Full Circle

by Carol Caiton

  With miraculous self-control, he lowered himself to her side and smoothed his hand across her stomach. Leaning over, he ran his tongue along her bottom lip and right away she opened to him, soft and warm and responsive. With lazy ease he stretched his thumb toward the underside of one breast and stroked, slowly working it higher until he teased, circling her nipple, not quite touching.

  He listened to her quickened breaths, refused to yield, even as she whimpered and tried to turn into his palm. Instead, he kept it slow, teasing her, gentling her, then drawing his mouth from hers to work his way back down to that tempting nipple, sure of his reception this time.

  She climaxed.

  Crying out as soon as he sucked her into his mouth, her body arched, went rigid, then writhed against his thigh. He sucked strongly again and just as she was about to peak for a second time, he pulled back.

  She groaned, raking her fingers into his hair, and tried to pull his head to her breast. But he held back and she let out a broken sob.

  "Kyle!"

  Lashing his tongue over the swollen bud, teasing, tempting, he slid his hand down her stomach, thumbed open her jeans, and slid his fingers inside until he reached her damp curls. Then he found the very spot he knew would drive her passion to new heights, gave in to her demand, and sucked her nipple back into his mouth.

  She climaxed again. Hot, wet, and swollen, she bowed against his hand and softly screamed.

  He wanted, badly, to be inside her, to feel those inner muscles squeeze as she came. Sliding his hand from her, he opened his own jeans and pushed them down.

  "Jess," he growled, unable to last any longer. "Give me your hand, honey."

  She was still panting, trying to catch her breath. But her fingers slid across her stomach to his and he guided her, folding them around his engorged shaft, and squeezed his eyes shut.

  Immediately he pumped into her hand, holding her fingers to increase the pressure until he slickened her hand with semen, spurting against her side and over her stomach while he groaned with mindless relief. And when the only parts of himself left moving were his hammering heart and pumping lungs, he dropped down onto the pillow beside her and tried to get sufficient air into his lungs.

  After a few seconds he felt her fingers move, a shy curiosity beneath his palm. Hesitant, slowly, she squeezed his softened flesh, then her thumb carefully caressed. And as he softened further, she paused, waiting.

  He smiled into the semi-darkness, his breath beginning to even out. She was measuring him. That inquisitive mind of hers wanted information.

  "You keep playing around down there and I'll be good to go again in a few minutes."

  She stilled. Then she started to ease her grip so he tightened his around her hand.

  "Don't stop," he murmured. It felt so damned good to have her hands on him. He turned his head and pressed his lips to her hair. "Don't stop."

  "I'm doing it right then? Even now?"

  "Yes," he told her. "Even now."

  He gave her a couple of minutes to explore, then he pushed up onto one elbow and reached across her stomach for his shirt.

  "Give me your hand," he said, then wiped her fingers before folding it over and using it to clean his semen from her stomach.

  "Kyle?"

  "Mmm?"

  "When you touch me . . . ."

  He finished up, dropped the shirt behind him onto the floor, and gave her his full attention.

  "What I mean to ask is . . . ."

  He waited. Between the distant glow coming from the living room and the moonlight filtering through his windows, her pale breasts tempted him. He wanted to touch. He finally had her in his bed and he wanted to enjoy every minute.

  "Is it normal," she said, "for me to respond so quickly?"

  He contented himself with smoothing his hand across her stomach and resting it at her waist. "There's no normal standard, honey. Different women respond differently." He caressed her skin with his thumb. "But I like knowing I turn you on like that."

  "I'm still not sure these things we do together are all right."

  "I'm going to marry you, Jess. The sooner the better as far as I'm concerned."

  "And sometimes," she whispered, "when it's too dark to see colors, I'm glad you can't see me watching you."

  Colors? She lost him on that one.

  She lifted her hand and smoothed his hair away from his eyes. "Because you'd know by the heat in my face that looking at you sometimes makes me . . . breathless."

