Since I Saw You (Because You Are Mine #4)(85)

“Kam . . . oh . . . God,” she cried as he pounded her down on him, her voice vibrating with the strength of his short, staccato thrusts inside her. She felt him swell, heard his tortured groan.

He slammed her down on him again, roaring as he climaxed. For a moment, he seemed frozen by pleasure, but then he inhaled roughly and began pounding her up and down on his cock again as he ejaculated. The feeling of him pouring himself inside her sent her over the edge. She cried out sharply, the blast of climax all that much hotter and more powerful for having endured the flames with him.

Chapter Sixteen

She lay draped over him like melted candle wax for long, languorous moments, stroking his strong back muscles, coaxing them to release after their intense contraction during lovemaking. She didn’t like that he was still mostly dressed while she was nude, but she felt too weak to undress him, too content to move.

Angus made a muted woofing sound in her dreams, the sound making Lin blink and focus. She saw the bag Kam had left when he’d joined her on the floor and they’d lost themselves to passion.

“You never showed me my dog-walking outfit,” she murmured, nuzzling her face in the crook of his neck and shoulder.

“Hmmm?” he muttered lazily as he continued to stroke her naked skin from buttocks to shoulders, his low, resonant hum tickling her ear.

“The clothes you bought me,” she reminded him, kissing his neck.

“They won’t be as good as the ones you bought for me, but they’ll work. Why didn’t you tell me you bought me the clothes and the things for Aurore?” he asked gruffly after a few seconds.

“Ian thought you might take offense.”

“Why would I take any more offense if you chose things for me versus him or Lucien?”

She brushed her lips against the slowing pulse at his neck and leaned back to look at his face. “I don’t know exactly, except to say that I think he worried you’d become irritated if you got the impression he was trying to . . .” She paused, searching for the words. “Make you into something you’re not. Change you. He cares about you, Kam. Truly. He just wants the best for you.”

“Now that I think on it, I would have taken offense if anyone else had done it,” he said after a moment.

“Done what?”

“Bought me things. I know I paid for them, but still . . .” He faded off, his gaze narrowing on her. “Because it was you, it didn’t bother me. Somehow.”

She held her breath. It was an incredibly sweet thing to say. She waited, a prickle of anxiety or anticipation or something going through her when he just continued to pin her with his stare.

“Did you ever consider working for someone other than Ian?”

“What?” she asked, taken off guard by the direction of his question.

“I know you told Jason Klinf ‘no way’ last night—even though from what I heard, he was offering you a pretty interesting opportunity. Others have to have offered you even more lucrative opportunities. I’m just wondering if you ever really considered leaving Noble in the past?”

“Not really, no. I’ve thought about offers, of course, but never seriously.”

“What makes you stay? Why are you so loyal to Ian? Is it because your grandmother worked there and helped him build his company, and it feels like a family endeavor to you?”

Lin looked down from his piercing stare. “Maybe that has something to do with it,” she admitted. She hesitated. Kam cradled her jaw and silently bid her to look at him. She saw his questioning glance. “A friend—Richard St. Claire, actually; you know him—recently pointed out to me that I tend to—” She paused, blushing in embarrassment and staring at his collar.

“What?” Kam prompted.

She shrugged. “I tend to cling onto familiar things, like my work, because I’m afraid of change. Of abandonment.”

“Abandonment?” Kam asked.

Her blush deepened. “I know, it sounds ridiculous.”

“No it doesn’t.”

She looked up in surprise. “It doesn’t?”

He shook his head. “No. Not really. You must have been hit pretty hard when your mother and father left the States, leaving you behind. You were close to your grandmother, right?”

“Very,” she said.

“When she passed, and you were all alone in the world. But Noble Enterprises was there. Familiar. Knowable. Comfortable, even, given your history with your grandmother. What’s more, you’re amazingly good at what you do. That gives a feeling of affirmation all on its own. I can understand how all that would make you want to stay.”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “I guess you’re right.”

He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “There’s no reason to look sad about it,” he said quietly. “It’s completely normal. We all want what’s familiar. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to jump out of my own skin in this city. I keep longing for home, and the silence of the woods, and my old routine myself.”

“You do?” she asked, holding his stare. He nodded. “But you came. You’re staying put, despite the fact that you’d rather be home. How come?” she asked.

“Because I realized that unless I stepped out of my comfort zone, I was never going to grow. I’m ready. I’m ready for a change.” His thumb brushed her cheek softly.