“When I came home, I promised to give myself time to figure out whether to stay or leave for good. I could go make a life somewhere else far away from Falls Edge, or I could stay and try to turn the farm into something more than it has been. I could start over, or I could put down roots and make something real, something stronger than the lie I grew up on.” He hesitates, his lips parted gently. “I had to give us a chance, June.”
A chance…
So simple. Such a pure possibility, full of hope and the kinds of moments we’ve shared these past couple days. But nothing is simple now. How could it ever be?
“At the risk of your family’s future? Did you once think about what it meant to put that on me? I’m caught in the middle of this.”
I pull back, fresh anger mingling with my confusion and hurt. I glance out at the moon, a gauzy white against the violet sky.
“Maybe I should just go,” I say softly. “Being here with you is killing my father. And, honestly, I don’t know what’s going to be left of me if I stay.”
“That’s not the answer.”
His tone is clipped. If I could see his face, I’m certain I’d see his determination to make me stay. I’m certain I’d be powerless to deny him.
I close my eyes a moment. “We can’t keep doing this, Kase. Everything has changed.”
“What’s changed?”
His tone is so measured I can sense immediately that he’s preparing to change my mind.
“You love this house, and this is your life now,” I say. “I won’t be the one to take it from you. If you and Edwin decide to sell, it’s between you and my father. I won’t be caught in the middle of it. It’s not fair.”
He’s quiet a moment. “It may not be fair, but it’s what we all agreed to.”
I look away, my hopelessness intensifying at the prospect of leaving the farm to save Kase’s dream. What would I do then? Try to soften the blow of disappointment when my father realizes the deal is off? Figure out how to keep building on the relationship that’s formed between Kase and me? Best case, my father accepts both in time. Worst case, his grudge against the McCaskers deepens and he makes a future with Kase unbearable.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper, trying like hell to keep my emotions in check.
“Stay.” Kase takes my hand in his. “I’ll admit that I manipulated the situation to get closer to you, but I also wanted you to get to know the property better. Your father’s not the only one who wants the expansion to happen. You believe in it too, right?”
I sigh. “Well…I mean, yes. But I was believing in it before I realized what this meant to you. This is your life.”
“If losing it all brings me you, I think I could live with it.”
I frown. “You can’t mean that.”
“Believe it. Why the hell do you think I put it all on the line?”
“But you don’t have to. I can go home—”
“Hell no.” He pulls me against his hard body in one swift move.
The low, growly demand makes my insides quiver.
“You’re staying, June. Right here, in my bed, in this home, for the time we agreed to. And if handing it all over to your father at the end of it is what I have to do to be with you, then that’s what I’ll do. Because if you go back to the hotel right now, it’s over. He’ll make seeing each other impossible. We’ll have to sneak around to be together, because you love him and you’ll want to protect him. He’ll hate me until his dying breath, and you know it.”
Everything he’s saying makes sense, but none of it can convince me that tearing away his home and his dreams will ever be worth it. “Kase, I can’t let you do this deal.”
“I don’t fucking care about the deal. Right now, all I care about is you.”
He’s as beautiful as ever, even more so wearing the look of possession that’s tightened his features.
I open my mouth to argue, but his lips are on me before I can speak. He’s warm and soft, but his kiss is fierce, almost bruising in its intensity. Every sweep of his tongue against mine steals away my reason. He moves his hands over me, every firm grasp like an echo of his early insistence that I stay.
And, damn it, no part of me wants to leave. I worry that’ll never change…
I meet his fervor, regretting the clothes that keep our skin from touching everywhere. He nips at my lips, tiny pinpricks of pain that match his passion. I slide my fingers through his hair, tugging at the roots, and count the steps between the place where we stand and the bedroom.
Need him. Need him now…
As if he hears my silent begging, we stumble into the house. We never stop touching, kissing, reaching for more. I claw at his shirt, desperate to get it off him. He manages to yank it off, tripping us as we reach the bottom step of the stairs. When I fall backward, he follows me down.
