Chapter 24
Bayne
I’m sitting at the kitchen table, eating a piece of warm banana bread slathered in butter when Kitt comes storming in the room, waving her phone in her hand. “I don’t really care if you want to talk or not because I just had the shittiest interaction with my mother and nothing in my life is how I thought it was.” She slams her phone down so hard on the countertop, I’m sure she’s cracked her screen.
I hop up from my favored chair to check. The girl’s got no idea how long it’d be before she’d be able to get a replacement out here. The phone is fine.
I turn to her. “What are you doing?”
And she breaks into huge sobs, her hands covering her face, her shoulders shaking.
Seeing her like this, my heart drops and I grab her up. “Come here.”
“I just don’t understand…” she cries.
I take her in my arms, holding her shaking body. She feels so small, so broken as she cries against my chest. “What did she do to you?”
Through her tears she transcribes the texted conversation. I have to say—I think her mom’s plan was solid, anything to get Kitt out of trouble, but I love how tenderhearted this girl is, worrying over her friend’s reputation when Lilly is long gone.
I just hold her, rest my chin lightly on the top of her head, and stroke her hair.
When she’s calmed down, she stares up at me, tears shining in her red-rimmed eyes. “You wouldn’t move away, would you?”
“From where? From who?”
She shakes her head sadly. “I don’t know.”
I think of Eamon. “I want Eamon to follow his dreams, and to be an actor, he’d have to leave the island. But I’ll always be here, right in this same house, so he has a home to come back to.” Is that what she means?
“You’d be a great dad,” she says.
Pride wells up in me. “I think you’d be a great mom.”
“Your dad was bad, wasn’t he?” I don’t answer but she reads the pain on my face all the same. “Really bad. Wasn’t he?”
I nod.
“I’m glad Eamon didn’t have to grow up with a man like him around, so I can kind of understand the bad things you do.”
“Why do any of us do what we do?” I ask, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, damp with her tears. She glances up at me, giving me a soulful look that hits me hard right in the center of my chest. I say, “To protect the people we love.”
She leans up on tiptoe, stretching up till her lips meet mine. It’s a delicate kiss she gives me. A sweet one. Of course, I can’t stop myself from turning it into a deeper, more heated one.
She fuels a desire in me like I’ve never known. Not even for the girl in my past. This kiss, this passion, this feels like my future.
I pick her up. She wraps her legs around my waist. I carry her to my room, the first time she’s ever crossed the threshold. I lay her down on my soft gray bedding, crawling over her.
“I’m sorry for not talking to you last night,” I say. “And for after the dance. I was an ass.”
But she doesn’t let me off that easy. “Yes, you were. Tell me why.”
I take a deep breath, knowing I owe her the truth. “I saw you and Eamon dancing together and it brought me back to the past.”
“Your girlfriend with your dad.”
“And I knew in that moment, you two are so good… just light and goodness. The both of you. And I don’t want to taint either one of you with my darkness.”
“Eamon loves you. He needs you. You protected him when he couldn’t protect himself.”
And you? I want to ask. But I can’t bring myself to say the words.
She continues, “You’ve made me view the world differently. There is dark and light, right and wrong, but it turns out each of us has our own gauge for both. And we have to listen to ourselves to find the truth of what we find good.” She reaches up, a soft hand on either side of my face bringing me close to kiss her. “And I think you’re good.”
Her words shift something deep inside me, healing me, freeing me as I press my lips to hers. I’m falling in love with her and it’s scaring the shit out of me. That’s the brutal truth. I can’t bring myself to tell her. But I know I owe her something.
I break away from our kiss to confess, “I did feel something for you. During our dance.”
Her smile beams with light. “Me too.”
I slide my hand under her sweater to feel the warm, bare skin of her belly. I cup her breast over the thin material of her bra, her nipple instantly coming to life under my palm. Running my hand up her body under her sweater, I cup her neck in my hand, kissing her deeper.
She reaches for the waist of my jeans. Undoes the buckle of my belt. I love the way her gentle fingers feel as they dance against my skin, working to unbutton and unzip my jeans.
I do the same for her, pushing her jeans and panties off, then resting on my haunches to remove them from her ankles. As I stand to rid myself of my own pants, I take her in, naked from the waist down, her bare legs and pussy looking so pretty on my bed. Like she’s always belonged here.
She watches me, lip stroking her bottom lip as I pull my black sweater up and over the back of my neck, tossing it to the floor. Her eyes widen, taking in the full view of my naked body, my hard cock.
I climb over her, feeling her pussy with my fingers. She’s already wet enough to take me. “God, you’re so wet. I love your body so much, how it feels.” I bring my fingers to my face, inhaling her sweet scent. “How you smell.”
Her arms wrap around my neck as I move between her thighs. “Taste,” I say, bringing my fingers to her lips.
Her pretty lips wrap around my fingers, cheeks going rosy with shame as I make her taste herself. I kiss her, swiping my tongue against hers.
She gives a little hiss into the kiss. “I’m still a little sore.”
“I’ll go gentle. Tell me if I’m hurting you.” Her pussy is tight, and I go slow this time. Her warm wetness surrounds my cock, and I can’t go slow anymore. With a hard thrust, I bury myself inside her.
She gives a gasp.
“Are you okay? Tell me.”
“Yes, keep going.”
