by Rie Warren
A line of saliva dripping naughtily from her lips and my pouring precum slicked the soft clasp of her breasts. Sloshing noises echoed in the bedroom. Echoed with my curses. I replaced her hands, filling my palms with her tits, roughly twisting her nipples until they puckered red and hot.
My cockhead butted against her chin on one excruciatingly slow pass, and she circled her tongue around the flared ridge.
Yanking her head back by her hair, I withdrew from her breasts.
Hauling her up into a powerful hold, I crashed my mouth against hers.
Laying her on the bed, I followed her down, swallowing her body with mine.
I bit her chin. “Fucking want you now.”
She gasped, widening her thighs, making more room for me.
I gripped my throbbing cock, angling it down to her shimmering cunt.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” Animal wild, I barely held back from impaling her.
“Give me everything you’ve got. I want it.”
I drove inside with a sharp thrust, belting to the end of her channel, which immediately clamped down on me.
I gave a few teasing testing strokes then pulled my cock all the way out. Already she’d soaked the shaft, so engorged with blood it was dark and straining. I pushed her legs by the backs of her thighs until they pressed down on her tits.
Holding her pinned, her pussy shining straight up at me, I plunged recklessly down into her.
Her pussy sucked at me.
Her scream resounded between us.
She bucked up but could hardly move. Her head thrashed from side to side, and I thrashed into her.
Only the deepest hardest fuck could appease me this time.
I took her with primed primitive thrusts, balls slapping her ass, cock drilling new depths.
The wait, the need, the tit fuck . . . Stevie wailing and crying out . . . Stevie coming and massaging me inside . . .
Flames burst into incendiary promise. And incendiary promise became tortured strain that only released me when cum rocketed up my shaft, blasting her pussy, painting her deep. Deep. Deep.
Even when I was done, I couldn’t stop. I pulled out slowly, keeping a shuddering shaking moaning Stevie in the same locked position. My cock slathered in milky white semen made a mess all over her cunt as I swiped the unflagging rod all over her.
Tapping her clit with hot wet smacks of the head, I made Stevie come again.
And I fucked languorously back into her clutching heat.
One last spurt traveled through my cock before I lowered her legs to hunch over her.
My lips landed on her neck.
Her hands skimmed along my back.
Our breaths rushed together.
Sweat and cum made us sticky . . . and it was the crazy wild sex I’d come to expect from Stevie.
“I missed you,” she whispered beside my ear.
A chuckle pushed from my lips. “Not just my cock then. Good to know.”
I lifted just far enough to find her mouth, to taste the satisfaction within. “I missed you too. I love you.”
She hummed, a happy relaxed sound.
Moving off her, I separated just long enough to locate my discarded shirt to wipe us both down. Then I bundled her beneath the blanket, burrowing beside her, the air conditioning cooling our damp skin.
Her legs immediately tangled with mine. And her head fell to its usual resting place on my shoulder, in the lee of my arm.
But her next question confused me momentarily.
“What about my carburetor?”
Earlier, I’d rubbed my hand over that carburetor before knocking on her door. Like it was a magic genie in a bottle or some good luck talisman—I was as nervy as the first time I’d been to her place. What if she wasn’t home? What if she was seeing another man? What if Ethan had gotten to her again?
But I knew Frank and Brian and Gabriel watched out for her. Maybe she was right. She had enough protectors. She could take care of herself. Maybe she just needed to know I loved her.
“The carburetor?” I leaned up to look at her.
“What do you want me to do with it if I’m moving in?”
I chuckled. “Hell, you can park that hunk of metal in the middle of the living room for all I care.”
Her new smile was the secretly pleased one I’d never get tired off, but then a frown marred her smooth forehead.
“I made a report on Ethan. Got a restraining order,” she said. “I know the cops brought him in. There’s gonna be consequences. Maybe a trial.”
Ahhhhh.
Clearing my throat, I kissed her frown away with soft touches.
