“Kane.” She covered his hands. “There’s only been you for me. Just you.”
“I hated that I was jealous. It’s an ugly and unacceptable trait, but I…”
“Stop.” She kissed his mouth fiercely, and then withdrew, but her eyes were nearly purple with intensity. “It was always you for me. No one else. Not then. Not now. Not ever. Just you.” Her voice trembled.
And this was when he should tell her the rest. His past that rode him so hard. His anger. The sorrow that yawned inside him, hungry for more of his soul. But everything bottled in his throat. Choked him. Made him weak and ashamed. Habits were hard to break, and silence was the hardest.
Fighting the tremble in his hand, Kane unwrapped the towel from her hair and it tumbled down over her shoulders. Sky stared blankly at some unseen point in front of her, and after hesitating for a moment, wrestling with his conscience, Kane got up and retrieved her hairbrush from the bathroom.
He sat cross-legged behind her and began to brush, smoothing the brush through her hair in long, gentle strokes. He continued to brush long after the thick, dark mass hung like a silky curtain down her back. She sighed her pleasure, and his fingers ached to take over. He remembered the slide of her hair through his fingers. His cock remembered how her hair would glide across him when she’d kiss her way down his body, or massage him or rub arnica into his bruises, or suck him dry.
Fuck! Why’d he think about that now? Why couldn’t he brush Sky’s hair without thinking about all the ways he’d had her or she’d had him? They had done a lot of other things that hadn’t involved sex—hiking, dancing, swimming, visiting art galleries, concerts, even a Cajun cooking class in New Orleans. But after all of those had been mind-blowing, body-melting sweaty marathon sex that would leave him charged up and hungry for more. He needed a cool head and finesse. Not his overeager cock charged up by memories.
Sky’s breathing hitched, and his cock stirred. That had always been an invitation before—the way her eyes would darken to indigo, almost glowing, and her breathing would catch in her throat. His brother Luke would have handled this situation better, although maybe not. Luke had definitely acted like a crazed drunken bear when he and his now wife Tanner had had a fight at Montana’s Copper Mountain Rodeo last September, and she’d run out on him. There’d been no reasoning with his usually unflappable brother until Tanner had settled down enough to listen to Luke’s explanation and forgive him.
And now they were married, expecting twins. He wanted that. Marriage. Sky pregnant. He just needed to get through this shitty part. She’d said she’d loved him that summer so many times. He just had to get her there again. Keep her there.
But how if he weren’t going to use sex?
“Thank you.” Sky’s whisper sent a shiver down his spine that went straight to his cock. He was an animal, all instinct and lust when he had to stay in his frontal lobe. He stood up quickly to return the hairbrush, but Shy caught his hand. He didn’t dare turn around. He wasn’t just tenting the boxers, he pointed out of them like his dick was a compass needle. He should probably jerk off so he could let her asleep or talk more if she wanted. He needed to corral his brain to form words instead of images of him and Sky busy on the bed.
She traced the lines on his palm, and his eyes shut as he let the sensations skitter through his body. Then her palm was to his, lightly skimming in a circle, back and forth.
“Sky,” he choked out, wanting to tell her that he was already at the end of his rope, and then she sucked one finger into the hot, wet paradise of her mouth.
Every cell in his body leapt toward hers, and he swore under his breath. He saw his T-shirt fall on the ground next to him. She was naked. On the bed. How the hell was he supposed to not act on that? Think pure thoughts? He hadn’t had a pure thought around Sky since she’d turned sixteen. Even then he’d known it was wrong when she’d been so young. He’d told his imagination and his cock to shut the fuck up, and he’d mostly stayed away from her limiting contact to texts until her brother, his best friend, had died. Then he’d checked in with her more often, even visiting as if to prove that he could look and talk and not touch. And he’d broken his no-touch rule the minute she’d slid across his truck seat and hooked one arm around his neck and breathed his name at a drive-in movie he’d taken her to as an old-fashioned lark. They hadn’t even stayed long enough for the damn thing to start.
