Denial (Careless Whispers #1)(48)

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.”

“I might be a killer. You sure you want to keep me around?”

“You are not a killer.”

“I know what I remember.”

“Which isn’t killing someone, unless you’ve remembered something you haven’t told me.”

“No. No, I haven’t, but Kayden—”

“You aren’t a killer, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t kill him. Surviving is human nature.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, and an image of me naked and tied to that bed flickers in my mind. “I was trying to survive.”

His finger slides under my chin and I look at him. “Can you talk about it?” he prods softly.

My chest tightens again and I roll to my back, facing the ceiling. “I know I lost my passport and money. I met him and I have no idea where or how. I just remember he let me stay with him. He gave me my own room and I ended up in his.”

“I do not like how familiar that sounds.”

I roll to face him again, curling my fingers at his jaw. “It’s not. I mean, it is, but different. You’re different. What is between us, whatever it is, isn’t like what I had with him. I’m not infatuated with you and you don’t treat me like you’re on a pedestal looking down on me or that I’m your subject who should be so very pleased to have your good graces. You’re real in a way he never was, and I know that I’m real with you in a way I couldn’t be with him. Maybe . . . I’m able to be real because I don’t know what to hide.”

“We all hide from things.”

“Including you?”

“Yes. Including me.” I want him to go on, to explain the torment I sense in him, but he doesn’t. He draws my hand in his and asks, “When I turned your back to me, you had a flashback. What was it?”

I press my hand to my face, the demons of my past clawing at my mind.

“If you don’t want to tell me—”

“I do,” I say, dropping my hand to look at him. “He wins if I hide from this. And he can’t win.” I draw in a breath for courage. “He started out like a Prince Charming, until he wasn’t. You know he offered me a place to stay. I thought it was a fairy tale. But I remember the day it changed. I went out when he told me not to. When he returned home he was displeased. He stripped me naked and tied me to the bed and just left me there for hours. When we were . . . when you turned me around, I remembered another time when he turned me around and tied my hands behind my back.”

He drags me closer, his leg twining with mine. “I’m sorry,” he says, his hand slipping under my hair, at my neck. “I won’t—”