seems. And still so beautiful I’ll put up with anything, just to lie beside her and watch her talk nonsense to my kid, when I’m not even sure he has ears yet.”
“You’ve got it bad, brother.”
Cole chuckled. “So do you, even if you won’t admit it. Are you being an idiot, Blake?”
He hung up, rather than endure more of Cole’s insistent questions. Then, staring at the phone, Blake slowly dialed Hawk’s number. They’d had a falling out after he’d refused to do much of anything since returning from his honeymoon, so it was awkward to wonder what the tone would be if he even picked up.
A moment later, he did. “Been a while.”
“Yeah.” Blake rolled his tense shoulders. “How’s things?”
“Amazing,” his kid brother said cheerfully. “There isn’t a single negative to married life yet, no matter what people keep telling me. Are you calling to read me the riot act again? Because if you are, man, let me tell you, I’m not interested. Yeah. I suck. I bailed on you guys completely. But I’m a happy brand-new homebody who is completely stupid in love and I’m going to enjoy it for as long as I can.”
“Glad to hear you’re in la la land,” Blake said dryly. “What’s the point in my reading you any act? You pay as much attention to that as you did to high school reading.”
“It took him a while, ladies and gents, but he does learn!” Hawk drawled sardonically. “So … what do I owe the honor, then? I’ve been getting the silent treatment for a while now.”
“I need advice,” Blake admitted reluctantly, and Hawk�
�s explosive laughter echoed through the phone line.
“Advice? From me? The only thing I really know is—” he trailed off for a second. “I know women, inside and out. Well, well, big brother. Something you want to tell me?”
“Never mind,” Blake groused, irate at the teasing.
“No, no. Come on now. Tell Hawk your love dilemma, brother. This I gotta hear.”
It was the last thing Blake wanted to do, but if he ever wanted to focus on work again, he had to get it off his chest, damn it. Wandering aimlessly, he began. “I … met a girl.” Then he waited for the unavoidable quip, and when it didn’t arrive, asked, “That’s your usual opening line.”
“Not anymore.” Hawk sounded about as serious as Blake had ever heard him. “Man, don’t get me wrong—I’m nowhere near a changed guy. I still drink too much, gamble way too much, and prefer spending a day scratching my balls on the couch to putting my nose to grindstone.”
“Thanks so much for the visual. Kathryn must still be in the honeymoon stage.”
Hawk ignored him. “My point is, I’m not changed, except I am. I don’t see love as a joke anymore. She loves me exactly the way I am, fucked up and all, and I love her the same way. Best thing in life that doesn’t come in a bottle with a screw-off cap, let me tell you. So tell me, bro. Did love find you?”
“No,” Blake muttered, pacing idly, avoid puddles of ankle-deep rainwater. “Yes. Fuck it. I don’t know.”
“I’d say you know pretty damn well,” Hawk observed. “What’s her name? How’d you meet?”
“Kelly. I bumped into her coming off an elevator.”
Hawk laughed. “Kathryn will die at how chick-flick that is. Was there a long, intense look that I can tell her about to make her really swoon? Works out well for me in the bedroom. Is she hot?”
Dared to Love (The Billionaire Parker Brothers Book 3) Page 7