“Oh god,” she moaned. “You’re so damn thick.” Which was, of course, completely the wrong thing to say if she didn’t want to set him off.
His hands moved so fast she was barely able to track them. They descended to her hips. His hands gripped her flesh hard, the fingers digging in wickedly. He began to force her to move, no, not force, to teach her how to move. Her body was an eager student and it was only a second before she was swaying back and forth, gyrating, riding him in every sense of the word.
Her hands flew out to brace herself on his rock hard chest. She rose up slowly, at the guidance of his hands, and sunk down just as slowly, taking his pulsing thickness all the way inside again. She could feel the way her muscles closed around him, held him tight. Shards of white hot pleasure rocked her body. The heat that flared up and sizzled between them stole her breath. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead and rolled down her temples, her hair soaking it up. She bit her bottom lip hard.
And then Kian’s hand moved and he found her clit.
He pressed the tight little bead, circling her as her hips rocked and bucked. She was moving up and down with a molten force that drove her from the inside out. She rose up and slammed down hard, taking all of him so very deep inside of her, inside places she didn’t even know were there. And god, it felt good. It felt so fucking good.
She barely registered the fact that Kian’s hips were moving too. He was thrusting in time with the grinding of her hips, his breath coming in short, rapid bursts just like her own.
She kept going, driving towards something unforeseen, the spending peak of bliss… when she stepped off of it, the climax was shattering. It shook her, wrung her out, ripped through her body and left her numb and aching.
She threw her head back and screamed something unintelligible, words that were no words at all, just the sound of wicked, hot pleasure.
When Kian moved it was so swift and catlike, she didn’t even process the fact that her world was somehow changed. He’d flipped her as easily as if she weighed nothing at all, onto her back. He rose up on arms that rippled with straining muscle. She smelled his sweat, his desperation, the acrid tang of a male who wanted her with everything he possessed.
His thrusts were hard and hot, unmerciful even. She loved it. She took everything and craved more. She locked her legs around his waist and dug her heels into his thighs, pushing him on, begging him with small, tiny whispers torn from her throat, begging him for more.
The second orgasm was stronger than the first. It consumed her, cleansed her, shattered her in ways she didn’t know were possible.
She shook and shivered and was only dimly aware Kian’s body leaving hers as he pulled out and the warm rush that followed. He shook above her, trembled in her arms, the tremors matching hers.
When he rolled away, he didn’t take her with him. He left her like that, staring up at the ceiling, the black spots slowly fading from her vision as she crashed back to earth.
Katelyn felt the chill air of the room for the first time since she’d stepped into it. She felt strangely bereft and wished Kian would have wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. She turned her face and stared at him, but he wouldn’t look at her. He too looked up at the ceiling.
When the words came, she half expected them, the complete and utter shutdown. “I need you to leave.”
What did I expect? Some kind of rosy endearments? We just needed each other… that was it. It wasn’t anything more than that. A guy like Kian had ‘fucked up’ written all over him. She’d been through enough of her own troubles to recognize a man who was even deeper in than she’d ever been. He’d saved her, in more ways than one, given her what he could, and that should count for something.
Unfortunately his words still hurt like hell.
“Is that before or after I wipe this off of me?” She didn’t mean the words to be bitter but they were. She couldn’t look at him, but she imaged he winced.
He moved swiftly, getting up. The bed rose when his weight lifted off. She waited while he walked out of the room and appeared a minute later, with a towel in his hand. He roughly scrubbed the cold pool off her belly and upper thighs.
It was the most unromantic thing she’d ever had done to her yet her skin burned. Her heart hurt, but her body wanted more. She craved him with the desperation of wanting something that had literally been torn from her grasp. She wanted him and it was utterly clear that no matter what he’d thought beforehand, he wasn’t equipped to deal with the onslaught of feelings after.
Because he was a gentleman of sorts, Kian passed her the clothes she’d discarded earlier. He shrugged into his own and turned his back while she got dressed.
He stayed that way, facing the window, pretending to look out of closed blinds, seeing nothing at all, so she spoke to his back.
“I’m fine with a one night stand. I’m fine with whatever this was. Honestly I am. I just wish I wouldn’t have thought it was going to be different.”
She didn’t need to wait around and listen to his answer. What was there to say to someone after you pretty much left their foolish heart torn wide open?
Chapter 13
A Master of Evasion
Kian
It was hard to believe that a week could pass by so quickly, yet drag on so slowly at the same time. He’d always been a master of evasion. It was no problem for him to drive right up to his condo at the end of the night. He told himself it was no big deal that his condo adjoined Katelyn’s, a woman he tried very hard not to think about. It didn’t help that her wide blue eyes played through his mind in all his unaware moments. Her name stayed with him, a slow caress throughout his day when he didn’t need it most. Hell, he didn’t need it at all.
She was a distraction. What he’d done had crossed a thousand lines. She was a good woman. Her life, probably nearly perfect now that he’d removed her son of a bitch ex-husband from it, didn’t hold room for a guy like him. No, she’d obviously dealt with her fair share of fucked up men. She didn’t need him in the picture.
