by Sophia Gray
Kyle caught her wrists and slowly backed her toward the kitchen counter, trapping her there with his body. The stone countertop was chilly against her back, something she found to be strangely pleasurable. He pushed her back so far that she was trapped against the countertop by his body. His erection pressed into the soft flesh of her belly. “Something funny?”
“Yeah. Take your damned shirt off. Half-naked only works if it’s the top half that’s naked.”
Kyle ground his erection into her playfully. “Are you sure?” he purred. He glanced down at her breasts and exposed body, his scorching gaze raking her over. “It looks damn good on you, but I’m pretty sure I could make this work.”
Bridgette shut him up with another kiss, this time commanding the lead. She dove deep into his mouth, tasting him, tracing her tongue against his. At last she drew back for air. She met his smoldering eyes, holding them. “Meet me in the bedroom. No clothes.”
Kyle didn’t move. She could see amusement playing deeply in his eyes. He pulled his hips back just enough so he could slip a hand between their bodies. He dipped it into the space between her legs, tracing lightly with a single finger against the fabric of her panties. She knew she was already wet and that he could feel it.
“Meet you in the bedroom?” he breathed into her ear. “You think you’re in charge here?”
Bridgette heaved a sigh of mock frustration. At least, she hoped it sounded like frustration. With his hand teasing her like that, she wasn’t so sure it didn’t just sound like desire. “You’ve got a smoking hot woman telling you to meet her in bed naked, and you’re going to argue with her?”
Kyle pressed a kiss to her neck. “You’re right,” he growled throatily. “What am I thinking?”
Kyle moved back, giving her enough space to slip out and hurry down the hall ahead of him. She heard his footsteps not far behind her, and the rustle of leather and fabric as he followed her instructions.
Bridgette hit the bed first. Kyle was right behind her, his chest bare now. She could see every line of his musculature, and every white, angry ridge of the hundred or so small scars that he’d picked up since he’d left. They’d barely caught her eye before, but now she found herself tracing them, trying to make sense of them.
Kyle climbed onto the bed and straddled her immediately. He smoothed his hands down the length of her arms all the way to her wrists and, as he always did, trapped them in his manacle-like hands. He pulled them above her head. Instead of simply lying there this time, Bridgette dragged her right hand out of his grip and lifted it to his chest, where she traced a long hairline half-crescent, a mark that cut his left pec in half.
“Did Martin give this to you, too?” she asked.
Kyle caught her wrist again and pressed a kiss to it. “No,” he murmured, then pressed another kiss against the inside of her wrist before drawing it back up over her head. “I’ve had some close calls in the past couple of years.”
Bridgette continued to study the web of small scars. Most of them were faint enough to be nearly unnoticeable. But it was strange that she hadn’t noticed this before. Her mind drifted back to the confrontation with Martin, his latest “close call.” She didn’t know why she was getting hung up on this now, but it suddenly occurred to her that not every one of those incidents could have gone as smoothly as things had today.
“Did you lose anyone?” she asked. “Anyone you knew?”
“Shit, Bridge.” Kyle released her wrists and rolled over onto the other side of the bed. “Are we doing this now? What happened to this?” Kyle gestured to his hard-on.
Bridgette propped herself up onto her side. She hesitated, then reached over and continued to trace his scars. “It’s just…you seem really close to those guys. And you deal with people like Martin long enough….”
Kyle sighed heavily. “Yeah, we’ve lost a couple of brothers over the years.” He glanced over at Bridgette. “What brought this up?”
Bridgette shrugged. “I just wanted to know. I know those guys risked their lives for me. I just wondered how often things like this happen, and if they ever turn bad.”
“Oh, they turn bad,” Kyle said. “We’ve all lost someone close. You never quite get over it. But it’s blood that binds us together, and anytime our blood gets spilled, it just fires us up. Losing someone just makes you that much more determined to do every damn thing you can anytime you can to make sure you don’t lose another.”
Bridgette let his words settle into her. She knew now that he’d grown so much, but this was the first time she felt it run so deep. A younger Kyle would have sworn vendettas, would have pursued revenge at any cost for revenge’s sake. That’s what she’d thought this affair with Martin had been from the very beginning. She’d been so sure that Kyle was obsessed with ferreting the drug lord out just so he could pay him back for the torture.
But the fierce loyalty Kyle had just described didn’t hinge on blindly defending his honor and paying down all his debts. It was about protection. That was why he’d been so determined and so invested in this.
That was why his automatic instinct had been to dive for her, to protect her, even when he couldn’t have known how Martin would react in the heat of the moment. He’d wanted to end the kingpin and his empire so he could know for sure he and Bridgette were safe.
Bridgette crawled on top of him. She started lightly kissing down his chest.
“I’m not all torn up inside,” Kyle assured her. She could hear the eye roll in his voice. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
Bridgette brushed her fingers lightly over his chest hair as she continued to trail kisses down to this groin. “I know,” she told him between her caresses.
