The Hottest Ticket in Town

by Kimberly Van Meter

  “Yes, ma’am,” Kane said with an exaggerated drawl that sent arousal coursing through her body. Once he was out of the room, she let out her breath in a whoosh as she sagged against the sink for a minute to catch her bearings. She’d plainly underestimated the raw, animal attraction still pulsing between her and Kane, even after all these years. Maybe it was stupid to share the same space together, even for a few days. It’d taken her a long time to get over Kane, although if her reaction to him was any indication, maybe she never had.

  7

  KANE STEPPED INTO the shower, his thoughts humming at a fine clip. His muscles ached, his head throbbed, but none of that seemed to matter. He wasn’t thinking straight—that much was evident by the fact that he wanted nothing more than to lift that cute country skirt and slide his cock so deep into that soft, willing flesh that his hands shook at being denied. Sure, he’d played it cool with Laci, but it’d taken everything in him not to give in to those lips, presented so sweetly for the taking.

  Hell, as bad ideas went, messing around with Laci ranked up there with the idea of a four-cylinder truck trying to pull a fifth wheel, but that didn’t stop him from picturing Laci’s pretty mouth doing pretty dirty things to his cock as he slid the soap over his body. Like a good soldier, his cock rose for duty and he wasn’t above palming it with a soft groan. Laci, Laci, Laci...what the hell are you doing to me? He shouldn’t want her—he’d left for a reason—but knowing that soda was bad didn’t stop millions of people from reaching for a bottle of sugary poison. That’s what Laci was—sweet, sugary poison.

  And damn, if he didn’t want a big ol’ gulp.

  But he was an adult. He could govern himself. Just because he wanted her so badly he couldn’t see straight didn’t mean he had to give in to that internal pressure. He could be friendly and keep his thoughts in the PG department. Well, he could try anyway. Keep it together, she’s only here for a few days and then it’s back to business as usual, he told himself as he finished.

  He toweled off and dressed in clean jeans before heading back to the kitchen, where he found Laci dishing up two slices of pizza and pulling a fresh beer from the fridge. She sure was pretty as a picture, he noted as he slid into the seat at the old dining room table. She’d swept her blond hair up in a messy ponytail so that a few tendrils escaped and curled in the summer heat and he licked his lips, not because the pizza was making his stomach growl but because he desperately wanted to taste the salt on her skin as he ran his mouth along the column of that beautiful neck. Did she still taste like rainbows and whispered promises the way she had at seventeen? What? Now you’re a damn poet? Eat your pizza before you do something stupid.

  Obeying the curt order in his head, he stuffed his mouth with a bite and grunted his approval, choosing to keep his gaze off Laci and on his plate, but as luck would have it, Laci was feeling chatty.

  “So tell me what you’ve been up to all this time,” she asked, making conversation as she bit into her own pizza, wiping her mouth with the corner of her hand like a true country girl, more interested in her food than social niceties.

  He bit back a laugh at how stupidly sexy he found that. Was everything she did sexy? Pretty much. He took another bite and answered around hot cheese, “Me and Rian own a business together in SoCal.”

  Her brow went up in interest. “Yeah? What kind of business?”

  Kane hesitated, not sure if he wanted to share personal details about his life, but then his mouth was moving before he could stop it. “We own a company called Elite Protection Services. We provide protection details for high-profile clients.”

  “High-profile? You mean, like celebrities?”

  “Yeah, a few. Some politicians, too.”

  “And what are you protecting them from?”

  Kane swigged his beer before answering, “Weirdos.”

  Laci nodded, murmuring wryly, “I could probably use a service like yours. Sometimes the fans get a little...touchy-feely.”

  He stopped, eyeing her. “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “It’s probably nothing but overzealous superfans, but sometimes...they scare me. One woman nearly ripped my dress off. Freaked me out.”

  “Did you prosecute?”

