Chapter 10
Kane didn’t like the little twitch of anticipation his cock gave as he stood outside the front door of Audra’s bungalow that evening. They were friends and nothing else, despite that one O and enough electricity between them to light up the southern half of Santa Barbara County. “Down boy,” he muttered, then knocked. He wasn’t going to give into temptation and attempt to seduce her into bed.
The door swung open and Audra stood there, in white jeans and a sleeveless shirt the pale blue color of her amazing eyes, her feet bare. “Thanks for coming,” she said, peering around his shoulder as if searching for someone in the darkness behind him.
“Expecting another visitor?”
“Just making sure my mom isn’t lurking about. She said she’s still experiencing jet lag and wanted an early night, but knowing her, she could jump up from bed and be ready to go dancing after twenty minutes.”
Speaking of jumpy… Kane tilted his head as he followed Audra into her bungalow, studying the way she moved. She seemed agitated, her steps too quick and her hand movements choppy.
“You said you wanted me to look at something?”
She whirled to face him but didn’t meet his gaze. “It’s possible the faucet in the second bathroom is dripping.”
His brows rose. “Okay, I’ll take a look.”
It only took a few minutes to ascertain that the plumbing was in perfect working order. He strolled back into the living area to find Audra staring out the window, tension clear in the tight lines of her body. Coming up behind her, he put his palms on her shoulders.
She jerked, but then relaxed as he began to knead the knotted muscles there. “Oh. More of that.”
He chuckled. “What did you do today after breakfast? Pilates again?”
“Beach walk with Mom and Dad. Lunch on the pier. Shopping on State Street. We found a little taco shop and ate again.”
“Did you get a hold of Connor?” Audra’s brother, who was currently registered at the resort, seemed to be absent more often than not. Kane made a mental note to check in with the resort grapevine via his sisters.
She shook her head. “Who knows what he’s doing? It was just the three of us.”
“Relaxing day, then,” he said, sure it was not.
“Did you find anything wrong with the faucet?”
“Nope. Not a drip.”
Stepping away, Audra put distance between them and shot him a quick glance, guilt written all over her face. Her combination of features was always undeniably and objectively beautiful, but to Kane, she was even more so when she allowed her emotions to show through.
“You know,” he said gently, “if you didn’t want to be alone, all you had to do was say so.”
“Mm.” Whirling from him, she went to the laptop on the nearby desk. Beside it sat a flower arrangement and he could detect Audra’s work there, the design un-fussy and elegant. “I was doing some research.”
“Yeah?”
She shrugged. “Trying to kill some time, you know?”
Trying to distract herself from what was really wrong, Kane guessed.
“I looked up cures for curses on the Internet.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Cures for curses.”
“Do you actually believe in curses, Audie?”
“I think you do. Like you believe that black cats are bad luck.”
Shifting uncomfortably, he ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t think…it’s not at the forefront of my thoughts. It’s just…Val Soros always said…” Christ. He thought of his sister calling him out as friggatriskaidekaphobic and scowled, remembering her laughter. “I don’t go around avoiding cracks in the sidewalk.”
“Lots of people do, you know. Just like they don’t walk underneath open ladders—”
“That’s just common sense.”
“—and dozens of other things.”
“Yeah, well.” He rubbed his hand over the top of his head. “Is this why I’m here? To discuss flaws in my character?”
“It’s not a flaw. It just didn’t make sense to me at first, you being a teeny tiny bit superstitious.” She held her thumb and forefinger a paper’s width apart and smiled at him.
“Brat,” he said. “So now I make sense to you? How so?”
“It’s a control thing. You don’t walk under a ladder, you’ll be safe. You knock on wood and you won’t jinx the thing you just declared to be true.”
Fine, he did that knocking on wood thing. Didn’t everybody?
“Those little rituals, those rules people follow give them a feeling of more certainty…like sports fans wearing their lucky shirts or a particular pair of socks to a big game.” She leaned back against the desk. “My dad always eats bananas on oatmeal before he plays a round of golf with his nemesis.”
“I don’t know what I think about you being so familiar with my psyche and my control issues,” he said, with a mock-stern glare. “It feels too personal. Like sex on the first date and I’m not that kind of guy.”
Color washed her face at the mention of sex—interesting. Then a gleam entered her eye. “Right. You’ve never had sex on the first date.”
“So that’s what I’m here for…so we could talk about my sex life.”
