by M. S. Parker
Kane offered the kid a tired smile. “Yeah. You should head on home, Austen. Go straight there. Take the subway and text me when you get there, okay?”
Austen nodded, but before he turned to go, he looked back at me. “You believe me, right? We didn’t do nothing to that woman. Really.”
I didn’t know what I believed, but I didn’t think the boy would leave unless I offered something, so I gave him a strained smile.
He looked relieved and turned to go.
Once he disappeared down the alley, I said, “I’ve got to go.”
But I didn’t even make it two steps before Kane caught up to me. “We should talk.”
“No,” I said softly. “We shouldn’t.”
“I don’t want you leaving here thinking I could hurt a woman, Raye. I’d never do anything like that,” he said, and there was a soft urging in his voice that compelled me to believe him.
I wanted to.
I thought about Calie’s persistent pleas, and I thought about everything I knew about Kane, and my need to believe him still won out.
But…
“I was raped at a frat party my freshman year of college.”
Kane’s head jerked back as if I’d slapped him.
I sucked in a breath of air and blew it out, looking away from him as heat swept up to scald my cheeks. I felt sick, a nauseous greasy sensation in the pit of my belly spreading through me.
I already knew how this would go. I’d been through this before. He wouldn’t believe me. Nobody ever had. But I wasn’t going to hide anymore either.
After what felt like unending moments of silence, I finally forced myself to look back at him.
I didn’t see the scathing look of disbelief on his face that I had come to expect from so many. He was just…waiting.
“I’d had a couple of drinks,” I said defensively. “I think somebody spiked the last one. I don’t remember a lot of what happened. All the memories are hazy. But I remember this one guy…”
Chad’s face loomed large in my mind, and those memories sharpened, clarified. I thought I might get sick. Spinning away from Kane, I took a few steps forward and ran my hands over my face, fighting back the surge of nausea.
“You should sit down,” Kane said gently.
I shot him a look over my shoulder.
He gestured toward his garage. “Do you…you can come in if you want. It’s cold out here.”
I didn’t know what I wanted. But I was cold.
I followed him inside, and when he headed into the little apartment off the back, I trudged along after him. He stood by the couch after I sat, one hand absently tapping his thigh as he asked, “You want a beer?”
“Got anything stronger?”
In response, he turned away and moved to the stove. He pulled down a bottle of whiskey and a minute later, I had a glass in my hand. The aroma alone was strong enough to make my head spin, and one sip of it had warmth running down my throat to heat my belly.
“I didn’t go to parties,” I told him softly, staring at the floor. “I wouldn’t have gone to that one, but my roommate asked me and…” Shrugging, I glanced over at him. Thoughts of May Wynn on top of everything else weren’t going to help me settle, but May Wynn was part of it. A huge part of it. The way she’d laughed in the days that followed…I suppressed a shudder and focused on the glass I held. “We hadn’t gotten along all year. I hadn’t made many friends, and when she asked me to go with her, I was so excited. It was the end of the year, and I thought maybe, just maybe, I was finally figuring out how to fit in.”
Pretty, popular, and as vicious as a tiger shark, May was the reason I’d gone to the party to begin with. She was also behind so many of the rumors that had been started afterward.
If it was in me to hate, I would have hated her with a passion.
“She told me the party was going to be fun. I get there, and there are all these upperclassmen, and everybody is drinking…I’d never had more than a glass of wine before, and May keeps pushing drinks on me. By the third one, I was already feeling a little tipsy. And that one…it tasted funny. I told her, but she just laughed it off.” I licked my lips, looked down at the glass of whiskey I held.
“Don’t drink it if you don’t want it,” Kane said.
“I want it,” I told him, lifting it to my lips in the hopes it would steady my nerves. “I only drank about half of it. I put it down, and I think maybe I was going to get some water or something. But this guy…his name was Chad…he…um…he came up to me and asked me if I wanted to dance. I told him no, but he insisted, and I was feeling too bad to fight with him. We were dancing, and that wasn’t too bad – I didn’t like the guy. He’d been bothering me all year. But the dancing wasn’t too bad,” I said it again, staring into the whiskey. “I don’t remember when we left the room. I just remember we were in the crowd with everybody else. Then it was someplace dark, and Chad was pulling at my clothes…and he…um…”
Kane’s hands closed over mine. He was gentle as he took the whiskey away, just as gentle as he held my hands. “You don’t have to keep talking, Raye. It’s okay.”
“His friend videotaped it. It got uploaded to the internet. Everybody saw it. People laughed,” I whispered. “And they didn’t believe me when I said I’d been drugged, that he hurt me.”
Fury ripped across Kane’s face. He bowed his head so that all I could see was the crown and his dark, thick hair. He tugged my hands to his lips, and I shuddered when he kissed them.
Finally, he looked back at me and whispered, “I believe you.”
I jolted in surprise.
Nobody had ever told me that.
I believe you.
“You…you do?” Dazed, I fought to keep the strength in my body, fought not to go lax and collapse back on the couch. It was as if the strength it had taken just to go through life with everybody who knew me thinking I’d lied had drained me. And now that somebody had said those three words, it was more than I could handle.
