“Come on, let’s get your little man home.”
I felt him in the doorway behind me.
His presence thick and potent and powerful. It surged into the room, a crashing wave, taking me whole.
It was late, close to one in the morning.
I’d been kneeling in the same spot on the floor beside Evan’s bed for the last three hours. Watching him sleep. Just . . . feeling the beat of his heart.
My amazing son, who’d fallen asleep on the way home from the hospital.
Kale had carried him in from the car and laid him in his bed. The way he’d done the night before.
Only this time, he’d stayed while I’d changed Evan into his pajamas, brought me hot tea when I’d refused to leave Evan’s side, and then paced my house for hours as if he were searching for a purpose when I knew he could already feel his purpose echoing from the floors.
Footsteps shuffled behind me, quiet and subdued, before the man knelt next to me. Fingers ran the length of my hair, massaging into my neck, as his nose pressed into the locks as he inhaled.
I shivered with the whisper at my ear, “You need to get some rest. You’re exhausted.”
I glanced back at him, gazing into the depths of those caring, kind eyes that glinted and shone in the muted light that glowed from the lamp on Evan’s nightstand. My mouth trembled, my lips soaked with the silent tears I could no longer hold back.
As if I was purging every negative thing from the day and casting up a million prayers of gratefulness at the same time. “I don’t know how to leave him after a day like today.”
We’d been assured he was fine.
Still, I felt chained to my son’s side. Unable to move.
Kale wrapped his strong arms around me, pulling my back to his chest. I could feel the thrum, thrum, thrum of his magnificent heart. The sound reverberating and seeping into me.
“Let me take care of you. Let me take care of him,” he murmured.
Shifting, he pushed to his feet, bringing me with him, sweeping me from the floor and cradling me in his arms.
I held on, sinking into the staunchest kind of security, and pressed my face up under his chin, feeling the warmth and the life. Inhaling the woodsy, masculine scent.
“I’ve got you,” he said for what had to be the hundredth time that day.
And I trusted that he did.
He carried me out of Evan’s room, through the house, and into my bedroom.
A room he’d never seen.
I could feel it when his sight landed on my massive bed, the heft of the breath that pressed from his lungs.
He moved through my room and set me down on one side. He didn’t say anything, just quietly worked through the buttons of my dress. Though this time it was different. This time, it was with care and deference.
He slowly lifted it over my head. Cool air skated my skin. His gaze swept over me, but there was no smirk. No tease.
He moved to my dresser and pulled open the top right door, as if he already knew what he was looking for. Silently, he moved back through the space, his hands winding the silky soft pink nightgown over my head, gliding it over my body where it barely landed at the top of my thighs.
Everything felt so intimate.
Our breaths and his touch and his care.
“Kale.”
I didn’t know what I was asking for.
He cupped the side of my face and ran his thumb along the hollow beneath my eye. “I know.”
He kissed my forehead once, twice, and then lifted my covers. “Get in, sweet girl.”
I sank back into the comfort.
Not just of my bed.
But the feeling that swam through my spirit. The promise that everything was going to be all right. He pulled the covers over me, and his fingertips danced across my cheek. “Sleep well, Hope.”
Exhausted, I slumped into the welcome of my pillow, my body relaxing beneath the blankets, only a fluttered breath before I was asleep.
I jolted awake to the silence. To the thick darkness of my room.
I reached over, switching on the lamp on my nightstand. I blinked, adjusting to the shadows before I pushed off the covers and slid from my bed.
Barefoot, I padded across the wooden floors. Drawn. Silently moving through the living room and back down the hall.
At Evan’s door, I paused.
Kale lay on the hard floor next to the bed, a pillow from the couch under his head and a tiny throw barely covering his torso, still in his shirt and jeans.
His arm was slung up onto Evan’s bed, his palm resting across my son’s heart.
And that feeling—that affection that compounded and churned and swelled—it burst.
I’d known this man was more.
Now I knew he was everything.
I tiptoed over to the side of Evan’s bed and gently ran my hand over my son’s forehead.
He sighed from the depths of his sleep.
Content and safe and perfect.
And Kale’s hand that was on Evan’s heart? I gathered it in mine and threaded my fingers through his. Those eyes popped open, twilight on the sea.
He looked up at me before he climbed to his towering height.
He followed me without a word.
Without a sound.
The only voice the energy that rumbled beneath our feet.
21
Kale
Silently, I followed behind her. Our footsteps subdued as we waded through the tension that climbed into the atmosphere, amplifying the closer we got to her room.
Energy lapped, mounting and building in the dense, dense air.
Severe.
Intense.
That storm I’d felt coming for weeks was suddenly overhead. Battering at the walls and howling at the windows.
Hope didn’t look back at me as she led me through the living room, her head bowed, her motions somehow deliberate. Like she was moving through honey.
The minutes set to slow. Like we didn’t have to rush.
But there was no doubt, no hesitation in her decision.
I could feel it galloping ahead of us. This girl already riding toward a divine destination.
