He pushed her flat on the bed, his arms caging her in, her legs wide as he stood between them.
“Fuck the money,” he said. “Do you know how much I earned the month you left me—September 2013?”
“Not relevant,” she said, mesmerized by the way he held himself above her, his body parallel to hers, none of it touching but she felt on fire. Her nerve endings remembered, and they wanted all that glorious sensation his mouth and hands and cock could deliver. It took all her willpower not to reach up and drag him down on top of her.
“Relevant as hell. Seventy-eight thousand four hundred fifty dollars, and that was just for two wins and a new sponsor. Not even residuals on ads or earnings from investments. And that was four years ago, when I was just starting to regularly place top ten a lot more. Hell of a lot’s changed since then.”
Sky stared. So much? She had no idea he could earn that much in a month.
“Did you not ever look at my stats online?” he demanded.
“No.” She’d been too busy looking at him. “Seemed a little stalkerish. And your draw was never the money for me.”
“Probably the only woman I’d believe saying that considering where and how you were living,” he muttered. Then his hot gaze skewered hers. “I wish to God you’d been more mercenary.”
“No. I’d hate that—staying with someone for money. It’s disgusting.”
Her dad had always flung his money and power in her mom’s face. Used it to intimidate her. To get his way. She was not walking down that path. She wanted them to be equals.
“Your money is your money. You work so hard and risk so much. I know you have financial and life goals that you want to meet. Montana and I are fine financially. You don’t need to make up for the years we were apart.”
Kane’s expression went tight again. “You really don’t get it do you?” He sounded equally pissed and astonished. “You really don’t understand where this is going.”
“Co-parenting,” she whispered, wanting him to know that she wasn’t going to shut him out and that when he was available on a break, he would have full access to his daughter. “But you don’t need to buy her love.”
“I’m not going to buy it. But I am going to fully support you and our daughter, and it’s not going to be in a falling-down bunkhouse with jury-rigged electrical.”
“It’s up to code,” Sky denied and glared at him. “Get off me.”
“You really want that, baby?”
“Yes.”
“Prove it.”
Before she could process that request, he pulled off the black bikini bottoms with his thumb and forefinger and dropped it on the floor. Still levered above her and naked, he leaned forward and breathed warm air on her tummy. Sky shivered as he pressed tiny kisses around her belly button. His tongue traced the path he kissed and dipped inside her navel. Sky nearly shot off the bed.
“You were always so sensitive,” he breathed against her skin. “You always got so slick, baby. All I had to do was look at you. All I had to do was start thinking about sex and you’d be ready.”
He caressed her tender and quivering flesh with the slight stubble of his chin and then kissed over the pink he created.
“Kane, we’re supposed to be talking, working things out.” As a protest, it failed utterly.
“This is another method of us talking,” he murmured, licking along her collarbone. Her breathing fractured. “I remember once I almost made you come just looking at you and talking about what I wanted to do to your breasts. Are you still so sensitive?”
She tangled one hand in his hair to pull him closer to her. And her legs wrapped around his narrow hips to pull him down to her. She sighed.
“Kane.” Her voice ached with desire.
With his teeth he pulled down her bandeau silver bikini top and sucked her nipple deep into his mouth. Sky pressed the back of her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming and maybe waking Montana. She arched into his mouth.
“Please,” she begged as his tongue laved her nipple into a tight, aching peak. After four years, her body came alive and burned like a flame.
“So, yes or no to sex, baby?”
She should say no. She tried to find the word in her vocabulary, but this was Kane, who’d routinely made her forget her own name.
“Yes,” she whispered, her orgasm already building, making her insides feel hot and achy. Deep inside the trembling started, and her breath sawed in and out. He kissed his way down her body, and then his hands gripped her hips.
“I wonder if you taste the same.”
But he didn’t move.
“Kane, hurry,” she urged.
“Say please.” He breathed warm air on her hot core. “Say now.” He kissed her dead center.
Her legs shook. It had been so long. She was melting when she’d thought she was done with hot sex. Since she’d left Kane and then had Montana, she hadn’t once desired sex with any men she’d met. She’d felt sexually dead. Still she made a grab for sanity.
“Not hearing what I want to hear, baby.” Kane kissed along the insides of her thighs. He traced something high on her inner thigh with his tongue. And then again over her glistening mound.
“Do you remember when I shaved you here in the shape of a heart?” He traced a heart so close to her clit that she whimpered. “All of your silky tight curls gone but a little heart. That turned me on so much.”
His fingers were along the folds of her slick lips and then he looked up at her, his body still between her legs. He licked his finger. “Your scent and taste always drove me crazy. Could never get enough.”
“Stop playing around.” She grabbed his head to anchor him where she wanted him to be.
He laughed. “You really should make me work for it a little more, Sky,” he said.
The words were a slap in the face by reality. She jerked away and scrambled to the head of the bed. That quickly Kane sat in front of her. His hand spanned her throat and tilted her face up to his.
