Chapter 27
B eth blurted the most logical response she could think of. “Take your pants off.”
Kane’s eyes grew three sizes too big. “What?”
“Take them off. If you can’t tell me what that super leg does, you can at least show it to me.” She licked her lips, her mouth salivating as she reached for his belt.
He brushed her hands away. “Not so fast, darlin’. I’m all for show-and-tell, but we have a little something to discuss first. You never told me what gives you nightmares.”
She pouted and reached for his belt again. “I not only told you what gives me nightmares. I showed you.”
He gathered her hands in his and sat next to her. With a tug, he forced her to angle her body toward his. “Yes, and I appreciate how hard that must have been for you, but there’s new information I’ve uncovered that you’re holding back. I need specifics.”
“Oh, I’ll be specific.” She dropped her gaze to the zipper of his jeans and zeroed in on the other sizable reason she needed him to take off his pants. “Get naked. Now.”
His nostrils flared. The unabashed desire in his eyes made her belly flip.
“You have two seconds to tell me, sugarplum, or else.”
She remembered his threat about what he’d do if she didn’t tell him about her dreams. As she opened her mouth to protest, he wrapped his arms around her waist and threw her over his shoulder. Standing as if she weighed nothing, he strode into the bedroom with one hand on her backside and the other wrapped around her kicking legs.
She pounded his back. “Put me down, you big brute.”
“Not a chance, sugarplum.”
In another swift motion she had no time to counter, he sat at the foot of the bed and pulled her across his lap. Her T-shirt rode up to her waist. “Kane,” she shrieked as his hand landed on her bare ass. The blow wasn’t hard, but the sting and the razor-sharp desire between her legs stunned her. “You cocky bastard of a cowboy. I’m going to?—.”
Pleasure zapped through her core as his hand covered the area he’d struck and massaged the sensitive flesh. Sweet Christmas, even when he spanked a woman, he had two sides. Holy Christ, did she crave both.
He lowered his mouth to her ear, his broad chest covering her back and held her in place. She should have felt vulnerable, and she did, but in the most delicious way. Her fantasies of being in this position with Kane didn’t come close to the thrilling reality of being at his mercy.
Every nerve in her already charged body heightened as he slipped his finger under the strap of her thong and pulled the material against her clit. A guttural moan grated from her throat as she ground her pussy against his leg and sought more delicious friction.
“Keep moaning like that for me, sugarplum.” He delivered another smack to her ass cheek.
Desire soaked her panties as she obeyed .
Wrapping his hand in her hair, he guided her gaze to his. “You look at me when I make you moan, remember?”
“Stop acting like a Neanderthal and maybe I will.” She arched her back, her hair still in his hand, delicious prickles in her scalp. Her ass stung from his blows as the ache between her legs escalated to maddening heights.
“Answer my question, and I’ll give you plenty more reasons to moan my name.”
“I didn’t moan your name, you egotistical…” He grazed her clit with his finger. “Kane.”
“I don’t know, sugarplum. That sweet sound you made sounded familiar.”
He landed another smack to her heated backside. His other hand slipped between her legs. “God, you’re wet, Beth. Tell me what I need to know so I can fuck you already.” He shifted her to straddle his thighs and face him. “Is that what you want? For me to take you, because right or wrong, smart or stupid, God knows that’s what we both need.”
Falling for him was the last thing either of them needed, but the past and the future didn’t exist. Only Kane, the damning, delicious ache in her core and his long hard cock straining against his jeans, mattered in the moment. Death could bust through the window and demand number four, but he’d have to wait until she was done experiencing everything the super soldier underneath her could offer.
She tried to grind against his cock, to seek what she’d spit in the devil’s face for, but Kane held her firmly around the waist.
“I hate you,” she groaned.
“No, you don’t, and that’s the problem. Tell me what you dreamed about last night. And in the car yesterday. My new intel is based on what you said while I watched you sleep, and I need to know if it’s accurate.”
“You watched me sleep again?” That should creep her out. Instead, it turned her on. What was wrong with her? “If I tell you about my bad dreams, will you take your pants off and show me your leg?”
“I’ll show you anything you want. Better yet, I’ll let you touch.” He ran his finger under the hem of her shirt and grazed the underside of her breasts. “And taste,” he said as he pulled her to him and pressed a kiss to the hollow of her throat. “I’ll stand in the middle of the room like the god you think I am and let you worship every part of my body all fucking day.”
Helpless in the most frightening, thrilling way possible, she took his face in her hands and met his gaze. “I dreamed about a headstone in the graveyard.” She panted. “With your name on it.”
She tried to look away, tried to hide the catastrophic glint burning her eyes, but he cradled her chin in his hand.
“Jesus, Beth. Do I mean that much to you?”