Inviting me to join her.
Part of me screamed and raged, tearing at my insides, shouting at me to go. To tell her this was a horrible idea. It was four in the morning and our walls were down.
I needed to leave because I had no idea where this path was going to lead us, and if I hurt her, I wasn’t sure I’d make it through this time.
Because she brought every old feeling back. Ones I’d never thought I’d feel again. Then she multiplied it by something that was brand new. Bigger than anything I’d felt. Not once. Not ever.
Only her.
Blips of the day flashed through my mind. The girl blowing my mind. Confessing to her that I’d lost the first and only girl I’d ever loved. The sheer terror I’d felt over Evan. The fact I hadn’t been able to walk away when I’d brought them back here.
And I knew.
I knew.
I wanted to try.
God. I wanted to try. Hope’s breaths turned shallow when she guided me through the threshold of her doorway and into the dimmed, shadowy glow that clung to her bedroom.
Golden shadows and a lusty haze.
Just inside, she dropped my hand. Slowly, she swiveled around to face me, her chin lifting on a lurching breath. I saw the offering just as clearly as I heard the plea.
Her legs were bare beneath that tiny slip of a gown.
Every damned inch of me grew hard at the sight, my chest tightening and my dick thickening, begging at my jeans.
I shifted to quietly latch the door shut and flicked the lock.
The promise of it hit the room like a sonic boom.
I stepped forward, erasing the distance between us, my fingertips reaching out to flutter along the delicate column of her neck.
Her pulse thrummed an erratic, reckless beat. I trailed them back up, over the divot in her chin,
and ran them across the pout of those lush, full lips. “You are so beautiful, Hope. So beautiful that I think I have to be dreaming right now.”
“I need you, Kale,” she whispered across my fingertips.
It sent a spiral of need curling through me.
Lust.
Greed.
Possession.
“I need you,” she whispered again.
Every muscle in my stomach clenched when she stepped back and gathered the hem of her nightgown in her hands. Slowly, she peeled it over her body.
Exposing herself. Inch by delicious inch.
After tugging it over her head, she dropped it to the floor.
That mass of hair fell around her bare shoulders, caressing over her collarbones. Kissing her tits.
Pink, pert, pebbled nipples peeked through the long strands like the most brutal kind of tease.
Her belly flat and her waist narrow, hips flared and wide, thighs full.
Pussy covered by the same scrap of underwear that had earlier been on my floor.
That felt like a lifetime ago.
Like everything had changed. Like time had shifted and I no longer knew where I was.
A shudder took to my spine, lighting up my insides.
I ran the back of my knuckles across one peaked nipple.
She emitted a tiny moan.
“Is this what you need? You need me to touch you?”
She looked up at me. Baring herself. “I just need you. The only thing I need is you.”
“Hope,” I murmured, knowing exactly what this girl was saying.
Her heart and spirit soaring through the room.
Spinning around me.
Sucking me in.
I gripped her by the back of the head, my fingers splaying wide, drawing her to me.
I kissed her slowly. Deeply. Because right then, I got that this girl needed to be treated delicately.
Carefully.
That in her amazing strength, she was fragile and vulnerable, and she needed someone to hold her up. Treat her like a queen.
And I wanted to be him. That guy she said she saw when she looked at me. The guy who might make her better rather than destroy her a little more in the end.
“I need you,” she muttered again, a sigh against my lips.
“I need you, too, Hope. Fuck. I need you, too.”
There was so much in that statement. Things that burned in that cold, dark place. Impaling the numbness I’d surrendered it to.
Her light threatening to bring that dead place back to life.
My kiss was a slow claiming, as I backed her across her room until she butted against the bed. She didn’t hesitate to crawl on top.
Our breaths heaving into the dense air when we broke apart.
The girl watched me through the shadows that jumped and danced against her bedroom walls while I stood there, taking her in, all lush milky skin and fiery red hair and hopeful, trusting eyes.
So damned gorgeous where she rested on her elbows with her knees bent and feet planted on the bed.
Rocking softly.
Touch me.
Love me.
Protect me.
Body singing with the appeal.
“If I sleep with you, there won’t be any going back for me, Kale Bryant. Don’t make me fall in love with you.”
Another shudder ripped through me at the thought because the way she was looking at me promised it was already too late.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” I asked her, gritting my teeth, hands fisting in restraint.
“You already know my life is in turmoil.” Her words were wispy tendrils that left her sensuous mouth. “I hate that I’m dragging you into the middle of it, not knowing what’s going to happen. But if I’m sure of one thing? I’m sure of you.”
Heart clattering with her words, I tugged my shirt over my head and ticked through my fly, shoved down my jeans and underwear, shrugged them free of my feet.
Lust knotting my insides.
A needy sigh puffed from her lungs when she looked at me, those eyes wandering with a greedy awe as they roved over me. The girl doing her own claiming. Raking my chest. Moving down my abdomen, muscles flexing and bowing, taut with need.
Her attention dipped lower, those pink lips parting when she let her heated gaze trace over my cock.
