“I googled you and your website came up. I love your stuff, Kelly.”
She blinks and then a tear slides down her cheek.
I reach over and brush it away with my thumb. “What’s wrong?”
“I just can’t believe Kaleb freaking Keller is saying he likes my art. Are you serious?”
I take her hands in mine, squeezing them softly. It feels like we’re the only people in existence sitting in the privacy of the garage, just us and the overhead lights and the heat blazing between us with each steamy touch.
“Of course I’m serious. I’ll never lie to you. I’ll never trick you. I’m not much of a judge, but my first thought was, Damn, this is a professional at work. Your illustrations hold so much character if that makes sense? I feel like you can tell a whole story in a few brushstrokes.”
She giggles through a sob. “I thought you said you weren’t much of a judge? God, Kaleb, that’s the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me.”
I smirk. “Don’t get used to it, Sassy. I’ll go back to being the beast I am soon enough.”
“Maybe we should go up there then, Animal, so you can’t let him out of the cage.”
I smirk, opening my car door. “Maybe you’re right.”
I walk around the car and pull hers open, offering her a short bow as I aim a wry smirk at her.
“Oh, you’re so polite,” she says.
She turns to the elevator, pausing.
I place my hand on her shoulder, sensing some of the anxiety coursing through her. “Are you sure it’s private up there?”
“I’m almost certain there’s no way Natalie will see us,” I say, feeling wrong, as though I’m scheming against my daughter. “I have a private entrance to my office. I can go through and arrange a table for the upper balcony, an enclosed booth. We’ll be alone.”
She glances at me, biting her lip in that tantalizing way she has. “I’m sorry. I know it’s horrible to have to speak about stuff like this. But the thought of Natalie seeing us out in public before we get a chance to tell her… it makes me crazy.”
“I know.” I reach down and take her hand, squeezing it reassuringly. “I feel the same. Which is why we’re here, remember?”
“Oh yeah.” She giggles, doing that amazing thing of making me forget about my stress and my anxiety and focus on the moment instead. “We’re going to see how quickly I can make you bored of my sassiness, I forgot.”
“Nope.” I laugh. “We’re going to see how quickly I can make you tire of my animal nature.”
I lead her over to the elevator and press the button.
The doors open and I wave her inside the lighted room, with the gold padding on the walls and a mirror showing us what sort of couple we make.
I wrap my arms around her as we face the mirror, the elevator moving up.
“Look how damn beautiful you are.” I hug her close and meet her gaze in the mirror. Her eyes are wide and beautiful and mine. “Everything about you is perfect, Kelly. I can’t believe nobody ever told you that before. You’re an angel, but my angel, only mine. I’ll send any bastard straight to hell if he tries to take you from me.”
“I only want you,” she whispers, squeezing my forearm which is laid protectively across her chest.
It’s difficult to act civilized when my woman is sitting across from me. She grips the edge of the table, leaning forward so she can gaze around at the majesty of our private dining hall. It’s the Medieval room, my personal pet project, with a tall roof and the walls ornate and covered in paintings and tapestries.
“This is amazing,” she murmurs.
“Hmm,” I growl. The way she’s leaning forward is giving me a sweet look down at her chest through the light fabric of her dress, her round breasts pressed together. I imagine her on her knees, tits gripped in her hands as she begs me to cover them in my come.
I let out a shivering breath, turning my gaze away.
She truly does bring the beast out of me. I feel like I could leap on her.
“This is honestly like being in a fairytale castle or something. It’s nothing like the rest of the restaurant. At least, the parts I saw.”
I grin at her, or at least I hope I do. The tension she’s causing to move through me could easily make it a grimace.
“I’ve always been fascinated by this stuff.”
“Why?” she murmurs, sitting forward and reaching across the table.
She hesitates for a moment, as though she thinks I’m going to snatch my hand away, so I dart my hand forward and grip onto her. She looks at me thankfully, with the knowledge that I’ll always support the most anxious parts of her.
Forever.
So much passes between us sometimes it hurts.
“The pageantry mixed with the brutality of the time, I guess. Or maybe I’m just trying to sound smart, eh, Sassy? Maybe I just like swords.”
The waiter arrives a few moments later, a tall thin man with a bald head and white whiskers. “Sir,” he says.
“Jerry, how many damn times have I told you to call me Kaleb, my friend?”
Jerry’s eyes crease with a smile, but he doesn’t let his lips follow suit. “I suppose I’m old fashioned,” he says in his upper-class British accent.
“You’re not my damned butler.” I chuckle.
Jerry laughs. “I know, but I’m so thankful, sir, so I feel I have to show some respect.”
“What’s this?” Kelly murmurs, looking between us. “Thankful for what?”
I smirk at her. For a young thing who said she was shy, she seems to find it pretty easy to put herself forward. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. The war between her shyness and her true nature – her sexy-as-fuck confidence – is one of the things I’m looking forward to most, being there as my innocent curvy virgin flowers into her true personality.
I wave a hand. “It’s nothing.”
Jerry shakes his head. “It was certainly not nothing, sir. But I’m sure you don’t want to hear it, ma’am. You’d prefer your drinks.”
