“No.” I didn’t know where the sudden ambush of memories had come from. It had been so out of the blue. I had almost forgotten about the dried rose for a while.
“What is it then? You look like someone just walked over your grave! Are you still rattled about this morning?”
Was I rattled about the gift that morning? Hell yes! Had I been thinking about it? Not directly. No. It was as if a switch had been flipped in my brain, not allowing the happiness I’d been feeling over the house purchase to take hold.
The memories felt so close to the surface. Memories I thought I’d dealt with but obviously couldn’t ever deal with until John was nothing but a memory.
The idea that he could be in the same city brought with it much alarm and trepidation. Until he was out of the picture, the anxiety would never ease.
“I’m sorry. I guess it’s bothered me more than I thought. The fact that I even have to think about that maniac is distressing enough, let alone not knowing if he may be here. Watching. Following.”
“Hey. Nothing is going to happen to you as long as I’m around.” His gentle hand caressed the side of my neck, his thumb feathering lightly over my jaw.
“How can you be so sure? I mean, really sure? You can’t protect me twenty-four hours a day.” It was true. No one could protect me around the clock. If John wanted me, he would find a way.
“We’ll work something out, I promise. I’m not going to let you get hurt. That is, if he’s even here. We don’t know that for certain.”
“He’s here. I just know it. If someone else had delivered that envelope on behalf of John that would mean it had to travel from Australia in a suitcase. You saw the envelope. It didn’t have a crease on it. He wrote my name on the front so it originally came from him.”
I knew I was right. It was as plain as day. John was toying with me. Waiting for the right moment to strike. There was no other explanation. Could Kyle really protect me?
“Let’s not talk about it for now. Please? I just want us to enjoy our lunch. Enjoy our time alone together without worrying about what might or might not happen. We have so much to celebrate. We’ve just brought a house! A home. Focus on that.” His hand had moved from the side of my neck to the back, where he pulled me closer until his lips were almost touching mine before he added. “Now, let’s eat our fish and chips.”
His lips softly touched mine, teasing and inviting, but they didn’t hover long. We were both hungry and the food would soon be cold.
I marveled at how Kyle’s simple words could lift my spirits. I licked my lips, tasting where his had been, and agreed to try and put all negative thoughts out of my mind again and just enjoy the day for what it was. I was safe with Kyle, not bleeding on my kitchen floor, teetering precariously between life and death. I should be counting my lucky stars and practicing gratitude. As long as I had Kyle’s love and devotion, I could fight my demons.
Digging into the deliciously crispy fries and fish, we stopped talking and ate like two horses.
In only moments, all that was left of lunch were a few crispy crumbs and some red puddles from the leftover ketchup.
Kyle lay on his back after we were finished, pulling me down beside him. He drew me in close. I nestled into his side, resting my head on his firm chest, listening to his even heartbeat.
“Let’s talk about our new house,” Kyle purred, kissing the top of my head. “Do you think you’ll be happy there?”
I propped up on an elbow, running my hand under his shirt, feeling his valleys and ridges.
“Hmmm. I don’t think you even need to ask that. As long as you’re with me, I’m happy. And Daniel too, of course!”
“Once we get settled, we can think about going to visit your folks if you want to.”
I sat up, looking at him with hope unfurling in my belly. “Really?”
“Sure. You didn’t get to see your dad because of what happened. I’m sure he’d love to see you. Plus, I’d like to meet them both.”
The idea of flying all that way didn’t appeal to me but I wanted more than anything to see my parents. “That would be great if we could all go together. Let’s maybe wait until after Christmas?”
“Of course. We’ll be tied up until then anyway.”
I pulled him in for a quick kiss. “You’re so good to me.”
He wiggled his eyebrows playfully. “Honey, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
“Oh really? Well, if what I’ve seen from you so far, is nothing, I can’t begin to imagine what’s coming.”