“I was an asshole that day. I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I wish I’d been there with you at the station.”
“You were. The officer told me you’d come forward first.” And she rose up to kiss my frown away. “No more sorries, Kane.”
“Agreed.”
“One more thing though.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to help with the bills and pay half the mortgage.” Her chin jutted defiantly.
I shrugged. “Sure.”
Her eyes narrowed into bright blue beams. “You don’t have a mortgage, do you?”
I laughed outright. “No.” I hugged her hard against me. “But I’m sure gonna love living with you.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Stevie
IN THE MIDDLE OF August, Kane and I were hosting a sort of housewarming party. The celebration that had been slated on a much smaller scale when Ethan had ruined everything.
But not forever.
The gorgeous house in Mt. Pleasant was mine too. My name on the deed.
I’d objected. Kane had insisted.
I objected about a lot of things.
He insisted on a lot of things.
We still argued, but those quarrels raised heat and blood and invariably ended with us laughing together, or fucking furiously. And I believed what he’d said those weeks ago . . . we were passionate, not spiteful.
Dusk drew pink and orange feathers across the sky over the creek, crickets chirped in an ever-rising din, and the first guests were due to arrive soon.
I’d moved in completely. My shoes on the racks in the closet. My collection of mugs in the cupboards in the kitchen. My record player and vinyl set up in the living room. And the carburetor taking up one corner of the front porch.
As Kane had foretold, Cecilia’s happiness was as immense as ours when she learned I was back in their lives for good. I had a lot to teach her, starting with just what the hell an actual record was to the girl who listened to all her music on the iPhone. Disgraceful.
Summer vacation was almost over, and with her camp gig finished, Cecilia now split her days between interning at her dad’s office and hanging around with me, Frank, and Brian on various job locations. In other words, she made it her business to completely redo Kane’s website—showing off mad IT skills—and when she got sick of that she spent hours being my gopher while I taught her the tools of my trade.
The girl was seriously industrious, as nosy as Carmen, and had only pitched a fit and fell in it once or twice since I’d moved in.
I’d been much more rebellious at her age.
However, she’d also tried to talk me into taking her to get a tattoo without her dad’s knowledge, and that was so not happening.
Kane discovered me on the back deck as the moon began its silvery arc across the sky from one horizon to the other. I felt his presence immediately, a warm current that raced between him and me. He stood directly behind me, hands slowly encasing my waist and raising goose bumps on my flesh.
“Folks have started arriving.” His kiss on the side of my neck doubled the chills coursing over me.
“I’m not so sure about this.” I felt uncharacteristically nervous tonight.
“The dress?” He swung me around effortlessly and made a slow perusal of the dress that swished around my thighs and left a tantalizing amount of cleavage bare.
His darkening gaze was enough to weaken my knees.
“I’m very sure about it.” He raised my hand to his lips, mouth warm and tongue wet on my palm.
“I’ll bet you are.” I caressed the side of his face, stroking my fingers along the black stubble that always appeared at this time of night. “But I meant all these people.”
“Your dad.”
“You know he's been hard on me.”
“But you hashed everything out when you told him about Ethan, didn’t you?”
“I suppose. But . . .” But it was hard to overcome years of feeling like I was the family outcast in his eyes. And the Rutledge fallout had just begun.
“So let me handle him.”
“I already told you I don’t need a man to—”
Quieting me with his thumb pressed against my bottom lip, he murmured, “And I wouldn’t presume, but once he gets a look at what you’ve done here, he won’t have any reason to be hard on you ever again.” His tone turned teasing. “Or are you afraid he’ll think I’m too old for you?”
I laughed, offering my arm. “C’mon then.”
The house had filled in my absence, Kane’s colleagues and work associates. My friends and Keller Construction builders. Children and babies and Cecilia’s teen-girl crew.
Gwen and her husband Jason approached, their new baby boy Dashiel wrapped in a blue blanket.