I’m nodding, but of course, my sassy queen has got something else to say about it. I can’t help but laugh gruffly at the flaring confidence in her expression, the absolute fucking beauty of that light in her eyes, the beckoning glint that’s going to lead our family through the rest of our lives.
Complications fucking be damned.
At this moment, when she’s being so vivacious and captivating, I know we’re going to make it.
We have to.
“I want to hear it,” she says quickly.
I sigh, sitting back with a shrug.
“I’d fallen into a tough point in my life, you see. Simply put, I had come to America with big dreams and they hadn’t worked out. My life went on rather miserably. And then, I confess, I became addicted to drugs. I was sick with my addiction. All I cared about was that sweet sickening needle. It compelled me every moment. And then I almost died, and that was a very sorry affair…
“Anyway, I came to a point where I wanted to get a job. I came in here reeking of homelessness and detoxing from the drugs. I was shivering and falling over myself. Kaleb happened to be here that evening, and he saw me… and he…” Jerry coughs, fighting back emotion.
I feel a swell of pride inside of me, but more than that, there’s the rightness of knowing this man is doing better for himself now.
“He put me up in a hotel while I detoxed. He advanced my pay so I could rent an apartment. He supported me.”
“Because I could see how badly you wanted that job. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
“But I was a junkie. I could’ve stolen that money and gotten high for weeks. Most junkies would have, sir.”
“I know that, Jerry. I know.” I turn and stare hard at my woman. “But sometimes, you just know.”
She stares back at me, wide-eyed and ready for anything, ready for us. “Yeah. I guess you do.”
Chapter Thirteen
Kelly
As I sip on my orange juice, I thi
nk about the waiter’s story.
“What?” Kaleb says, smirking over at me with that manly beastly charm, like he’s baring his teeth as much as smirking like he’s going to leap at me and sink his teeth into my skin at any moment, as his hand slides up my leg and finds my hole and touches it, oh, fuck, slips inside and…
I focus, letting out a shuddering breath. “Nothing.”
He chuckles, moving his finger around the edge of his glass. We’ve ordered our food and now we’re free to sit in the grandness of this fairytale room, with so much gorgeous artwork on the walls, all of them majorly impressive.
“You’re thinking about how I could’ve hired Jerry to say all that to make me look like a good guy. I get it.”
I giggle at the joke. “No, I wasn’t. I could see how much you didn’t want him to tell me. I could see how much it meant to him. It shows what a caring person you are, Kaleb, when you get past Animal. It makes me think…”
“What?” he growls when I trail off, sitting forward like the beast he is, his body throbbing as if at any moment he could flip the table and maul me. I remember the way he looked in the cage, how hulking his muscles were, how shredded his back was, but he was always calm, distanced.
Now he vibrates. He thrums with primal heat.
My womb core sizzles at the thought.
But this is dinner. We’re being civilized.
It’s so freaking hard.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks.
“Did you feel like this about Jenny? You know, Natalie’s mom. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.”
I feel like such a dork. My words are tripping over themselves.
“No. Not even close.” His voice is firm. His gaze pinning me in place. “Do you want to know why? It might take some explaining.”
My interest piques. I settle down and reach across the table. I remember when I did that before, how the hesitancy moved through me, stilling my movements, but then my man darted forward and clasped onto my hand.
Now I don’t need to hesitate.
We improve each other in tiny heavenly moments like that, moments other people wouldn’t understand.
I squeeze onto him.
“I want to understand.”
He moves his thumb over the back of my hand, nodding. “You know about what happened to my parents.”
“I’ve read the newspaper articles online,” I murmur. “And Natalie has talked a little about it. Nobody knows much though.”
His hand tightens on mine a little, as though he’s silently demanding my support. “Two bastards had heard my old man talking about how he didn’t trust banks. It was bullshit, the sort of things men discuss in bars, but these two rats took it seriously. They busted in with knives and masks, doing nasty shit, Kelly. Evil shit. To my parents. To make them give up the cash.”
My chest quivers at his words. “I’m so sorry.”
“They made me watch.” He shakes his head slowly. “They thought it’d make them talk, but there was no money. So they had nothing to make them stop.”
“Oh my God, Kaleb.” Tears prick my eyes as I imagine how it must’ve been for him, a little kid, forced to watch… “I’m so, so, so sorry that happened to you.”
“My mom was… Anyway, it was just me and my dad left. They said they were going to kill me if he didn’t talk. So he jumped at them and managed to tackle one. The other got on him pretty quick, but not before I grabbed the knife. I just… I just fucking did it…”
“Did what?” I whisper.
“I just started stabbing them. I didn’t even think about it. It was like I turned into an animal, a predator, and I was going to do anything to save my dad. But I was small and weak. I managed to get one in the back of the leg. So he fell, and my old man rolled on top of him and started choking him. But then the other leaped on his back and I… I fucking stabbed him, Kelly. Hard. As hard as I could.”
I can feel the tension moving through his arm, as though his body is remembering the force of the blow.
