Never Tied Down (The Never Duet Book 2)

by Anie Michaels

  With two fingers deep inside me, gently stroking my front wall, his thumb rubbing gentle circles around my clit, I could hardly contain the fast and powerful orgasm that ripped through me.

  “That’s it, baby. Give it all over to me,” he rasped, his mouth coming back down to lick slow and leisurely circles around my nipple. When I’d finally settled from the hasty and powerful orgasm, he wasted no time sliding down my body and removing the last pieces of clothing I wore, splaying kisses as he went. My body was thrumming, vibrating with need. My hands were gripping his biceps, pulling him up to my mouth so my lips could press against his. He pulled away from me, stood at the foot of the bed and slowly took his clothes off, watching me the entire time as I gripped the sheets, if only to have something to do with my hands.

  When he was finally free from his clothes, I watched as he climbed over me. My hands instinctively reached for him, wrapping around his back, while my ankles locked behind his thighs. I could feel his jutting erection resting against my folds, and I wanted to be filled with him. I wanted the emptiness, both physical and emotional, to go away.

  “You’re mine now,” he said, slowly pushing into me, his eyes locked on mine. “I will never let anyone hurt you. You never have to worry about being alone again. I’ve got you.” He said the words as he pushed farther into me than I thought possible. I was gasping from the fullness, breathless, frozen. His mouth crashed down to mine and he kissed me feverishly as he pumped in and out, each time hitting a spot I never knew existed, couldn’t have even fathomed the waves of bliss it would bring each time he stroked in, paused, but then pushed in just a fraction more. His arms came to encircle me, his hands gliding around my waist then moving upward, over my shoulder blades and then curving around the top, gripping me on either side of my neck. He pulsed in and out, pulling me down by my shoulders, his mouth laving kisses on the side of my neck between grunts and growls.

  Every part of him was wrapped around me and I was fully tangled around him, and I had never felt so right before, so balanced, so complete.

  His hips began to pound into me faster, my breaths hitched even more with every stroke, and eventually, with the sound of him groaning as he came, I fell over the cliff with him. We came, but he didn’t stop kissing me, didn’t stop pushing my hair away from my face, or running his fingertips down my cheek. We eventually fell to our sides, my hands still clinging to his back, his mouth still whispering kisses against me, and we stayed that way until we fell asleep.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Protect Her

  Riot

  I woke early the next morning, Kalli still wrapped tightly around me. I loved the feeling of her pressed against me, but I also hated it, knowing the reason behind her tight grasp. We’d finally moved into a better light when it came to her dealing with Marcus’ death, and then her father had to fuck everything up with his lame attempt at making amends.

  I’d watched Kalli regress the night before. I’d watched as she questioned herself, questioned her own worthiness, questioned whether or not she was even capable of the kind of love we shared. That hurt. But it didn’t hurt her enough to push me away. When I saw the doubt in her eyes, all I wanted to do was prove it wrong. I wanted to show her that she was the most loving person I’d ever met, and that she was fully capable of loving someone without this tragic flaw of running away.

  Kevin hadn’t just run away. No. Kevin Rivers was a fucking cowardly dickwad who would, in about five minutes, understand that Kalli was not to be fucked with. She wasn’t a seven-year-old girl anymore. And if she wasn’t strong enough to make him see how wonderful she was, how idiotic he’d been to walk away from her so many years ago, well, I wouldn’t mind clocking that son of a bitch right in the fucking gut.

  I slowly rolled Kalli to her back, kissed her temple, then gently pulled out of her arms. I covered her with the blanket all the way up to her neck because I knew if she got cold, she’d wake up in minutes. I needed more than two minutes for what I was about to do.