  "Breathless, huh?" He could live with that.

  "Yes. And I like it when you smile. You don't do it often enough."

  He didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything.

  "And yes," she added, "I don't spend very much time lying halfway naked in bed with a man, so I'm a little embarrassed."

  "You don't spend any time lying halfway naked in bed with a man, honey."

  "Yes, that too."

  He laughed, and she laughed with him.

  Yes, he liked her. There weren't a lot of women he could say that about. Most were only acquaintances anyway. But he liked this nineteen-year-old girl. She surprised him, she amused him, and he liked trying to figure out if she was teasing him or if she hadn't quite mastered all those idioms yet. She was smart, she was tremendously gifted . . . and she had a moral code that humbled him.

  Lifting his hand from her waist, he caught her fingers and kissed them. "I wish I'd had a chance to meet your father," he told her. "He did a good job with you, honey, and I think he was a man I would have liked knowing."

  The lighting was shadowed and dim, but the emotion that swept over her face was soft and visible.

  "I love you, Kyle. I love you very much. Thank you."

  He leaned down and kissed her. "You're welcome. Now let me show you where the bathroom is and then we'll go make some coffee."

  He turned her hand around in his and tugged her to an upright position. "And while we drink it, I've got a story to tell you. It's about a kid named Joey."

  CHAPTER 21

  She loved him. Not just some either. He thought about that while he took a turn in the bathroom.

  Nineteen.

  At nineteen he'd been in college. He'd been partying, screwing, and generally having the time of his life. The only thing he knew about love at nineteen was that he wanted nothing to do with it. He'd even chosen to go to school up in Boston so he'd be separated from Derek and Kathy. Because Derek was a cop. Death followed him every day of the week and Kyle figured if he distanced himself before it happened, it wouldn't be as bad when it did.

  Ten years later, at twenty-nine, love came back to shred his heart for the fourth time when he pulled the trigger of his own gun and put a bullet in Azram Washington. And when he came to Florida, hell, Michael busted right through whatever walls he had left.

  And now? Now he'd laid out his soul for a nineteen-year-old girl. Unfortunately, it had been a matter of grab her for himself and hold on, or lose her to RUSH's linking system. Half of him felt like running out in the night and shouting to the moon. But the other half . . . hell, the other half wanted to jump out of his skin and take off for some place far away.

  He found her in the kitchen area pulling two mugs from a cabinet above the sink.

  "Been searching my apartment, have you?"

  She grinned. "Yes. Coffee mugs are so seldom where you expect to find them, you know. And I thought I should count your pieces of furniture before—"

  She squealed and laughed as he scooped her up and growled into her neck. "Little girls get in trouble when they provoke a big bad wolf."

  Fuck, her smile lit up his life.

  "I think," she whispered, looping her arms around his neck, "that I'd like my big bad wolf's kind of trouble."

  And fuck again. Just when he thought she'd torn down all his defenses, she went and tore down some more.

  "Yeah, well, you're going to have to wait until we're married to get your curiosity satisfied."

  He bent his h
ead, nipped at her bottom lip, then closed his mouth over hers while setting her back on her feet.

  "Go sit down," he told her. "I'll get the coffee." But he ran his hand over her jean-clad ass before letting her slip away.

  "You said you'd tell me a story," she reminded him.

  He measured out the coffee grounds, poured water into the coffeemaker, and turned it on. Then he pushed away from the counter and faced her.

  "When I was a kid in Philadelphia, before my mother died, I had a kid brother. His name was Joey, and he was the biggest pain in the ass clever kid I've ever known."

  He told her about survival on the streets in the slums he and Michael had come from. He told her what it was like to grow up with all the freedom a kid could ask for, about the fun and euphoria of a well planned rip-off, and the insatiable curiosity of a kid brother who had idolized him. He told her about prying open a fire hydrant on blistering summer days, and climbing the towering stone wall of the Cricket Club, hoping to blend in with everyone else and steal a swim with the kids from the country club set.