“Then why do I feel like you’re trying to kiss it all better?”
“Because you’re ridiculous?” she suggested. Then she continued, more seriously, “I’ve been too hung up on who I thought you were when you left. On what you did to me and Gabby, on our pain and suffering.” Bridgette swept a hand down his abdomen. “I didn’t even think about how you’ve suffered, too. About what you’ve been through.”
Kyle drew Bridgette up to him, lifting her under her arms until she was laying on top of him, her knees bent on either side of his chest, his cock just barely brushing against her panties. He gazed up at her with his arresting blue eyes. They were filled to the brim with raw emotion—relief and joy and a fierce possessiveness that she could only define as love.
Seeing him look at her like that filled her with the same emotions, and with such sudden, breathtaking force that she could feel her eyes filling with tears again.
“Don’t you worry about me,” Kyle repeated.
Bridgette smiled through the tears and buried her head against his neck.
She felt Kyle’s hands stroking down her body, caressing her, stoking the hot need in her core back to a fever pitch. He ran his hands over her ass, creating a delicious friction through the fabric. She maneuvered her hips against his hands, urging him on, as she continued to press kisses against his neck.
Kyle tugged her panties down and pulled her hips down onto him, pushing deep into her. Bridgette shuddered pleasurably as she felt him enter her, stretching her and filling her. She clenched around him automatically, and her hips thrust back against him, trying to draw him in deeper.
Bridgette pulled away from his neck, arching her back as she felt him bottom out. Her emotions were mixing in with her libido and, in that moment, with him buried so deep inside her, his sturdy body beneath her like a solid foundation, the pleasure she felt running through her seemed like a confirmation that this was right. That they were meant for each other.
Kyle guided her hips forth and back, urging her to fall into an easy rhythm. She slid up and down him, feeling the weight of her breasts swaying beneath her. Kyle’s hands dug into her hips harder and harder as she moved, picking up momentum, changing her slow tempo into a more demanding pace.
She barely needed Kyle’s hands on her hips. Her body was taking over as the d
esire between her legs turned to a tight, insistent pinch. It was a sharp driving need that her pumping hips instinctively moved to sate. Her breaths grew shorter as she worked to build up enough friction, to find that sweet spot in her that would unravel her and send her tumbling over the edge.
She could feel him getting closer, his cock swelling and expanding so it felt even bigger and stretched her even more. With every upward stroke she felt her body trying to milk him, contracting around him until she could feel his pulse in her, and his own heavy breathing in her ears.
Close to their peaks, in the midst of her frenzied thrusting, Kyle tilted her hips up slightly as she rose off him, and when she slammed back down, the angle just slightly changed and his shaft connected with that sensitive spot of hers. Her world seemed to split apart with that contact, breaking into bright stars and an uplifting swell that carried her off in a rush of endorphins. Her body arched, her toes curled, and her nails dug deep into Kyle’s shoulder.
Her climax was all Kyle needed to come, too. He grunted and emptied himself into her, his hands holding her tightly against him.
She collapsed on top of him, sinking against his chest, waiting for her breathing to even back out. Kyle ran his hands lightly up and down her back, caressing her, as he softened inside her.
They lay there quietly for a while, no sound but their breathing. After a few moments Bridgette gently extracted herself and shifted over to his side, curling in against him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her tight.
Maybe it was just the endorphins rushing through her. But as she lay there next to him, it seemed that for the first time in a long time, all was right with the world.
Chapter 27
Bridgette
“So what now?” Kyle asked after a while. He turned his head toward her, fixing her with his cool gaze. There was no expectation or challenge there. He was asking her a simple question, and his even demeanor seemed to be his way of showing her that he would accept her answer.
Bridgette sighed and cuddled closer to him. “I suppose I should pick up Gabby, especially since I don’t have to worry about being seen out with her anymore. I don’t, right?”
“No,” Kyle reassured her. “Even if Martin’s guys pick up on what went down—and I’m guessing they won’t, since we have one of the guys who was there with Martin telling everyone that everything is fine—even if someone catches on, their priority is going to be settling their score with the Raging Reapers, not coming after you.” Kyle hesitated for a moment. “You want me to run you to your car?”
“In a bit,” Bridgette murmured. “I’m not quite ready to go over there just yet.”
Another short silence stretched between them. Then Kyle asked casually, his words almost too calm, “So I take it you’re going to head back to your place with Gabby.”
“Yeah,” Bridgette said. “She needs fresh clothes, and I’m sure she’s missed her room.”
Kyle looked like he wanted to say more, but he seemed to swallow those words and instead turned his head back the other way so she could no longer see his expression. “Well, I’ll be around,” he said noncommittally. “I’ll keep you updated on how things are going—”
“Are you going to be staying here still? Didn’t you say this was one of the guys’ places?”