  “No, she was running off with a piece of my costume before Security could catch up to her. Somewhere out there is a woman with a handful of my sequined dress.” Her mouth lifted in a small, rueful smile. “My costume designer, Simone, nearly had a meltdown when she saw the damage. People don’t realize all the work that goes into hand-sewing those costumes.”

  He chewed a moment, then asked, “You mean that sparkly thing you were wearing earlier? Looked painted on. Hard to imagine it coming off at all.”

  “It’s tight,” she agreed. “But it has to be. When I’m onstage the lights are so damn hot that I about sweat off five pounds each set. If the costume isn’t tight, it’ll come right off and that’s not a show I’m willing to put on, if you know what I mean.”

  He forced a chuckle as his jeans tightened. Yeah, his cock wanted a front-row seat to that particular show. He did his best to shift his nuts without seeming obvious as he suggested the easiest solution to his mind. “Why don’t you just buy something off the rack and be done with it? Seems a lot less labor-intensive.”

  “I would, but Trent says that if you want to be a star, you have to act like a star.”

  “Trent sounds like an idiot. Who is he?”

  Laci cut him a short look. “He’s not an idiot, he’s my manager and he’s pretty damn smart. He’s gotten me booked for a sold-out tour, making me a nice payday.”

  “This the same guy who’s responsible for pushing you so hard that you collapsed in Memphis?” Her startled expression told him volumes. Now he’d just outed himself. He shrugged and lifted his beer bottle to his lips. “I heard something about it on the news. Can’t seem to switch the channels without news about some celebrity wiping their nose or falling over in a faint—you included.”

  Laci fell silent. Either she didn’t know what to say or she knew better than to argue a point she couldn’t win because he was right, but it gave him no satisfaction to know that some guy was pushing her so hard that her health was second priority to the almighty dollar. He leaned forward, pinning her with his gaze. “Listen, Laci, I don’t know the guy—maybe he’s a peach and he’s getting a bad rap—but my instincts tell me that I’ve seen his type before and he doesn’t care two shits about his clients, only that they make him money. You can do better than that. You need people who care about you, who will protect you from guys like that.”

  “Well, you don’t know what he’s done for me,” she countered, but with a lot less conviction than before. “He’s a smart businessman and a good guy,” she insisted with a little more force, as if trying to convince herself.

  What was he doing? He needed to keep things superficial. He wasn’t her babysitter or her protector. He shook his head, chuckling. “Whatever you have to tell yourself, sugar. It’s none of my business.” He rose and collected his plate. “Thanks for the pizza. Went down real good. The beer was a nice touch.”

  “I have a favor to ask,” Laci announced, joining him at the sink to wash the plates.

  “Yeah? Such as?”

  “I bought Cora a few new things for the kitchen. Can you go to Bleudell’s and pick them up tonight? They close at seven.”

  His gaze narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I bought some things I felt she needed...nothing big but a new fridge and stove.”

  “What makes you think Cora wants those things?”

  She bristled at his tone. “She’ll love it because it’s a gift from me, and look around, Kane, someone needs to lend a helping hand around here. Everything is falling apart.”

  “The Bradfords are prideful people. They aren’t gonna like you thro
wing charity their way.”

  “It’s not charity,” she retorted with a scowl. “How can you even suggest that I would feel that way about the Bradfords?”

  “Don’t get your feathers ruffled, I’m just saying that Cora and Warren are particular. The reason I’m here is because Warren didn’t want strangers poking around his ranch. And he certainly isn’t going to like the idea of someone coming in and just dumping new appliances on them without their consent.”

  Laci opened her mouth to protest but then thought better of it. She chewed her bottom lip, distressed. “I just wanted to do something nice for them, considering everything they’ve been going through,” she said.

  He couldn’t stay mad because he understood her motivation. Hell, he’d been cursing at the old farm equipment and had been half tempted to get a John Deere rep on the phone and start having some new equipment ordered, but he knew Warren would have a fit if he came home to find his beloved, rusty shit gone. “Your heart’s in the right place,” he told her gruffly. “I just don’t know if it’s going to go over the way you think it will.”