  Then he told her about the darker side. About the hunger, the dangers of walking down certain streets alone, and the absence of money when over-the-counter medicine wasn't enough. He told her about vacant, boarded up houses where entire families lived as squatters, and about freezing cold winters without heat. He told her about the daily necessity of stealing food, and he told her about a friendship so deep and like-minded, it sometimes seemed as though he and Michael had been genetically synchronized.

  And in the end, he told her about breaking into Old Man Pelvine's house, stealing two handguns, and the abrupt and brutal end to his world as he knew it—how, in just a couple of days, Michael went chasing after a kite and vanished off the face of the earth, how his kid brother found the other gun Kyle and Michael had stolen and blew his head off, and Kyle's raw panic when the cops came and wouldn't let him get in the ambulance with his mother, how he kept screaming at anyone and everyone that she was allergic to penicillin.

  He talked for about an hour, taking a minute to absently pour two mugs of coffee. And when he was finished, he was surprised by the flood of good memories mixed in with, and often overshadowing, the bad. Maybe it was because he'd been able to escape that life in time, regardless of the ruthlessness with which he'd been yanked from it. Or maybe it was because time had dulled the remembered harshness of poverty. Or maybe it was just because he was finally able to look back with a clearer perspective. Maybe he'd finally forgiven himself enough to appreciate the traces of memory when he talked about sledding down the snow-covered brick street on a modified trashcan lid, or about Joey throwing pebbles at a wasp nest because he wanted to see what angry hornets looked like but never got the chance to because he was too busy screaming his fool head off, racing down the sidewalk when a swarm started chasing him.

  It was the first time Kyle had opened himself up to so many memories since the day he raced up two flights of stairs and found his brother's face blown away. And now . . . well, that particular memory felt somehow like the aching sorrow of a past he was aware of, rather than the horror-ridden nightmare that was filled with so much pain he'd had to pull his mind back from wandering there or go insane.

  "I didn't tell you this to make you cry, Jess."

  Quiet tears drifted down her cheeks. Her eyes shimmered with emotion. She pushed back the scarred-up chair she was sitting in and walked across the tile to wrap her arms around his waist.

  "I'm so sorry, Kyle," she murmured, holding him. "I'm so sorry."

  His wrapped his arms around her shoulders, a little tired now, but feeling an odd sense of peace.

  "It was a long time ago, honey. A long time ago."

  All the same, her tears and compassion laid bare an understanding of his grief and they soothed him. Yes, it had happened years ago, in a whole other lifetime, but the losses he'd suffered had shattered the boy he'd been and had shaped a lot of his outlook as an adult. And that was why he'd told her. Because there was something else she needed to know.

  "What happened to Michael?" she asked, sniffing and easing back to look up at him. "Was he hurt looking for the kite?"

  It felt like his heart skipped two full beats.

  Hurt?

  Christ Almighty, that didn't begin to describe what had happened to Michael. But that simple explanation was the one Kyle was going to leave her with because the cruelties that had battered Michael's life were savage and obscene and they were Michael's. Besides himself, and probably Rachel, he didn't think Michael would have discussed those years with anyone.

  "Yes, honey, he got hurt. Badly hurt. And I never saw him again. Not until about seven or eight months ago.

  Her eyes widened and he knew she was going to question him further, so he tried to give her some answers before she had a chance to ask for the details.

  "I ended up in foster care, and Michael was taken to another state. We lost track of each other until I recognized him on the news last winter and found out he was one of the owners of RUSH."

  Again, he'd surprised her. "Michael loves you, Kyle. I can see the affection in his eyes when he grins at you. Why didn't you look for one another many years ago?"

  "For a long time I did. And I haunted our old neighborhood for years, waiting for him to come home. Finally, when I was seventeen, I guess I realized he wasn't coming back and I stopped looking."

  She searched his eyes. "You love him, too, don't you? I hear it in your voice."