“But I wasn’t as strong as I thought. The knife didn’t even slow him down. When he spun on me and his elbow caught me under the damned eye, I panicked and I ran. That was what my dad wanted all along. I can see that looking back. But I felt like I had to save him. But I ran.”
I can hear the regret in his voice, deep and gruff.
“You were a kid.”
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “I know. Anyway, my dad managed to injure them. I was at the bottom of the stairs when he stumbled at the top, telling me to get help. I tried. But the men managed to recover a little bit. None of their injuries were near their organs. We’d made amateur work of it.”
“Is that why you started training?” I murmur, my whole chest ablaze in primal sympathy for him, my man.
He meets my eyes, a light in them. I can read the message of thankfulness there, as he silently tells me he’s glad I brought him out of that memory hole. It must be so horrible for him to remember all of that pain and agony, all of that visceral violence.
“Yes. I wanted to be able to dismantle any bastard whoever tried some shit like that again. I started when I was small. I was a little kid, small for my age.”
I laugh in delight at the image of a silver-haired giant being the size of a toddler. “I find that so hard to believe.”
“I mean it,” he says. “Everybody was surprised when I shot up in my teens. Anyway, I was filled with a fire ready to be stoked. Martial arts was my focus. It was all I thought about for years, and it helped me handle myself in the orphanage. It helped me stay away from the criminal bullshit the other kids were getting into. People couldn’t peer pressure me off the path, because if they did I’d choke them the fuck out.”
There’s so much tangled emotion in his voice. I know he’s talking about more than surviving at the orphanage.
He’s talking about wishing he could go back to that night when he was a little kid and make those bastards pay.
We meet eyes, a sudden feeling passing between us. “I will always protect you,” he snarls.
“I believe you,” I whimper.
I couldn’t not believe him.
The possessive inferno in his eyes is undeniable.
“So you see? I had this hole in me all my damn life. It was the size of a goddamn shotgun blast. It left me feeling angry and determined, but also somehow empty. No woman could ever make me feel. It’s a terrible thing to admit, but I was only with Natalie’s mother because she became pregnant. A man doesn’t abandon his child.”
I nod, my body sizzling under the force of his words.
He’d never allow anything to threaten our family, I know.
“But she did. She ran out. She said she never wanted to be a mother. I let her go. As long as I could give our daughter the best childhood possible, fine. Later, when Natalie was a teenager, she wanted to find her mom. So I hired a private detective and learned that she’d OD’d. I was sad for Natalie, for losing her mother. But I felt cold, detached. She wasn’t my woman. She abandoned her kid. She wasn’t you, Kelly.”
I shiver and nod, my whole body alight as his words wash over me in lava-like waves.
Chapter Fourteen
Kaleb
“What about you?” I ask, cutting into my steak and staring at the bloodiness of it, the carnal beast inside of me awakening at the sight of it.
I’m a fucking monster waiting to unleash on my woman, and the story I told her about what happened when I was a kid only solidifies that. I’ve never shared that with anyone before, never dreamed of it, but she’s opened up parts of me I never knew existed before I felt her touch.
Fuck.
I’m rock solid under the table, staring at a dollop of sauce at the corner of her lips, imagining it’s something else, that her lips are soaked in my precome from where she’s been greedily sucking me before I take her sweet precious virgin hole.
I need to keep it civilized, to remember that Kelly said she isn’t ready yet.
Eve
n if I want to make her ready.
“What about me?” she asks, dabbing at her lip before forking some pasta.
I love the way she eats, fully and sexily, fueling her curvy body for when I flood her with my seed.
She’s getting ready to feed our children when they’re growing inside of her, and each mouthful makes me more certain she’s going to be an incredible mother.
“Your artwork,” I say, “where do you want to take it?”
I focus on the taste of the steak in my mouth as I chew, but that only makes me feel even more primal, even more beastly, because I can imagine I hunted this meat while she was waiting for me back at my cave, my virgin prize waiting to be claimed.
I’d tear the world to pieces to keep her safe.
“I want to illustrate children’s books,” she murmurs. “I’ve done a few already. But I want to make it my career.”
“I’ll support you, however, I can,” I tell her firmly, taking a sip of my soda. “For starters, you can quit that cleaning job.”
She gasps, her eyes going wide. I should warn her to be careful of those sorts of facial expressions around me. It makes me think of how she’d look with my shaft buried deep inside of her, balls deep.
I force the lust-filled thoughts away.
“Are you serious?” she says.
“Deadly. Why should you waste your talents as an artist cleaning toilets? I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being a cleaner. It’s a fine job if you need the money. But you don’t need the money, my queen. You’ll never need for money again. I’m going to take care of you.”
She turns her gaze away for a moment, frowning softly. “I refused Mom’s money the same way Natalie refused yours. I wanted to stand on my own two feet.”
“Of course,” I growl passionately. “And I respect the hell out of you for that. But taking money from your parents and allowing your husband – the man who owns you – to support you are two very different things. We’re going to be together forever. And I know, given the chance, you’ll make a career out of your talent anyway. I’m just giving you a bit of breathing space.”
Picture Perfect Love: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Page 8
