I do as he asks, moaning as he plunges his fingers and his cock into me in sync.
Then he drifts lower, lubricating my clit with my own juices.
“Kase… Oh God.” I tremble under his touch. Any restraint my body held falls away like the last wisp of a dandelion.
“You’re perfect. The way you move. The way you submit.”
My eyes roll back when he punches his hips up. Simultaneously, he folds his fingers into my ponytail, gripping my hair tightly. The sting counters the delirious wave of pleasure of his cock and fingers working in and over me. My brain doesn’t know which sensation to land on. My body sings and soars under the harmony of everything at once—a concert of sensual awareness orchestrated by Kase. The master of my pleasure, the king of my heart.
I love this. I love him…
I’m his. His plaything, his lover, his to command. His to take…
As he powers into me, restrains me, and guides me to the precipice of a brand of pleasure I’ve never known, I can feel the words form on my lips. I want so badly to tell him how I feel now, but I need to see his eyes. Need to see his answer and hold it in my heart. Need to know if he feels the same way…
“Kase…”
I’m ready to beg him to turn me around or just scream that I love him into the pure country air, when he stops me with his next command.
“You’re going to come for me, June,” he says roughly. “You’re going to fucking break wide open for me. I want to hear it on your lips. I want to taste it in your sweat. Come on my cock. Come apart, baby.”
“Yes… Yes…”
I’m shaking, weak and coiled up too tight, trapped in his dominating pace. Then I’m there, exactly where he wants me, ready to fall apart.
The orgasm is like a glowing pearl just out of reach. Drawn into my body on my next desperate breath. Drifting lower, pulsing around my heart, filling my chest. He sinks his teeth into my shoulder, and the pearl detonates. Deep in my core, down every limb. All around his punishing thrusts.
My scream turns into a choking sob as I collapse against his chest, utterly wasted.
He unties my binds, lays my limp body on the blanket, and rolls me to face him. He simply stares at me for a few breathless seconds.
“You’re so beautiful. My God, June.”
Tension lines his face and shoulders. His cock is still rigid and jutting out from his gorgeous body. I sober a little to think that after my explosive, toe-curling fireworks of an orgasm, I’d left him unsatisfied. Not fair. Not fair at all.
“Did you already…?”
He shakes his head. “Amazingly, no.”
I reach for him and pull him down over me. “I want you to,” I murmur.
“I will.” He reaches between us and fills me slowly. “Over and over. For as long as you’ll have me.”
My heart skips a beat at the tender look in his eyes, their beauty rivaling the endless sky stretching all around us. The feeling is more than a pang in my heart. It’s everywhere. In my pores. Humming under my skin. All-consuming warmth and truth. It’s so big and so undeniable that it finally spills from my thoughts…
“Kase… I love you.”
I speak the words from the depth of my heart, no longer afraid.
He closes his eyes, opening them a second later. He brushes his thumb across my lips. Then, with a searing kiss, he begins making love to me. In the silence, we climb together. I’m still sensitive. Still buzzing from limb to limb and completely committed to witnessing his pleasure.
My confession seems to echo between us. I lock my heels around his waist when another rocket ship climax fires through me. This time Kase follows me down, gasping for air, digging into my flesh and holding on to me like I might disappear and steal away this precious moment.
As he stills, our gazes lock.
“I love you, June Bell. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to.” He touches my face, his expression soft. “Now, I’ll never know a time when I don’t.”
My heart swells. I cup my hand along his stubbled jaw. “I like the sound of that. Very much.”
Chapter Seventeen
We spend another hour lying naked in the orchard, enjoying the afterglow of our lovemaking and newly minted confessions. Dressed and our picnic packed, we go back to the truck and drive back to the empty farmhouse.
We shower together. We don’t speak much, but our touches are filled with meaning, delicate traces along the new places where our souls have been sewn together. There’ll be no falling out of love with Kase McCasker, no matter what happens with the land.
We towel off and kiss and dress. We smile and tease and almost consider falling back into bed, when the back door squeaks open and slams shut. Edwin is home.
We go downstairs. As high as I am on Kase, I’m still worried about what’s happened at the hotel.
Kase takes my hand, and we meet Edwin in the living room, where he’s sitting on the couch, staring into nothing.
“Hey, how’d it go today?”
Edwin looks up, his features haggard from one more day stacked onto a lifetime of hard work. His gaze darts calmly between Kase and me. I feel naked and exposed, like he knows everything we’ve been up to since I got here. He has to know I’ve been in Kase’s bed. He may even suspect we’re already hopelessly in love with each other.
“Hi, Edwin,” I say.
He nods. “June.” He leans his head back on the couch. “Going fine out there. Just taking a rest before the second shift. Don’t mind me.”
Kase frowns. “I got it. June and I had all day. I’ll finish things up out there.”
Edwin shakes his head. “It’s all right. I’m just a little tired. Didn’t sleep great last night.”
Suddenly, I feel like the houseguest who has no place. I can’t help but register guilt when our eyes meet, and I know that has all to do with my father. Of course, if I hadn’t been caught necking with Kase in his truck, Edwin might still be enjoying some time off at the hotel.