“You’re doing so well, pretty baby.” I run my hand down her belly. “Take a deep breath.” I rub her swollen clit with my wet fingers. My touch has her pussy clenching around me, spots dotting my vision. “God, you feel so good. You’re perfect.”
Scooping a hand under her ass, I grab her soft curves as I slowly fuck her. She’s so tight, her breathing labored, I know she’s going to come soon. A familiar tightness comes over my core, tingling at the base of my cock.
“Come for me, my sweet Kitty Cat.” I play with her clit as she moans, curling tight around me, her fingers digging into the muscles of my shoulders.
“I’m going to… I’m coming for you.” Her hips rock against mine as she chases her climax down. “Don’t you stop touching me.”
I choke out a laugh at her insistence, but it’s cut off by the guttural moan of my own orgasm. Releasing all the tension in my body, I let go, spiraling into heaven, feeling as if I’m flying through the vast horizon of endless island sky.
We lie in my bed, our bodies entwined, bare skin against bare skin save for the soft sweater she still wears. Her leg rests lazily over mine. Her lying in my arms like this, I can almost picture us together. The feel of her weight and her warmth is almost too much. I don’t ever want this to end.
She runs her fingertips up and down my arm, sending chill bumps over my skin. God. That feels amazing.
“I love this.” Reaching my wrist, she slips a finger under the band of one of the bracelets I wear, a thin strap of dark-brown braided leather made from the hide of our cattle, wrapped around several times, gathered with a silver clasp. “It’s so unique.”
“Genuine Bayne leather,” I say.
“From your own herd?”
“Aye.”
“Where are they now?”
“Sold.” I glance down, remembering the day I made the band, sitting on a hay bale, the scent of the fresh hay warming in the sun. It was a bittersweet day. “I moved them to a neighboring farm, selling them to another Bayne rancher, knowing Eamon had no interest in farming, and finding more money and joy in horse breeding for myself.”
She gives a giggle. “I can’t picture Eamon as a farmer.”
“No,” I say. “He’s very good with his hands, though. An excellent woodworker. He’s been an apprentice for years and built all the cabinets for the big house himself.”
“And the Burneses are the fishermen.”
“They are, barely, and were fully providing for their families before your people stopped them from fishing their seas.”
“We aren’t trying to stop them. We’re trying to make sure there’re fish to be had,” she says gently.
I want to give her a long lecture on how we do things around here, but her fingers travel back up my arm, those tingles back on my skin, over my shoulder, then traces a trail down the soft hairs of my chest. “What happened with Clive? Do you finally trust me enough to tell me?”
“The research facility wasn’t our target. It was just Clive. We had to get him where he was, in action, so the cops would know what he was doing when they found him.”
“And what was he doing there? All the interns said they’d never seen him at the center before.”
“That’s why he was there so late at night.” I reach down, patting her bare ass. “Late, late at night when little girls shouldn’t be walking down dark roads alone.”
“Hmm.” She wiggles her ass, wanting more pats.
I oblige, enjoying the feel of her soft skin under my hand. “There’s a gang in Glasgow. One that operates a people-tracking ring in the city. I think you call it human trafficking in the States.”
“Yeah, we do.” She gives a little shiver and I hold her closer.
“Clive was in contact with them. He was using the internet at the research center so it couldn’t be traced back to his home IP address.”
She pulls back, shock written all over her face as she stares up at me. “What?”
“I can’t share too much, but one of the Burneses found out what Clive was up to. The police would have taken ages to stop him. It’s hard to convict a man of committing a crime before he commits one. We couldn’t wait for him to strike. It would have been too late. You, Fiona, Carol Ann. Any one of you girls could have been taken. Here on the island, the men protect the women.”
“That’s terrifying! I could never imagine something like that happening in such a beautiful place.”
“The island is beautiful, but like all pretty places, it has its dark parts too.” I slide my fingertips upward, rubbing circles over her back. She snuggles closer. “So, we men have to band together to protect our people. No matter the cost.”
“Or the laws,” she says.
I nod. “Yes. We would never have let him get his ring off the ground, laws or not. The law of the land is that every single Bayne and Burnes man would have to be dead before we let that happen.”
“I get that.” She gives a little shrug. “Kind of. It’s not so easy for me, though, to not go to the police. After what happened with Lilly, I’m still convinced I made the wrong choice.”
As we lay there, I analyze her words. Our situation. Our different backgrounds.
She can’t be with me because of her fear of spiraling into a world of crime, of feeling how she’s felt ever since the day that boy died.
And I can’t be with her because I’m still so messed up from what my dad did, the breach of trust, and the aftermath that followed, I can’t even watch her share an innocent dance with my baby brother without turning into a jealous monster.
She’s turned me good. I don’t want to turn her bad.
This fleeting moment in the afterglow of our makeup sex, where I could picture us together, seems to vanish as quickly as it came on.
She falls asleep, her breaths coming soft and sound. Careful not to wake her, I reach down, unclasping the bracelet. I slide it onto her arm, having to wrap it around a fourth time to fit her slender wrist. I clasp it, knowing when she wakes, she’ll have a part of me with her.
Because now, with no reason to keep her for her own safety, it’s time for me to let her go for the very same reason.
Her safety.
Even if she did offer me the healing I so needed, she’s still so much better off without me.