  “I made sure they were almost exactly the same, just newer,” she said, and he was impressed she’d thought of that.

  “Well, maybe it’ll be all right,” he said, giving in. Her relieved smile did weird things to his chest. In fact, he suddenly felt all warm and squishy. Either he was having a heart attack or he was going all gooey over the fact that Laci had graced him with one of those killer smiles that’d always done a number on him in the past. Frankly, he’d rather take the heart attack.

  “So you’ll go to Bleudell’s for me?” she asked hopefully, and he nodded, resigned to doing whatever she wanted because she seemed to have strange powers over his ever-loving mind. She shocked him when she leaned in and brushed a tiny kiss across his cheek, grinning like an angel with an agenda that he didn’t trust but couldn’t quite resist.

  “You shouldn’t start fires,” he warned her in a low tone even as he devoured her with his gaze. Her tiny top gave the barest peek of her navel and it was that tease that made him nearly drop to his knees and bury his face between her thighs. “You might get burned.”

  “I’m not afraid of a little heat,” Laci countered coyly, going from innocent angel to brazen seductress within a glance. “Are you?”

  With you? Yes. His arm snaked out to hook her around the waist, drawing her tightly against him. “You sure about that?”

  “It was just a kiss,” Laci murmured, her gaze fastening on his lips as she slid her tongue along her bottom lip.

  “Kisses lead to other things,” he reminded her, quickly losing the fight to turn her loose and squelch whatever was happening between them right now. “Don’t you remember?”

  Her breath caught and he smiled with knowing. Yeah, she remembered just fine. Good. He wanted her to remember. It wasn’t fair to be the only one getting burned by the scorching memories between them. “The hayloft,” she murmured, her mouth turning up in a sweet, shy smile. “And summer rain...”

  Wet and slippery with enough heat between them to evaporate the fat raindrops falling from the sky—yeah, sex in the rain had been hot.

  “And the pump house,” he reminded her, rewarded with a flash of intense arousal as the memory slammed into him. “The first time I tasted you.”

  Laci blushed but she nodded, her breath becoming shallow. “I think of that when I—” She stopped herself from continuing.

  He wanted to hear her say it. “When you what?” he prompted, his skin on fire as his brain practically screamed bad-idea-bad-idea-bad-idea.

  “When I touch myself.” Her gaze met his, bold and yet shy, and he knew he’d lost the battle of good sense.

  “Ohhhh, sweetheart, you shouldn’t have told me that,” he said with a strained chuckle because now it was on like Donkey Kong and there was no pulling that quarter back from the machine. Their fate was signed, sealed and delivered. Time to pay the postage due.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because now—” he scooped Laci into his arms, intent on one thing—putting his brand all over that soft, yielding skin of the one woman he’d never been able to forget “—by morning...you ain’t gonna be able to walk—and that’s a promise.”

  * * *

  OH GOD, THIS was actually happening. Not a dream, not a fantasy but actually Kane carrying her to the bedroom to strip her naked and make her change her religion. She ought to make him stop. She had less sense than a goose if she let Kane follow through with his promise but damn, if she wasn’t shaking with anticipation, just as anxious as he was to feel skin on skin—screw the consequences.

  Hadn’t that been her motto since bailing from the hospital? She hadn’t been thinking straight since her collapse, so why start now? Particularly when she couldn’t stand the thought of not feeling Kane inside her, so, yeah, asking Kane to put her down wasn’t going to happen. It’d been eleven years since she’d last seen Kane and an equal number of years since she’d felt him inside her... She wasn’t turning back. Not even if it meant she was making the biggest mistake of her life.

  8

  THE BEDSPRINGS PROTESTED and squealed when Kane tossed Laci to the bed, but she didn’t care if the whole world knew what they were up to. She giggled, remembering the last time, as kids, they’d done the dirty right there in that room—not counting the sleepy almost-sex they’d had that morning. “I thought you were going to have a heart attack the last time we did it in here.”