His thumb reached up to trace my bottom lip. Kyle licked his as his eyes moved to my mouth and then back up to my eyes. His pupils had enlarged, the atmosphere suddenly charged with lingering sexual tension from earlier.
***
“I could make love to you right here and now. It reminds me of our time on Sapphire Island.” His voice sounded so gravelly and intimate that I let myself go.
I kissed him frantically, touching his forehead before tracing the outline of his face. I needed to drown in him and forget everything else. “I know. I want you too. If we weren’t so exposed, I’d just rip your clothes off and kiss you all over.” It was whispered against his mouth.
In response his tongue plunged past my lips and filled my mouth, his groan vibrating through me. The passion was just as intense between us as it had been the first night we’d kissed. I ached for him and only felt complete when we were entwined together.
“Daniel will be finishing school soon,” I added, not wanting to stop but aware that time was our enemy.
Kyle glanced at his watch, pointing out that there was no hurry. “We still have around sixty minutes.”
“I want longer than sixty minutes.”
His hand was under my shirt cupping my breast, kneading it into submission. “You sure?”
“No.” My body came alive at his caress. “I’m not sure of anything when you touch me like that. I think I’ll take what I can get, though.”
“Oh what I want to do to you right now. You should be inside my head at this moment.”
His greedy mouth stifled any more talk, taking my mouth with a fury that burned my insides and made me forget. No more nightmares today. No more negativity.
His thigh was in between my legs as he rolled on top so I could grind against him while he mauled my breasts with his adept fingers. Sand was in places it shouldn’t be. I was mindless with want. The very sound of his panting drove the thirst through me like a rabid beast.
“Pull your panties down. I can’t bear it any longer. I have to have you.” The sexy command out of his swollen, desirable lips was enough for me to fully surrender.
Briefly scanning the deserted beach, I inched down my panties under the pretty, floral A-line skirt and then I moved provocatively against him, tearing them down to my feet and then off. His hand instantly found my moist core as he inserted two fingers while making sure the skirt was hiding anything from anyone who might surprisingly appear on the beach.
A look of wonder on the cusp of a growl from Kyle had me smiling with glee. “Baby, you’ve shaved.”
“I was going to surprise you tonight but you just couldn’t wait. You like?”
A muscle in his jaw throbbed. “That is so damn hot! You feel so smooth and soft.” The two fingers now wiped the juices of my desire over my skin where the pubic hair had been before rubbing the sensitive spot that would bring me to orgasm.
Kyle grunted out an expletive, throwing his head back wildly in relinquished control.
“Undo my jeans and pull them down.” I stared at the man I loved whilst unzipping his fly. I could see staggering need in his eyes and in his open mouth, waiting and ready to take mine again.
Gently he lifted my hips so I could pull his jeans and boxers down to his knees. His erection sprang free, a sight to behold. A throbbing shaft of pleasure waiting for release.
Normally I would savor and taste him, taking my time, but there was too much urgency.
“Sit on me, beau
tiful girl. Pull your skirt around you so no one can see.” We rolled again.
Oh yes. This was what I had been waiting on. There was no asking twice. Looking around again with groggy eyes, not really caring if there was an audience or not, I impaled myself on him, taking him slowly and fully whilst fanning my skirt around us, enjoying the firmness of him that massaged the ache between my legs.
“Ahhh. Shit! You feel so ready.” Both hands were pulling me down closer, deeper. “I love you so much, angel.” His pet names for me included beautiful girl, angel, and baby. I adored them all.
“I love you too.” I satisfied his open mouth by breathing those words into it as my lips claimed his in a deep, tongue-locking kiss. We were all hands and mouths. He whispered dirty words as I increased my rhythm on top of him, drawing out until the tip of him was just touching me and then plunging down forcefully.
The excitement of being in a public place with a fear of being caught made the sex dangerously erotic. It was a first for me.
“I could do this all day. I love the feel of you. I love being inside you.” His breathless murmur rode the apex of a throaty groan.
