by Dee Tenorio
But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t ask questions.
“Kane, what are you doing?”
He didn’t play coy, something she’d always genuinely liked about him. Charm wasn’t exactly his strong suit, but he wore his honesty like a favorite shirt she could appreciate. “How am I supposed to convince you that being married to me is a good thing if I don’t treat you like my wife?”
She reached for one of the sponges, snagging the liquid soap at the same time. If he wanted to pamper her like this, she could enjoy it. Meanwhile, she’d scrub the rest of her body and let him talk. “Your wife is going to get her hair washed by you all the time?”
He gently rubbed her temples, working his fingers over her scalp until her head fell back into his hold. “She will whenever she wants me to.”
She had to smile. “Life on your ranch must be more luxurious than I imagined.”
“Well, it’s not like this place, with people waiting on you hand and foot, but it’s a good life. Hard work, I won’t lie. Town is close enough for whatever we want to get or do, but it’s quiet most of the time. Peaceful. We’re a working horse ranch, everyone there has a job and a purpose, which is a lot more satisfying than most might think. You’ll go to bed tired, but you’ll go to sleep happy.”
In his arms. Held safe and cherished. Knowing that she was the center of his world. He didn’t say it, but she knew that much was a given. The woman who got to be Kane’s would be everything to him. Absolutely everything.
He turned her around, his gaze warm on her face as he tilted her head this way and that to rinse her off. She watched him through heavy lids, the concentration he put into the task. The man could seduce her so easily. But there had to be more to being with him than overwhelming sexual chemistry. More than simple promises, even if simple was what she dreamed of.
“What else happens to this mythical wife of yours every day?”
His eyes lost the sharpest edge of hunger, seeming to take in that she wasn’t about to let herself fall into his arms so easily. “Besides the fabulous hair washing and the incredible sex?”
She didn’t want to smile at that, the same way she didn’t want her hands to settle on his chest to feel his hard muscles or the warmth of his skin seep through her fingertips. Kane Wilkensen did not need encouragement, not with his rings on her finger and her body all too willing to reacquaint itself with his. She did both, though, because Kane just had that effect on her. As if he had some sort of special pass directly to the most impulsive parts of her. Which was ironic, really, since he was the least impulsive person she’d ever known.
Maybe that was what attracted her so strongly. The man needed a good mussing most of the time and every part of her itched to do it. Until this morning, she’d never given into it, but she could see now that he’d let her. Any time she wanted to.
And oh, she wanted to muss him really bad right now.
That firm mouth of his curved and he pulled her closer, picking up the cue with that subtle arrogance of his and making himself right at home with their combined nudity. His hands slipped through her hair to her back, cupping her flush against him. “My not-as-mythical-as-you’d-like-to-think wife would wake up to slow kisses and the smell of incredible coffee.”
“Are we talking breakfast in bed now?”
“Maybe for special occasions, but I’ll be honest, I’m not much good in the kitchen beyond coffee and toast.”
She patted his chest soothingly. “If that’s the case, our mythical children are doomed. I’m not much of a cook either.”
“That’s okay, I already have a cook on hand.”
Her brows rose. “Oh, why didn’t you say so? By all means, continue.”
“With the mythical wife or the mythical children?”
“I honestly had no idea your imaginary life was so diverse.”
“Oh, there’s tons of surprises in my head I’ve been holding back from you.”
Delilah laughed resignedly. This had to be the most ridiculous conversation to have with a naked man, but she didn’t want it to end. When it did she was either going to jump him or leave and that last option might not be as likely as she hoped.
“I have a lot of land, so there’s no reason to limit how many children we might have. I always wanted a bunch of brothers and sisters like my cousins had but my parents died before they could have any more. Truth is, I’d love to have a big family.”
So would she. She bit her bottom lip, reality hedging its way closer. That had been the biggest stumbling block in her relationship with Craig. He’d adamantly not wanted children, never wanting to have to choose between them and his career. It had taken her until their engagement party to realize he didn’t even consider choosing when it came to her. Which was why she’d… she’d…
She frowned, trying to remember. What had she done about it, because she knew she’d done something. Something important. She just couldn’t remember what.
“I have this dream of Christmas mornings where the entire living room turns into this sea of wrapping paper and there’s so much noise and laughter you can’t even hear yourself think. I know some people think that would get on your nerves but I can’t imagine anything better.”
She looked up at him, unable to keep her distance from a statement like that. Not when it so closely mirrored what she wanted most in the secret recesses of her heart. Turned out to be a big mistake though, because she fell into his gaze and lost herself in the absolute longing she saw there. The need and raw desire he made no effort to hide.
“I have a dream for every holiday, actually. Where the house isn’t absolutely silent and it feels like a place where memories are being made instead of a place where all the memories are almost gone.”
She drew in a breath, or she tried to, but her chest was too tight. all the intensity he usually kept bottled tight was right there for her to see, under the thinnest thread of his control.
“You may not believe me, Del, but every damn one of them starts and ends with you.”
