My eyes pop open. “What?”
“You heard me.” His fingers leave my sex, and before I can recover, he turns me to face the post, forcing me to catch myself on the wooden surface. He pins me between it and him, his powerful hips bracing mine, and his hands slide around me, cupping my breasts, caressing my waist, my backside. Everywhere but that sweet spot between my thighs where he left me burning, and not for his fingers anymore, but for him.
“Don’t move,” he orders. “Not until I tell you to.”
But I do. I try to turn and he flattens his hand on my back. “Wait for me, sweetheart. Trust me.”
Trust me. Those are the words that undo me and slam me with realization. I need someone to trust and he needs to be trusted. I know why this is true for me but I do not know why it is true for him. “I do,” I whisper, meaning it. Right or wrong, I’ve gone too far with him to question what comes next.
He doesn’t immediately move away, and I can almost feel him riding a stormy wave of emotions, each one crashing against the walls he tries to erect to protect himself. Seconds tick by and his hand slowly glides down my back and disappears, leaving my skin tingling in its wake. The air shifts and he is no longer behind me, but I feel him everywhere, inside and out. His body. His lust. His heartache. I want to turn, but not because I do not trust him. Because pain cuts him deeply, and he bleeds, and bleeds some more. Suddenly, I am far less worried about what haunts me and more about what haunts him, and I want desperately, if only for tonight, to drive away his memories, his enemies.
There is a shuffle of clothing, and a promise of him undressing, followed by a tear of paper, a condom wrapper, and unbidden, no matter what I desire, what haunts me will not let go, thrusting into the past. I am stepping out of a giant sunken tub in a bathroom of cream and blue tiles. The bath was an escape, a way of comforting myself, and I don’t know why. I try to pull myself out of the memory, trying to just be with Kayden, but I go deeper instead.
The door opens and he bursts inside, stalking angrily toward me. He grabs my arm, the towel falling to my feet as he yanks my wet body against his perfect suit-clad body. “You disobeyed me again.”
Fear shoots through me. He knows. How does he know? “No. I—”
He turns me to face the tub and grabs my hands, wrapping them with some kind of rope. “What are you doing?”
I whirl around to face Kayden at the same moment he returns, naked, beautiful, everything about him power and s
ex. And safety. He is safe. My hands flatten on his chest. “I . . . trust you. I do. I just . . . waiting made my mind crazy and—”
His hands cover mine, concern darkening his stare. “A flashback?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, and I don’t want you to think I’m some sort of wilting flower you have to be careful with. I’m not, but—”
His fingers tangle in my hair, roughly, erotically. “You are the furthest thing from a wilting flower,” he declares, his mouth closing down on mine, and his kiss is not gentle. He does not treat me like that wilting flower. He is demanding. He is the wolf. And this is the part of him I want to know, the part he tames, but I want set free. And I am free with him.
I touch him, everywhere, anywhere, indulging in the best of the sins I can wish to commit tonight, his thick erection at my hip. And I do not hold back. I reach down and wrap it with my hand, feeling the pulse against my palm. He presses me against the post again, cupping my backside and lifting me. “I need to be inside you,” he rasps against my lips.
“Yes. Please.”
He balances me, pressing the thick head of his erection into my slick heat, and I feel the sweet stretch of my body as he enters me and pulls me down on top of him. And with him buried inside me, we are steady, unmoving, savoring the moment as our gazes connect in a collision of raw, dark emotions, one part mine and one part his. His arm wraps around me, hand flattening on my back, and he lifts me off the post, holding my weight, holding me. He molds me close, breathing with me, long seconds passing before we start to move. Slowly at first and then faster, he is pumping into me and I am grasping his shoulders, driving against him. Driving everything away but the feeling of him inside me. And he answers every need I have. Pumping harder. Faster. Giving me more when I want more. More of this. More of him. More of the escape.
And oh God, I can feel the ache in my sex, the promise of release. I do not want to come. Not yet. But Kayden feels so good, and I bury my face in his shoulder, holding on, barely aware of the moment he presses my back onto the mattress, the sweet weight of him settling over me. His hands cup my head and the pause comes, the moment when we don’t move, and just breathe together. And I can breathe again. Because of him.
“Kayden,” I whisper, asking for some indescribable something only he can give me.
His lips brush mine, the soft, sensual caress touching every nerve ending I own. He cups my breast, squeezing it, a rough, erotic sensation that has me arching into him, a moan slipping from my lips. He swallows it, kissing me, a deep stroke of his tongue and we start to move again, and this time it’s a slow, sensual dance. The music I’d forgotten invades the moment, the same song on replay. And I swear to God I’ll find myself in the end. But here, now, with him, I lose myself. He is the burn in my belly that moves lower and lower, and I stiffen with the tight ball of pressure in my sex, unable to move.
Kayden pumps into me, deeper, harder, and I explode, spasming around him, clinging to him, as he drives once, twice, and on three his body shudders and shakes. Time swirls in and out, and the muscles in my body ease, in his too. “What are you doing to me, woman?” he whispers near my ear, nipping my earlobe. “Don’t go away.” He pulls out of me and rolls to his side, and, I think, takes care of the condom. Before I can figure it out, he’s returned and he’s pulling me against him, my back to his front, the warmth of the fire and his body sending me into a deep, drugged state of satisfaction. “You tried to take my gun when you felt trapped. You aren’t a wilting flower.”
My chest tightens. “I might be a little too comfortable with guns.”
He rolls me onto my back and pulls me around to face him, grabbing a blanket and draping it over us, his hand settling possessively on my hip. “Any idea how you know how to shoot?”
My mind flickers to that image of myself at a gun range. “I remember going to a gun range. I was younger, so I think I learned young.”
“So maybe your parents were in law enforcement?”
My mind produces an image of a man in a uniform. “Military,” I say. “I think my father was, or is, military. I’m not sure if he’s alive or dead.” There’s an image of a woman in my mind with red hair like mine, and the idea of her hurts my heart. “My mother’s dead.”
“You’re sure?”
My eyes pinch. “Yes. Thinking of her makes me sad. And my father feels distant. Out of my life or dead.” I swallow hard. “I’m alone. That’s why no one came looking for me.”
His hands settle on my face. “You’re not alone. Not anymore.”