“No.” Her color deepened. “You’re here because…you know, we could try one or two of the curse cures if you’re interested.”
“You actually found cures?”
She nodded. “But mostly they’re in the category of stand on the street corner and pat your head and rub your belly while singing a show tune. Silly stuff.”
“Which show tune?” he asked, straight-faced.
“Hah hah.” She sidled closer, her eyes alight, a small smile curving her lips. One hand touched his chest, burning five finger-points into his skin through the cotton. He smelled her now, that sweet and fresh fragrance that was hers and hers alone and his cock went hard, full and thick.
He couldn’t look away from her, he couldn’t make himself move. A long, charged moment passed. Then Kane forced himself to glance at his watch, as if there was somewhere he had to be. Though part of him would like nothing more than to stand here and soak up Audra until dawn, another part of him knew it was a bad idea. Their “friendship” would be strained if he didn’t get out of here. Not to mention his zipper, now confining that aching length between his thighs.
“Babe.” He cleared his throat and tried banishing the image of her small hand wrapped around him, sliding up and down, root-to-tip. “I’m still not clear on the purpose of your call.” The dripping faucet had been bullshit and all the rest only more excuses.
“I don’t like the idea of you being at the mercy of some stupid curse.” Indignation brought additional color to her face and her eyes sparkled like jewels. “You shouldn’t spend the rest of your life alone, or even think that you must.”
“Baby…”
“It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like stupid Goody Two-Shoes.” Her voice rose. “Even if you try to forget about it or shrug it off or make a new plan for yourself, it will still be there, impossible to shake…”
Ah, so he got it now. “What happened?” He cupped her face in his hands.
She squeezed shut her eyes. “They’re wonderful, I know that. They only want the best for me…their idea of the best, anyway. But I feel like I’m going to go back to LA and be boxed up like I was before. I feel like I’m smothering now.”
“You should have called me right away. Before you worked yourself up into this state. We could have gone out for a drink or something.”
“I wanted to work up some courage,” she said, her eyes flying open so she stared straight at him.
He froze. “Courage for what?”
“Have sex with me, Kane,” she said, the hand on his chest moving to his bicep. She circled it, squeezed. “Do something that takes me right out of the box. That takes me out of my comfort zone and lets me feel alive.”
Oh, man. Oh, fuck.
His brain short-circuited and all he could think of was her beautiful face, her mouth. Do something that takes me right out of the box.
“Please,” she whispered. “You know me. I think you know what I need.”
And just like that, he was a goner.
“Face the desk,” he ordered in a gruff voice, turning her by the shoulders.
She glanced back at him over one. “Kane—”
“Face the desk.” When she was in place, he ran his hands down her arms and positioned her fingers to curl around the edge of the wooden surface. “Can you stay just like this?”
Her breathing already sounded choppy. “I-I don’t know.”
“You’ll do it for me,” he said, then left her there, hurrying around the bungalow to turn off lights, until only the lamp on the desktop remained lit.
“Kane…”
That sweet plaintive note turned him inside out. “Almost there, baby. Hang on.”
He returned to stand behind her. Reaching around, he tilted up her chin. “Look, Audie. There you are.” The darkness outside and the nearby lamp turned the window into a mirror.
Sweeping her hair to one side, he pressed his mouth to her neck, lightly sucking to distract her as he reached for the waistband of her jeans.
She shifted. “What, um…”
“You stay still,” he said, moving his mouth to her ear. “If you do as I say, I’ll make you feel good.”
Her body twitched and she reached back to touch him. “No,” he said, and firmly replaced her hand in its original position. “You just take what I give you, standing just like this, watching how it looks on you. Creating memories like those photographs you want. Watching how pretty you are when you let go.”
“Oh, God,” she breathed.
He had her pants unfastened and unzipped. “Spread your legs,” he whispered against her ear, and pressed his right foot to the inside of her ankle, encouraging her to do as ordered.
She moaned, then hung her head.
“Nuh-uh,” he said, swatting her denim-covered ass. “You’re supposed to be watching.”
Her head lifted and she sucked her bottom lip inside her mouth. “You’re going to make me crazy.”
“That’s the idea,” he said, and began working her pants down her thighs, until her spread legs made more progress impossible. A kind of bondage.
He ran both palms over her panty-covered cheeks, appreciating the way the cut of the nude-colored lace undergarment revealed the lower curve of each delectable globe. “I told you I’m an ass man,” he said, and felt her shiver.