He hadn’t been rude or hurtful when he’d asked her to leave, at least not as rude or hurtful as he could have been, but his actions had the effect all the same. He’d heard it echoing in her voice, that twinge of sadness and regret.
Would she have regretted it if I hadn’t asked her to leave? He couldn’t go there. He couldn’t open up that can of whatever the hell it was. He needed to keep himself distant. Distance was the only way to be sure his own brand of poison never leached into other peoples lives.
“Hey, boss… Kian… Kian?” The sharp rap on the open door to the staff room brought his head up so sharply a shooting pain rocketed through his neck.
He raised a hand to rub away the prickly sensation as he faced the wide eyed stare of his receptionist. Heather had that exasperated look on her face she sometimes got when she was sick and tired of putting up with him. He snapped to and realized that she must have stood there for a while, calling his name while he was buried deep inside his own mind.
It wasn’t the first time and it probably wouldn’t be the last, but it was still damn well embarrassing.
“Uhhh, sorry,” he mumbled. He ran a hand through his dark hair absently, hardly aware at all that he’d done it. “What were you saying?”
Heather sighed, but it was a gentle sound. The lines on her forehead smoothed out. It shocked Kian a little to realize it was worry in her eyes, not anger. “I was just coming to tell you that your appointment for tomorrow canceled.”
Kian rolled his eyes. “Looks like I’m either getting a day off and I’m keeping a deposit or one lucky client gets bumped on the waist list and I keep the guy’s deposit.”
“Well on the bright side, he left six hundred dollars so that’s a nice pick up for your wasted time. I’ll see if I can get someone to fill up the spot. I’m sure someone will jump at the chance to get their work done earlier or maybe a new client will come in.”
“Thanks for letting me know, Heather, I know y
ou’ll do your best.”
“No problem. I have to take off half an hour early today. Is that alright?”
Kian nodded. “Yes, for sure. Thanks again.” Heather left and he was alone again in the staff room. An open sketch book sat in his lap.
He picked up the pencil that had rolled in towards his black t-shirt and gripped it in his fingers. He turned it over a few times, utterly useless, before he set it down with a hard sigh. There was zero inspiration coming to him and the page was empty.
Fuck. There weren’t many days he couldn’t lose himself in drawing. It was his go-to escape. That and whiskey, but drawing didn’t leave him with a hell of a hangover the next morning.
Unbidden, an image of Katelyn’s face swam through his mind. She was beautiful, even with that bruise on her cheek and the welt on her forehead. Her body was glorious. She’d been so alive under his hands. Worse, she’d made him feel something. She hadn’t just cracked through his walls, she’d smashed them completely. Her tender touch did something to him. Something he feared. He thought sex could be just sex, but he’d realized far too late that it couldn’t be that way with her.
He hadn’t meant to give her part of his soul, but it happened anyway.
God, he was afraid what would happen if he saw her again. It was enough that she haunted his every waking moment. He even dreamed of her. While her image kept the nightmares at bay, as well as the memories he’d rather keep buried deep down, he felt oddly wounded. Like he’d been cut open and she’d dug herself deep, left a scar that wasn’t going to disappear anytime soon.
He thought briefly about putting his condo up for sale and moving, like the coward he was. That way he could leave Katelyn behind. She’d be just another ghost inside his chest, inside his mind.
Annoyed, Kian picked up his pencil. He sketched out an angry outline of a woman’s face. A gypsy. Except that the face shape was dangerously close to Katelyn’s.
His growl of frustration ripped through the room. It was followed up by the crash of his sketchbook as he flung it in a fury to the other side of the room.
Great. Like I need to be any more fucked up than I already am? One night with her, no, a few hours with her and I’m already worse off than I was.
He thought she was an angel, but he was wrong. She was just yet another ghost, another version of a heartache and pain that he didn’t need. He couldn’t get through it again. His fear held him captive. He knew that and he’d been perfectly fine with it until he saw her face. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready for the flood that she was, the way she buffeted and broke him, shattered through, shone light on all the dark spots that he’d rather keep hidden away.
He just wasn’t ready and oddly enough, the thought of staying away, of pushing her away, hurt just as much as the fear of letting her in.
Chapter 14
Good Judgment
Katelyn
Good judgment wasn’t always her strong suit.
She knew that for a fact when she started following Kian’s shop on social media. She’d done a quick search and it gave her only a few hits for Miami. Kian Boychuck. She’d had to creep him just to learn his last name. She also found out that he owned a tattoo shop. It figured, given the amount of ink the guy had all over him.
And here she thought he was a biker. If he was in a gang, he did it in his spare time and it wasn’t the kind of thing that surfaced in a quick internet search.
She’d left it at that. For a day.
And then, because she couldn’t help herself, because she was hopelessly drawn to him, because she’d always been absolute shit at picking who she was and wasn’t attracted to, she creeped him.
She checked his shop’s page once a day, just briefly, when she got off work. She’d never wanted a tattoo in her life until she’d browsed through Kian’s portfolio and then, suddenly, she had a craving for the first ink in her life.