Sky licked the length of his finger and then around, mimicking an act far more potent, but Kane was already so aroused he was leaking. Sky’s other hand reached around his hip and gripped him, and he gave up trying to pretend he could resist her.
Her thumb smeared the little bead of moisture. Heat and desire crashed through him shutting down his last struggling thoughts.
“I know we need to talk,” Sky said, her grip firm as she pumped him slowly.
“Later,” he growled but made a last grab for sanity. “I promise.”
He covered her, caging her body with his elbows, keeping his full weight off her.
She tilted her chin for a kiss, but he held himself just out of reach.
“My way,” he said letting her see that he meant it. Already her thighs had parted, cradling him like four years hadn’t passed. “Everything my way.”
“Kane,” she whispered looping her arms around his shoulders.
He slid down her body and she arched against him. Her gasp was music to him. He nuzzled his way across the small scar low on her abdomen that she’d showed him. He nipped the line with his lips. Sky cried out and writhed against him, trying to get closer, connect them.
“You haven’t answered. My way.”
He waited at her entrance, mouth close, hands on her hips.
“You. Don’t. Play. Fair,” she gasped grapping his hand, and trying to move it to where she wanted it most.
“Not playing here, Sky. My way. Say it.”
“Your way,” she agreed.
He was a dick because she sounded dazed and desperate and probably didn’t know what she was agreeing to. Tough. He was beyond desperate to have her. To get past the giant, enormous roadblock she and he had erected between them. He needed to push past his anger and hurt and her distrust and fear. He just needed to hold on until the bell.
Chapter Twelve
Sky nearly launched off the bed when Kane went down on her. It was like being picked up by a ten-foot wave and tossed up into the air, spinning head over heels and then plunging down into churning water. She pressed her fist against her mouth to keep from screaming. She’d always been embarrassed that she was loud during sex, but Kane had loved it. Encouraged her. He’d claim he wanted people to hit the walls and tell them to tone it down.
“Just lets everyone know how good I am in bed,” he’d teased, when she’d blushed once when a hotel guest had banged on their door one night when they’d barely been able to make into the room. They hadn’t been able to wait to take off clothes or get to the bed before Kane had pushed her up against the door, rolled on a condom, picked her up and sheathed himself in her body. “And out of it,” he added, probably trying to make her laugh at his arrogance.
Good hadn’t begun to cover Kane’s skill sets, especially those of a horizontal nature, and she didn’t need to think about how many women he’d done this with since, but clearly he’d had lots of additional practice or her memory had really been lax.
The first orgasm hit and Kane continued to crank her higher through to the next one.
She gripped his shoulders with her thighs as he nipped her clit and then soothed over it with his tongue, over and over, until she felt the build again. She needed him inside her now. Right now. She grabbed his hair and pulled, trying to give him the message that she needed more. A lot more.
“Get a condom,” she said, trying to wiggle further under him and pull him up on her body even more. She should have known that was useless. Kane was six foot one and all honed muscle.
“My way,” he reminded her, looking up at her, his middle finger
circling her clit while two other fingers stroked. His eyes gleamed like hot metal. “You agreed.”
Had she agreed? Being this close to his fire and not jumping in? Impossible. She would have said anything to be able to touch him again, have him. But he did kiss his way up to her breasts, and as his teeth teased them to aching attention, he scissored his fingers deep inside her slick channel.
“God, Kane, more,” Sky chanted. “More, more, more.”
“You feel so perfect. So tight and perfect.” He groaned the words as he laved each one of her nipples while his fingers moved in and out of her.
Sky wanted faster. Harder. She needed it.
“These are so perfect Sky. Mine. Beautiful.” He laved one nipple with his tongue and then sucked it deep into his mouth.