Kase leans down and laces up his boots before rising again. He turns to me. “I’ll be back in a few hours, all right?”
I nod. “Sure. I’ll work up something for dinner.”
He smiles and gives me a chaste kiss. “Don’t burn the house down.”
I lightly punch his arm and he turns with a laugh, disappearing out the back door, taking my heart and his addictive warm glow with him. So this is love. Crazy, addictive, all-consuming love. No wonder people call it a drug. He’s been out the door ten seconds, and I’m ready for another hit.
Edwin pushes up to his feet and walks toward the kitchen. “Want a beer?” he calls back over his shoulder.
I follow him. “No, thanks.”
He opens the fridge, bends, and takes out a cold brew. I loosely consider our options for dinner, as if this is normal life. Me in the kitchen, killing time while Kase works, figuring out what to feed him so we can end the night tangled up with each other.
But Edwin’s presence makes it harder to pretend. He’s tired and visibly agitated.
“Hard day?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “My body doesn’t like it, but I’m used to it.” He sighs, resignation set in his features. “I figured out a couple years ago that I’ve got Lyme disease. No idea when I got it. With all the time I’ve spent in the woods, it could have been in my system for decades. In any case, it’s slowing me down faster than I’d like.”
“That’s awful.”
“I may be worn down, but I’d rather take orders from the cows than your father. I’ll sleep when I die.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
He takes a swig from his beer and leans back against the counter. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about, June. Kase and I dragged you into this mess. If we hadn’t, you’d be living in your castle none the wiser.”
I contemplate the sentiment, but something about his tone and meaning riles me.
“I think you know better than most how much good comes from keeping people in th
e dark.”
He slides his gaze toward me and drains his beer a little more. He swallows and exhales. “I guess Kase told you everything, then.”
I nod. “He’s still hurting. He’s got this love-hate relationship with you and the farm. I don’t regret him bringing me here, but I really wish I wasn’t in the middle of all of it.”
He shakes his head. “He’s been mixed up about you and this farm for as long as I can remember. Nothing new about that except he’s taken you to bed, and I imagine that doesn’t uncomplicate a damn thing.”
I can feel myself blushing.
He doesn’t seem to notice. He looks out the window and then down at the old pine floor and pinches his brows. “Hell, I can’t even blame Ger for blowing a gasket. Feels like Juliette all over again. Nothing but a lifetime’s worth of heartbreak and pain came from that. God, she’s probably having a good laugh about it now.”
I knit my brows together. “What does my mother have to do with anything?”
He lifts his gaze. His features seem frozen with realization. “June, tell me he told you about your mother.”
I press a few short breaths out of my chest, making me dizzy and unstable.
He puts the bottle down on the counter and straightens. “You said he told you everything.”
I swallow hard. “He told me about your sister, Lily. How she came home and left him with you to raise. About how he grew up believing you were his father until he left for school. He was devastated.”
He lets out a hollow laugh. “He’d tell you that, of course. Unbelievable.”
I brace one hand on the counter. “What isn’t he telling me?”
He tenses his jaw and avoids my eyes. “I told you before, June. This isn’t my story to tell.”
“Then whose is it?” I can’t hide the outrage in my voice, but in this moment, it seems like everyone’s holding on to a truth that’s evaded me.
“Your father’s,” he snaps. “Far be it for me to spoil the fairy tale he’s been having you living in.”
I take another step toward him, my patience wearing paper thin. “If it’s about my mother, I need you to tell me. Tell me what Kase should have. Tell me everything my father’s been holding back.”
He paces the room, rubbing the back of his neck and muttering curses under his breath.
“Edwin, please.”
Tears prickle my eyes.
He pauses.
“Edwin, all I’ve got is a painting of her that hangs in my father’s office and a story about how she was taken from us too soon.”
He closes his eyes. “What if she isn’t who you thought she was?”
“The truth is better than nothing.”
Isn’t it?
He draws in a deep breath and exhales loudly. His posture is rigid, like a sudden fear grips him. He looks up at the ceiling. Nothing but yellowing paint there. He closes his eyes and exhales another tired sigh.
“June, I was in love with your mother.”
I nod, because my suspicions from the picture already hinted as much.
“Not just a summer fling. Not puppy love. What we had… It was the kind of love that’s so strong, so powerful, when it gets ripped away, you’re never right again. Never whole.” He pauses a moment. His eyes take on a faraway look. “The day she died, something died inside me too. Something I’ll never get back. And I’ll never forgive myself. If I hadn’t loved her so damn much, if I could have just let her go, she’d still be here. She’d be with your father, but she’d be here. Living and breathing.”
His eyes mist and mine do the same. His pain seems to fill the room, casting darker shadows on the grief I already feel from her absence. Edwin’s pain is different, though. It’s more like an aching regret. But accidents happen. Loving her or hating her wouldn’t ever change the ice on the road that night.
“The accident wasn’t your fault.”
His features are pinched. “What did Ger tell you?”
“It happened on her way home from a night working at the hotel.”