His gentle stroking on my face with one hand was in stark contrast to the frenzied love-making.
“I’ll never get sick of this. Ever,” I exclaimed.
“You’ll never have to. I’m yours. I give you all that I have and all that I am.”
I locked on to Kyle’s hedonistic expression as I sat up to take more of his deep thrusts from below. He was watching me go wild on top of him, perky breasts jiggling under the blouse. He was a sight to behold, veins standing out in his neck, eyes heavy with lust, jaw tight.
I could no longer keep my eyes open as sensation seized me. Caught in my own pleasure I was on the cusp of an intense orgasm.
“Come for me, beautiful. Don’t hold back. Give me all of you.”
Give to him I did as waves of ferocious spasms shook me deeply, causing my back to arch in triumphant release. My toes curled as I tried to stifle a scream. It was hard to stay quiet with such powerful euphoria.
Kyle pulled me down and took my mouth so I could voice my pleasure into his, a fisted hand in my hair. I swallowed his throaty noises too, feeling him harden further. I knew he was so close. He pushed his hips off the sand as if to go deeper as he pulled my mouth away from his so he could almost roar his release, his body pushing again and again up into me as everything he had came spilling out inside, releasing all the pent up longing that had been building all day.
Each jerk of his hips was followed by sobs of sweet ecstasy, his head lifting and falling in time with his lower body.
“Fuck! Now that’s what I’m talking about!” He bit my earlobe gently before kissing his way back to my mouth, as our aftershocks still attacked both of us.
I could feel his heart, wild against mine.
“So good, baby.” He smiled breathlessly against my mouth before kissing the tip of my nose, his hands kneading my buttocks under the skirt. “And this ass is good enough to eat.”
I let out a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a mew, the sensation of him kneading my butt cheeks, pulling me in tighter to his still semi-hard length, distracting me.
Moving his hands around to the front of my skirt, I sat up, wondering what he was going to do next. He bunched my skirt up to view my shaved folds with him still fully sheathed deeply inside.
I could feel my cheeks boiling. “What are you doing?”
“Tattooing that into my mind! I want that vision in my head even when I’m sleeping.” His thumb gently rubbed the skin close to where I was still open to him. As his eyes crawled up to mine, I hissed at the emotion in his eyes. Was it awe? I couldn’t tell as I hadn’t seen that look before.
“Jesus! That’s an image I want imprinted forever. Look down, baby. Look at us. Like this. You wrapped around me so perfectly.”
Embarrassed, I lowered my eyes to where we were joined, feeling him twitch and harden more inside me. I could tell it pleasured him to watch me getting an eyeful and I must admit there was something so intimate about the vision, the fire that had simmered to an ember, began re-igniting.
“Unnnn…” It was all I could offer him by way of a response, feeling the need for friction.
“Undo the buttons on your blouse for me.”
I didn’t argue, wanting him to look at me with carnal fire. When the gentle breeze picked my blouse up, parting it to reveal my breasts, Kyle’s fingers started their assault on my still hard nipples. It was blessed torture. Pain and pleasure combined.
His eyes blazed as he sat up so that I was astride him and we were eye to eye. He pushed the hair back from my face. I wound my legs around him tightly as I nipped his bottom lip. “This is how I like it. Like this. I feel so full.”
“Don’t look away from me. I want to see every emotion you’ve got to give me, angel. I want to see what I do to you.”
I was a goner at his words. I was going to show this man just how much I idolized him. Ripping his tee shirt up and over his head, I clawed at his toned shoulders, licking my lips.
His right eye twitched at the gesture and I knew he was holding back his restraint. “You’re in control, angel, but if you keep licking your lips, I’m going to lose the last remaining ounce of willpower I have left.”
I grinned, loving it. All the while I was moving in circles on him as he was talking, watching him slowly come apart. I could tell he was having trouble keeping his eyes open when sensation gripped him, his breathing sharp. Jaw locked.
