Reception (The Kane Series Book 5)

by Stylo Fantome

  “Yes,” he grunted, and she felt him nod. “I think it is safe to say that I am most certainly not anymore.”

  They were quiet for a while. Her hips were aching and her thighs were trembling, but she didn't say anything. Just kept one hand in his hair and kept rubbing the other up and down his back.

  When they could both breathe normally again and the warmth in the air started to dissipate, he finally slid off her. He pulled the sheets over them, then laid on his stomach next to her. She stayed on her back, smiling up at the ceiling.

  “I did alright?” he finally asked. She barked out a laugh.

  “Uh, yeah, Sanders. You did 'alright',” she snorted. “I'm pretty sure every single person in this motel knows just how 'alright' you did.”

  “Do you know, I always wondered how you could stand to be so loud. Why it didn't embarrass you,” he said. “But now I think I understand. I didn't even care when it was happening. Didn't even think about it.”

  “We'll see how you feel about it tomorrow at breakfast when you have to face all the other guests,” she joked.

  “I don't think I'll care then, either.”

  “No, you probably won't. When sex is that good, you never do.”

  “Was I as good as some of the other people you've slept with?” he asked boldly.

  “Yes. Good god, yes, you were.”

  “Even for it being my first time?”

  “Shockingly enough, yes. Did you study for this or something?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus, how do you study for sex?”

  “I can be somewhat obsessive when I want to know about something, and I have had a lot of alone time to thoroughly think things through and read up on the subject. The only thing missing was someone to engage with.”

  “You should teach a course,” she suggested.

  “So I was better than some of your other partners?” he asked. She loved that he asked so outright. No shyness, no hinting, like other men would do.

  “Than most of them,” she told him, then she reached out and pressed her hand against his back. “I'd put you in the top ten.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is quite an honor, considering how many people you've slept with.”

  She burst out laughing and swatted him.

  “Watch it, you're not good enough to be giving attitude during pillow talk.”

  “Was I as good as Jameson?”

  Ah. She had wondered if that question would be asked. Wasn't surprised to hear it. She turned to face him and found him staring at her.

  “Do you want me to tell you the truth?” she asked. He nodded.

  “Always.”

  “No,” she was honest. “No one has ever been as good as him, at least not for me. Not only does he have a lot of practice, but he's … he's my other half, Sanders. It's like my body was built specifically for him. He knows where all the switches are, all the buttons. He knows exactly what I like, what I want to do, what I want to hear. Sex is good with anybody if they're halfway decent at it, but with Jameson it's … someday, you'll experience it with somebody.”

  “With me it's just sex,” Sanders understood. “With him it's making love.”

  “Yes,” she nodded. “As fucked up as it is, he and I make love. It's something completely different, and it'll happen for you. You'll find your other half and you'll know what it feels like. It's … there's nothing like it.”

  “Then I look forward to it.”

  “You're gonna break some hearts,” she sighed, rubbing her hand up and down his side. “I'm almost jealous.”

  “Almost,” he chuckled, and then he reached out his own arm and wrapped it around her waist.

  “Whoever these girls are, you better warn them that I'll kick their ass if they treat you wrong,” she told him, turning onto her side. He'd closed his eyes again, but he smiled at her.

  “Thank you, Tatum. For tonight. You were right, I wouldn't have enjoyed myself with anyone else for my first time, and now I feel more comfortable with the act. What you did – what you both did for me – I know how important it was, and I am very honored that you chose to do this. I will remember tonight always, and with great fondness,” he told her. She sighed happily and combed her fingers through his hair.

  “Well, tonight's not over,” she pointed out. His eyes popped back open.

  “Excuse me?”

  “We have this room for tonight and tomorrow night,” she reminded him. “I rented it for only one purpose. We have the rest of tonight, and then tomorrow we'll go get breakfast and maybe go shopping, find somewhere for dinner. Then we have tomorrow night before this all turns into a pumpkin and we have to go home.”

  He was silent for a long time and for a moment, she wondered if she'd scared him off.

  Too much, too soon?

  “Do we have to leave the room at all?” he asked.

  Tate burst out laughing and pushed him away.

  “I do believe I have corrupted you, Mr. Dashkevich.”

  “Forgive me, but I do believe you are right, Ms. O'Shea.”

  Kane Fun Facts

  Jameson Kane was born at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, on January 9th at roughly eight in the morning.

  His mother, Camila Kraven, was born in Salta, Argentina. Her father was the British Ambassador and her mother was an Argentinian teacher in a private school. Her parents divorced when she was five and her father moved back to the United Kingdom. She never saw him again and he passed away when she was eight.

  Her mother relocated to Buenos Aires and taught school there. Camila grew up multilingual and after she graduated high school, she was hired by various embassies to work as an interpreter.

  Through her job, she met Jefferson Kane, a wealthy financier from New York. She traveled around Argentina with him for two weeks, acting as his interpreter. Though he wasn't a particularly nice, or even likable man, their relationship moved beyond professional and they slept together. It wasn't until after he'd gone back home that she'd realized she was pregnant.

