Rylan’s voice was murderous. “He’s lucky I don’t know where he lives.”
“I could tell you,” she said weakly. If it would get Rylan to come to New York, he could beat up as many asshole ex-boyfriends as he pleased.
“Don’t tempt me.”
She bit her lip. “When I found out he was cheating on me . . .”
Rylan’s huffed-out breath was almost a growl.
And it was that—his fury on her behalf—that gave her the strength to tell him the rest. “There was this part of me that was ready to forgive him, because it was probably my fault.” She’d been bad in bed, not attentive enough. Not good enough for him. “Until I remembered, until I realized . . .”
It was all hitting her again. A dizzying kind of pain and a stab of regret.
Rylan stroked her hair, patient. He was always so patient with her.
“It was the same damn thing that had happened to my mom.”
Her crazy, wonderful, amazing mother, who had given up her own dreams to put her husband through school. To raise a daughter who’d come too young, and she’d never complained. Not until . . .
“My dad did the same thing, only it was so much worse.” He was so much worse.
The tiny insults and the idea he’d given them both that they’d be lost without him. Scatterbrained creative types who always messed things up. Who made him so angry sometimes . . .
But they’d stood strong. He’d gone on to some other woman, and they’d been just fine all on their own.
Kate hadn’t learned her lesson, though.
“After I found out about Aaron, I called my mom, crying, and she reminded me how guys just . . . change sometimes. They start out great and then there’s this whole dark ugly other side to them.”
It had been like turning on a light. She could suddenly see all the little ways she’d been broken down over the year she and Aaron had spent together. She’d dumped him the very next day, swearing she’d never let the wool be pulled over her eyes again. Her self-esteem might have taken another beating, but she’d promised herself it was the last time she ever accepted so little from a man.
And then Rylan had come along. He’d shown her what she’d been missing.
“My dad did it to my mother, and Aaron did it to me. They started out so nice and then they turned into these assholes, and I . . .” She could say this out loud. Thanks to Rylan, she could. “I deserve better.”
She’d found it. Right here.
But Rylan’s throat bobbed, and his hands went still, the little caressing motions he’d been making against her spine suddenly stopping. For a long moment he said nothing, and she sat there.
Bare for him the way that he had been for her that afternoon. And waiting. Waiting . . .
He sucked in a long breath, then let her go, his gaze burning as he took her face between his hands and kissed her. Her cheeks and her brow and her eyes and finally, finally her mouth. Drawing back he swore, “You do. You deserve the best.” He hugged her again, and it was the warmest embrace she’d ever known.
For what felt like forever, she shook in his arms, letting him soak up the old, lingering hurt that had been weighing her down for so long. He murmured vague apologies into her hair, and she let him.
She felt more warm—more loved, sitting there, naked and held by a veritable stranger than she had in her entire time with Aaron. Maybe her entire life.
“You know what?” she said, once she’d gotten her breath back.
“What?”
“I wish it had been you.” Christ, she did. “That you’d been my first. That you’d shown me how—how incredible it could be.”
How differently would things have gone with Aaron, with that random one-night stand, if she had known? Would there even have been anyone else? If she could’ve had Rylan first? If he’d pushed away all the damage her father had done with careful hands and kind words.
If she could have kept him?
He made a little shhing sound, stroking his hand up and down the bare stretch of her spine.
She buried her face against his neck. “You just—you make me feel really safe, you know?”
Like she could let go. Like she could touch and be touched.
Like she was worth it.
“Yeah,” he said, clutching her close. “I know.”
Aiming the remote at the TV, Rylan clicked the volume down to almost nothing. For the past half hour, he’d been slowly softening his voice as he narrated the romance taking place in French across the screen. But Kate’s breaths had finally evened out. As the television went quiet, she snuggled in closer but otherwise didn’t stir.
He left the screen on as he lay there with her. The pale blue light washed across her skin, making her face seem to glow. Her head was resting on his shoulder, her hair soft between his fingers. Beneath the sheet, all of her nakedness was pressed to all of this.
And he didn’t deserve this. Not the tiniest fraction of it. His heart squeezed, and he had to pull his hand back from her hair, had to cover his mouth with his fist to keep the grunt of distress from falling from his lips.
This whole time, he’d been sitting around, feeling morally superior to the jackasses who had dared to touch her and not make her come. God. When she’d told him the rest of the story, it had felt like the floor was falling out from underneath him.
Like the moment when his father had been subpoenaed. When Rylan’s eyes had been opened.
He was just like his father in so many ways. Since birth, people had been telling him that. Every step of the way, he’d been groomed to fill the old man’s shoes, and it had chafed. The path that had been laid out for him, each decision he should’ve gotten to make on his own already predetermined. But it had been worth it. His father was a paragon, a monument, everything a man could hope to be. Everything Rylan was supposed to be.
When Kate had talked about her dad, her ex, those men who had seemed to be so good and who had turned out to be dark and ugly . . .
That day in his father’s office, when the doors had burst open and the agents had filed in.
