Finding Kyle(58)

“Being vulnerable,” she says simply and doesn’t elaborate. She doesn’t need to. She hit the nail on the head, and I also know Jane well enough to know that she won’t belabor her observation either. She’s the type who wouldn’t want to embarrass me for what I’d perceive as a weakness. She won’t push at me to know what woke me up in a sweat, and she won’t seek details unless I give her some reason to believe I want to share them.

So she just lets me hold her in silence.

She leaves it up to me what to do.

She opens the cage to the restless, dangerously disturbed animal, and she waits to see if it will walk out and take a little bit of freedom.

I pull Jane back down into the bed, rolling so we come to rest on our sides, facing each other. Before she settles fully, I throw an arm back and lean toward the lamp so I can turn it on. When I roll back to Jane, her eyes are squinted slightly as she adjusts to the light, but with absolute acceptance in her gaze for whatever I want to give her in this moment.

It’s not much, but I want to give her something.

Scooting close to her, I slide a hand over her waist and hold her there lightly. I don’t pull her into me because we’re going to talk and I want to see her face.

Her gaze is trusting and patient.

“My life… before I came here,” I begin with all the vagueness in the world. “It was brutal.”

Jane’s fingertips come to the skull tattoo on my chest and stroke the ink. It confirms to me that she suspected what little I’m getting ready to share.

“I’ve done things that are heinous,” I tell her. “Unforgivable, really. If you knew who I was, Jane, you’d despise me. You’d be disgusted, and you would never look at me the same way again.”

“Not possible,” she whispers in disbelief.

I won’t debate it with her. I’m never going to give her details because I don’t want her to have the same nightmares that I do. But after my talk with Joe today, when he called me while I was enjoying a normal breakfast date with a woman who I’ve come to care more about than I ever thought was possible, I knew it was time I had to move on.

Joe’s information wasn’t clear or overly revealing. He’d advised me that nothing had been found to believe my location had been compromised by the ATF server breach. This was heartening. However—and there was always a ‘however’—the few members of Mayhem’s Mission who had been previously clamoring to explore plea deals in exchange for testimony have now all of a sudden clammed up. Not just one or two of them. Every single one who was in a plea deal negotiation suddenly put the brakes on everything.

This was suspicious.

This was more concerning than a breach into the ATF server.

This meant that those men who were running scared and wanted to avoid decades behind bars with a plea deal were now suddenly feeling confident.

And Joe’s concern was that if they were feeling confident, that probably meant I’d been found.

Now it’s time for me to pave the beginning of the roadway that will lead me out of here. I knew tonight would be my last night with Jane, and I spent the last several hours making love to her until we fell into an exhausted sleep not long ago.

I guess my nightmare was an internal sign from my consciousness that I needed to start my break.

Rolling Jane to her back, I settle myself between her legs. While I hold most of my weight off her, I give her enough of it so that we’re touching everywhere possible that we can for now.

I give her a soft kiss and rub my nose briefly against hers. When I lift up, I look into her beautiful green eyes and I give it to her straight. “I’m sorry I can’t be completely honest with you about who I am. You know me so much better than anyone, and yet, you don’t know all the important things.”

“Kyle,” Jane says with such sweet empathy that my chest starts to ache.

I shake my head, silently letting her know that she needs to hear me out. “I’m leaving—”

“No,” she says adamantly, cutting me off as her eyes flash with defiance.

“Jane… baby… I have to,” I cajole.

I expect her to argue, cry, lament, plead, beg, and negotiate with me.

Instead, her head lifts from the pillow, one hand goes to the back of my head, and she pulls me to her for a kiss. A hot, wet, passionate kiss full of desperation and need.

I don’t resist.

This I cannot resist.

Jane ensures this conversation is put on hold as her other hand slips between our bodies and she grabs onto my cock, which had already started to harden when her lips touched mine.

Jane shifts her hips, widens her legs a bit, and strokes me swiftly. My body reacts, and I groan into her mouth.

She kisses me like she’s never done before, pouring every bit of passion laced with misery over my declaration that I’m leaving. I try to pull my head up, just so I can look into her eyes and see how badly she’s broken despite what she’s doing to my cock right now.

But Jane isn’t having any of it. Her fingers grip into the muscles of my neck, and she shifts again, tilting her hips under me. With a rough tug of her other hand, she pulls my dick right to her entrance and rubs the tip of me through her wetness.

“Christ, Jane,” I growl into her mouth, because that felt goddamn amazing. Her soft skin against mine with nothing in between, a sensation I’ve never felt before. My head swims with confusion and my body rages with lust. I manage to grit out, “Let me get a condom on, honey.”