Denial (Careless Whispers #1)(53)

He licks my clit and I am both relieved and on edge in the same moment, ready for more, for that everything he has promised me. Another lick follows. Yes, please, more, I think, and as if he’s heard my silent plea, he gives it to me. His hands slide beneath my backside and he lifts me to his mouth, and it is nothing shy of sweet bliss when his mouth closes down around me. He sucks, drawing deeply on my sensitive flesh, lapping at me, licking me again in all the right ways and right places. I am panting and moaning, and I barely recognize the sounds as my own. Sensations ripple through me and when his fingers slide inside me, I am undone, tumbling into orgasm. The intensity jerks my body and I lose all time and space. It’s escape, sweet, blissful escape, and he keeps me there, slowly bringing me down, the licks of his tongue growing softer, slower. Until I am sated, limp, and he pulls me back onto his lap, my head resting on his shoulder, his hand flattening between my shoulder blades.

“Everything or nothing,” he whispers, and this time, I do not believe he is talking about orgasms and pleasure.

I lean back to look at him, and the idea of what we are becoming is a sweet seduction, threatened by the emptiness of my past. “What if everything is too much?”

He drags two fingers down my cheek. “Sweetheart, I don’t have a ceiling. We’re going to find out if you do.”

He ends the conversation there, standing and lowering my legs to the ground, my feet settling there and my pill bottle tumbling from my pocket. Kayden reaches down and grabs it. “Maintenance, or are you hurting?”

“Just a little pain.”

He does not look pleased. “I pushed you too hard tonight.”

“No, I—”

He scoops me up and starts walking, the movement forcing my shirt and hoodie open, leaving me all but naked. I don’t fight it or him, though. There’s a message in the way he picks me up all the time, a part of him being the protector he has vowed to be so many times, to me. But I get it now. I’ve hit a nerve with Kayden. He doesn’t just want to protect me. He has to protect me. I’m not sure how to feel about that. What does that make me to him? What do I want to be to him?

We reach the hallway and I hold my breath to discover whether he goes left or right, and relief comes hard and fast as he turns toward his room. That is how much this man has slid under my skin. But knowing I could be some moral obligation terrifies me. He enters his room and goes straight to the bed, pulling back the blanket and setting me on the mattress. I climb underneath the covers, expecting him to undress and follow me. Instead, he stands above me and stares at me, and that wall he’s evoked between us in the past is here in the present. I can’t read him. I find myself holding my breath again, waiting, but for what I do not know. I’m blown away when he turns and walks away, leaving the room and shutting the door behind him.

I stare at the door. I seem to do a lot of that where Kayden’s concerned, and I’m more confused than I’ve ever been in my life.





fourteen



He doesn’t come back. It’s nearly five in the morning when the physical and emotional toll of the past few days wins, and with nothing but Kayden’s unique spicy scent clinging to the blankets and surrounding me, I fall asleep. I wake to sunlight and an empty bed. As I sit up, disappointment fills me as I scan the room for any sign he’s been back, but find none. I glance at the clock and it’s nine in the morning, not exactly the definition of a good night’s rest. A sound comes from the bathroom and, certain it has to be Kayden, I throw off the blanket to climb out of the bed, tugging my shirt closed and rushing in his direction.

Reaching the open doorway, I scan the solid white room, disappointment filling me at the absence of the man whose presence I crave. That is, until he walks out of the closet, stopping in the archway, his hair lying in damp tendrils around his face, while black jeans and a snug black sweater, tugged up to display his powerful forearms, hug every inch of what I know to be his perfect, hard body.

He doesn’t speak, his expression impassive, his gaze never leaving my face, and the silence that follows is not as comfortable as it was at last night’s dinner. In fact, I’d call it excruciatingly awkward, and I can’t take it. “Hi,” I say, offering a ridiculous little hand wave that couldn’t make my nerves any more obvious.

His reaction is to close the distance between us, and there is no mistaking the predatory gleam in his eyes, matched by his long strides. When he stops in front of me, there is no question that he is pure sex and intimidation. “Ella,” he says softly, and my name does not bleed from him this time, nor is it a greeting. It’s . . . I don’t know what it is.

“When did you come back?” I ask.

“An hour ago.”

“Where did you sleep?”

“I didn’t.”

“Because I was here?”

“No. Because I needed to think.”

“About me?”

“About a lot of things.” A muscle in his jaw tics. “Who’s David?”

I swallow hard at the reference that tells me he read my notes in the security room, wondering how I’d managed to sleep through his return, and his obvious shower. “I came to Italy with him.”

“Who is he to you?”

I’m embarrassed that there was yet another man in my life, and my gaze lowers to his chest. “Ella,” he repeats, and this time my name is a command.