She deepened the kiss, leaning into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and tangling them through his long, dark hair. It was soft. So much softer than it had a right to be.
No, it wasn’t right, but she was going to do it anyway. She was going to open up her heart and when it was empty, fill it up with him, sew him up inside of herself and keep moving forward, to a place where one day she might truly find happiness.
Chapter 11
A Woman Like You
Kian
He'd known, from the second his lips touched hers, that Katelyn wasn’t like any other woman on earth. He felt the desperation in her kiss, in the way she threaded delicate fingers through his hair, in the little whimpers she made. Her scent, rising up around them, was rich and heady and fueled his own needs.
It’s been so long. Which was the understatement of the century. After the accident he’d shut down human interaction to the point where he kept it at a bare, necessary minimum. He never thought there would be a time when his lost, painful isolation would be shattered so thoroughly.
His tongue stroked hers in hot passes as he ate at her mouth, sipped the rose red sweetness of her perfect, soft lips. He thought of his bed, the loneliest place in his house. He thought of taking her there, stripping away her clothing and showing her just what true passion could be. He figured it had been a long time for her too. Or at least, a long time since someone had touched her with the intent to give her true pleasure as well as take it.
The walls he’d hammered up around his soul slowly lowered, exposing a part of him that was as painful and raw as the day the accident happened. Because he couldn’t help himself, he imagined waking up beside her, the woman who was an angel, staring into her deep blue eyes; a time when his bed went from not just being his alone, but to theirs. He imagined sharing all the parts of himself he’d kept hidden for so long. Damn, even telling someone else the stupid news from his day, sharing all those things he had to keep shored away because he’d made himself that way… it was unimaginable. It hurt. It damn well twisted his already aching heart.
Katelyn placed a delicate hand on his chest and gently pushed as she pulled away. She blinked large, wide blue eyes. The color of them was almost obliterated by her pupils. Her shoulders heaved sweetly as she forcefully took air into lungs that probably screamed like his own did. It stung him deep that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d kissed until he had no breath left.
“We shouldn’t do this,” she gasped. “This isn’t right. Not after…”
Kian should have let her go. He should have agreed with her and watched her walk out his front door. Back to her own world, where she was safe. Safe from him and the pain he could only bring her. He imagined his hand sliding over her bare skin, darkening all that pale, creaminess that lay below her clothing. He was like a dark stain that could only bring misery.
A sick feeling twisted in his gut and he pulled away. It actually hurt to physically set himself apart from her. Which was pretty damn ironic considering he always thought the greatest damage would be caused by getting too close.
Katelyn, sensing his detachment, moved closer on the couch. She reached out, so very gently, and slowly ran her hand over the length of his beard. Her kiss swollen lips, lips that tasted of the sweetest nectar, lips that were entirely divine, curled up in a radiant smile. The scent of her, when he breathed in, filled up his nostrils again. The sweet floral fragrance that drifted from her hair or her wrists, her neck- maybe even her skin itself, aroused a host of feelings from the past. Most of them he feared. Sorrow. Love. Pain. Wild ecstasy. Danger.
“I like this. It’s so much softer than I thought it would be.”
Hell. Doesn’t that imply she thought about touching it? Kian reacted viscerally, leaning into her touch as though she could somehow save him from himself.
“I know I should go- but- I’m not going to. I- I can’t imagine I look very pretty right now… maybe if it’s dark…”
“No,” he said thickly. “A woman like you doesn’t belong in the darkness.” Because he couldn’t stop himself, he wrapped his hand around the porcelain column of her neck. The way her lips parted, the wildfire in her eyes fed his own hard need. A need he was going to surrender to, because at that point, he could do nothing else.
His lips slanted over hers again, searching, aching, hungry. She responded, twisting her body into him. The press of firm, ripe breasts in his chest drew a tortured groan from his throat. She swallowed it as she kissed him furiously. She nipped at his mouth hungrily, becoming the aggressor in a way that was both startling and erotic as hell.
It had never truly been like that between him and Cynthia. Or at least, he didn’t think so. He always expected that being with a woman again, after the accident, would feel like a betrayal of all that he held sacred. His wife’s memory. The love they’d shared. The love that had been ripped apart long before they were ready. The lifetime of memories and special moments denied. The future that was theirs was never meant to be. Grief encompassed it all. Not just the loss of the person in itself, but the loss of everything they embodied. It was a grief he alone had to walk through. A private road of purgatory that no one could venture on. He walked it. Day in and day out. The guilt he felt, the guilt that somehow it was his fault, the accident, that he’d done it to his family, to himself, walked right along with him. He’d cut everyone off. Cynthia’s family. His own. He’d moved away because he had to. Started a new life and rebuilt what was left of himself.
“Kian…” He startled out of his lost thoughts, struggled to pull himself from the gray haze that often swallowed him whole. He felt Katelyn’s tender hands caressing his hair. She pulled the thick, dark strands away from his scalp before she combed her fingers through, right to the ends and started it again. She’d broken the kiss and he hadn’t even noticed. “Just stay with me.”
