His green eyes gleamed as he howled. “God, you’re adorable.”
I yelped as he yanked me backward and turned me as easily as if he was moving a doll. It was sexy being with someone with so much strength, and I watched his muscles ripple as he lifted me until I was sitting on the countertop again.
“Better?”
With clearer thinking than mine, he turned off the heat to the bacon before the kitchen filled with smoke. He grinned. “Later.”
Then those green eyes were on me again as he pushed my thighs apart and stepped closer. There was no time to brace myself, not that it would have mattered. The kiss was deep, and his hands were hard, hungry, as he dug his fingers into my hips.
“Tell me you want me,” he said against my mouth.
“More than anything.” And it was the truth. It went further than want or even need. I craved him deeply, desperately.
He tugged me closer, and his cock nudged my entrance but went no farther. Bending his head, his lips closed over a nipple. The wet heat of his mouth made me shiver, puckering and tightening my flesh.
I wailed as he sucked hard and shoved my hands into his hair.
He gripped my hips, his fingers restlessly kneading. Bruising. Adding to all the sensations I was experiencing.
He moved from one breast to the other, and I wiggled closer, trying to impale myself on him when I remembered. “Condom.” I really needed to get on the pill.
He looked stricken when he pulled away, his green eyes wide. But he recovered quickly and opened a drawer — why are there condoms in the kitchen? — and watched him roll one on, fascinated by the way his fingers touched himself.
Instead of giving me what I wanted, he moved away. I whimpered, and his hands ran up my thighs. I spread them, eager for more.
But he didn’t touch me, just continued to stare down at me as his thumbs moved closer to my sex.
Panting, I waited, watching him. “Kane, please.”
Meeting my eyes, he shook his head, his hand coming to my shoulder to push me back. The granite was cold against my bare skin, but I barely felt it because his mouth was hot on my stomach.
The rough stubble on his chin was a strong contrast to his soft tongue as it circled my navel, then my hip.
I arched up, whimpering, waiting.
When the stubble brushed over my clit, I writhed and wrapped one leg around his waist.
With the flat of his tongue, he licked me, opening me with one long stroke.
I screamed, but there was no sound.
He did it again, circling my clit before stroking me back down.
“Eliana…”
Even the brush of air over my skin was too much, and I fisted my hands in his hair, trying to draw him closer. I needed the pressure of his mouth, the pain of his teeth. “Please,” I moaned.
He caught my wrists and dragged them from his hair, pinning them next to my hips. “Tell me what you want. Do you want me to eat you, baby? Feast all I want?”
“Yes… please… everything. Tongue. Cock. You.”
He stroked his tongue over me again, raked my clitoris with his teeth and stubble. Letting go of my wrist, he plunged a finger into me, then another, twisting them inside me.
My orgasm was immediate, forcing its way through me, but he gave me no time to recover before his cock was stretching me wide.
Blindly, I reached for him and held on when he linked our fingers together, and he pulled me up until his lips were on mine. He snapped his hips, and his cock slid over my g-spot. I keened and arched, changing the angle as he drove harder.
“I can’t imagine being without you,” he whispered against my lips.
I caught the words in my mouth, breathed them in, clung to them. I wanted to ask him what he meant and tell him I felt the same, but he was stealing the breath, and I could do nothing but hang onto him or implode.
My body tightened, another orgasm building to a crescendo, and he growled as I bore down on him. “That’s right, baby. Come for me.”
I did. There was no other choice.
Then he was following me off the edge, his hips slamming into me harder. He roared and thrust one last time.
We stayed that way, bodies connected, our sweat drying as we gazed at each other in the solitude of his kitchen.
It should have been awkward.
It wasn’t.
We didn’t speak. Nothing needed to be said that he probably didn’t already know.
In a short space of time, I’d come to care for him deeply. But I also knew that I wouldn’t be here right now if outside forces hadn’t thrust us together, wedging our separate lives into one so unexpectedly.
The silence, warm and comfortable as it was, stretched out, and I knew it couldn’t last forever.
With a long exhale, Kane lifted his head and pressed his lips to my forehead. “We need to talk.”
I swallowed hard. “Yes, we do.” Sliding my hands up his back, his muscles jumped under my touch. “Can we do it later?”
I felt him smile. “Yeah, later is good.”
Squeezing him tighter, I pressed my face into his chest. “Good, because I’m not ready.”
He kissed my hair. “Me neither.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kane
The earth must have shifted beneath my feet because I felt like I was standing on ground as shaky as my California home. Okay, maybe not literally, but I was rocking inside.
I’d said those words out loud, we need to talk. Not the damn “L” word, but it felt close. Me. Man-whore Kane Steele talking about feelings and shit. But, dammit, I was feeling. With my body, with my mind, deeper. Maybe my soul.
When I walked into that kitchen and saw Eliana making something as simple as bacon, something twisted and shifted inside me, and I understood what Calvin and Ace and Todd had been talking about.
But in two weeks? That was totally jacked, and I didn’t know if I could trust it. What if it was the emotional high of my rookie professional season, or the sadness of knowing I would soon lose one of the people who’d been a rock in my life? Maybe I just wanted to protect Eliana from her mother. All I knew for sure was that Eliana had changed something in me.
And it was temporary, I’d have to be a moron to think it was more. In a few months, I’d have to let her go, and she’d be the “what-if” woman I’d think of even on my death bed.
I was a moron anyway. If I was smart, I’d buy her and Zoe a place to live and keep distance between us. We’d play the happy couple for my parents and grandmother but keep our lives separate the rest of the time.
Fuck that.
I’d deal with missing her later, but she would be in my bed every night until then.
Eliana sighed and relaxed against me. My dick was still inside her, and I was holding her so tight I could feel her heart beating against my chest.
And nothing had ever felt so right in my life.
Shifting slightly, she kissed me right over my heart before looking up at me with those clear blues. “Penny for your thoughts.”
“You’d be wasting your money right now.” She said nothing, just looked up at me expectantly and I added, “The same thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.”