I really was flattered in all truth, but the whole evening had done nothing but made me miss the other part of my life. The other part, also known as Kane, would likely spend a meal like that rolling his eyes now just as much as he would have when we were younger. He’d never cared for formality, pomp and circumstance, or the airs people put on. In fact, he detested it. Odd, I often exhibited those very traits, and yet, he seemed very fond of me.
Yes, I missed Kane by the time Preston was helping me into my coat. I smiled at Preston one last time as I walked out, and I was pulling into my driveway ten minutes later. When I made it inside, I wandered to my bedroom. My nightstand drawer was still slightly ajar, and when I sank down to the side of the bed, I looked into it.
I picked up the anal plug, and then I dropped back to lay across the bed, holding the thing in front of my face. At its widest it was thicker than Kane’s finger. It had to hurt. Didn’t it? Kane’s finger hadn’t hurt, but it had felt … strange. Not at all a bad strange, just … new. But this…?
“Well that can’t possibly feel good,” I said to absolutely no one at all. But the flush that ran over my skin challenged my assertion. I hummed in contemplation as I continued to turn the plug over in my hand.
The surface was smooth and shiny and I could damn near see my reflection in it. After staring at it for a few minutes and listening to the silence that surrounded me, I sat up.
“Okay, then…” I again said to no one.
I stood, marched out to the entryway, shrugged back into my coat, and pocketed the thing as I grabbed my keys.
By the time I pulled into Kane’s dad’s driveway, I finally knew exactly what the phrase “hot and bothered” actually meant. I was definitely hot. I was definitely bothered. The good kind of bothered. My skin was still prickling, and my mind was giving me very vivid images of how this might play out.
I held the plug out in front of me in the palm of my hand as I knocked on the door with my free hand. I was intending to be cheeky—this was a rare thing for me. But my heart was pounding, and my palm was sweating even as the cool air touched it. I was also wet as hell.
When the door was pulled open, my heart stopped. “Whoa! Oh, shit…” I said as I closed my fingers over the plug.
Shawn looked down, narrowly missing a glimpse of what I held in my hand. “What are you doing here?” Shawn asked as his eyes returned to my face and he scowled.
Kane walked up behind him, smiling when he saw me. I was too busy panicking and trying desperately to find the pocket on my coat so I could hide what I was doing there. Kane’s eyes traveled down to my hands as I fought with my coat, and he cocked his head to the side in question.
“Uh… Just… Nothing…” I said as I shook my head, finally finding the opening of my pocket and dropping the plug inside.
“I ain’t happy you made him stop drinking. Just so’s you know.”
“Hey,” Kane snapped at Shawn as he stepped past him. “I made that choice on my own.” He glared at Shawn over his shoulder for a second. When he looked down at me, he smiled. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I said sheepishly.
He cocked his head to the side as his brow furrowed. When his hand fished for the same pocket opening I’d been fighting with, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “We were just getting ready to lay the floor tile in the bath—”
And then his hand stopped moving. He’d clearly found the plug. I grimaced, glancing up at him and shaking my head. He stared down at me, and his nostrils flared as he exhaled, the tendons in his neck suddenly tight.
“Hey, can we get back—”
“Get out,” Kane cut Shawn off, his voice blunt.
“What? We have to—”
“Nope,” Kane said quickly. “Get out. Now. We’re done for the night.”
“What the fuck, asshole.” Shawn barked at him, his face scrunched up in anger.
“I need you to leave now. Helene and I have to … do something … important.”
“Ah, fuck! Can’t believe you’re ditching me for her now just like you did in high school. You ever gonna grow some balls, you * whipped bitch?” Shawn threw his hands up in the air.
I remembered this about Shawn. He had a foul mouth, and not in the good way like Kane. He was also not above calling a man he considered his friend things like, “Asshole” or “Pussy whipped bitch.” I did not like this man.
When Kane reached back and tried to tug Shawn out the door, Shawn shook it off.
“My truck’s out back, dick,” he muttered. He turned his scowl on me then, before stalking back through the house and hollering over his shoulder, “I just opened my fucking beer.”
The back door slammed shut, and Kane pulled me inside, shut the door, and pushed me up against it. His hands clutched at my cheeks desperately, and his lips were on mine as his groin pressed against me. He was moaning against my lips, and my skin was on fire.