Hesitating, I said, “I’d heard that you use that line to get girls in bed. You were trying so hard to get me to sleep with you, so why not try that if it worked before?”
His fingers circled my wrist, forcing my hand to remain on his jaw. The core of his voice was hot and smoky. “Because I didn’t want you to care about it. I didn’t want my blood to be what made you want me. Is that what you want to hear?”
Licking my lips, I said, “Yes.”
His smirk vanished. “Fuck, you keep throwing me for such loops. Who would answer that question like that?”
“Someone who wants to be honest . . . because she wants the other person to tell the same truths.” I tugged at my hand on his cheek; he held it firmly where it was. “Your family is royalty. It makes no sense. How are there even royal families anymore?” Laughing without humor, I looked away. “I know so little about you, Kain. So why do I feel like I already get you?”
My knees burned with the cuts from my fall. My stomach was a pile of snakes that wanted to escape. I probably needed to get checked out for a concussion.
And then he kissed me . . . and none of that mattered.
- CHAPTER FOURTEEN -
KAIN
She’d asked me a question, but I didn’t want to answer with words.
How could I even try?
I wasn’t a poet—I didn’t know how to phrase the colliding emotions inside of me that rose to the surface when Sammy was near. Besides, the way she’d been touching me had made me acutely aware of how soft she was.
How warm.
Could I be blamed for wanting to taste that sweet mouth of hers? Especially when her lips were glowing in the sun, her hair tossed by the wind and her fall?
There was a grass stain on her cheek; I kissed that next. Sammy threw her arms around my neck, holding me close as her whole body shivered. We came together, my weight pushing her down into the field.
I’d barely had a taste when she gripped my ears, forcing me back so roughly that I winced. Her pupils sucked me up like black holes. “Wait. Before we do this, I need to know more.”
“More?” I asked, nuzzling her throat. “That’s a nice word. Say that again.” Her knee dug into my side; I gave up, leaning away. “We’re rolling around in a field with no one to stop us, and you want to talk?”
Lying there with her hair swirling around her, she’d never been more beautiful. It made her demand slice even sharper. “I want to mess around with you—”
“Okay, then let’s do that.”
“But I’m not going to do anything with someone who’s keeping secrets.”
Groaning, I sat on my heels. The position exaggerated the shape of my hard-on. “This isn’t exactly a secret, babe.”
“Stop,” she said, her eyes fixated on me.
“I don’t think I can.” Palming my erection, I hissed, “This is all you. It’s not in my control.”
Propping herself on her elbows, she threw a handful of grass at me. “Back at the jail, the detective warned me away from you and your family. Why? And don’t say jealousy.”
It was clear she wasn’t going to give up. “Probably because we’re known to dabble in gray areas of the law.”
“Like?”
“Blackmail. Gambling. Weapons.” I looked her in the eye. “Strip clubs.”
It was amazing that she didn’t flinch. “Do you hurt people?”
“Define ‘people.’”
“Innocent people.”
My head was starting to pound. “No one is innocent, but the folks we deal with definitely aren’t.” Sizing her up, I weighed the outcome of telling her what she wanted to hear versus what she needed to hear. With a great shrug, I went for the latter. “I’m not going to try and spin you some tale about how my family and I are heroes. We aren’t. Never were, never will be.”
“Then what are you?”
“Greedy.” I bit the word off. “Determined. Power crazy.” Sweat had collected under my throat; it fell down my collarbone when I leaned toward her. “We control this whole damn state, and it’s better than it’s ever been. Are we always kind? No. We couldn’t be. But we aren’t peddling drugs, and we aren’t letting girls get pulled into the clubs when they don’t wanna be there.”
“So some girls get a choice about being trapped?” she asked bitterly.
My eyebrows lowered as much as my voice did. “Let it go.”
“How? I don’t want to be here!”
“But you do want to be alive!” I snapped back. A frailty cracked my words; I recovered, hoping she hadn’t noticed. I was just . . . so damn tired. Tired of fighting, tired of having to prove I didn’t want her to end up as a cold corpse. “The guy who attacked you knows we know about it. That makes him more deadly than ever.”
Pushing up, she drew her knees to her chest and hugged them. I was spoiling for an argument, but Sammy was done. Nothing came out of her but gentle breaths that stirred the loose hairs that fell over her chin.
With the horses grazing behind her, she could have been a watercolor painting. No matter how fiercely she resisted me . . . or how she called me out on what I was doing wrong . . .
I couldn’t stop wanting her.
“Your turn.” I nodded at Rosel. “Where did you learn to ride?”
She followed my eyes. “When I was little, my dad used to take me riding. I loved it so much. My best memories are back then . . . with him.” Sammy was far away in the past. I felt awful pulling her back to the present.
“How did he die?”
Her eyes flew wide. “What?”
Gently, I said, “You asked me to go watch your mother because you couldn’t, and that meant no one else could, either. You talk about your father the way people talk about those they’ve lost. It was just a hunch.”
I saw the moment when she debated not telling me anything. Then it passed, her voice steady when she began again. “I’m not entirely sure how he died. They never found his body.” I couldn’t stop my jaw from dropping—she saw. “That came out kind of cryptic, sorry. His car was found at the bottom of the Newport Bay. The police decided he must have drowned—suicide, they called it.” Sammy shook her head, not softening her anger. “He wouldn’t have. I know it. They did their investigation, then they told my mother and me it had to be suicide, body or not. Lots of corpses go missing in the ocean, they said.”
Sammy was knotting up in front of my eyes; the last thing I wanted to do was push her on what was obviously a sensitive issue. I struggled to change the subject. “Where did he take you horseback riding?”
Shaking herself, she looked up at me. “White Rose Farms.”
I did a double take. “You’re kidding. I went there as a kid, too.” Looking at the black stallion—Knight—I said, “It’s just funny to think we might have seen each other years ago and not even realized it.”
“I think I’d remember you.” She chuckled. “Unless you were different as a kid.”
“Weren’t we all?”
“I was pretty much the same.”
My eyebrows went up higher. “You must have been a handful, sugar.”