Chapter 15
Lovelyn
We travelled to the seventh floor and Kane’s apartment.
Inside, thankfully un-littered with semi-conscious gangsters, fashionably exposed pipes bracketed a tall window.
Shades of grey made up the colour scheme, all matte surfaces, and an industrial feel.
Very Kane, though I could see little of any personal possessions.
No pictures. No ornaments or random clutter.
“You live here?” I turned around in the space.
He strode across the living area to a door, revealing a bedroom. “Get some more sleep. I have work to do.”
Okay, so we were back to non-communicative.
I passed him and entered the room, discovering a wide bed with grey sheets and a mostly empty bathroom to one side. A solitary bottle of bodywash waited in the shower, and packets of hotel toiletries lined the counter.
Kane closed me in, blocking me from whatever he was doing, though the sounds still found me. Out in the main space, he clattered around, opening drawers and doing some task unseen.
I checked the bed. It was clean and ultra comfortable when I sat down. Tiredness still dogged me. I’d gone to bed early, but Mila’s text about the intruder had woken me with a jolt. Then Kane’s gang takedown had me wired. There was no way I could sleep.
Nor did I want to interrupt whatever he was up to. The front door opened and closed a few times, suggesting he was coming and going, maybe from his car. I imagined the injured men helping each other up and scuttling from his presence. How incredible to be so…dangerous.
My mind tripped back to the need I’d felt. Nope. We weren’t going there.
I got cosy on his bed and switched on my laptop. My father had given me a case to write up for him. I’d already transcribed his notes from the data stick recording but had to check it over and submit it on his log in.
I was almost done when Kane appeared in the doorway once more. “Ye aren’t sleeping.”
I wiggled my fingers at him. “Amazing powers of observation there, Mr—” I paused. “What is your surname?”
“What’s yours? Not the same as the cop’s?”
“No. It’s Wells.”
He repeated it but silently, then pointed at himself. “Ryan. Surprised ye haven’t looked me up.”
“Sorry to disappoint, Kane Ryan. You have a villain’s name, did you know that? Destroyer of gangs. Smasher of faces.”
He leaned on the doorway, neither coming in nor moving me on. A check of the time on the corner of my screen told me it was after six.
I patted the mattress. “If you’re done, why don’t you get some sleep? I’m guessing we aren’t leaving immediately.”
“We’re not. I’ve got an appointment with the estate agent when they open at nine.”
I blinked. “You’re selling the place? I thought you’d just bought it. Most people wait longer than a single beating before flipping property.”
At last, he left his lean and prowled in, kicking the door closed. I was shut in a bedroom with my kidnapper.
“I’ve owned it for two years, bought when I had a long contract in the city. Felt like a good idea. I’m not attached.”
I took another look at the pristine room. “How is it even possible to live in a home for that length of time and not accumulate at least a small corner of clutter?”
“That’s what I was throwing away or moving to my car.”
“What, a single set of cutlery and the junk mail from your countertop?”
He breathed out another cut-off laugh.
It was almost sad how little of his personality there was around.
No stray clothes, no random souvenirs from holidays, no quirky gifts.
Everything plain and utilitarian as if colour or life might scare someone into understanding him.
The only way into knowing him was to pick up the crumbs he dropped. The trail to the heart of the man.
Kane entered the bathroom. “Are ye good if I take a shower?”
My mind was off taking a deeper dive into what he’d revealed. If he was selling, I’d bet any money it wasn’t for a move to Deadwater. His urgent need to get Marchant Haulage back up and operating wasn’t a coincidence. The company had stopped paying out. He needed the cash.
I refocused to find him slanting a look at me.
“Stop,” he ordered.
“Stop what?”
“Thinking.”
I uttered a soft laugh. “No can do. I don’t have to share my thoughts, though.” I jerked my chin at the bathroom. “Take your shower. You’ll have time for a couple of hours of sleep after.”
“You’re in my bed.”
“I can make room.” My inside voice was folding like laundry to make way for him.
He muttered then disappeared into the bathroom. Water ran, but Kane hadn’t closed the door fully.