I was hard.
So damned hard.
Harder than I’d ever been.
Because this felt different from anything I’d ever felt.
Her eyes flicked back up to mine, her words soft adoration. “How is it possible you’re standing there? You are magnificent, Kale Bryant. Better than any dream. Better than any fantasy. Inside and out.”
I didn’t know what it was about those words. But they crushed my reservations and made me forget any old devotion and any lingering fear.
Without thought, I was reaching down, fisting her underwear in my hands, dragging them down her gorgeous legs as I dipped over her to kiss at her belly.
She squirmed and sighed.
Body reaching for mine.
And I was wondering what it really meant to dream. To hold them and possess them and never give them up.
If she and Evan could possibly become the reason for mine.
Because my heart was careening in my chest, knocking at my ribs like some kind of beast when I climbed over her, when I made a spot for myself between her thighs.
Her pussy bare. Fire against my cock that barely kissed through the slick warmth of her lips. I hesitated for a second before she whispered, “I’m on the pill.”
I brushed my fingers through her hair, staring down at her. “Princess,” I murmured.
Her expression shifted, so soft and tender, voice sweet affection. “Hey, Cowboy.”
And fuck. I wanted to tell her I’d be her anything. Her cowboy or her knight when the only fucking thing I wanted was to be her hero.
She looped an arm around my neck, our chests pressed together, hearts beating wild against the other.
Little pants of anticipation escaped from her mouth.
“Are you ready for me?” I asked.
She blinked at me through the shadows, the fingertips of her free hand running the line of my jaw. “I think I’ve been ready for you my whole life.”
I grabbed the hand tracing my face, kissing her fingertips, her wrist, the inside of her forearm, hoping she knew that this meant something to me. That it was more. Then I hooked that arm around my neck, too. “Hold on to me, sweet girl.”
I edged back a fraction. Just enough that I could watch her while I began to tuck myself deep in the tight, clutching grasp of her body.
Her walls hugging my dick perfectly as I spread her.
Sweet, sweet heat.
“Fuck . . . Hope . . . baby.” It was all a guttural rasp from my mouth.
Heaven.
Didn’t think I’d ever touched on it until right then. Because she was warm and snug and felt a little too close to home. Like maybe this girl had been meant for me. Like right here . . . with her was exactly where I was supposed to be.
She sucked in a sharp gasp, and her chest arched into mine.
“Kale.” It was a shaky, unstable prayer.
Slipping my arms under her back, I gathered her tighter, wrapping her whole. Holding her as close as I could get her.
Our hearts battered against each other’s, almost frantically, and I swore, I could feel the beats catching time. “I know. I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” I told her.
And that energy—that feeling that had made me stumble the first time I’d caught the full impact of her face back at the bar—it combusted.
I should have known it that night that she had the power to change everything.
Because it spun the room and my head, licked through my veins, and knocked something loose inside me.
My spirit thrashed when it touched those dark places. Kindling and sparks.
Pushing up onto my hands, I pulled almost all the way o
ut, until the tip of my dick was just hanging on.
My eyes swept over her sweet, sweet body where she was laid out beneath me, and her knees hugged my hips eagerly. Her nails sinking into my back. “Kale.”
I pressed back into her heat.
Slow and sure.
Deep and promising.
Until I was filling her, the girl taking all of me the same way I was taking her.
Wholly.
“You are perfection. So goddamned perfect.”
She whimpered, her perfect tits jutting toward me as she arched.
Demanding more. Emotion thick as it washed across her gorgeous face.
My hips dragged out then surged forward.
Possessing.
I quickened with each thrust, and Hope met every one with the needy roll of her body. Her hips lifted from the bed to meet mine, my name a constant prayer from her lips.
I dropped back to my elbows, every inch of us pressed together because we no longer knew how to be apart.
I fucked her and consumed her and murmured her name. Kissed her mouth. Her neck, her jaw, her tits. My lips everywhere I could reach.
She whimpered and begged and moaned, nails scratching deep into my skin. Sinking in until we were a blur of rocks and moans and twined bodies.
And I wanted to make a million promises.
Promise it all.
Pleasure threatened at the base of my spine, my balls tightening as I drove deeper and madder and faster.
Hope grasped at my shoulders as her moans and pleas increased.
Until she was begging, “Please. Kale. Oh, God, I’m close . . . please.”
I edged back, pushing up onto a hand, giving myself a second to let the other smooth over her unforgettable face.
Then I dipped my thumb into the well of her mouth. She sucked it, tongue grazing the flesh, nearly sending me flying right then.
Tugging it free, I cupped her round, full breast and ran my thumb across her nipple.
She mewled a tiny plea.
Slowly, I dragged it down the valley of her stomach, winding her up, before I slipped it lower and against her clit.
I circled and flicked and teased as I climbed to my knees. The new position let me take her deeper.
And this time . . . I took her hard.
Her head rocked back on the mattress, and her hips lifted from the bed.
Fight for Me: The Complete Collection Page 54