He shakes his head. “She worked that night, sure. I saw her after she finished up. We hadn’t seen each other in a few months. She came here to talk. Kase was still little, asleep upstairs in his room. I wasn’t going to try to win her back that night, but it was like everything that ever mattered between us came back full force. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I made love to her. And when she had to go back home, I begged her to let me find a way for us to make it work. I’d made a good life for Kase and me here. I could do that for her and you too, if she’d only let me.”
My jaw falls agape. “She was going to leave my dad?”
He shakes his head solemnly. “Never had the chance. We’d made some tearful promises. But she went back home that night. I wasn’t expecting to hear from her so soon, but she called me a few hours later. Hysterical. Crying. Saying she was coming to stay with me for a couple days. Of course I said that was fine. I was upset for her, but God, for those couple hours I was so damn happy to know I was finally getting her back.”
My next half breath fills my lungs painfully. Edwin’s truth wraps around them like barbed wire.
“What happened?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose again. “Your grandparents’ house was on the outskirts of town. The temperature had dropped, and the roads were icy. She lost control and collided with an oncoming car on a curve.” His lip quivers. “It happened just how you probably heard it, June. Except she wasn’t coming home to you. She was coming back to me.”
Tears burn behind my eyes. I let go of the counter. My hands are shaking.
“Kase knew this?”
Edwin works his jaw. “Once he got older, after a few less-than-friendly encounters with your father, I told him what happened with Juliette. I hadn’t told him about his mother yet, so in his mind, he thought she may have left because of what happened between Juliette and me. I didn’t know he’d spin it that way, but I figured it didn’t matter if it kept him away from you anyway.”
I swallow hard, disbelief piling on to betrayal and resentment. In an instant, I run through a dozen memories of a younger Kase. His brooding stares. His almost touches. The energy that radiated off him that I could never pinpoint but was drawn to nonetheless. It all makes sense now.
“He looked at me sometimes like he hated me, or like he knew something I didn’t. This was it. This was why.”
“He doesn’t hate you, June.”
I can barely make Edwin out behind the haze of my impending tears. When they spill over, I turn and rush up the stairs. I shut the door and then pace around Kase’s bedroom.
Kase’s bedroom.
This is where he slept every night, growing up believing I came from a woman who ruined his family. This is where I gave him something precious… Something I’d only ever wanted to give to him.
I repress a sob, only to push more tears down my cheeks. How could he keep this from me?
And why?
A fresh wave of devastation knocks me to my knees. I take fistfuls of the quilt and bury my face in the softness, shaking my head against the next thought plaguing me.
What if this deal is simply a ruse to exact revenge? To act on the resentment he carried for so long? What if nothing I think we have is real?
I cry for what seems like forever. Long, painful sobs that tear fresh wounds everywhere I’d stitched dreams of our future together. His breathless “I love yous” are painful brands on my heart that may never heal. Our memories together, so fresh in my mind, already hurt like hell.
I lift my head and look out the window. The amber sky hints at dusk nearing. I can’t face him. I can’t hear him lie or apologize to try to keep me here again.
I rise slowly and wipe my face. I toss my laundry and toiletries in my suitcase, hardly caring if I leave anything behind.
Another tear rolls down to my chin and drops to the floor. I’m saying goodbye to Kase… To a home I never thought I’d have grown so fond of.
&n
bsp; I spot a small notepad on top of Kase’s dresser. I pick it up, rip a page off, and grab a nearby pen. I hover the tip above the page, my hand trembling.
More tears fall.
No words come.
Chapter Eighteen
I drive for a couple hours. Down back roads. Along the rivers and roads that cut between the mountains. I drive until my fear is gone. Until the pain dulls a little. Until the chaos in my mind quiets enough for me to face my father with what I know now.
Everything still hurts. I’m angry and lost, but none of that changes what’s happened. Nothing brings my mother back. Nothing can take back my father’s lies or Kase’s omissions.
I pull into the hotel lot and drag my suitcase to the front porch. Marty greets me, though his chipper smile fades when he sees me up close.
“Miss Bell. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Could you please have my bag taken up to my room?”
“Of course. Right away.”
He takes the suitcase from me and turns to go inside, but I stop him.
“Do you know where my father is?”
“I think he’s in the dining hall.” A frown mars his brow. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
I touch his shoulder as I pass. “Thank you, Marty. I’ll be fine.”
I will be. I’ll have to be. My life can’t end over a broken heart.
I go inside and head to the dining hall, trying to avoid making eye contact with any of the guests. I can’t imagine how I must look. I hear my father’s voice echoing in the big room. I have no idea what day it is or what’s on the hotel’s agenda, but he’s likely trying to coordinate a special event at this hour.
He’s talking with Helene, our catering director, as I approach. I’m several feet away when he turns. His face falls when he sees me.
“June.” He glances back to Helene. “I’ll be right back.”
We meet in the middle. “Junebug. Are you okay? What’s happened? Did he hurt you?”
I shake my head and open my lips to speak, but the well of emotion is overflowing again that quickly. He hushes me quietly and leads me out of the hall. We duck into his office, and he closes the door behind us.
Misadventures of a Virgin Page 12