Nodding because she feared speaking her affirmation, she bit her lip. The incredulity, not the judgment in his voice, spurred her to continue. “When I dream, I can’t fight seeing the others, and now you, six feet under.”
He shifted her hips so her pussy ground against his hard cock. “Feel that? I’m very much alive.”
Damn, was he ever. She moved against him as a groan, half laced with trepidation about voicing her fears but brimming with the anticipation of claiming her reward, mewled from her mouth. Her gaze locked with his. In its warm blue depths stirred life and fire, desire and determination, and so much spark she melted. Those three headstones in that graveyard were the embodiment of everything that had been taken away from her by the curse. Or fate. Or plain bad luck. But Kane hadn’t just thwarted the doomed destiny she’d been afraid to sentence him to. He’d kicked it to hell with his steel.
He was here, hot and hard and oh so beautiful.
Scarlett’s advice yelled in her mind like a cheerleader.
Challenge the theory.
She pressed her hand to her chest to squash her anxiety. She could do this. Could put her scientific brain into action and analyze the hardest quandary she’d ever faced, but to challenge the theory, she needed data. She slid off Kane’s lap and stood at the foot of the bed.
He held on to her. “Don’t hide from me.”
“I’m not. I’m collecting information.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Her feet ached, but the questions bursting inside her heart stole the attention. “Do you love me?”
Kane’s head jerked as if she’d slapped him. “What?”
“Do you love me? I don’t love you.” With each breath, she ignored the voice in her head calling out her lie. Instead, she savored the molten desire flowing through her body like feral electricity. “I like you a hell of a lot and care about your well-being. And it’s no secret I want you.” She sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly. “I can’t believe how much I want you. How do you feel about me?”
She held her breath as a myriad of emotions whizzed across his face so quickly she couldn’t discern them.
He stood and mirrored her pose. “I feel the same.”
“Good.” She ignored her heart that begged for a different answer and noted the way he hadn’t looked her in the eye when he’d given it, but he said what she’d needed to hear. “Then we’ve established we don’t love each other.” She walked a few steps, but pacing hurt too much, so she sat down on the side of the bed.
A vein throbbed in his corded throat. “Where are you going with this?”
As close as she could get to the glorious soldier if she could challenge the theory successfully. “Just listen. It’s your job to protect me. You’re not doing it because we’re in love or because we’re in a committed relationship. You were ordered by Edgar to accompany me home and act like my boyfriend because of a threat to a groundbreaking drug I’ve been working on, correct?”
“Yes, but I would have helped you even if Edgar didn’t order me to. You’re Scarlett’s friend. We’re friends and where I come from, friends help each other out.”
Oh, she wanted to be very friendly with him right now on a biblical level, but she wasn’t done with her research. “Yes, but you wouldn’t be here if Chavez wasn’t thrown into the mix. So let’s look at the facts.”
He eyed her bare legs. “Why am I looking at facts when there’re plenty of other things I’d like to be looking at about now?”
“Because Scarlett told me I should challenge my theory about why the men I date wind up in the cemetery. That’s what I’m doing. Collecting data before I draw a conclusion and then act on it.”
Kane grinned. “Scarlett is one of the smartest people I know. You should listen to her.” He rose and stood before Beth. “And you’re equally smart, so take your friend’s advice and listen to facts, not gossip.”
She nodded. “Fact number one. I was in love with the others, and they said they loved me, but we …” She waved her finger in a circle between them as if she held magic to make what she was about to say true. “We aren’t in love.”
Well, at least he wasn’t in love. Now wasn’t the time to address her feelings she needed to deny.
“Nope.” A mischievous smile tilted his lips. “No love here. Just simple lust. In fact…” He tapped his chin with his finger. “Sometimes you’re more stubborn than my mule back home.”
His dimpled grin strained her urge to bypass her haphazard scientific method and jump right to the conclusion. “ Fact number two. The others were all from my hometown. You’re from West Virginia.”
He tipped an imaginary cowboy hat. “I’m an honest-to-goodness hillbilly.”
A bona fide hottie was more accurate. “Fact number three. The others died trying to protect me, but it wasn’t their job.”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to Edgar about bonus pay for having to work during Christmas.”
“Fact number four. The others were ordinary guys who weren’t trained to defend themselves in a fight. You’re a super soldier.”
“All good arguments, Dr. Parker. I think there’s only one conclusion we can draw based on the information at hand.”
She pulled in a deep breath and silenced doubt and the truth she couldn’t admit. “I think we can say with relative confidence the data suggests that you’re safe from my curse. Let’s do this before I analyze it with a clear mind and change my conclusion.”
“Are you saying I drive you to distraction?” He snuck his hand under her T-shirt.
“You know you do. I think…” She sucked in a breath as his fingers grazed the top of her panties. “I’m clearly not thinking straight, but I believe you’re safe for now. Fuck me before something changes.”