I believe you.
Tears burned my eyes. Dropping my head down, I pressed my lips to his head, felt his hair against my mouth as I whispered again, “You do?”
Kane just nodded.
“May told everybody she’d seen me hanging all over him, that I’d been teasing and flirting with him all year. She told everybody I was just a tease and that I’d told her I’d was going to fuck him that night – that was why I wanted to go to the frat party all along. Everything was just horrible. Going to class, seeing people…” I shuddered, remembering the humiliation of those final days. “Then I went home, and I thought things would get better. But my mom didn’t believe me either.”
Kane’s body went tense. “Okay. Okay.”
He lifted his head, and I let him cup my chin, lifted my gaze to his.
“I can’t imagine what you went through, Raye,” he said, his voice gruff. “It makes me sick just to hear it, so I can’t imagine what it did to you. But I never forced myself on Calie. She was pissed I broke things off with her. I guess that’s why she went and did this.”
He brushed his thumb over my lower lip. “If I came across a man hurting a woman, I’d rip him apart. I can’t stand the idea of it. And if I ever meet the guy who hurt you…”
I thought about Chad, how he’d all but cornered me in the boutique, and I looked away.
He took a shuttering breath. In. Out. “Do you believe me?”
Thirty-One
Kane
Her eyes met mine, so big and dark and uncertain, and it was enough to break my heart.
I didn’t think she would believe me. Maybe with her history, it would just be too hard.
But to my surprise, after a few more seconds, she offered a tentative nod. “Yes…I think I do.” A nervous smile quirked her lips, and she added, “Some part of me didn’t accept her accusations from the very start, anyway.”
One of the nervous knots in my gut uncurled at her words, and I wanted to cup her face, bring her mouth to mine.
<
br /> I didn’t let myself.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe in you,” she whispered.
“I think I get it.” Reaching up, I brushed her hair back from her face, relieved when she didn’t tense or pull away. “After what you went through, it’s a miracle you can trust anybody.”
She bit her lip, her eyes darting away before returning to mine. “Up until you, I don’t think I really did.”
Those words melted something inside me.
“Still,” she continued, reaching up to grip my wrist. “Whether you understand or not, it doesn’t change what I did, doesn’t make it right. If anybody knows what it’s like to have people not believe them, it’s me. I should know better.”
“You were trying to stand up for somebody you saw as a victim,” I reminded her. “That’s…well, I understand why you did it. Nobody did it for you.” I cupped her cheek in my hand, her skin soft and delicate against my work-roughened palms. “I’m sorry you didn’t have anybody decent to stand up for you. Maybe…hell, maybe if I wasn’t such a roughneck, it would have been easier for you to believe in me. That’s the kind of person you deserve anyway.”
She frowned at me.
I started to pull my hand away.
She caught it.
Without thinking about it, I closed my fingers around hers, forcing myself to keep going. “There are plenty of decent guys out there, Raye, guys who aren’t like the asswipe who hurt you. You need somebody like that, somebody who will be there for you and take care of you.”
And it was a bitch for me to understand now that I wanted to be that guy.
Not just for a little while, but for real. For good.
I wasn’t supposed to want that kind of thing, but here I was wanting it with Raye, of all people.
“What are you saying?” she asked. “You…I mean, I guess you don’t want to be that guy, huh?”
She gave me a wobbly smile and nodded, pulling her hand away from mine. “I understand. I mean, it’s not like this was supposed to be a relationship or anything, right?”
As she slid off the couch, I stared at her.
You don’t want to be that guy…
What was she, blind?
“Raye…”
She got to her feet and started for the door. “Look, like I said, I’m sorry about not believing you. And…thanks. You know, for listening. For everything.” She shot a look at me over her shoulder.
I caught up with her just as she went to pull the door open.
“Hold up.”
She didn’t listen, tugging on the handle.
I closed my hand over hers, keeping her from opening the door. “Turn around and look at me, Raye,” I whispered into her ear.
She hitched up her shoulder, but slowly, she did turn, still gripping the doorknob in one hand, her back pressed to the door, her eyes not quite meeting mine. “I should get going,” she whispered.
“In a minute.” I dipped my head and pressed my lips to the corner of her mouth. “I’m really not all that good with words. I think things and I know what I mean, but getting others to understand…that’s a different story entirely. But maybe…maybe this will help.”
I rubbed my lips against hers, using my tongue to tease the entrance of her lips until she opened for me with a moan.
Just before taking her up on that sweet offer, I paused to whisper, “If you think I don’t want to be that man, you’re mistaken. I just…maybe you deserve better, Raye.”
Her arms curled around my neck and she tugged me down close.
“Maybe you should let me decide.”
Thirty-Two
Raye
Kane’s eyes widened slightly, then his mouth was on mine. He cupped the back of my head, and there weren’t any nightmares as he pulled me up against him. I felt the hard, heavy weight of his chest, felt the muscled length of him and just…wanted.
Curling my arms around his neck, I strained to be closer, although there was no way I could be close enough.