  I grabbed the card off the floor, grabbed my cell phone, and snuck out onto her front porch. I didn’t need Kalli to hear my conversation. I dialed the number, shaking my head at the irony of the San Diego area code, and listened to the phone ring on the other end of the line. It rang five times, and I was afraid it would go to voice mail. That was disappointing. This was a conversation that would be better in person, but would suffice to hear live. A recording of the speech I’d planned for the last two hours as I held the woman I loved, sleeping in my arms, wouldn’t be nearly as effective as the live version.

  “Hello?” I heard a groggy man’s voice ask. Good. He’d been sleeping.

  “I’m looking for Kevin Rivers.”

  “Uh, this is he. Who’s this?”

  “I know your daughter, Kalli.”

  “Kalli?” he sounded just as confused as he was tired. Then I heard the instant the panic set in. “Is she all right? What’s happened?”

  I tried to ignore the genuine concern in his voice, tried to look past the fact that he truly sounded like a panicked parent, and pushed it all aside to get my point across.

  “Kalli’s fine, and I’d like for her to stay that way. So here’s what’s going to happen: you’re not going to fuck with her mind anymore. You’ve done enough damage and I won’t watch you tear her apart again just to make yourself feel better.”

  “Who is this?” Now he sounded angry.

  “I’m the man who she’s finally allowed to help her put the pieces back together. I’m the man that’s going to kick your ass if you hurt her again. And I’m the man who will die to protect her. Got any more questions?”

  The line was quiet for a moment before Kevin asked, his voice much quieter, “Is she all right?”

  “No, she’s not all right. But she will be.”

  “I sent her flowers every week, but finally the florist told me they started getting returned. Something about new residents at the address.”

  “How’d you get her address?”

  “I’d rather talk to her about that. Is she there? Can I speak to her?”

  “She’s asleep. The only way you’ll ever get to talk to her is if she decides to call you. I won’t stop her from calling you, but I will be with her if she does. What I called to tell you today is, if she decides to reach out to you, you’re not to fuck with her head. Got me?”

  “What makes you think I want to hurt her? I only want to talk to her, to have a chance to explain –”

  “No, see, that’s where you’re wrong. I don’t give a flying fuck if you want to hurt her or not, the odds are, you will. There is nothing you can say to her about why you left your seven-year-old daughter on her birthday that’s not going to hurt her. You’re going to want to talk to her about her brother. Her brother who died. Her brother whose death she still feels slightly responsible for. There is no way to talk to her without hurting her at this point.” I took in a deep and ragged breath. I hadn’t expected to get so angry. I knew I would get keyed up, knew the adrenaline would pump through me if I got a chance to talk to him, but I didn’t expect to see red like I was. “So, what’s going to happen if she calls you is, you’re going to apologize and you’re going to listen to her. You’re going to be honest with her, and you’re going to give her exactly what she wants from you. Nothing more, nothing less. Understood?”

  “My relationship with my daughter is no one’s business but mine and hers. I think it would be best if we hung up and Kalli called me back later.”

  “You don’t seem to understand. I’m the one protecting her now. I’m the one who’s going to be here to help her back up every time she falls, even if she trips herself. Your relationship with her is unimportant—to me or her. I don’t care if she calls you and you fix what you broke, if you convince her you’re not a monster and that she should allow you back into her life. What matters to me is Kalli. If she’s happy, I’m happy. But if you hurt her by being careless, I will hurt you more.”

  “So you
just called me to harass me?”

  “No, I called to tell you that if you can’t be a decent human being, if you can’t be honest with her, if you can’t give her real, truthful answers to her questions, don’t pick up if she calls. Do her that one last favor as her father. If you’re just going to reel her in and then run away again when shit gets tough, just… don’t. She doesn’t deserve to be yanked around anymore.”

  Again, Kevin hesitated before answering, but when he did, I felt like he’d thrown down the proverbial gauntlet.

  “I’m going to answer the phone when she calls. And I’m hoping when she does call, she’ll be open to hearing what I have to say. I don’t intend to ‘fuck with her,’ as you so eloquently put it. But I do intend to straighten some things out.”