“You stole my child. You took three years of her life from me, and I can never, never get that back. You can never give me that time back.”
His eyes glittered with an expression she’d never seen before, but it was so intense, she felt like he’d seared her with a welding torch.
“I know,” she said, taking his hand and curling her much smaller one around it. She brought his hand to her cheek and pressed it there. “I know. But you said that we had to move on from that.”
She kissed one knuckle, and then each one after.
“I don’t know if I can,” Kane admitted. His voice sounded tortured, and Sky felt like her heart started to bleed all over again. “I know I have to, but I’m not sure I can.”
“It will take time,” Sky said, feeling a stab of disappointment even as she told herself she should feel relief. “We should take our time getting to know each other again and figuring out what is the best course of action.”
“No. We get married. We raise her together.”
“Kane.” Sky stroked her fingers gently down his tortured face. “I know you think you want that, and I’m not saying no. I just think that you need time to come to terms with having a child, and I need time to…”
“What can you possibly need time for? You’ve had four years. Four years when I missed learning about our child, hearing our baby’s heartbeat at the first appointment, feeling her kick, watching her grow inside you, and then holding her when she was born. You had all of that without me.”
And she’d been terrified. But she couldn’t tell him that. He was tortured enough, but still his constant reminders stung.
“You need time to wrap your head around this,” she said knowing it was true. “And I need time to feel like I can trust you.” She felt the need to push back.
“Trust me?” he demanded, outraged. He practically launched himself off the bed. “What the fuck does that mean?”
He dragged on boxers and his workout shorts. Sky was not putting her wet suit back on,
and the cover-up was torn and a blatant reminder that a minute ago, they were about to start something quite different than a dissection of their relationship, which seemed pretty non-existent at the moment. She tried to tell herself it was good to get everything out in the open. To not fall back into sex. Kane handed her a soft hotel robe.
“Do you think I can’t keep it in my pants?” he insisted.
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you think it or you thought it then?” No mercy, he was back in her face again, leaning over the bed and pulling the robe closed and tying it tightly around her waist like she was going into battle. “You think I’d fuck other women even though we were married? You think I’d fuck another woman and then come home and climb into bed with you?”
“Stop saying that word.” Sky winced.
“That’s the word that works.”
She closed her eyes and dragged in a breath for calm or strength or wisdom for dealing with a righteously pissed-off male. She sucked at confrontation, always crept away, but that wouldn’t work with him. And it wouldn’t work for a parent, especially co-parenting with a strong, alpha male who didn’t have retreat in his vocabulary.
But her fears were valid.
“You have a lot of opportunities.” She nibbled on her lip. “Women used to hit on you when I was right there. All the time. It was…” She couldn’t even think of the right word, aggravating, humiliating, thrilling because he’d been momentarily hers. “Even this afternoon at the pool there was a group of three women who kept staring and whispering and watching you. You must have noticed.”
Kane made a dismissive sound through his teeth.
“I was swimming with my family. Why the hell am I going to notice what other women are doing? Do you think I need other women’s attention for validation?”
Put like that, it did seem ridiculous. Kane snapped, crackled and hummed with confidence. “And…and there are always so many pictures of you with women. That just got old and hard to take.” She wanted to get it all out in the open now.
“I told you that’s work.” Kane pushed away from her and leaned against the dresser, arms crossed. “We are often scheduled for autograph signings at the arena or at a sponsor’s business. We attend sponsor parties, and are expected to be friendly and pose for pictures. Part of the job,” he reiterated. “I am not expected to grab a woman’s tits, but they do shove them in my face sometimes, and I’ve had my ass felt up more times than even I can count when I have to suck it up and smile and be friendly when posing for photos. And sometimes sponsor’s wives or daughters or employees make it hella-awkward when they treat me like a piece of meat or a new sex toy they want to take for a spin, and I have to think of clever and kind ways to say no, so not buyin’ it, Sky. I can keep in in my pants.”
It sounded awful.
“I thought you liked all the social events.”
“I like meeting the kids,” he said. “And the families. But I like the sponsors because that means money. This is a short career, and I want to make the most of it and still be able to walk when I’m done so I ride hard, but pace myself. Keep healthy through diet, exercise, rest and luck.”
“But your reputation,” Sky said, loath to admit that she had followed him online, “that you would often leave a bar with more than one woman.”
He rolled his eyes. “Women get fired up and sometimes suck down one too many fruity cocktails or glasses of chardonnay at these events. I think to get their courage up. So I put them in a taxi, make sure they all get home and then catch the cab back to the hotel. Hardly going to announce to the other riders or the press that I’m a fucking Boy Scout in this business and didn’t get laid. The other riders would eat me alive.”
Sky pressed her hand against her mouth. Did she believe him? Did she dare? Somehow, thinking back about how sweet he’d been to her when they’d been kids, it sounded like something he’d do. And yet, she knew he’d been with a lot of women when he’d been younger. Her brother had bragged about how lucky Kane always got at parties even as he complained about it.
“But you’ve been with a lot of women.”