His hands carefully peeled away every piece of clothing I wore and when he had me naked, I pushed him back and reached for the waist of his t-shirt, tugging at the tight material. He started to pull it off, but I smacked at his hands, surprising both of us. “I want to do it,” I said, meeting his gaze.
His hands fell limp to his sides, and he offered a crooked grin. “By all means.”
He stood there, utterly still as I began to strip him naked, starting with his shirt and working my way down to his booted feet before returning to tug at his belt and jeans.
Once I had him naked, I stood in front of him again and laid my hands on his chest.
Still nervous, I flicked a look up at him. “I’m really curious about all your tattoos…can I?”
“You can do whatever you want.”
The blunt answer, spoken in his rough voice, made my toes curl into the worn carpet. The phoenix rising from the ashes had been the first to catch my attention, but there were others. A dragon on the other shoulder, the two creatures facing like they were at war. Flames curled and twisted between them, a tiger peering through them to snarl at me.
Leaning in, I pressed my mouth to the tiger’s snarling face.
Kane cupped the back of my head, urging me on.
I kissed my way over to one flat male nipple and licked him.
His broad chest shuddered.
I made my way over to the other and did the same, then kissed a path up to his neck and bit him.
His body jerked.
Pulling back, I stared up at him. “No?”
He shook his head and tugged me close again. “Yes. Like I said, you can do whatever you want.”
We ended up on the couch, me sprawled on top of him, our naked bodies perfectly aligned, but he made no move to take control from me as I kissed and explored his scarred, beautiful body. When I reached his cock, I slid off the couch to kneel next to him, darting a look up at him. Nerves anew flared in me as he reached down, closing a hand around his length.
“You do only what you want, Raye,” he said, voice gruff.
“I want to do this,” I told him. Then I leaned forward and pressed my mouth to the head of his cock, startled at how hot and smooth he felt against me.
A harsh noise escaped his throat, and I shot a look up at him.
His eyes were closed, head arched back, the veins in his neck standing out in furious, stark relief. Turning back to the task at hand, I opened my mouth more and licked him.
A breath stuttered out of him.
I felt his hand feather down my spine, then back up, but he made no other attempt to touch me.
“Raye…”
I glanced at him, but his eyes were still closed. He held his cock so that it pointed straight up, and I closed my mouth around the top, sucking a little.
Kane’s body arched up off the couch in a long, lean line, the muscles in his thighs and belly flexing.
“Fuck, Raye.”
His voice was grittier, rougher.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I said, telling myself not to feel embarrassed by it.
His lids lifted, and he met my eyes. “You’re doing it just fine. There’s not a right or wrong way.”
“But I…” I hesitated, then asked, “Show me how you like it?”
His chest expanded with a hard breath, then he nodded, gesturing for me to come closer. As I did, he cupped the back of my head.
I tensed at first, the echo of a memory washing up, but I shoved it back.
“We good?”
I nodded and rubbed my cheek against his length.
“You really don’t need my help with this,” he muttered. Then he cleared his throat. “Just…take me in.”
I opened my mouth and took him inside, moved up, then down, following the guidance of his hand. After a few strokes, his hand fell away, and he went back to gripping his cock. I felt his hand shift and pulled back, watched as he cupped and squeezed his balls.
“You keep looking at me like that,
and I’m going to come from that alone.”
“You like me watching you?”
“I don’t know if like is the word,” he said ruefully. “But my dick sure as hell likes the attention.” His gaze dropped to my mouth, and he added, “But it likes your mouth more.”
I leaned back in and kissed the head, opening to take him back in, moving slower as I learned the taste and feel of him. When he hit the back of my throat, I slid back up. Each time I went down, I discovered I could take him deeper, and soon, I had him rocking up to meet me, muttering and swearing under his breath.
I didn’t need any more encouragement after that. I knew he was loving everything I did, and more, I was enjoying it, too.
I was wet, growing wetter, and found myself clutching at his thighs, my nails biting in as I squirmed and clenched my knees together to still the ache inside me.
“Stop!” he demanded abruptly, his voice ragged.
I pulled back, staring at him in confusion. “What?”
“I’m going to come in about five seconds if you keep it up.”
“Oh.” I blinked, understanding dawning. “Um…”
He sat up, then rose, holding out a hand to me. I let him pull me to my feet, leaning against him and just enjoying the feel of him.
He swept me up into his arms, and I gasped, startled.
“Bed,” he said, dipping his head to kiss me.
He carried me through the small apartment, and we ended up in the bed, but when he went to roll over and pull me on top of him, I shook my head. I wanted to bury the demons once and for all. “Come here,” I said, pulling him on top of me.
I gasped at the feel of his weight pushing me into the mattress, at the feel of his cock burning my belly like a brand.
“Raye…” He caught my face in his hands, dipping his head to kiss me, and at the touch of his mouth on mine, I forgot everything but his kiss.
Lost in that, I didn’t even notice him reaching for a condom until he pulled back to roll it on. I sat up and tugged it away from him. “Let me.”