Dark and ugly. Those words didn’t even begin to explain it.
Suddenly, all his father’s faults had been laid out. His charm was his philandering, his business sense his greed. Aggression turned to cruelty and callousness, and Rylan had seen them all. He’d seen them in himself.
When Kate saw them in Rylan. When she found out who he’d been in line to become . . .
His lungs squeezed so hard he could scarcely breathe.
When she found out he’d been lying to her all along.
He bit down into his knuckle, trying to force the bile back into his throat.
Rylan hadn’t lied to Kate. Not once had he said something explicitly untrue. But that wouldn’t save him. He was just as bad as her asshole of an ex, as her dad. The ones who’d made her look at a man who was extending his hand and believe he was a threat.
Rylan was that threat. He was a liar.
And he hated himself even more than he had before.
A shiver ran through him. Kate shifted, and he froze. All she did was slide her knee across his thigh, though, letting her hand rest higher on his chest.
She trusted him.
Fuck. He curled his hands up into fists, digging his nails into the meat of his palms, but it didn’t help. A good man would wake her up right now and tell her everything. He’d let her make her own decisions. He’d watch her walk away.
And Rylan just . . . couldn’t. Her face would crumple, and it would kill him. She’d been so skittish when she’d met him, and the idea of putting that fear in her eyes again made him want to take every single thing back. Every word and every touch. And he would never do that. Not in a million years.
What was he supposed to do?
Except be as good to her as he could.
They only had another couple of days, and if he could keep his conscience quiet, he could spend those days with her. He could shower her with all the affection and
care she deserved. Then at the end of it, she’d go, and she would never have to know. She could keep some kind of faith that maybe there was a guy out there who wouldn’t screw her over.
He couldn’t decide if it was the most selfish plan or the most selfless one he’d ever had.
Her body gave another little restless twitch, and his heart ached. But he didn’t wake her. He didn’t let the confessions welling up inside his chest pour out.
His decision had been made.
He’d do what he had to do. He’d stay quiet, and he’d adore her the best he could. He wouldn’t hurt her. Not any more than he had to.
Picking up the remote again, he turned the television off, bathing them both in darkness. With a murmur, she turned over, and he followed, fitting his front to the curve of her spine. He buried his face against her hair and wrapped her up inside his arms, closing his eyes and breathing her in.
But sleep didn’t come to him for a long, long time.
chapter TWENTY
Rylan blinked his eyes open to an early morning glow seeping in through the curtains. Blearily, he closed his eyes again. He’d never been good at getting back to sleep, but if he could just roll over and kick his feet free from the covers, he might be able to.
Beside him, Kate gave a soft moan, and just like that, a layer of fog cleared from his mind. The two of them were still spooned up together, though by some mercy, he’d managed to end up with a few inches of air separating his dick from her ass. Not that it helped much. She was sleep-warm and slack against his chest, their fingers intertwined beside her head, her breasts pressed softly to his forearm where it draped across her ribs.
His morning arousal gave a little kick, and he shifted his knees forward, sliding his shin against the back of her calf. Her skin was so smooth, felt so good against his own.
His guilt from the night before crowded in on him, though. He closed his eyes and fought the tide of want pulsing through his veins. He started to tug his arm back, but she stirred, humming and squeezing his hand. He swallowed, ready to pull away when she half turned over and snugged her ass against his hips.
Lightning flooded through him.
“Kate,” he groaned, and it was strained even to his ears. He extricated his hand from hers and gripped her hip, trying to keep her still. Not pressing forward, no matter how much he was dying to, just in case she wasn’t okay with this when she woke the rest of the way up.
“Hmm?”
God. She was still moving against him, probably completely unaware of what she was doing.
His voice came out raspy and low. “You’re killing me.” He tried to scoot away, but to no avail.
Fuck this. He shook her this time. She was all pliant and warm, stretching her arms and craning her neck and feeling so fucking sexy against him he could hardly handle it.
And then all at once she froze.
Yeah. That wasn’t a gun pressed to her rear.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, releasing his grip. Maybe she’d let him get away from her now. He could go rub one out in the bathroom. Or maybe take a cold shower. Something to keep him from losing his fucking mind with how much he wanted her.
From taking something he didn’t deserve.
“No.” She sounded more awake now. Reaching back, she curled a hand around his thigh, preventing him from going anywhere, and goddammit all. He wasn’t made of stone.
He wrapped his arm back around her, stroking the underside of her breast and mouthing at the smooth skin of her shoulder. “Baby.” He shook his head in warning. “You’re playing with fire here.”
“You haven’t burned me yet.”
She had no idea.
He squeezed her tight, fighting against the instinct to roll his hips, but it was a losing battle.
Sliding her hand higher up his leg, she pushed into his touch, and he gave up. He cupped her breast. Let himself enjoy the soft flesh pressed all along the length of him. She made a little contented sound and craned her neck. Lifting up, he caught her lips, kissing her deep and wet. She tasted like sleep and sex, and she was moving with the gentle rocking of his hips now, rubbing her thighs together.