“Give me that mouth for a minute,” he said, unable to stop himself. His fingertips dug into her soft flesh as she turned her head and their lips met, the kiss hot and wet, his tongue exploring, demanding. She moaned and he swallowed the sound, it going straight to his aching cock.
“Sweet,” he said, releasing her mouth. “Now keep watching.”
Her head turned forward once again and he saw her eyes in the mirrored glass, deep pools that he wanted to fall into headfirst. Steeling himself, he refocused on her delectable ass and rubbed her there again before rolling down the lace underwear, inch by inch, over the curves.
When the stretchy garment met denim, she shifted again, and again he gave her a careful swat, this one with more sting. She moaned, her butt wiggling. “You’re not to move,” he said, his voice low.
“Kane…”
“Yeah, baby. I’m right here.” He drew closer, his chest to her back, and kissed the side of her throat again. “About to make you fly.”
His right hand curved around her hip, sliding down her belly to the seam of her lips. With gentle fingers, he opened her carefully, and a wash of wetness doused the tips. “Yeah, so aroused, baby.” He found her stiff little clit.
She shivered, pressing her ass into his groin. He insinuated his other hand between their bodies, running it down the grooved peach and beyond, finding her entrance and spearing up into her silky channel with two fingers. Her body jolted and she moaned, her muscles clenching on his sudden intrusion. He soothed her with baby kisses along her jawline as he lightly brushed her clit.
“Look how pretty, Audie. No, don’t close your eyes. See how pretty you look when you’re breaking free.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered, staring at herself in the reflective glass. Her gaze shifted to him, standing behind her. “You’re pretty too.”
He hid his smile against her neck, then licked a line to her earlobe so he could take a bite. She jolted again and her hips tilted, at first back, so that his fingers slid deeper up her channel, and then forward so her clit could make better contact with his blunt fingertips.
The sensual dance of hers could go on for hours as far as he was concerned but he felt the growing tension in her muscles, felt the ragged breaths going in and out of her lungs. Her eyes drifted closed and her head dropped back to his shoulder even as she ground her ass against his hard cock again.
Okay, maybe he couldn’t take hours of this. Gritting his teeth, he rubbed his cheek against hers. “How are you doing, babe?”
“I’m going to have beard burn,” she said, her voice sex-slurred. “I love having your beard burn.”
Christ, and he’d be looking for it tomorrow, as proof that this wasn’t one of his recent dreams that left him aching in his twisted sheets every night.
“You’re supposed to be watching,” he said now, drawing his tongue down her throat. What he wouldn’t give to suck a hickey there, just another mark of his to go caveman over in the morning.
“I can see with my eyes closed,” she said, her hips moving another sensual circle, shuffling back though her legs were hobbled to rub against him again. “I can feel you inside me.”
Good God. If she kept that up he was going to come in his pants. Gritting his teeth, he edged his groin farther from her sweet little ass.
“Kiss me, Kane,” she demanded, and her mouth turned toward his.
He groaned, knowing he would give her the moon if she asked. Putting his lips on hers, he synced his tongue and his fingers, both moving in the same in-and-out rhythm.
She made a sound and her skin flashed hot. Yeah, the girl was getting close, thank God. He latched onto her lower lip, took it between his teeth in a firm grip, then lashed it with his tongue even as he rubbed her perfect little clit. Her body strung tight in his hold and he bit harder even as he gave a firm pinch to that hard jewel at the top her sex. She cried out, and he rubbed each side of the knot of nerves.
It shot her over the top.
He let go of her mouth as she cried out. “Look, baby,” he said, nudging her chin with his nose. “Look at you fly.”
But instead of staring at herself, Audra’s eyes met his as she continued to orgasm. You know me. I think you know what I need. She’d said that, but as she continued looking he thought it worked both ways. She knew him. She knew what he needed.
You shouldn’t spend the rest of your life alone, or even think that you must.
He broke off the unspoken communication by ducking his head and sweetly kissing her cheek and then her jaw as aftershocks tremored through her. When she finally quieted, he gently withdrew from her body and pulled up her panties. Kneeling at her feet, he yanked off her jeans then swung her into his arms and walked her to the bed.
Her features were soft, her eyes sleepy as he tucked her against the pillows and drew up the covers. She released a little sigh and he hardened his heart against the forlorn note to it. “You aren’t going to join me here, are you?” she said.
