Chapter 17 Begin Again #2
“I chose it. I loved Elise in a life built on lies. I continued after the operation no longer needed Cal. I came home to you after being with her. I used your trust, the club’s secrecy, and RidgeLine’s schedule to keep both lives.
Nothing you did caused it. Nothing she believed authorized it.
Nothing I do now makes you owe me forgiveness. ”
The words hurt, and he did not soften them when my face changed.
I crossed the kitchen.
Kane remained still until I stood within reach.
“I kissed you before the operation,” I said.
“Yes.”
“I stopped.”
“Yes.”
“You did not follow me.”
“No.”
“Do you want to kiss me now?”
His eyes darkened. “Yes.”
“That is not permission.”
“I know.”
I touched the center of his chest where the vice-president patch had once sat.
The shirt beneath my palm was warm. His heartbeat accelerated against it.
“Kiss me,” I said.
He lifted one hand, then stopped before touching my face.
“Where?”
The question nearly undid me.
“Waist. Not my head.”
His hand settled at my waist with no pressure until I leaned into him.
Then he kissed me.
There was nothing cautious about the desire. Caution lived in the control around it. His mouth opened over mine, familiar enough to make grief rise beside hunger. I tasted coffee and the restraint of five weeks in the way his fingers tightened once, then eased when I stiffened.
I stepped back.
He released me immediately.
The kitchen remained visible. Afternoon light lay across the floor. My bag sat on the chair beside the written terms that would exist whether I stayed or left.
I could stop. The knowledge changed the next step.
I took his hand and placed it against my breast.
“Kane.”
His thumb moved over the fabric of my blouse. “Tell me.”
“Bedroom.”
He did not lift me. He did not pull me upstairs as if urgency entitled him to decide the pace. We climbed side by side, my hand around his wrist, his breathing rough behind me.
At the bedroom door, I paused.
The last time I had been naked in that room, I did not know Cal Rainer existed.
The memory arrived whole: morning air, iron bars, Kane’s mouth between my thighs, the message he sent hours later telling me to eat without him.
My hand left his wrist.
He stopped in the hall.
“I remembered,” I said.
His face tightened. “We stop.”
“I did not say that.”
“You do not have to say it twice.”
“I need the room changed.”
He waited.
“Open the curtains. Turn on the hall light. Move the evidence box out.”
He obeyed without touching me.
The cardboard box containing Cal’s coat and phone disappeared into the locked study. Sunlight entered through both windows. The hall light made the doorway an open frame instead of a sealed threshold.
I walked inside by myself.
Kane remained outside.
“Come in,” I said.
He crossed only then.
I unbuttoned my blouse while he watched. My fingers shook with desire, anger, memory, and the knowledge that I could choose now and regret it tomorrow without making his restraint deceit.
He removed his shirt when I nodded.
The empty patch outline was not on his skin, but I saw it anyway. A pale rectangle in the place where authority had once seemed inseparable from him.
I touched the black wings tattooed over his arm.
“Condom,” I said.
His gaze lifted sharply. We had stopped using them during our second year of marriage.
“Top drawer,” he said. “Unopened box. I bought it after the separation order. Receipt is in the household file.”
The detail was erotic because he had prepared for possibility without assuming it.
I opened the drawer myself. The box seal was intact.
When I turned, Kane stood where I left him.
“Take off my clothes,” I said.
He moved slowly, giving me time to refuse each touch. His knuckles brushed my ribs as he slid the blouse from my shoulders. He unclasped my bra only after I turned my back. His mouth touched the slope between my neck and shoulder, once, then stopped when my breath caught.
“More,” I said.
He kissed the same place again, deeper.
My body remembered him without consulting the parts of me still injured. Heat moved low and fast. I hated the ease for half a second, then rejected the shame. He had betrayed my trust. He did not own the pleasure my body still knew how to take.
I turned and pushed him onto the bed.
Surprise crossed his face before desire replaced it.
“Hands on the mattress,” I said.
He placed them beside his hips.
I undressed the rest of the way. His gaze moved over me without the possessive satisfaction I once mistook for devotion. He looked hungry. He also looked afraid to translate hunger into entitlement.
I climbed over him and kissed him until restraint became something we were both choosing, not something he performed alone.
His erection pressed beneath his jeans. I opened them, wrapped my hand around him, and felt his abdomen tighten.
“Mara.”
“Do not tell me this is too much for you.”
“I was going to ask if you want my mouth.”
The directness sent heat through me.
“Yes.”
He rolled only after I moved aside. I lay back against the pillows and watched him kneel between my thighs.
The image touched the morning of discovery without becoming it. The curtains were open, my terms waited downstairs, and I knew every name in the room.
Kane looked up at me.
“Tell me to continue.”
“Continue.”
His mouth touched me.
Pleasure rose with memory braided through it.
I gripped the sheet instead of the headboard.
When my hips lifted, he followed without holding me down.
His tongue worked the rhythm he knew, then changed when I told him slower.
I heard my own voice give instructions and recognized the difference between familiarity and surrender.
The climax came hard enough to blur the ceiling.
Kane stayed still until I touched his shoulder.
“Condom,” I said.
He opened the packet in front of me. I watched him roll it on, then held out my hand.
He came over me but kept his weight on his forearms.
“Inside me,” I said.
His eyes closed once.
“Look at me.”
He did.
He entered slowly.
The first stretch hurt with the weeks and everything between us. I put one palm against his chest.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
Neither of us moved until the discomfort eased.
“Now.”
He thrust once, controlled and deep.
My legs tightened around him. He made a sound against my mouth that belonged to Kane, not Cal, not the vice president, not the man speaking into microphones. Just the husband whose body I knew and the man I had not yet decided would remain one.
I set the pace with my heels against the mattress. Faster. Then slower when emotion rose too close to panic. Kane followed every change. When his hand moved toward my wrist, he stopped before closing it.
“May I?”
“Yes.”
His fingers circled me loosely.
The permission made the touch more intimate than possession had ever been.
I came again with my eyes open.
Kane followed seconds later, face pressed against my neck, my name breaking from him without any other claim attached.
Afterward, he returned with a warm cloth, then sat at the edge of the bed instead of acting as though sex restored his place.
I pulled the sheet over my body.
“You can lie down,” I said.
He did, leaving space between us.
For several minutes, we listened to traffic on the river road.
“This does not end the separation,” I said.
“I know.”
“I am sleeping at the townhouse tonight.”
“I know.”
“I may wake up angry.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
His mouth shifted. “I will answer when it happens.”
Better.
I turned onto my side.
“What happens next?” he asked.
“Dinner Thursday. Public place. Seven o’clock.”
“I will be there.”
“Counselling first.”
“Four o’clock today.”
“No motorcycle if the rain starts.”
His eyes met mine. “That sounds like care.”
“It is. Do not make it a contract.”
“I won’t.”
I rested my hand on the mattress between us.
He did not cover it.
After a moment, I moved my fingers into his.
Beginning again did not feel like certainty.
It felt like an unlocked door I had chosen to open while keeping the key.