“Kane…” Her warning was half-hearted at best. His fingers inched down the small of her back, edging toward the highest curve of her rear and to be perfectly honest, she wanted him to reach for it. The highest part, the lowest part, then on to trace the crease between to where the moisture gathering had very little to do with the water pouring over them.
It was wrong to want him this way, she knew that. In her head.
Her heart, though, had other ideas, and her body was agreeing with all of them.
“You didn’t marry Craig. You married me. Even if it only lasts for this one day, I want to make love to my wife. I want to touch her and taste her and have her know it’s me inside her. Inside you.”
She couldn’t tear her gaze away if she wanted to.
“If you don’t want me when we figure this thing out, I’ll let you go. It’ll rip my soul out, but I’ll do it for you. Until then, I just want— I need—”
She never heard what he needed, because he gave up trying to explain and just kissed her.
Chapter Five
He was out of control and he knew it, but Kane didn’t much care. Not when Delilah was kissing him back, straining to get closer, her breasts mashed to his chest.
He wasn’t being gentle, but neither was she. Her hands clamped onto his shoulders, nearly pulling him off balance. Her gasp when his hands settled onto the globes of her ass, gripping tight, only fed the inferno of need inside him.
Hauling her up, he settled her above his cock, groaning in relief when her legs tightened like a vise around his hips. The tiny part of him that worried she wasn’t with him for this fell silent. She was with him. She was nearly ahead of him, her hips rocking, seeking. One kiss might as well have been a stick of dynamite for both of them.
That was the last thought he was able to complete.
Her back found the wall and the kiss broke, but not the passion. The jarring shift of her body to the wall lowered her, the wet lips of her sex enveloping the ti
p of his cock in an erotic slide that sent lightning bolts right up into his brain. He grabbed her arms, pulling them open until he could grasp her wrists and hold them up against the wall. The position left them balanced precariously, staring at each other with flushed faces. Her eyes glittered at him, her lips parted for each panted breath. Each beat of his heart throbbed his cock incrementally deeper into her, but it wasn’t enough. Not yet.
With all his being, he wanted to slide home, but he waited, barely breathing, holding onto this moment for as long as he could. Savoring the devouring hunger that tore through him and the sweetness of her desire. She wanted him. Until she couldn’t think of anything but drawing him deeper into her pussy and allowing him to stake that claim. He could see it on her face, feel it in the thick dew coating his shaft. Nothing else mattered in those seconds but the fire building between them.
Except one thing…
“Kane,” she whispered, tightening her muscles around him as she shifted her hips to push him deeper. “Now Kane, I need you now.”
Who was he to keep her from what she needed? Hissing a breath, he sank into her heated depths. She surrounded him, her back arching to take him further.
In that single heartbeat, the storm broke.
Flattening himself to her, his skin on fire to feel her across as much of it as possible, he pounded into her. Wild cries filed the room like the steam, her hold so tight he didn’t know how he could possibly keep moving. She writhed, clamping him inside and out, but still he shafted into her.
The world might have ended, could have for all he cared, but he couldn’t stop. She came, those delicate muscles of hers rippling over him, again and again. Blindly, he sought her breast, licking the hard nipple before wrapping his mouth around it. He sucked hard, which made her hips buck in response. Changing his attention to the other, he found the same delightful reaction, only this time she cried out again.
That was all the invitation he needed.
Determined now to wring every last drop of pleasure from her, Kane peeled her legs—one at a time—from around his hips so he could palm her ass, her knees bending over his elbows. Holding the firm globes tight and her body as open as it could be, he took full advantage, driving into her and savoring every stroke. She levered herself forward, joining their mouths and tangling their tongues, while her pussy clamped around him again, just about blowing the top of his head.
He swore virulently in his mind, desperate to make it last, wanting to feel her around him forever. With each surge, he lost more of his tenuous control until finally, his vision went white and pleasure so strong it felt like pain burst through him from head to toe. He emptied himself into her, his face buried in the crook of her neck, reveling in the way she held him until the tremors stopped for both of them.
The water, still hot thanks to the miracle of hotel water heaters, poured around them, making the only sound apart from their slowly normalizing breathing. Delilah made no moves to separate from him and he had no desire to pull away either. Instead she ran her hands up and down his back, offering comfort of sorts.
“We’re in a lot of trouble, Kane.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?” Because nothing could possibly be bad after making love like that. It took him a second to come up with another option, one he should have considered as soon as he got up to follow her into the closet and certainly before he plowed the poor woman against the shower wall. “Shit, I’m sorry, Del. I didn’t even think about protection—”
“No, no, that’s not it. I get a regular depo shot. Craig didn’t want to risk me forgetting a pill.” Her lips turned sad, but her face still had the glow of a woman well satisfied and her eyes… Her eyes glittered with regret. “I mean we’re in trouble because no matter how good we are sexually, we can’t keep doing this until we find out for sure what happened last night. Even if we want to.”
She would never know how hard it was to pull back and drag his brain cells back together enough to think about what she was saying. There was hope in that “until” and even more in the “even if we want to”. Because he had every intention of making love to her again. Over and over again. Every chance he could get.