Gwen passed him to Jason before plucking a glass of champagne from a nearby stand. “It’s a pump and dump kind of night!”
Kane pressed a cold beer into my hand as if he’d read my mind, and I asked Gwen, “Pump and dump?”
Jason—whom I’d learned was as comical as his wife—filled in, “There ain’t gonna be any breastfeeding tonight because Gwen’s been off the alcohol for ten—”
“Eleven!” she interrupted.
“Months now. Breast pump and dump the milk.”
My boobs ached at the thought of it.
Kane seemed unperturbed. And even more at ease when Jason did the baby pass-off to him.
Oh, Lord. Help me now. Kane was a big man, a handsome man, an immediately enamored man who bent down to nuzzle his nose against Dash’s blond fuzzy scalp. His palm larger than the tiny bottom he cradled, his firm lips breaking into a smile, his hushed words to the baby boy . . .
My womb ached at the sight of him.
Oh . . . fuck.
Now I was truly done for, and I swore I could feel eyes watching me. I spun to see Frank and Brian—wink-wink, nudge-nudge—clinking beers and studying me studying Kane and Dash.
“Stevie. Do you want to hold him?” Kane held Dashiel out to me.
Retreat! Retreat!
“Um . . . no thanks. Hands already full.” I grabbed an hors d’oeuvre and stuffed the savory mini crab cake into my mouth then glugged some beer, more accustomed to using a sledgehammer than cuddling fragile helpless human beings.
Gwen’s voice cut sharp as a knife, and she shoved me toward the fruit of her womb. “Get over there right now and take the damn baby. Momma needs a loooong break.”
“Jesus. Now I see how you keep Kane in line.” I quailed.
“I’ve heard the same about you.”
We shared a conspiratorial laugh, but then she whisked my beer away and Kane placed Dash in my untutored arms.
The small baby weighed less than a carburetor that was for damn sure. He was warm . . . and I understood immediately why Kane had buried his nose against the soft blond hair tufted on his forehead. He smelled like a little slice of heaven.
Eyes closed, I rocked gently back and forth, making a cooing noise that came out of nowhere.
When I opened my eyes, Kane watched with so much love he pulled at my heartstrings.
But as soon as Dash started a red-faced squall, I was all hot potato with him, straight back into Daddy Jason’s calming embrace.
Carmen made her entrance—swish-swish, sway-sway, kiss-kiss—and swept right up to Kane. “Mr. Silver Fox! I knew you’d end up with Stevie. She’s muy caliente, right?”
She kissed him on both cheeks, spun to take my arm, and grabbed drinks for both of us. Leaving a stunned, blushing Kane in our wake.
I glanced back.
He was watching my ass.
She regaled me with stories about her latest jobs—Uber driver at night, carriage tour guide during the day—and I told her I’d almost dropped a baby.
We set a date to get pedicures the following week and were just about to discuss Happy Hour when Gabriel ducked inside the living room.
Carmen’s red lips tipped up at the corners.
“You’re still after my brother?”
“Si.”
“He’s my brother.”
“So?”
“He still remembers you with pigtails.”
She stood, skimmed her hands over her hips, and tossed her hair back. “Not for very much longer.”
We both ranged close enough to hear Gabriel greet Kane. “I wanna shake the hand of the man who tamed my sister.”
“I’m gonna kill him,” I hissed.
“I’m so gonna fuck him,” Carmen vowed.
Kane met Gabriel’s palm. “You can shake my hand, but I didn’t tame her one bit. I fell in love with her just the way she is.”
Swoon.
“Even better.” Gabe grinned.
“I heard that.” I hip-checked my brother, giving him a glare that dared him to knuckle-rub my head.
“Love you too, sis.” He pecked me on the cheek.
I turned to Kane, twining my arms around his neck. “I love you.”
In the middle of being thoroughly, hotly, wetly, kissed by my man, I heard someone else very nearby clear his throat in a deep distinctive way.