I continued the leisurely torture, drawing his pleasure from him at an agonizing pace, watching every muscle in his face react to my movement.
“Am I going too slow for you?” I teased, my thumb tracing his top lip as I slanted my head on an angle.
“Let’s just say I’m on the verge of rolling you over and showing you no mercy,” Kyle snarled.
I threw my head back and laughed fully, pushing my breasts out, feeling the sensation in my core as my body shook.
I squeezed my thighs hard and then brought my gaze back to Kyle’s. He looked like he had crossed the threshold into a dark, forbidden place, his glance laced with danger. Before I knew what had happened I was on my back, knees into my chest, Kyle’s elbows either side of my head, his face so close I could feel his warm, raspy breaths against my lips.
“You really shouldn’t have done that.”
Feigning innocence, I asked, “Done what?”
“Laugh while sitting on top of me and then clenching those sweet thighs so tightly around me.” His mouth found mine for a minute and I fed on his heated, ripe lips, whimpering into his mouth. Bliss had never felt so good.
Pulling away briefly, he sucked my ear and whispered, “Brace yourself.”
I grabbed onto both his shoulders, and with both legs tightly wrapped around his thighs there was nowhere I could go other than the stars.
With unrelenting drive he powered into me urgently. He hit the spot that needed to be reached in order to relieve the delicious ache. My voice came from a part of me beyond the barriers of pain I’d erected so long ago as I cried out his name, pushing the back of my head into the sand, not caring about anything except the sensation sweeping through me.
Kyle’s teeth were biting my neck in the erogenous zone that swept a wave of rapturous hunger deep into my center.
“I can’t hold on much longer, angel,” Kyle ground out as he pinched both nipples hard.
I rose up to meet every thrust, rubbing against him for extra stimulation.
Without warning, the tsunami ripped through me from the inside out, my body quaking violently. With another three hard pushes, Kyle detonated inside me, his hips jerking along with mine, our mouths locked together, tongue’s dancing.
It almost sounded like Kyle was in pain as he howled into my mouth while he rode his own wave of rapture, collapsing on top of me.
We basked in satiation and settled, cheek to cheek.
“Wow! I
don’t know where we just went but I’ll go there any time,” I gushed as I lifted Kyle’s head to look into his glazed eyes.
“To the stars and back, angel.” Kyle shone love brightly, he almost glowed.
I smiled, soaking up his emotion before realizing that we had to be somewhere. “We’d better get out of here and pick up Daniel. As much as I’d love to stay here all day, at some point someone is going to come down to the beach and suspect we’re not just cuddling.”
“I know. I’m surprised we’ve had no company so far.” Kyle’s grin was heart-stopping.
“I guess most people are working or at school.”
After pulling ourselves together and aligning our clothes, we walked arm in arm back to the car, still failing to see the Black Cherokee that was parked down the road.
Chapter Six
Kyle
As we left the quiet seaside hamlet to pick up Daniel, my cell rang. It was on hands free with my earpiece in so that the caller couldn’t be heard.
“Hi Kyle.”
“Hi Dad.”
“I’ve heard from Mike. He’s had the manager at your apartment complex email him the video footage of everyone who has entered the building in the last twenty-four hours. I have a copy here if you want to stop by after picking up Daniel. We can look at it together. See if Dakota recognizes anyone. I’ve already spoken to Cheryl and she insists you all stay for dinner.”
“Wow! That was fast. I wasn’t expecting to hear back from you so soon.”
“Yeah, well, Mike owes me a favor and was more than happy to help. He got a bit of grief from the apartment manager, but once Mike faxed through his credentials the guy was only too happy to oblige.”
“I really appreciate you doing this for me, Dad. Make sure you thank Mike too. We’ll be there around 3:30 and we’d love to stay for dinner.” I looked at Dakota, who had her eyebrows raised as if trying to piece together the conversation but failing miserably. “We’ll see you in a bit.”
“Okay son, bye.”
Saving Me (Finding You #3) Page 4