  A scandal about impregnating an employee of the Argentinian government was certain to put a damper on Jefferson Kane's political ambitions, so he flew Camila to New York and married her. Nine years later, she died from small cell lung cancer.

  Jameson had an extremely close and loving relationship with his mother, and her death was hard on him. He'd never developed a relationship with his father, and directly following his mother's passing, Jameson was shipped off to boarding school, where he stayed until he graduated.

  *

  Tatum O'Shea was born at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, on December 20th at roughly seven in the evening.

  She was an unplanned pregnancy, and was also supposed to be a boy. Matthias O'Shea had been counting on a son to carry on the O'Shea name. He held her gender against her for the rest of her life.

  Her mother suffers from depression. She is an alcoholic who also has an addiction to xanax, oxycontin, and ambien.

  Her father was verbally and emotionally abusive to everyone in his immediate family. He is an outspoken sexist, racist, bigot. He didn't speak to Tate for seven straight years, and hasn't spoken to his daughter Eloise in almost four.

  Eloise Carmichael is the elder O'Shea daughter. She dated Jameson Kane for several years before breaking up with him. A year later, she married Robert Carmichael, who became physically and verbally abusive after the nuptials. They have one child together, which she gave birth to after divorcing her husband.

  Tatum excelled in school, particularly in studies involving vocab and sociology. She was also an accomplished equestrian, played softball, and once won a painting contest. After her sophomore year, her parents forced her to give up all extracurricular activities so she could focus on her studies. She was accepted into Harvard and moved to Boston, where she planned to have a career in politics.

  *

  Sanders Dashkevich was born in the Dashkevich household in Minsk, B
elarus, on March 21st, at roughly two in the morning.

  He was the sixth of eight children. His eldest sibling died at the age of five, and his two younger siblings both died within months of being born. He has no memory of his remaining brothers and sisters, and no clear memories of his mother or father. He knows they are both alive and living in Minsk. He has made no attempts at contacting them and has no desire to ever do so.

  Jameson Kane is his legal guardian, and falls somewhere between the roles of father-figure and living-legend. In Sanders' eyes, Jameson can do no wrong. Most of the time. Since everything Jameson does comes from a place of either self gain, or calculation, he is easy to understand – that's why Sanders finds it so comfortable to be around him.

  Tatum O'Shea, however, is neither selfish nor calculating. Most of her decisions are based purely on emotion, made in the spur of the moment, with very little thought process behind them. At first, she was very difficult for him to understand. Her bold personality refuses to be ignored and she doesn't care if someone doesn't like her – that combination is what broke down Sanders' walls. Once he realized that she came from a place of love and wanting to be loved, he found her easy to understand, as well.

  He has an impressive IQ and an astounding intelligence. Book learning of any kind comes naturally and easily for him. He was sent to expensive private schools and excelled in virtually every subject. He also took well to some sports, including horse riding. He declined college because he felt it would be pointless to go to school when he didn't know what exactly it was he wanted to focus his studies on.

  He only wears custom made suits. He has three shops he buys them from – one in London, one in Manhattan, and one in France. He rarely wears the same tie twice and has a collection of thousands. He does his own laundry when he can, and the rest he has dry cleaned.

  His preferred music is classical, though he also enjoys quite a lot of '80's music. His favorite painter is Bouvier de Cachard, his favorite composer is Vivaldi, and his favorite television show is “Billions”.

  He identifies as heterosexual and he finds women sexually attractive. However, people in general make him nervous, and also annoy him, so he avoids them and most relationships. He has explored his sexual wants and desires, but has never once come close to finding anyone he would ever even consider having a relationship with, nor is he looking for anyone like that. He likes his solitude and is quite content in it, which is very unfortunate for the rest of us.

  Soundtrack

  Kane mash-up – my fave songs from the trilogy's soundtracks and songs that make me think of the one and only Satan.

  ● Lady Gaga – Bad Romance

  ● 30 Seconds to Mars – Up in the Air

  ● Lisa Fischer – Ruler of My Heart

  ● Neon Hitch – Some Like it Hot

  ● Natalia Kills – Problem

  ● Miley Cyrus – Wrecking Ball

  ● Bryan Ferry – Slave to Love

  ● Stromae – Tous Les Memes

  ● John Mayer – Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

  ● Lo-Fang – Boris

  ● Chris Isaak – Wicked Games

  ● Adam Lambert – Better Than I Know Myself

  ● Natalia Kills – Wonderland

  ● Lifehouse – You and Me

  NEIGHBORS

  A Twin Estates Novel

  excerpt

  Author's Note: I am including this excerpt because the character of Wulfric Stone from Neighbors was inspired by Jameson Kane and patterned after him.

  “I'm sorry, have we met?” Katya asked, glancing around, glad to see there were other people around them.

  “No, not officially. I'm Liam Edenhoff, I live in the building next door,” he explained, and she finally smiled. That's why he was familiar – she must have seen him around.

  Katya lived in an apartment building just outside of downtown San Francisco – really it was two buildings, together called Twin Estates. Her building and the one next door were twins. Identical and managed by the same company, they shared an alleyway and dumpsters between them. She'd probably bumped into him while taking out the trash at some point.