  "Yeah, I do. He was my family. Him, Joey, and my mother. He's the only link I have to that family and I hope we can build on it again."

  "I think you both want that," she said. "And I think you've both already started."

  He smoothed his hand over her hair. "Maybe you're right. Maybe we have." Then he looked into her eyes, hoping like hell the tears that left her face flushed meant she understood the grief of losing everyone he loved had scarred him. "Jess? Have you given any thought to birth control, honey?"

  Something in his tone probably alerted her. Or maybe it was his timing. She studied his face, looking for something, but he didn't want her to see too much. Not yet. He needed to feel her out first.

  As always, though, she nailed him on it with the first try.

  "You don't want children, Kyle?"

  A calm mask slid over her face before his eyes and he knew that she, too, was holding back now, not letting him see too much.

  He slid his hand up her arms and squeezed, pretty much to hold her there.

  "No, honey, I don't want kids."

  She drew in a long breath. "For how long?"

  Hell, she was hoping his decision was a temporary one. But it wasn't, and he couldn't give her false hopes that would come back to haunt him later.

  "Never, Jess. I don't want kids ever."

  She inhaled sharply. "You know I want children, Kyle."

  "Yes, I know."

  Her eyes teared up again, but this time it wasn't compassion that stirred her. It was anger.

  "You pursued me, knowing I want children and that you would never give me any?"

  He didn't answer. It wasn't as though he'd plotted and planned it that way.

  "Let go of me."

  "Jess—"

  "Did you purposely wait until I agreed to marry you before telling me this?"

  Okay, maybe he had.

  "Take your hands from me now, Kyle."

  "Look, Jess—"

  She slapped him. With tears pouring down her cheeks, she slapped him good and hard.

  He released her on a surge of anger.

  "You misled me," she cried. "You cheated me!"

  "The hell I did!"

  "I was in front with you!"

  "Up front!"

  "Yes! I want a family. I told you this the first day we met. A husband and children and roots—"

  "Why is everything about what you want? Do you go around slapping every guy who says something you don't like? Does everything have to be your way?"

&nb
sp; She jerked back as though he'd struck her in return.

  Yeah, honey, I can make you feel as guilty as you make me feel.

  "You physically overpower me and won't release me when I ask you to—two times—yet you accuse me of abuse? Until I came to this place I never struck anyone. Ever."

  He snorted. "Well, maybe this place isn't where you belong, then."

  Silence.

  The refrigerator kicked on and he glared at her, furious because she'd nailed him again. But icy fingers closed around his heart as he realized what he said.

  Goddamn it. "Jess, I didn't mean that." Panic roared through him. "Honest to God, I didn't, Jess."

  But she stared back at him as though crushed. The fire went out of her eyes and they dulled with hurt so deep, he knew all the way to his soul that he'd gone too far. And he'd done it on purpose. He'd lashed out because he'd laid himself bare for her and it hadn't been enough. He hadn't been enough. He'd told her about Joey. He'd told her about his mother. He'd told her about losing Michael. And she knew he'd left his whole frigging life in Philadelphia because of Azram. But she wanted more. She wanted kids. She wanted to rip his guts out. And all that fucking anger he'd been carrying around got coiled up and found a mark.

  "Kyle," she said, her voice soft and husky, "will you please take me home?"

  Her request cut through him like a sword. She was slipping away, and this time he didn't know how to get her back. He couldn't give her what she wanted. He'd already opened himself up. He'd taken another chance. But he was losing again.

  "I love you, Jess," he said, his own voice husky with need and pain and regret. He wanted her back in his arms. He wanted to close his eyes and breathe in her sweet fragrance. But the distance between them was a chasm of emotions without a bridge.

  "I love you too, Kyle."

  But her words were filled with sadness, as though loving him was now a burden she carried. How long would it be before she told him the burden was too heavy?

  The drive downtown was made in silence. He parked under the portico and walked her inside to the elevator.