Through the crack, I had a straight-on view with the shower stall. And the very naked man stepping inside.
I exhaled in a sharp puff and dropped my focus to the screen, forcing myself to concentrate on submitting the case. But the second it was done, I found my gaze straying over the laptop lid to the bathroom and the narrow slice of naked Kane.
He faced the spray, using the body wash to scrub over his huge frame. The man was so big, the shower hit his shoulder rather than his head, and when he ducked to wet his hair, steam swirled around him.
I should’ve stopped.
I didn’t.
Following the movement of his hands, I got a glimpse downwards of dark chest hair and the ripple of tight abdominals to a V-shaped muscle. It pointed straight to his hard cock.
Kane stroked himself once.
I stared, taking in the damn police truncheon he hid in his jeans. That thing was a monster. Terrifying. None of which explained how I was the neediest woman alive. Probably the wettest, too.
Certainly the hottest. All the lust returned, and I stripped my cream jumper. It left me in a thin camisole that did nothing to hide my bra or the curve of my breasts. Wait, maybe I needed to rethink that move.
The shower shut off, and Kane appeared again, a white towel around his waist. His focus locked on me, sliding down to my cleavage. Too late. In my position lying on my front and propped up on my elbows, he had a great view. My skirt’s hem was around my thighs.
His eyes darkened. “Enjoy the free show?”
I needed to get myself under control. Setting my laptop aside, I made a play of checking the nearest bedpost.
“What are ye doing?”
“Looking for notches of how many girlfriends you brought back here so you could wow them with your shower surprise.” I was proud of how little my voice shook.
“No girlfriends.”
“Then just unfortunate ladies you enticed in.”
“No women have been in this bedroom at all besides you, flower girl.”
His nickname sent a shiver down my spine. “Glad to break the virgin curse while you still had a chance.”
Reaching behind him, Kane found another towel and leisurely dried himself. “I mean that beds and bedrooms aren’t my style. Though while we’re on the subject, are ye a virgin?”
Heat flooded my cheeks. “No. Why do you think that? Actually, what does no beds or bedrooms mean?”
He took a deep breath that inflated his huge chest. A chest I was trying very hard not to ogle.
Then he flicked off the light, leaving just the glow from the bathroom and the hum of the fan.
“You liked it when I chased ye.”
Oh, damn him.
“I…I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
Except my body had its own interpretation. I hadn’t daydreamed my way into this situation. I’d agreed to enter his flat. I’d lain on his bed and watched him shower. I’d never been more attracted to a man than I was to Kane Ryan.
He also scared me. It was that fear, that lack of knowing him which threw a rope around my want to straddle him on his mattress.
Sharp awareness mixed with my excited state. Kane watched me like a hawk.
“Why did ye turn me down?”
“‘We should fuck’ isn’t an offer. It was a crude statement at best and an offhand comment at worst. Hardly tempting.”
“If ye want hearts and flowers, I’m not your man for that. I wouldn’t have the first idea how, and I’m naw sticking around in Deadwater after I’m done with the bullshit holding me there.” He prowled to the bed. The jutting length of his dick lifted his towel.
I sat up, alarmed and so turned on I could barely breathe. Electricity licked my skin.
“So here’s the deal. You’re attracted to me. Your eyes are all over me, and the pink in your cheeks is driving me insane. Every way you respond to me is fucking short-circuiting my brain.”
“I’m equally as scared of you.”
“You’re not. Ye think ye should be.”
“It’s rude to contradict like that.” My voice trembled. My fingers dug into my thighs. “And if I gave you any indication, you’d treat me like prey.”
Kane’s grey eyes held a storm.
This had gone from a road trip to intense in minutes. I had no right to be surprised. The man had bagged me and kidnapped me to get his way. Yet he was correct. I didn’t feel in real danger. Only wary of the power he held.
“Perhaps I owe ye an apology, then.”
He knelt on the bed, shoving the barrier of my laptop and phone aside. I scrambled back, but he caught my ankle and pulled me closer. The action rucked up my skirt. Apprehension zinged through me.
“Stop.”
“Really?”