  “Your call, man. But know I’ll be there every step of the way. You say one word to her I don’t like and I’ll find a way to end it. I promise you that.”

  There was another pause on the line, then he spoke again, sounding a little more resigned. “I can’t say I appreciate the early morning wake-up, but I can’t lie. I am glad that Kalli has someone like you looking out for her.”

  “Yeah, well, it should’ve been you.”

  “Everyone makes mistakes.”

  “No, not everyone leaves their kid on her birthday, disappearing for twenty years.”

  He let out a loud sigh. “I get what you’re saying. I hear you. I’m going to hang up now since I feel like we’ve both said all there is to say. I’ll be looking forward to Kalli’s call.”

  “If she calls,” I said, pointedly.

  Another sigh. “Have a good rest of your day.”

  I ended the call without responding. Odds were, I wasn’t going to have a good day. I was going to spend the day at work, hoping Kalli wasn’t having a panic attack on her set. I would be worried that she’d call her father while I wasn’t around, while I wasn’t there to make sure he couldn’t reach through the phone and crush her heart with his bare hands again. She’d lived so long without him, but I knew if he disappointed her again, it would take a miracle to not send her spiraling back down into the black hole I’d already managed to pull her out of.

  I tossed my phone on her coffee table as I passed by it on my way back to her. Outside her bedroom door, I paused. I scrubbed my hands down my face, trying to calm myself down. I knew if I went in there with nothing but tension radiating off me, she’d feel it. So I took in a deep breath, pushed it out again, and imagined my sleeping girl on the other side of the door, waiting for me.

  Calm washed over me.

  I pushed the door open, walked back to the bed, crawled in, and wrapped my arms around her. She didn’t wake, but she did stir, pressing her body into mine, finding a comfortable position, then melted back into me. I pressed my face into her hair, which lay splayed across my pillow, and I tried to fall back asleep.

  Sleep wouldn’t come back to me that morning, but being with my girl who was safe and warm in my arms, well, that was better than an extra few minutes of rest anyway.

  “You’re done with your night shoots, right?”

  Kalli was standing at her counter, spreading cream cheese on a bagel. I’d been watching her all morning, trying to figure out where her head was at. For the most part, she was acting normal, not at all as though she’d gotten letters from her absentee father the day before which had left her reeling and crushed. I figured she was either doing okay, or she was tamping down everything and trying to act okay for my benefit.

  “Yeah, babe,” I said, stepping up behind her. I pulled her blonde hair over her shoulder and pressed my lips right below her ear, loving the way she shivered against me. “I’ll be home tonight.” My hands ran down to her waist and then I gripped her hips, pulling her ass right against me.

  “If I didn’t love everything you were doing to my body right now, I’d call you a jerk.” Her voice was breathy and light, obviously turned on. I left one hand on her hip, but smoothed one over her belly, then used my mouth on her neck. She shuddered again, and as much as I wanted to distract her with making her body feel good, I knew it was only a bandage. So I eased my mouth off her skin and brought both my hands to the safer location of her shoulders, giving her a gentle squeeze. “Okay, officially a jerk,” she said with a laugh as I retreated.

  “We’ve both got to get to work,” I said, regret saturating my voice. I didn’t want to let her go. I wanted to keep her in that apartment, inside that bubble, where I knew I could help her if she needed me. If we went to work, well, I wouldn’t be around and that bothered me. “Will you make me a promise? Two, actually?”

  She turned in my arms, leaving her bagel on the counter where she’d stopped preparing it once I put my hands on her. “Sure. Anything.”

  God, I loved her.

  “I need you to promise me that if you need me today, if you’re feeling anxious, that you’ll call. I can’t promise I’ll be able to come immediately, but I’ll come. If you call, I’ll be there.”

  Her head tilted and her eyes went softer, then her hand came up to press against my cheek.

  “I’ll call,” she whispered, then stretched up to kiss me lightly on the lips. “And the second promise?”