“Not sure I’m going to share them with the next baby.” Sky could barely hear him through the blood racing through her body. She ground against his hand, and then let go of his hair and then his shoulders so that she could grab his ass to pull him on top of her exactly where she needed him. When had he become such a talker? She wanted action, and Kane had always been on board with hard, fast and dirty action.
He’d only talked to tell her what to do, and she’d loved how he’d been so bossy in bed or wherever they happened to be. She’d loved to make him lose control and curse and give up trying to get home and pull over wherever, whenever. It had been the only time she felt confident with him, equal.
She wrapped her legs around his narrow hips.
“We don’t have forever,” she whispered kissing her way along his jaw and then nipping him hard enough to get his attention.
“I want forever.” He cradled her face in his palm. “Forever with you, Sky.”
Sky stilled under him.
“I want you to give that to me.” His eyes searched hers.
Sky felt like she stood on a precipice, a waterfall running under her feet, mist rising up to claim her, hiding how far the fall was. All this time he’d been demanding, taking. Now he asked.
“Okay,” she said. She had no other choice. She couldn’t imagine her life without him anymore and didn’t want to.
“Please, Kane, please,” she said, cupping his hard jaw and reaching up to kiss his lips. It was a tender kiss, laced with passion. “Please, now. I need you.”
He bowed his head, eyes closed, and then when he looked up at her, she saw something she’d never seen before, something she didn’t dare name, but she felt like for the first time since she’d watched him walk away all those years ago, they’d connected at the level she’d so desperately craved.
He angled his erection at her entrance, teased her by rubbing against her clit and her hot, wet entrance.
“Kane.” She caught his hips. “Condoms.”
He hung his head, breathed in deeply. “You make me forget my own name.”
“Hurry,” she urged. He leaned over the bed and snagged the strap of his duffel bag and dragged it to him. He pulled out a condom. Sky took it, ripped the wrapper with her teeth and rolled it on him.
Kane hissed in a breath. He sheathed himself in one deep stroke. Sky stiffened and had to bite back a yelp.
“Did I hurt you?” Kane froze in place but caught her face between his palms. “Sky?”
“Sooo perfect,” she whispered finally enough in control of her body to speak. “More. Please, Kane, I need more. You have to move. Harder. Deeper,” she ordered or begged, practically shaking with desire. Her hands threaded through his hair, and for a moment, they just stared at each other in the golden light heralding the pending evening.
“I missed you,” she breathed shakily.
He kissed one temple and then the other. He pulled back a little so she was forced to look into his eyes.
“We’re getting married, Sky. We’re going to be a family.”
This time, his statement shot a thrill through her. Two days with Kane and now she couldn’t picture her life without him. She knew there were many things they needed to sort out, but right now she didn’t care. She just wanted to burn with Kane, and when he began to move in that familiar rhythm that she matched instinctively, Sky felt she could soar. She could be anybody she wanted if she had Kane by her side.
*
Sky draped across his chest. Her hair hid her face. His breathing had finally calmed down, and his heart rate was near normal, but he felt drained. Wasn’t sure how he felt—where they went now.
Forward.
“Sky, I’m sorry.” He decided that even though he wanted to take a nap—he’d had little sleep last night since Sky had woken him up every two hours, and his headache today had duked it out with his dark thoughts and churning emotions—he needed to ensure Sky was on board with the plan tomorrow.
“Why?” she asked sleepily, rolling over to prop herself up on his chest.
“I didn’t know about your parents. I didn’t know that you felt like you didn’t belong,” he said.
“Nobody knew,” Sky said. “My parents were very social with their church, with my father’s law firm, with the private school where my brother and I went, and I bet no one suspected.”
“Still, Sky, we were friends. We were lovers. You gave your heart and your body to me. I should have taken better care of you. I should have known.”
“I know you are a kick-ass bull rider,” she said, tracing something on his skin, with a finger. “Are you psychic, too?”
He’d forgotten that his sweet, shy girl had teased him when they were alone.
“I should have trusted you enough to let you in all the way, but it was such a habit by then, such a way of thinking that I wasn’t…” She broke off.