  “Yeah, visions of Warren kicking my scrawny ass out at the end of a shotgun wasn’t really a turn-on,” he growled, ripping his shirt from his body and tossing it to the floor.

  Her gaze lit up when she saw the ridges of muscle cording his abdomen, narrowing to a trim waist and firm hips, and she wasn’t above simply staring and salivating just a little at his male perfection. He popped the top button of his jeans and quickly shucked them from his legs, revealing he’d been going commando after the shower. His cock, thick and ready, sprang from a short nest of dark hair that she remembered very well, and she couldn’t wait to taste him in her mouth again. Of all the men she’d been with—not that there’d been a long list—Kane’s cock had been the one that she adored the most. Thick and long, with a spongy mushroom head that begged for the loving attention of an eager tongue, just seeing it again instantly made her wet and anxious to get the show on the road.

  “Get over here, Kane Dalton,” she demanded with a smile as he joined her on the bed, her fingers finding and curling around his ready erection. “You have the prettiest cock, you know that?” she murmured right before she pushed him onto his back and then, pausing a moment to pull her own clothes off, she closed her mouth over him, sucking the thick, fleshy head into her mouth and gripping the base while she reacquainted herself with his scent and taste. His immediate groan fueled her need into a frenzy and she lost herself to the pleasure of knowing that she still knew what drove Kane crazy.

  * * *

  KANE CLOSED HIS EYES, his hips straining against Laci’s clever mouth and tongue and he nearly lost his ability to hold back, but he wasn’t about to come in Laci’s mouth, not yet anyway. He wanted to be the one making her squirm, making her cry out and shake as she came and if he was going to make that happen, he needed to get her off him, right now.

  “Laci, Laci,” he said in a raspy moan as he pushed at her head to make her stop. But the little vixen knew exactly what she was doing and wasn’t interested in stopping. Pleasure tightened in a knot around his balls and he knew the end was imminent if he didn’t do something, but he was paralyzed with the overwhelming sensation of total sexual bliss as her hot mouth and nimble fingers worked him into a state of complete mind-shattering need. “S-stop, I’m gonna come!” he tried warning her, but her resultant giggle as she redoubled her efforts told him that was exactly what she wanted. Damn! So much for being the one i
n the driver’s seat!

  And then he came, hurtling hot jets of his seed straight down her lovely throat as she sucked him for all he was worth. Dizzying pleasure spun him out, sending him straight into heaven as his cock pulsed with each spurt that she eagerly swallowed until he was shaking and breathing heavy, and so sensitive that even her breath caused him to flinch. “Holy hell, girl” was all he could say after that epic blow job. If he’d been standing, he would’ve collapsed in a quivering pile of bones.

  But there was no rest for the wicked and he was ready to return the favor. Her smug smile was all the motivation he needed to grab her and toss her onto her back, her delighted laughter firing his blood in a way that smacked of more than just a hookup, but he pushed that aside. Right now, he wanted her taste on his tongue. He was going to make her come so hard that her bones melted. And that was a promise.

  * * *

  KANE HAD THE look of a sexual demon, ready to consume her with a single flick of his tongue, and she was ready to submit to whatever his appetite demanded. She shivered as he rained kisses down her trembling belly, pausing as he rimmed her belly button with the tip of his tongue, and then traveled south, teasing her with tiny nips against her hip bone and upper thighs. She was wet with need and desperate to feel him against her, but she already knew he was going to make her come just as she’d done for him. It was tit for tat in this game, but that was Kane’s way. Bring it on, baby!

  “Pretty proud of yourself, aren’t you?” he asked in a seductive tone as he lowered himself between her thighs, pushing apart her legs and baring her to his hungry gaze. Was there ever a man who’d made her feel so wanton, so desired, as Kane Dalton? God no. Just the simple sweep of his glance made her think of things that would make a hooker blush.

  She wanted to feel him inside her, helpless to stop the carnal destruction as it happened. He had the power to devastate her and she was willfully handing him the tools to do so, but she didn’t care.