He pushes my dress up to my waist and grinds his hips against my center. The sound that carries past my lips can’t be me. It’s feral and desperate before disappearing into another fierce kiss. My skin prickles everywhere we touch, everywhere I badly need his hands on me.
Nothing about our position is especially comfortable, but I’m frantic to have him inside me. I’ve never been this turned on in my life. Last night was a craving made up of years of fantasies. This is different. This is desperate, because now I know the heaven of our bodies joined.
Unwilling to prolong the torture, I reach for the button on his jeans and unzip him free. He’s hard and hot to the touch, velvet over steel as I stroke him to the tip. I look into his eyes, which have gone molten.
With both hands, he grips the narrow strip of panties along my hip.
“Last warning about these,” he mutters, baring a hint of teeth as the fabric rips. He repeats the motion on the other side before tossing the ruined garment away.
Fisting his cock, he guides it up and down my slit. His blatant appraisal of me sends a rush of heat to my cheeks. But I can’t feel shy when he’s staring at me like this, like I’m all he’s ever needed. He tantalizes my clit with short, teasing strokes from the plush head and solid length of his cock.
“Kase…”
I curl my fingers around the baluster and spread my legs wider, begging with my body for what we both so badly need. He drifts lower, pressing into flesh still tender from the night before. He’s barely penetrating me, but the hint of connection has me dizzy.
I try to hook my heels behind his thighs, but he catches my knees and presses me wide. Another desperate moan threatens to break free. His sudden restraint is unfathomable to me.
“Don’t move,” he says, his eyelids heavy with lust. “Let me appreciate you this way.”
I still, eager but equally willing to savor the new sensation of being with him bare.
He traps his bottom lip between his teeth, hissing softly as he pushes a centimeter farther. “Are you sure? Because I’m not sure I can stop now. Feels too damn good already.”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything, Kase. Please…”
Chapter Fourteen
With that small consent, he leans in until I’m sure I’ve stretched to accommodate every inch of him. He punches his hips forward. The sudden move to claim even more space robs me of breath.
“Fuck,” he breathes into the space between us. “You okay?”
“Yes… My God, yes.” I close my eyes and reach for control I no longer have. I’m trembling in my effort not to move, not to cry out and beg for more. But that’s what I want. More. Harder. Faster. Please… Please.
“Say it again,” he rasps.
I blink up at him. Only then do I realize I muttered the pleas out loud as they rang through my thoughts. He withdraws to the tip and lingers there, waiting.
“More,” I whisper.
The slow thrust that follows lets me feel every ridge of his cock, every inch of his possession. I’m convinced in this moment that I’ll never tire of the feel of him…of this. The sweetest torture.
My lip trembles. “Harder.
”
He pulls back and slams his hips forward again.
“Ah!” The stair treads dig into my back with the pressure. But the deep, satisfying pleasure thrumming in my core offsets the minor discomfort. My thoughts tumble and whirl, ending with the same chanting plea.
More. More. More.
“More. Kase, I need more.”
So much more.
Still, he hesitates.
“Please,” I moan.
My knuckles go white around the baluster. I’m ready to wrap myself around him and take control when he leans in and kisses me hard, plunging deep once more.
“Goddamnit.” He drags his palms down my calves, guiding my legs around his waist. “I can’t do this here and fuck you the way I need to right now.”
When he lifts us, he’s still deeply embedded in me. I wind my limbs around him and dig my fingernails into his shoulders as he climbs the last few stairs to the landing. I circle my hips, trying desperately to create more friction between us. We’re a few steps from the bedroom, but every second it’ll take to get there seems impossibly long.
He must be wired to the same clock, because instead of taking me to the bedroom, he pins me against the hallway wall with a thud. “What am I going to do with you?”
“I think you know.”