He blinked and found himself staring into eyes that were all too knowing. “I…”
“Shhh. I know what it’s like to get lost in the past. Believe me. I don’t know what your story is and you don’t truly know mine. For tonight, let’s just have no story. No past. Let’s just be us, whatever that means. We can find it in each other. We can define it, create it. We can do it, if you just stay here with me.”
Her voice was so soothing, so sweet, so utterly gentle, that unmanly tears sprang to his eyes. He blinked them away quickly, the burn of shame crawling up his throat. He swallowed back the acrid taste of grief and regret.
“Yes,” he found himself agreeing, though he didn’t fully know how he’d ever do it. “I don’t know how. I don’t know how to stay… here and forget.”
Those hands, those angelic hands kept caressing his hair. “Take off your clothes,” she whispered, right by his ear. Her breath warm and fragrant, sent a host of shivers racing over his skin. “And then take off mine and I’ll show you.”
Chapter 12
A Secret Domain
Katelyn
The removal of clothing was some kind of a challenge she’d thrown down without even fully realizing it. She didn’t even fully know what was happening. The nervous anticipation building in her stomach, the tingling tremble in her limbs told her she wanted to stay. Her brain tried to intervene, as his had. She knew she should leave, but she also knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Kian stood up so quickly she was a little astounded. She didn’t know someone his size could move so fast. He said nothing as he turned and left the room. She paused, still on the couch. Should she follow?
Yes I should definitely follow.
She knew nothing about him, but she sensed he’d probably gone to his bedroom. He was too much of a gentleman to have her right there on the living couch like a couple of raunchy teenagers. He didn’t take her hand or lead the way. He wasn’t demanding, didn’t sweep her off her feet and carry her there. No, of course he’d let her come to him. He left it up to her, yet at the same time, she didn’t feel at all like it was a choice or at all like she was taki
ng the lead.
The walk to his room took all of a few seconds. Of course, since house was the mirror opposite of hers, she knew where it would be.
She started guiltily as she stepped inside. The bedroom, that was a sacred domain. It was one room in someone’s house you didn’t just go poking around in.
The hall light was on and flooded the first few feet of the bedroom. Shadows played over the walls. The massive king size bed took up most of the room. It was one of those expensive looking beds, the kind that was upholstered in black leather on both the headboard and footboard. Even in the dark, she had a well trained eye. She could almost smell the quality. A glass nightstand, the mirrored kind that was all the rage and in demand with what felt like every single one of her clients a few years ago, stood perched beside the bed. There was only room for one.
A tallboy antique dresser took up the remaining real estate in the room. The wall space between the window and the small walk in closet was just wide enough for it. Katelyn didn’t have a whole lot of experience with antiques, but she figured it was old. It had the curved drawers at the top, and carved wooden handles that spoke to quality which belonged to another century.
Her natural assessment of the room and its furnishings was done. Katelyn’s eyes swept to Kian himself. He stood by the bed, poised, waiting. Even in the dark she could see the feral gleam in his eyes and knew it wouldn’t take much to take him to the brink and push him over. It won’t take much for me either.
While she watched, perhaps because she watched, Kian gripped his shirt and worked it over his head. She couldn’t smother the gasp of appreciation that escaped her lips. She’d never seen a man so muscular, at least not up close, not in his damn bedroom. Scrawling ink covered his entire chest. She couldn’t make out much in the near darkness, but the glow from the hall spilled golden light over what looked to be angel wings. They covered both pecs and higher, that ink turned into something else, some kind of writing and other symbols she couldn’t quite make out.
She could have stared at his ink all day. A shock wave detonated from the inside out. Shivers crawled up her spine and wracked her body. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. Her eyes made a slow caress of his chest, his powerful shoulders and massive arms. There was not a scrap of extra skin anywhere. Nor blank skin. It was all dark, swirling ink and hard, ridged, sinewy muscle. He seemed to tower over her, though he was probably only half a foot taller. He was easily twice as broad as she was. His jeans hung low on his hips, held up by a black belt. Her fingers itched to take it apart, to slide those jeans down and find out just how big he was…
Katelyn’s cheeks flamed hot at the wicked thought. She turned her attention back to Kian’s chest. She wanted to touch him. She ached at the thought of all that smooth skin under her fingertips, the crisp hairs. Heat spread wildly as her body responded to the strange sexual pull that radiated from him.
She wanted her skin on his skin in the most elemental, animalistic way.
When she undressed it wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t seductive. It wasn’t much of anything but a frantic pulling off of her own clothes in a response to the sudden desperation she felt to be naked. Her clothes ended up in a heap on the floor and she stood before him in nothing at all, wondering what it was he liked in a woman.
His face gave nothing away as his eyes slowly licked over her. He started at the top, at her shoulders, and worked his way down over full breasts with dusky pink nipples, a flat stomach, hips and a backside that were perhaps just a tad too curvy, down legs that were shapely enough, she supposed.
When his eyes flicked back to her face, the heat in his gaze nearly took her breath away. She was aware of him then, his powerful masculinity, the size of him, of how tiny she felt in comparison.
“Take off your jeans.” Was that really her voice all husky and desperate and commanding?