  But why was he looking for me?

  “Oh, hello. I'm Katya,” she introduced herself, but didn't offer her last name.

  “I know.”

  Creepy just got bumped up to totally weird.

  “Oh. Um ...”

  “Sorry, I'm coming off totally weird,” he laughed, reading her mind. “I've seen you around the buildings, and then I was on this website, and I saw your profile.”

  Oh. Jesus. She was really going to murder her roommate. It was one thing to have a bit of fun and put some naughty stuff up on a website, but when it brought random strange men to where she lived, it was going too far.

  “Ooohhh, yeeeaaahh. That website,” she grumbled, finally kneeling down to pick up her bag.

  “Yeah. I gotta say, I've noticed you for a while, and I always thought you were …”

  “Were what?” she asked, glancing up at him. He shrugged.

  “I don't know. Just … I read that profile, and I had to meet that woman.”

  Katya wasn't sure what to make of his statement – she was a little insulted that the woman he'd seen around the building hadn't been interesting enough to meet. But she was also a little flattered – and, admittedly, excited – that he'd sought out the woman from the profile.

  “So if you hadn't seen my profile, you would never have introduced yourself?” she double checked. He chuckled and rubbed at the back of his neck, looking a little sheepish.

  “Honestly? No. I mean, don't get me wrong, you seemed like a really sweet girl, and you're gorgeous, but I'm not exactly a sweet guy. I didn't want to waste your time, or freak you out,” he said.

  “Freak me out?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How? What do you mean?”

  “Well, like I assumed you were a Sunday school teacher or something,” he explained. “I own and operate a club downtown. The two don't exactly match.”

  “Sunday school teacher? Why?” she was a little surprised, then was even more so when she watched his gaze blatantly travel up and down her body.

  “My other guess was librarian. You just always seemed … sweet. Innocent,” he said.

  Sweet and innocent. Translation: boring. Tori was right. I'm dull, and it took a made up online profile to get a guy to notice me.

  Katya should've been angry at him. For judging her before he'd met her, solely based on her outward appearance. For perpetuating the stereotype that a woman had to be overtly sexy in order to be interesting. For only giving her the time of day because of some ridiculous website.

  But she was actually angry at herself. She felt like a prisoner of her own inhibitions, her own naiveté. She was angry that deep down, she wanted to be an overtly sexual woman, the kind that could draw men in with a single glance.

  She wanted to be that woman from her profile bio.

  She just didn't know how, and before her anger could boil over, all her carefully built manners and over the top etiquette cooled her off. She managed a tight lipped smile for him.

  “Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I didn't write that bio,” she told him the truth.

  “You didn't?”

  “Nope. My roommate did.”

  “Ah. Roommate. So I take it you don't do strip-aerobics,” he said with a chuckle. She shook her head.

  “I didn't even know that was a real thing.”

  He burst out laughing.

  “Gotcha. So the whole sweet and innocent thing, that is the real you.”

  She opened her mouth, then froze. Was that the real her? Or was that just who she'd convinced herself she needed to be? She was so sick and tired of everyone assuming she was this insipid goody-two-shoes. Tori telling her to get a life. This stranger assuming she was a librarian. It wasn't fair. She could be just as wild, just as fun-loving as the next person. All she needed was the chance.

  Take a chance
...

  “Just because I don't walk around in a thong bikini doesn't mean I'm all innocence,” she replied. He cocked up an eyebrow.

  “I dunno. A baker, huh? You pretty much look like angel food cake to me,” he teased her. She glared at him.

  “Was this your big plan? Stalk me down in my building and interrogate me? Is this how you ask out all your dates?” she demanded.

  “Who said I was gonna ask you out on a date?” he replied.

  “Oh, please. You didn't come over here to ask me about my strip-aerobics class, and we both know it,” she said, proud of herself for the quick and snappy come back.

  “Touché. I was going to invite you to my club,” he said. She took a deep breath and for a split second, thought about how early she had to get up for work. Thought about the design she had to work on for a client. Thought about her big plans for the evening – reinforcing all the buttons on her dress shirts.

  “I'm free after eight o'clock,” she blurted out. He laughed at her again, and she couldn't help but notice that he had a great laugh, and an even better smile. She'd known him for all of two seconds, but she was willing to bet “fun-loving” was his middle name. The man was made to smile.

  “Whoa there, angel cake, I don't think this is such a good idea,” he said, holding up a hand.

  “Why not? I love to dance.”

  “It's not that kind of club.”

  “What? Is it like a book club?”

  He laughed again, but she hadn't been joking. She figured he didn't need to know that and she managed to laugh as well.

  “Look, you seem like a nice girl. I'm sure you get asked on lots of dates, and if I was a tax attorney, or an insurance salesman, I'd for sure want to go out with you, but I don't want to make you uncomfortable,” he told her. She rolled her eyes.

  “If anyone here is a 'nice girl', it's you – I've made all the moves so far. If you don't want to go out, just say so, and I can move onto the next guy, and you can go to your little club house thingy,” she said.