I tug sharply at his hair, and he jerks his hips up, driving hard and deep. I cry out and lasso my limbs tighter around him. I’m lost in the fervent rhythm, free-falling into a dizzying bliss.
The way we move together… It’s rough. It’s passionate. I can’t comprehend there was a time when we didn’t have this connection. The heat between us builds until we’re slick with sweat, molded together like we were made to fit.
“You like that? You like when I make you feel every inch of me?”
I groan and my body clenches around the divine penetration. “I love it.”
“Is that all you love?” His heavy question touches my lips with soft puffs of breath. His eyes are hazy with lust and emotion.
As if my senses weren’t already being taken on the most intense roller-coaster of my life, his words hit me with more force than his wild fucking. My lips part with a ragged exhale as I try to separate the depth of what he could be saying from the physical magic between us.
Cutting off the moment, he moves us to the bedroom. He slows at the foot of the bed, lowers me down, and pulls out. My efforts to tug him back to me are thwarted when he wrestles my dress over my head. In seconds, he shucks his jeans, baring every final naked inch.
Lying on my back, I can’t help but gaze up in wonder at him—the glorious, naked sex god I’ve chosen to rock my world, all too aware that he too chose me.
He lifts the corner of his lip in a wry smile. “What are you thinking now?”
I giggle, because my thoughts are largely incoherent. “You make it hard to think when we’re like this.”
“Yeah?” Slowly he draws his hand up the underside of my thigh, all the way down my calf, and lifts my leg to rest on his shoulder. “I’m going to make it a lot harder for you to think about anything but coming in a minute.”
Pushing my other knee out, he slips back inside. I bow off the bed with a sigh. Withdrawing slowly but not completely, he skims his palms to my hips. He draws tiny ovals with his thumbs where the bones jut out. Then he presses his fingertips into the meaty flesh behind and forces my pelvis to tilt up toward him. The shift is only awkward until he joins us sharply again.
“Oh!”
I suck in a sharp breath and circle my grip around his flexed forearms. The slow drag of his cock against my inner walls feels nothing like the last stroke. Or the next.
“Oh… Oh my God,” I whimper.
Just when I thought nothing could possibly feel better, I’m convinced his cock has just discovered a raw nerve buried in the depths of me. The sensations ricocheting through me are so intense, I can scarcely breathe through my cries and moans of delirious pleasure. My pussy is locked around him. I’m trembling uncontrollably.
“Kase… Kase!”
My back arches off the bed as the orgasm tears through me, like a thousand fingernails down every limb. Warm, hot, electric, summoning the attention of every cell of my being.
Pistoning his hips, Kase creates a fierce rhythm. A little more force each time, until the headboard is knocking on the wall. The lamp on the bedside table is casting jittery shadows across the room. And I don’t care if we end up in a pile of rubble if he lets me come again.
Splaying his hand on my belly, he tips his head back. More. Harder. Faster. He gives it all to me. I can’t stop begging, crying out his name, clinging to him through every toe-curling climax.
His muscles flex, carving more beautiful shadows into his body. His torso quakes, and I know he’s there.
“June… Baby… Fuck.” He flexes his jaw and then releases as a groan pours out.
He stills, his cock pulsing warm inside me. He closes his eyes, as if the sensation is too much.
With a ragged sigh, he climbs over me, keeping us joined. Our skin is on fire, and I’ve been nearly torn apart by his rough lovemaking, but I relish the weight of his body over mine. His chest and his heartbeat so close.
He kisses my cheek and lazily caresses down my body. “I told you we’d shake the walls.”
I grin. “You definitely kept your promise.”
He exhales softly. “Are you going to keep yours?”
I turn and search his gaze, somehow even more vulnerable than it was moments ago. I know what he wants before he says it.
“June, I want you to stay.” He cups my cheek tenderly. “Promise me you’ll stay.”
How can I leave when he’s taken hold of my heart so quickly? When the promise of a future with him hangs in the balance? How can I leave before we untangle our dreams?