  I took in a deep breath. “Promise me that if you decide to call Kevin, you’ll do it when I’m around.”

  She looked at me for a long moment, her eyes seeming to look for something in mine, as if she were trying to read something in them. But then her other hand came to my other cheek and she said, “I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to call him, but if I do, I promise I’ll do it with you.” Her thumbs stroked my jaw. “I don’t think I could do it without you,” she added, her voice quieter.

  “You’re so strong,” I whispered, pulling her closer to me. “But you’ve been through more than one person should have to endure, and I want to make sure I’m here to hold your hand if you need it.” Her hands moved to the back of my neck as her face moved closer to mine again.

  “I don’t know how I got so lucky to find you, Riot Bentley, but I’m never going to let you go.”

  She pressed her mouth to mine in a soft kiss, her arms wrapping around my neck and her breasts pressing against my chest. I let her give me that comfort, hoping she was taking the same from me.

  The day progressed without much more drama, but I was on high alert. I imagined worst-case scenarios. Someone had given Kevin her address before, that same person could have given him the address to her new place. What if he showed up? I didn’t know what was going through her mind, but I wondered how long it would take her to realize her father’s phone number had an area code based two hours away. And even if she did figure it out, I couldn’t tell which direction that would send her in. I wondered if it would make her want to talk to him more, or do the opposite and make her reject him.

  I had no idea. And I felt helpless.

  So, I did what I could.

  I met her for lunch at our coffee shop. I made sure she was all right, and she seemed to be doing fine. I didn’t press her about calling her father and she didn’t mention it either. It seemed as though I was the only one torn up about it. So I tried to let it go, tried to pretend that everything wasn’t balancing on some tightrope dangling over a large crevasse. If Kalli was cool, I’d be cool too.

  That was, until I got a call from Halah over dinner.

  Kalli and I were sitting on her couch, eating Chinese takeout, watching her favorite show, and when my phone rang and I saw it was Halah, something in my gut told me it was the call.

  “Shit,” I whispered, swiping my finger across my phone to answer the call. “Hello?”

  “Riot?” Halah’s voice came through the phone and I could tell she was crying.

  “Hal? What’s wrong?” I figured I knew what was wrong, but hearing her in tears made my heart rate spike regardless.

  She gave a little laugh at my question, but then resumed crying.

  “Everything’s wrong, Ri.” I heard her take in a shaky and st
uttered breath, and then she continued. “I’m pregnant.”

  I’d known it. I’d known she was pregnant ever since Kalli had dropped the bomb on me, but hearing her say the words didn’t make it any easier to take. Halah was twenty-five. She wasn’t too young to have a baby, but she hadn’t really grown up yet. She’d been living on a freaking cruise ship most of her adult life and hadn’t really been introduced to the real world. She was about to get a pretty drastic reality check.

  I had no idea what to say to her and that had never happened before.

  “Ask her if she’s okay.” Those words were whispered from Kalli and I couldn’t have been more grateful. She turned toward me, bringing her legs up on the couch and scooting closer, resting her hand on my thigh. Then she motioned toward the phone, pushing me to ask the question of Hal.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I mean, technically, yeah. I’m pregnant, though. I’m fine physically, but I don’t know what to do…” Her voice trailed off and I imagined all the things running through her mind.

  “You’ve got lots of options,” I offered, not sure, again, what to say. All I heard on the other end of the line was sniffling. She was crying a lot and I was hours away. “Are you at home? Is Ma there?” Surely my mother could make her stop crying, or at least hug her or something. My arms itched to wrap around her. Instead, I brought my hand up and rubbed it on the underside of my chin. It had been there just seconds when Kalli captured it with her own hand and threaded her fingers through mine.

  “Can you put her on speaker?” Kalli asked.

  I nodded and did as she asked. “Hal, you’re on speaker and Kalli’s here, okay?”