Something crossed his face that she didn’t recognize, but that made her nervous.
“What does that matter?” he dismissed. “This is about now.”
She wanted to ask if he’d cheated on her that summer, but didn’t quite have the nerve. She’d have to work up to that one. Would he be honest? Would she believe him? Could she trust him?
“But you prefer blondes with more…” She made a gesture with her hands. “I never knew what you were doing with me. And you would miss all that.”
He stared at her. “Are you fucking serious?”
Great. Now she’d just held up a neon sign about how insecure she’d been, probably still was.
“You were gone a lot. You kept me separate from a lot of the tour. I would see pictures of you online in publicity for the AEBR and other sites with a lot of women drinking and looking…” She spread out her hands not sure what words to use—hotter than she’d ever been for sure.
“There’s always an AEBR bar where a few of us are expected to show up. We take turns,” Kane said. “Bull riders have a reputation with women who think we’re sexy or bad boys or whatever fantasy they’ve got going.”
“You have all the answers,” she said. “So smooth and practiced.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She wished he didn’t look so absolutely beautiful and cut and masculine and like sex personified right now. It was not helping his case and made her believe he had helped himself to what had probably been offered freely and often.
“You’ve probably had this conversation with a lot of women.”
“No, Sky. Haven’t had to. This is a first.” Again the muscle ticked in his jaw. Her heart sank. She was handling him so badly.
“So all your girlfriends just believed you that you were some…what…choir boy and that you were faithful while you were out on the road and having your ass grabbed and cleavage shoved in your face.”
“I was out on the road riding bulls, and yeah, I was with women some nights, and no I was never faithful. There was never anyone to be faithful to except you. And…” He stalked toward her. “You. Left. Me.”
“You dropped me off. You never said anything but ‘see ya,’” Sky quoted bitterly. “You never said you’d call or text. You didn’t say you’d see me on a break or invite me to the finals or that you’d visit when the tour was over in October. You even stopped calling and texting, checking in like you used to.” She’d prayed for that, prayed for the secret to be taken away from her by force.
“I thought it was over.”
Now that she’d opened up this painful door to their past, she couldn’t shut up. “And that night when I was balling my eyes out flying across the country and worried that I was pregnant, you were at a bar ‘working.’” She used the hated air quotes. “Drinking shots off some woman’s breasts.”
She felt like her voice echoed off the walls. And then the silence hung like a dropped crystal vase just before the shatter. She couldn’t even look at him, and didn’t realize she was crying and making weird animal noises, until her hands came away wet. Pictures didn’t lie. He might say it was work, but that hadn’t looked like work, and even though he’d said the right things, she didn’t feel right with him or their past at all.
“You’re upset,” Kane said, stating the obvious in a voice that sounded far away. “Now’s probably a good time for that processing you wanted. I need to work out and a couple of hours apart will hopefully give us enough time so that we don’t say something we both regret.”
Too late. Sky had enough regrets for the entire city of Phoenix. Kane grabbed a T-shirt and tennis shoes, pocketed his key and left the room. She watched him go, clutching a pillow to her chest. Kane in full retreat. Never had a signal that she wasn’t going to like the answers to her questions and fears been more clear.
*
It
wasn’t the pounding headache after running flat out on the treadmill for nearly an hour. And it wasn’t pumping weights until the sweat dripped off him. It was fortuitously or improbably a Dixie Chicks song that sent him back to the hotel room. He’d taken out his earbuds and was stretching his hip flexors when the gym sound system played I’m Not Ready to Make Nice. He listened to the lyrics about forgiving but not forgetting.
That was it, wasn’t it? Was he or wasn’t he ready to make nice? He didn’t feel ready. Not at all. He wanted to punish Sky. She’d stolen a child they’d made. She’d claimed to have loved him, and he’d counted on that love. He’d needed that unconditional love. But she hadn’t trusted him. Hadn’t believed the best of him. Hadn’t thought he’d cut it as a father or a husband.
And as he lay back on the yoga mat and stared at the ceiling and really worked his hip flexors, he admitted it. She’d hurt him. Her lack of faith. Her frail love hurt. And the hurt had made him angry. He wanted to hold on to his anger like it was shield because it was easier than the hurt. But what would that accomplish?
What did he want?
Sky and Montana. That answer was crystal. He wanted the whole thing—the house, the damn white fence, Sky as his wife and three or four kids. Normal family. Loving. No drama. No secrets. That was the core. The ranch with his brothers would be a bonus. He’d always imagined setting up a business with Luke, and now there was Laird and Colt. He still wanted that, but Sky and Montana came first. And holding on to his anger and hurt was not going to get him what he wanted.
His anger would not give him back the time lost with Montana. Holding on to his hurt would not bring him closer to creating a family with Sky. She hadn’t trusted him, but she was at least reaching out, trying to bridge the massive gap between them. And him? He’d run away clutching his anger and his hurt, and his own past secrets close to his chest.
Kane (American Extreme Bull Riders Tour Book 6) Page 16