Kian hesitated for just a fraction of a second. Clearly they were past the point of return. She traced every single erotic movement of his hands as they worked his belt loose, the button of his jeans, his fly. He pulled all his clothes away at once and stepped aside, as though boldly daring her to look.
Which she could do all day, every day. He had some ink flowing over his hard thighs, down the streamlined calves though it wasn’t as thick and concentrated as the ink on his arms and chest.
Her gaze was pulled, because she just couldn’t help herself, to his thick cock. It stood out from his body, the most massive erection she had ever seen. As she watched, it seemed to thicken, to grow harder until it pulsed.
She made a sound that was half a gasp and half a strangled groan. The ache inside of her intensified to the point where it was utterly blinding. She could think of nothing else. Her mouth watered at the thought of tasting him, of falling to her knees and sliding him to the back of her throat, licking and swallowing the salty tang of his arousal…
“Katelyn,” Kian commanded, his tone hard. “Are you sure? I- I don’t want to hurt you?”
She blinked. Am I sure? God, I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. She didn’t say it was a little late for regrets. She didn’t ask him what he meant when he said he didn’t want to hurt her. It was clear he wasn’t talking about the physical…
“Yes,” she said, voice unwavering. “Yes.” Her nipples tightened, peaking and standing out hard. Her sex throbbed, her thighs ached.
“Then tell me what you want. Tell me what you want me to do.”
Heat bloomed on her cheeks. She’d forgotten all about what happened earlier that night until the bruise on her cheekbone throbbed suddenly. Tell me what you want me to do. God there were a thousand things she wanted him to do. To her.
“I want you to get on your bed. I want to start by riding you.” So that I’m in control. He was huge. Huge! She very much doubted she could take even half of him and she wanted to be the one setting the pace. After that… well, she didn’t imagine they would be limited to one position.
Kian’s eyes sparked with wild hunger. He moved slowly, with all the grace in the world, grace she didn’t imagine that a man who looked so damn… masculine, even possessed. She watched him spread out on top of the white covers. God, he looked so beautiful waiting for her, the golden light from the hall playing over his inked skin.
She couldn’t make herself wait any longer. A wild need drove her forward. She’d never felt this way about a single man she’d ever been with. Not that there were many. She was too busy studying in high school, trying to graduate early so she could move out of their mother’s house and in with Dinah. She’d had a few fumbling boyfriends, more boys than men. John had been her first. He didn’t compare. Not even close. He too seemed like a boy, someone who took what they wanted and left her bereft.
Not Kian. Somehow she knew that he was the type of man who would wait. He’d wait for her to find her pleasure first, maybe even over and over again, before he took his. He was the kind of man you could fuck all night and wake up and hour later, in the morning, and want to do it all over again. He was the kind of man who remained ingrained in memory, every single pleasing hard muscle. God, he was the type of man a woman fantasized over.
Delicious flames licked over her skin as she crawled up onto that bed. She felt the heat of Kian’s skin soak into hers, the silken smooth skin of his thigh as she moved, draping hers on either side of his. One hand, the fingers strong and so very warm, the palms surprisingly calloused, cupped her breast. She gasped as Kian’s fingers played over her nipple, circling and pinching expertly.
“So beautiful,” he said huskily, and when she looked down at his face she realized he was looking at her, not just at her body.
She flushed wildly under his praise. She boldly reached between them and gripped his cock. It pulsed in her palm, growing even thicker at her touch. She gasped and closed her eyes. Her vision had become pretty hazy anyway. Her hand moved slowly, savoring the feel of him, every single inch as she caressed him from the smooth, rounded tip down the hard, ridged shaft, right to
the base.
The pressure grew inside of her. She knew exactly where it was she wanted him. If they had been different people at a different time, maybe she could have tortured him. Maybe she could have waited, toyed with him, brought him right to the brink before she pulled teasingly away and started it all over again.
No, she couldn’t do that. She needed him too badly to even think of keeping up the game of touch and taste. Kian wasn’t the kind of man you leisurely explored. At least not this time. He was the kind of man you either took or surrendered to, but either way it would be hot and hard, sharp and aching.
Katelyn spread her legs wide and shifted lower. She’d been straddling his waist more so than his thighs, and when she moved, she positioned herself right after his cock. She guided his cock to her entrance, which was already slippery and soaking wet.
She lost herself as she sunk down, slowly, taking him inch by inch, as much as she dared. He parted her, sliding through her slick passage easily. She closed her eyes and threw back her head, just letting herself feel… feel all of it. Every sensation that ripped through her all at once. He filled her, was so thick it stretched her and it hurt, but in the most delicious, elemental way that a hurt could be.
Katelyn didn’t think there was a hope in hell of ever fitting all of him inside of her, but she surprised herself. She sunk down, lower and lower, until he was fully sheathed inside of her. She didn’t move. She was almost afraid to move, afraid that if she did, she’d shatter. Just having his rock hard cock inside of her was enough to send her right to the brink.
Hot Ink: All 3 Tattoo Shop Romance Books + 2 Exclusive Bonus Stories Page 7