A loud meow echoed through her creeping. Katelyn slammed down her phone guiltily on the kitchen counter and stared at Missy, who was anxiously awaiting her dinner. “Sorry, honey. I’m getting there.”
She moved faster after that, serving up a plate of soft food. Missy purred happily, rubbed her legs once and dove in. Katelyn breathed a sigh of relief. She’d tried a new kind of food, one she hoped Missy wouldn’t turn her nose up at. It would probably work. At least for the first few times Missy ate it. After the third or fourth try, she might not get so lucky.
Because she couldn’t help herself, pathetic as it was, Katelyn flipped her phone back on and resumed her browsing. She scrolled through the shop’s feed for a day. There was a picture of a cat tattoo she really liked. It was on some girl’s thigh. It wasn’t done by Kian. It looked mighty painful. She didn’t think she could hack it, getting a tattoo. It seemed like a badass thing to do and that just wasn’t her.
She kept scrolling and her heart stopped. Posted that afternoon was a white background with simple, bold black writing. It stated that Kian had an opening. For the next day. She glanced quickly at the comments, noting there weren’t any. Two shares. That was it.
The instructions said to email the shop to claim the appointment.
Katelyn shut off her phone quickly and slammed it back on the counter. She was lucky she had a protective covering on it or she might have done some real damage. Missy didn’t even glance up from her food dish. Katelyn stood there in the middle of her kitchen, frozen in place. Her heart hammered wildly in her chest.
Stop it. This is insane.
Her body thrummed with life, with some wild, crazy energy she’d never felt before. Or at least, she hadn’t felt it before Kian touched her.
She’d tried so very hard not to recall that sensation. That feeling like she was finally free, like she was where she was meant to be. Like she’d finally found a place that was safe after so many years of searching. She’d just felt like it was so incredibly right. She’d been just about to tell him how she felt, though it didn’t make any sense and she was sure it would scare him as much as it scared her, and then, bam! He’d up and asked her to leave.
So. Fucking. Romantic.
Katelyn debated with herself. She imagined Kian’s hands, running over her skin, leaving a permanent mark on her. The thought made her shiver. He’d already marked her. He’d taught her that it was possible to find bliss again. No, not again. To find real bliss, true feeling, for the first time in her life.
Another violent shiver raced up her spine.
Before she knew what she was doing, before she’d fully thought it through or, more like, had time to convince herself that it was a terrible idea, she snatched her phone off the counter. Her screen lit up and brought her right back to where she’d left off. She scrolled to the top of the shop’s page and hit the message button. Her fingers flew, typing a message she knew she’d regret in the morning. Or for the rest of her life. Tattoos were more permanent that most of the mistakes she’d made.
Hand shaking, she fired off the message. She waited, her breath raspy and strained in the small kitchen.
She stayed like that for long moments. Just as she was about to set down her phone, a little blop sound alerted her to the fact that she’d received a message.
Her eyes fast tracked to the screen. She let out a little gasp of surprise. The message was from the shop receptionist, informing her that she’d book her in for the appointment. She was asking if she had a drawing in mind or an idea. The sitting was only four hours long so it would have to be an appropriately sized piece or existing work.
Katelyn closed her eyes. I need to tell her I’m sorry but I’m going to change my mind. That I can’t go. That I’m insane. Anything, tell her anything that will cancel that sitting.
Her fingers moved as though some bizarre life force animated them. Something other than her brain, which was permanently frozen, set to panic mode, just like the rest of her internal organs.
She typed a response. Said she wanted a cat tattoo. She’d bring some ideas. She hoped that was alright.
<
br /> The response was so fast it surprised her. The receptionist confirmed she was good to go for one the next afternoon.
It took her another few long, loaded minutes just to set down her phone. Her hand felt like a claw. Her skin felt cold and clammy and she was pretty sure the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up straight.
She’d never done anything like this in her life. Never forced another person to see her or touch her when they’d made it pretty clear they didn’t want to. Except… it was something about the way Kian said it when he’d made her leave. Like he didn’t truly want to.
Even I should know better than this.
Her appointment already set, she had bigger things to worry about than figuring out where the lapse in judgment had come from. Why was she pursing a man she should very well leave alone? Kian reminded her of a bear, a bear that shouldn’t be poked. He was all wild masculinity and a ball of pain wrapped up in a very fine outer layer that would make someone’s granny faint.
Yes, she knew damn well she should leave him alone and that what she’d done was utter insanity. It didn’t stop her from grabbing up her phone, intent on finding a picture of Missy that would work and on figuring out how to reschedule her afternoon appointments.
Chapter 15
The Visitor
Kian
Of all the people who could have walked through his door the following afternoon, he sure as hell never expected it would be her. Katelyn. The name he’d tried so hard not to think, the face he’d purposely pushed to the recess of his mind, though it refused to remain there.
He was in the middle of setting up the room for his appointment. He hadn’t bothered to check the book since Heather informed him that morning that she’d filled his spot for one. The woman wanted a cat design. Said she’d bring it in. That was all he knew.
When he looked up and found Katelyn standing tentatively in his doorway, blue eyes wide with shy apprehension, fear even, he nearly jumped right out of his skin.
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