Still hard, he thrusts gently, and we bind ourselves tighter—arms, legs, hearts. It’s as if he’s expressing the depth of his determination to make me stay, his commitment to this time we’ve been given.
Embracing it all, I caress every inch of flesh I can reach. Over his shoulders and down his rippled abdominals, slowing just above where our bodies meet so intimately. I squeeze my eyes closed, letting the perfect pressure of Kase’s body rule my senses and chase away my fears.
“June,” he pleads with a silken whisper. “Please, baby.”
Flickering his tongue against my lips, I open for his soft kiss.
“I’ll stay,” I say into it, meaning it, fearing it, and hoping against all hope that it’s the right choice.
I wake the next morning the way I have since I arrived. Enjoying the small sounds of nature and the farm at work drifting in through the window. Then a little flutter of excitement spurs me to turn. Only, Kase’s pillow is bare. He didn’t leave a note.
My heart sinks a little, but I immediately scold myself for wishing for something so trivial. Still, I know I’ll never part with the notes he’s already written. They’ve already been stuffed into my suitcase, beside the photo of my parents that I still can’t explain.
Last night was different. More than sex. Deeper than the lust that drove us together. I was hoping maybe he’d found words to describe it. Another day, maybe.
I dress and head downstairs, disappointed anew to find the kitchen lacking a note. Maybe he was late and couldn’t take the time. A half-empty pot of coffee sits on the counter, though, so I take a mug from the cupboard and pour a steaming cup.
The screen door in the back squeaks, and a second later, Kase appears. He’s dressed casually in jeans, a heather-gray T-shirt, and his work boots, coffee in hand. An unexpected hit of relief and happiness washes over me all at once. God, I really am hopeless.
“I thought I heard you come down,” he says with a broad smile. He comes close and kisses me. He tastes like the coffee I’ve yet to savor.
“Why aren’t you working?”
His smile fades a little. “Edwin is home. Came back early this morning and was too restless to han
g here at the house. He’s helping Chad now, so I’ve got a bit of a break. I thought we could spend the afternoon together.”
I blink up at him, my heart speeding up as I try to piece together what could have happened at the hotel. “What did he say? What happened?”
He shrugs and refills his cup to the brim. “I don’t know. He seemed aggravated. Didn’t want to talk much about it, but from what I can gather, your dad was in a rage after he left here yesterday. I’m guessing he may have taken it out on Edwin. Probably kicked him out or did something that would make another day under his fancy red roof intolerable.”
The insult gets under my skin a little, and for the first time since being at the farmhouse, I feel like I’m not where I should be. My father’s beyond upset, and I have no idea what’s going on at the hotel. This is more than a fire to put out, because I lit the damn thing.
“But doesn’t this change things?”
Kase lifts his brows. “It doesn’t change anything. I still want you here. I don’t care if Edwin has to sleep in the barn.”
I stare down into my cup, remembering last night’s conversation and my promise to stay. I’m nowhere close to being ready to leave Kase, but giving in to his plea in the throes of passion doesn’t resolve anything in my heart when it comes to the land. I could go home and try to fix this seemingly unfixable situation. But maybe the extra time here at the farm will give me a chance to figure out a better way to appease my father and save Kase’s family’s legacy.
He tips my chin up, his eyes searching mine. “What’s on your mind?”
I shrug. What isn’t on my mind?
“What do you want to do? Anything you want. I’m all yours,” he presses.
He smirks, and my heart skips a beat. When my thoughts drift to last night, I’m tempted to suggest we go straight back to bed. But no matter how obsessed I am with the physical highs of being with him, no amount of time between the sheets will guarantee us forever. And forever is fast what I’m starting to want with Kase.
“If you really want me to stay…” I hook my finger into the top of his belt buckle. “How about you show me the rest of the farm?”
Misadventures of a Virgin Page 10