And he’d come to a resolution last night. He’d decided to keep the status quo intact, keep all the ways he’d misled her to himself, and there’d been a good reason for it. Sure, it gave him two more days to enjoy all the light she shone into his life. But it let her hold on to this as a good memory, too. It afforded him another chance to treat her with all the care and kindness she deserved.
He could do that. He could take this pleasure for himself. And give it back to her every way he knew how.
He closed his eyes. Dropped his voice even lower as he succumbed. “Are you wet for me?”
Her only answer was a breathy whine and a shifting of her legs, and yeah. Every time he’d spoken to her like that, she’d squirmed and acted all uncertain about it, but her body’d never had any doubts at all.
Growling, he scraped his teeth against her neck. “Guess I’ll have to find out for myself.”
With one last tweak of her nipple, he slipped his hand down, over the smooth plane of her abdomen to the tops of her thighs, and to that soft, sweet place between.
“Oh, baby,” he groaned, turning his face into the pillow. “You’re soaked. Were you having naughty dreams?”
“Maybe.”
What he would give to see inside her head. Barring that, he slipped his fingers over slick flesh, dipping two just inside to get them nice and wet before sliding them up to tease at her clit. She squeezed his hip, digging her nails in.
“Feel good?”
“Yeah.” She moved against him, thighs parting for his exploration, teeth scraping against his bottom lip. “Do you have another condom?”
He had a whole box. Pulling his hand away from her cunt, he grabbed her wrist. Put her own fingers right where his had been, because that was okay. She had to remember that she could do that. “Keep yourself warm for me.”
She must have been pretty far gone or still a little bit asleep, because there wasn’t any of the reluctance from the other night. She just curled in on herself, the motions of her fingers on her flesh sounding soft and wet in the quiet room, and fuck. He could stay there, listening and watching—maybe tasting—all day.
He huffed out a breath and tore himself away. The rest of the condoms were where he’d left them in the pocket of his bag. He tore one off from the strip and opened it up. Wrapping a hand around himself, he gave a few rough tugs at his cock before rolling the latex on, then stalked back to the bed to wrap himself around her.
She hadn’t stopped touching herself. He was dying to get inside, but he made himself slow down. With his knee, he nudged her top leg forward, making more space for him to get at all that sweetness. He ran his fingers along hers, through the slickness and across her clit, then down. She took two fingers easily, clenching around them, tight but not too tight. Wet and unbearably hot.
“Can I?” he asked.
“Yeah, God. Come on.”
Fuck, she was close already, and what a change that was from the first night. It made a warmth that had nothing to do with sex burn through his rib cage. She was so open now, so trusting. So willing to let him see her pleasure.
It was beautiful.
He drew his hand away, reaching between them to grab a hold of himself and guide his tip into place. He groaned aloud at the easy slide into her body, and it punched a noise out of her that made him even more desperate for it. When he was all the way in, he wrapped his arm around her and bit down hard at the meat of her shoulder.
“You feel so good,” he managed.
“So do you.” She moved to shift her hand away, and he shook his head.
He grasped her wrist before she could get too far, bringing her fingers back to the place where they were joined. “No. Don’t stop.”
“But you’re—” She honestly sounded confused.
“Fucking you,” he finished for her. “Yeah, believe me, I know.”
“So . . .”
“So keep touching yourself.”
“You don’t want to . . .”
He wasn’t sure where she was going with that, but he shook his head all the same. “I want to fuck you while you finger that sweet little clit. Can you do that for me, Kate?”
The moan that wrung from her was a twisted mix of mortification and arousal, and it made him start to rock his hips, unable to resist the temptation to move within her. Even those short strokes had him clutching her tighter, and yeah. He wanted her mad for it. He wanted her to remember this.
“Can you?” he asked again. “Can you make yourself come on my cock?”
“Yeah.” It was high-pitched breath of a word.
And it was all he needed to hear.
He drew back farther this time before driving back in, running his hand up and down her side. He’d always loved having sex spooned together like this—the proximity and the heat of it, all the access it afforded to a girl’s clit and tits.
Here in the dim light of dawn, in this bed, with this girl, it felt even more intimate. Having to stay wrapped up tight against her back matched his mood in selfish ways. He wanted to be close. Wanted the freedom to touch her skin and kiss her ears and shoulders and neck. He wanted to give her the best sex she’d ever had, so she’d never be afraid of it again. He wanted to give her everything.
A haze of slick wanting and motion blurred his vision as he sped his hips. It was a mix of technique and instinct, and the way she seemed to bring out the best in him. He blanked his mind to the crescendo of sensation, holding out, trying to push her over.
She panted when he rubbed her nipple between his fingertips, and it only got louder when he dragged his hand up to her face and ran his thumb across her lips. It was dirty and perfect, and he pressed the pad of his finger between her teeth, only to have her suck on it hard.
“Oh, that’s beautiful,” he murmured. He tugged free of her mouth and rubbed wet fingers across the peak of her breast.
Seven Nights To Surrender Page 21