Kane took a handful of my thigh, his focus sinking down me. My heart thumped, and I nearly cried out at that touch alone, somehow more intimate than any other time a man had put his hands on my skin.
Without pause, he reached the line of my underwear at my hip then tugged them down.
I took a shocked breath and tried to cover myself. “Kane!”
He caught my wrists and pinned me with his body, over me faster than I could blink. “Protest all ye like, but I’m doing this and you’re going to love it.”
“Doing what?”
“Putting my mouth on your cunt until ye shake and cry out my name.”
Holding my gaze, he lowered himself to between my legs. Panicked, excited, I wrestled with his grip. It was no use.
“Tell me to stop again.”
His tongue touched the centre of me.
From nowhere, a moan of need fled my lips.
The bastard chuckled and flattened his tongue to lick me then curled it around my clit. “Christ, ye taste good. Tell me no.”
I couldn’t. My world shrank to that touch and the all-encompassing anticipation of pleasure of his head between my legs.
I bucked into his next lick.
Kane commenced an attack of perfectly timed sucks. With his free hand, he spread me for his attention then gripped my thigh so that hot tongue could slide inside me. I gasped out loud, then again when his thick fingers followed the action. First one then two speared me open.
He fucked me with them and sucked on my clit like he loved his task.
It was as much as I could do to keep up with the all-out assault on my body. It felt so good that my brain quieted until all I knew was him, the singular, complete pleasure of a man who knew what he was doing with sex.
Nothing I’d done to myself had ever felt so good, let alone a previous lover. It could’ve troubled me that it was better for the way he’d forced it onto me, but that was a distant realisation that only boosted my need.
And the delight of a nearing orgasm that tightened my insides and shut down every other thought. I writhed against him, trying to get closer. More. He gave it to me. A third finger slid in, stretched me, and hit my G-spot in repeated, soaked passes.
Right when I was on the edge, a panting, sweating mess, he lifted off me, breathing just as hard.
“I need to see your tits.”
He could’ve asked for any single thing in the world and I would’ve thrown it at his feet. I whimpered, and Kane released my hands. Grasping my hem, I wrenched my cami and bra down, exposing my heavy breasts. My nipples were hard and almost painful from the desire he’d stoked.
With his lips parted, Kane stared, then reached to take a handful. “So fucking perfect.”
He kneaded me, his palm grazing my tight nipple. His fingers were still inside me. I was clinging to the cliff’s edge, deep in lust with the reverential look in his eyes.
God, but I didn’t want to beg.
I clamped my jaw to stop the words.
He could fuck me now and I’d let him. That huge dick would make my eyes water, and I would do nothing but moan his name and urge him to come. He’d made me into an animal.
His grip on my breast nearly had me seeing stars. I was so close.
“Say my name.”
“King asshole,” I mumbled.
He pressed his thumb to my clit, so light but with a promise I couldn’t ignore. “Try again.”
“Kane.”
“Again and louder.”
“Kane Ryan!”
Thank whatever god commanded sex, he lowered back down. Kane licked me then sucked in time with the movement of his hand, slower now in a form of torture I didn’t hate.
It was my downfall. He returned me to the ledge by slow degrees then launched me off it, and I fell hard. My insides tightened around his fingers. Pulses of pleasure shot through my whole body. My legs shook. I gave up some ungodly version of his name while my brain checked out.
He groaned, and the sound electrified my already intensely heightened state.
It was perfect bliss, the sensations he’d given me. Compelling and dangerous but so real.
I dropped down, spent.
Strange emotion crept in. I wanted him to bundle me into his arms and hug me, but this was no lover’s tryst. I didn’t know what to call it.
Kane released me from his grip and lifted away. His expression was odd. I expected him to strip the very tented towel and bring his dick to my mouth or beat off over me. Instead, he tore his gaze from my body and climbed to his feet.
He left the room, shutting me in on my own.
Water ran, a zip sounded, then nothing.
Cold air crept around me. Confusion broke over my satisfied state, growing as I righted my clothes and tugged the blanket over me. What the hell was that, and why did it make me want to cry?