“Wasn’t what?”
“Lovable.”
“Sky.” Kane gathered her close. “You are lovable.” But even as he said that, he knew he’d never told her he’d loved her. She’d said it so many times to him, but never once had he looked her in the eye and committed to her beyond the next day and definitely not the future.
She’d needed something from him he’d been reluctant—damn, unable—to give her. And why? Because he had his own demons taunting him on both shoulders.
“So we start again,” Kane said, determined. “Honest. Open with each other this time.”
“You want to do that?” She leaned up so that she could put fists on his chest and rest her chin there. “Can you do that a real partnership?” she asked. “It’s not like you talked much about your feelings or your family. You mentioned Luke, and we watched him at a few rodeos in California and in Colorado, but you rarely talked about your mother or father. If you want me to feel safe with you, you need to feel safe with me.”
Kane rolled away from her and threw an arm over his eyes. He couldn’t hear her breathe while the seconds tick off on his massive watch.
“Like you, I didn’t know who my father was, not really until I was six or seven. I’d never had a dad. I thought Luke and I had the same dad. But when I was six and started school I was really smart and the school couldn’t handle me or challenge me. That’s when my mom started trying harder to get financial support from my biological father. She’d tried before. He was wealthy and connected, but as I got older, she was more motivated. She wanted to send me to a better school. He wanted to pretend I didn’t exist.”
Sky trailed her fingers up and down his arm, her touch soothing.
“He was from a very wealthy family, and when she’d had the affair, she hadn’t known he was married and already had three daughters. He didn’t want his wife to find out he’d cheated. He didn’t want his daughters to realize they had a brother. He had three blonde blue-eyed princess daughters. No way would I have fit in, but my mom thought that me being a son would change his mind. A lot of my childhood was colored by my mom trying to get him to acknowledge me by stalking and ambushing him with me as co-conspirator and then later, when he got the police involved, she got help from legal aid to take him to court. He had a lot of influence so she hit a lot of walls, until later, but by
then it was too late. I didn’t want him, his money or his influence to pave my way.”
“What about your other brothers? Where do they come in?”
“You want all the dirt?”
“Is it dirt?”
Sky pressed herself against his side. Her fingers stroked through his hair. His eyes drifted shut.
“Do you want a pain pill?”
“No. I don’t like to use anything unless I really can’t take it.”
She kissed one of his bruises, and then kissed a trail down his body. “I’m sure that has yet to happen, tough guy.”
“That feels good,” he said softly for the first time feeling the years and the heartache fall away if only for a moment.
“So the dirt?”
“Not dirt. Just life. Messy. Sad. My mom had a tough father. Abusive I think. She was a bit wild. Still is. Probably is manic-depressive, but she doesn’t like the medication. Tries to control everything with a naturopath. But she fell in love with a bull rider when she was fifteen. Got pregnant and ran away with him. He wanted to marry her so he was taking her back to the ranch in Marietta, Montana, to get her dad’s permission to marry her since she was a minor. It was Christmas Eve. He thought he timed it right, hoping for forgiveness. Instead they hit ice, and another car plowed into them. My mom nearly died, and was unconscious for weeks. The babies were delivered and adopted out. She never knew she was carrying twins. Her boyfriend was older and was given the choice of jail for sex with a minor or being deported. It took him a year to get back to her, and they ran away again and a year later had Luke.”
Sky’s eyes were dark with sympathy.
“So you didn’t know you had two other brothers until when?”
Kane sighed. “I met Colt and we figured it out at last year’s rodeo. Then Laird, his fraternal twin, at Christmas Eve last year. A miracle.”
Even he could hear the bitterness. She ran a finger over each of his eyebrows, and then down his nose. Traced his lips and he kissed the tip of her finger. He remembered this. Her sweetness. It hadn’t been all desperate and hungry coupling.
Kane (American Extreme Bull Riders Tour Book 6) Page 18