“Just until I can find a place of my own to stay. I’m planning on sticking around for a while.”
It was Bridgette’s turn to hesitate. She knew by now that he wanted to be in her life. But what she was about to say stuck in her throat all the same. Because she wanted him in her life, too, and if she’d somehow screwed things up between them by telling him she needed space, she’d never forgive herself. “Well, I was kind of thinking…maybe you could just stay with me.” The words tumbled out of her mouth quickly. “I mean, just until we get things figured out. I mean, until you get things figured out.”
Kyle’s head pivoted back to her, a look of surprise in his eyes. “You mean you want me to come stay with you and Gabby? But I thought—“
“I never should have kept her from you,” Bridgette told him. “You were right. You had every right to know. I thought I was protecting her, but that didn’t mean I should have kept her hidden from you. Even when I thought that you’d just up and left me, you still deserved to know you’re a father. It was selfish of me—“
“No, Bridge,” Kyle cut her off, crushing her against his side. “You were just trying to do what was best for her. I mean, hell, I know I’m not exactly anyone’s top pick for a father. You said it yourself—you were almost shot today because of what I got myself involved in.”
“What you got yourself involved in—the Raging Reapers—they’re the whole reason we’re alive. It was never you, Kyle, only shit luck that almost ruined our lives. The first time you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and this time it was me. I just happened to pick the wrong spot to start a business.”
Bridgette shook her head softly to herself. “If you hadn’t happened across Martin that day…God, I keep trying to imagine what we could have had. Things still would have been tight, and I know we would have struggled, but Gabby would have had a father around. We could have made it work, really work.”
Kyle turned onto his side and draped an arm across her body, pulling her in farther against him, molding her stomach and hips into him. “That’s life,” he told her. He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, nuzzling into her red curls. “You can’t get hung up on what was. It pisses me off that I missed so much of Gabby’s life. I wish I could have been there. I wish I could have known her from the moment she was born. But there’s nothing I can do to change that now.”
“But you can get to know her now,” Bridgette murmured. “That’s what I mean, Kyle. I think we should take this slow, but I want this. I want us. And I want you to be a part of Gabby’s life.”
Kyle’s lips broke into a small smile. “I’m glad,” he told her. “This isn’t about me. It’s about doing what’s best for her however I can. If that means we have to back off and take this slow, I’ll back right off. I’d rather die than hurt her.”
Bridgette smiled back at him. She shifted her attention his stomach and the slow rise and fall of his diaphragm. Starting at his navel, she began walking her two fingers slowly up his chest, stealing a few playful glances as she did so. “I know,” she told him confidently.
Kyle watched her fingers playing across his chest for a few more moments. Then he began tentatively, “What made you change your mind? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy. I missed you so damned much, and after this week I don’t know how well I’d handle being away from you again. But before, fuck, you sounded as if you didn’t want me within ten miles of you and Gabby.”
Bridgette let her hand drop lightly onto his chest. She pressed her palm against his warm skin and felt the regularity of his heartbeat; the sensation was strangely soothing. “I was upset and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’ve had some time now to reassess and get my priorities straight.” She paused, casting a smirk up at him, and added, “It might also have something to do with you acting as a human shield during a shootout. But I can’t be sure.”
Kyle rolled his eyes dramatically. “Well, if that was all it took….”
Chapter 28
Falcon
Falcon glanced reflexively over his shoulder. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find on the streets of the little suburb now. Maybe it was just an old habit.
Though it seemed to him that Bridgette’s friend Marcy couldn’t have picked a deader, uneventful place to live.
Falcon had walked with Bridgette up to Marcy’s front door at her insistence. She wanted to clear the air and make sure Marcy didn’t think she was being harassed by an abusive ex. Falcon hadn’t thought it was too good of an idea, given his last interaction with the woman, but Bridgette had insisted, and he figured it was better not to argue with her.
They were going with the cover story that the break-in at the bakery had actual
ly been the work of a persistent stalker, and that Falcon, who just happened to be back in town, had stepped in to help Bridgette out. They planned to tell Marcy that Bridgette had been reluctant to go to the police since she’d been receiving death threats, and that she’d gone to stay with Falcon for a bit so she could feel safer, and that Falcon had eventually convinced her to go to the authorities.
It sounded like a cock-and-bull story to him, but, again, Falcon wasn’t going to contradict Bridgette here. She had to do what she thought was best to preserve her relationships, and if that meant that he had to lie through his teeth along with her, that was what he was going to do.
Still, he couldn’t help but fidget nervously, shifting from foot to foot as they waited for Marcy to come to the door.
“Relax,” Bridgette murmured back to him. “She’s not getting her shotgun. You don’t have to get ready to duck and cover.”
Falcon snorted. “Says you. I don’t think she’s too fond of me.”