I slipped back down to my feet, Kane’s arm ringed around my waist. “Hi, Dad.”
“Stevie.” He hugged me, a smile on his mouth, and maybe I’d been ridiculous, worrying about him being here, about him getting to know Kane as my lover.
“Mr. Keller. Nice to meet you again.” Kane extended his hand.
“Same. Thanks for hiring us for the remodel.” Always a man of few words, Dad shook Kane’s hand.
“I only have the highest respect for your company, and I lucked out with Stevie heading the crew. Let me show you around the house.” Kane took Dad in hand without a single glance back at me.
I pressed a palm to my tummy, trying to quell my nervousness.
Gabriel appeared beside me. “Buck up. The worst is over now.”
“I just want Dad to be proud.”
“You’re his daughter. He worries, Stevie. And he wants to make sure Kane isn’t taking advantage of you, especially after all that shit with Ethan Assface.”
“Is that what it is?”
“Well, and I think you remind him of Mom.”
Tears suddenly spiked my eyelashes. “Really?”
“He couldn’t save her, you know? So maybe he was a little hard on you, but only because he wants the best for you.”
He grasped my hand before thrusting a beer into it with a pat on my back. Left to my own devices, I followed after Kane and Dad. I stuck to the shadows upstairs when Kane urged him to inspect the new master bedroom windows that had been opened from corner to corner to catch the evening breeze.
“Not for nothing, Mr. Keller, but your daughter has incredible insight. She’s very skilled.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
I caught and held my breath.
“I think she doesn’t know you know that, sir.”
I peeked around the corner. Dad’s jaw clenched tautly, and a scowl hovered over his face.
My heart leaped, and I wondered whether I should intervene.
Then Dad’s stance relaxed, and he nodded. “You’re right. It hasn’t been easy for Stevie. I haven’t been easy on Stevie.” He hung his head. Scratched the back of his neck. “I know about your wife. About your daughter—that she’s around the same age Stevie was when our Molly died.”
> Kane waited, watching my father.
“From what Stevie’s said, you’re doing a damn sight better than I did raising a teenager.” Dad met Kane’s gaze. “Take care of my girl too? And you should call me James, by the way.”
“You can rest assured I love Stevie. I admire her. I respect her. But she doesn’t need me—or any man—to take care of her, James.”
Kane started toward the door, and I scampered as quietly as possible downstairs ahead of him. My heart hammered in my chest.
“All right?” Kane located me loading a plate of fried green tomatoes and tiny hamburger sliders.
“I heard what you said.” I folded my hand in his. “Upstairs.”
“Ahhh. Should I say sorry?”
“No. But I should say thank you.”
His mouth brushed the lobe of my ear. “Did I say I love you tonight, sweetheart?”
“We can’t have sex with all these people in the house, Kane,” I admonished.
“Dammit.” He winked, squeezing my ass.
My entertainment for the evening included watching Carmen and Gabriel. His discomfiture grew along with his red face, and I swore I’d never seen my brother blush before. It was awesome seeing him pinned down by my best friend, not knowing what to do with his hands or where to look when clearly his eyes—and probably his hands—desperately wanted to stray to her curvaceous figure.
An hour later, I forgot all about my brother and my best friend, because Kane’s intense perusal of me from across the room reminded me of the first time I’d ever seen him. In the bar. Now he studied me over the rim of a glass while some man I didn’t recognize talked to him. I didn’t think Kane even excused himself from the one-sided conversation before he cut a determined path toward me.
Heat flashed through my body, bringing a blush to my cheeks and a flush to my sex.
“Can I borrow you for a moment?” He took my hand in his, and all around I heard a chorus of Shhhhh’s.
“Um . . . sure?”
Kane drew me to the center of the living room, and all our guests circled around us.
A smile winged across his lips before his face settled into a more serious expression, and he went down on one knee.
“Oh no.” I inhaled in a long breath, fingers trembling within his grasp.