But he had to accept her limits or this would be over before it began.
“We should probably find some clothes then. Start retracing our steps. You’re right. We don’t know for sure if you really married me. That’s something I want to find out as soon as we can.” The sooner that was settled, the better. Anything else after that would either not matter or be just details to work out.
“That’s your priority? Not the money in the closet? Not how we both ended up with short term blackouts?” She pushed at his shoulders, making it clear she wanted to separate.
Snatching a kiss—one she responded to whether she liked it or not and that he liked a whole hell of a lot—he helped her find her feet, withdrawing from her with a small groan of fading pleasure.
When he looked down at her again, there was a definite frown on her swollen, well-kissed mouth. “You can’t keep doing that, Kane. I’m serious.”
“Pulling out? It wasn’t my idea, sweetheart. I’m all for—”
Her hand flattened across his mouth again while she rolled her eyes. “The kissing, you sex addict. You have to stop kissing me. Every time you do I feel like rolling over and handing you an engraved invitation for sex.”
He grinned and pulled her hand down. “I like engravings.”
“I’ll just bet you do, but as you can see, my lame excuse for morals gets a little too flexible where you’re concerned. I just… I want to be sure we’re not hurting anyone and right now, I’m worried we’re hurting a lot of people. Possibly ourselves, too.”
She looked so miserable he could only sigh as he caressed her jaw. His thumb traced the bottom of her lip. “First rule of life with me, Del. You will always be my priority. Period. Second rule? I’m going to do that every chance I get.” To punctuate his point, he dropped another slower, wetter kiss on her lips. He made sure she was soft and limp in his arms before he lifted his head again.
She struggled to frown at him but finally, she gave in and smiled. “I should have known you were going to be trouble the moment I met you.”
“Be honest now, Del,” he said, grinning at her because he couldn’t help it and because he knew she liked it. “You know you did.”
The blush on her cheeks rose up again, but all she did was smack him in the stomach before sidestepping him to reclaim the sponge.
Chapter Six
At first, Kane thought the whispering started because Delilah none-too-lightly knocking her head on their table at the breakfast buffet was bound to catch someone’s attention. But when she stopped, picking up her face to rub at the red mark on her forehead, he noticed the strange whispers from the guys three tables over only grew more excited.
He put them out of his mind, watching his wife—yes, he was going to call her that as often as possible and enjoy it while he could—try to arrange her ebony bangs over the spot that was only getting bigger for her efforts. How on earth she ever thought she’d be happy as Craig’s trophy wife, he didn’t know. She was too cute, too…well, not to put too fine a point on it, but goofy, for Craig’s sometimes uppity business circles. Throw in her penchant for sneaking classes at the Community college when she could find them at times that wouldn’t interfere with Craig’s ever shifting schedule and it was a match made in one-sided hell.
Truth was, if Craig hadn’t made friends with him and Jesse back in their early teens, odds were good Craig himself would be too uppity for Delilah. Sure, she was gorgeous, but she lacked the aloofness to be a society maven. Perfect poise was not in her skill set, thank God. She was funny, had knee jerk reactions and far too much personality spilling out of her at every turn to be anything less than the center of attention. Well, his attention, anyway.
So bemused, he watched her, if not completely grateful that they were out of the hotel room, then at least happy she hadn’t insisted on going
back to her family without at least trying to piece together what they’d done the night before.
Of course, getting them both downstairs had taken a little bit of work with no clothes they could go back out in. They had his wallet, at least, which he found in the pocket of his coat and her phone, which had apparently been shoved into a silk pouch along with makeup and her driver’s license. No shoes, no hat—which sucked because dammit, he missed his hat—and no change of underwear. Other than that, the room didn’t yield much but a couple bags full of money.
But what a room it was, even for those faults.
While the two-story Honeymoon Suite in what turned out to in fact be the Crown Palace Casino wasn’t at all the kind of place he’d pick himself—rather doubted it was the kind of place Delilah would pick either—it was the kind of place that when you called from it to the front desk, they hopped to get you what you wanted almost before you finished asking for it. Within twenty minutes of hanging up, a selection of jeans, shirts and blouses had been delivered to their door. The undergarments were the only things he gave specific requests about and God bless them, the front desk came through in style.
When he’d handed her a stack, she took them without question, getting all the way to the stairs again before turning around, holding up a ridiculously small piece of pink silk by one finger.
If he had smiled, he’d had a feeling that the itty-bitty thong was going to get baled up and aimed at his head. Since he wanted her wearing them when that silk hit him in the face, he’d kept his expression as still as possible. He just wished the robe he had been wearing had done a little more to cover his reaction to her silent provocation.
“Let me guess, you’d buy your wife lingerie.”
At the prospect of buying her more, draping her in sensuality that he’d get to peel away with his fingers and lips and even his teeth, he could only clench his jaw and nod.
She’d eyed him for a long minute before turning and walking back up to the bedroom.