He shoved a hand through his hair and tried to ignore the throbbing clamor of his cock. “Audra…” His head dropped, then he lifted his chin to meet her eyes. “You’ve already had one selfish asshole in your life.”
Her gaze dropped to the bulge in his pants. “You don’t have to be in my life for me to make you feel good.”
Kane sucked in a long breath, then let it out. “Let’s leave it like this, baby. Hurting a little for you makes me feel just right.” With that he left, his cock twitching just like it had upon his arrival—though this time not in anticipation, but protest.
“Down boy,” he repeated, walking out her door. “We’re keeping the girl safe from the likes of us.”
The next morning, Kane was striding through the indoor/outdoor reception lobby when his cell rang. The screen said it was his second cousin, Alec Thatcher, since childhood nearly as close to him as a brother. Closer even in the last five years, since Alec’s real brother had died at the hands of a drunk driver. Nothing’s wrong, Kane assured himself now, spooked for a brief moment like he was every time he saw Alec’s name come up, his mind leaping back to that night when the voice on the other end had been choked with grief.
Nothing’s wrong. His knuckles rapped against the wooden counter as he passed.
Knock on wood.
Did his little rituals give him a stronger feeling of certainty? His phone trilled again and he accepted the call, bringing the device to his ear. “Alec. Everything okay?”
“On my end, yeah.”
Relief relaxed a tight coil in his belly. “Good.” He strolled toward the pool, his gaze roaming, looking for problems, checking on the pulse of the guests he passed. Everything appeared in order and he felt the sun shining on his shoulders with a new appreciation. Despite the little sleep he’d managed the night before, a wave of goodwill passed through him and he looked up, noting the deep blue of the sky.
Beautiful.
“How about you?” Alec asked.
“Never better.”
The silence on the other end of the line signaled Kane’s response was out of character. Never better? Yeah, he didn’t talk like that, did he? Not usually.
In the distance, he saw the backside of a woman in leggings, just a flash as she walked between columns of an open-air hallway. “I’m staring at a fine female behind and that puts me in a very good mood.”
Alec gusted out a sigh. “Thank God.”
Taking his phone from his ear, he glanced at it puzzled, then put it back in place. “My admiration for the feminine form provokes such fervency?”
“You sound like yourself.”
“I am myself—” He broke off as the leggings reversed and he suddenly glimpsed the entire package that went with the distracting backside. Audra. He should have known—he probably had known at some level and it’s why his eye had been caught in the first place.
Tight, pastel work-out clothes molded her body and revealed swathes of skin at her shoulders and slices of the sides of her torso. He wasn’t close enough to know if she’d had to use make-up to cover whisker burn on her face and neck.
He hoped so.
Yeah. Caveman.
And damn, he hoped her dreams had been sweet.
“Kane?”
With a grunt, he tuned back in to his cousin’s call. “Here. What’s up?” He leaned his shoulder against a nearby wall and watched Audra sashay to the juice bar, her blonde hair swinging around her shoulders. “Everything okay with you and Lilly?”
“Lilly…”
Grinning, Kane realized he’d sidetracked the other man just by mentioning his lover’s name. “She treating you right?”
“She…” He could imagine his cousin shaking his head, incredulous by the tone of his voice. “The whole damn world is brighter with her in it.”
Kane’s gaze tracked Audra as she accepted a smoothie and moved off to wind through the surrounding bistro tables. He had to squint against the glare of the sunlight on her shining hair. “I get that.”
“You’re silently snickering.”
“Hey, I’m not.” He frowned. “I’m sincerely glad you found your Lilly.”
“Says the man certain he could never be satisfied with one woman.”
“And you said that made me sound like an asshole,” Kane pointed out.
“Do you mind that?”
“Maybe I do.” He watched Audra continue on her way, her attention focused on the long straw she was attempting to push through the plastic top of her to-go cup. It was why he spotted the chair she was on a collision course with and she didn’t. His muscles bunched, gathering to leap forward, instinct propelling him to prevent a possible injury despite the distance between them. But before he could take a step, she’d halted, skittering to a stop just inches from the offending piece of furniture.
He breathed easier as she skirted the danger and lingered by the three-tier fountain, sipping her drink and gazing on the bubbling water.
“Kane?”
Oh, yeah, he was on a phone call. “Sorry, I checked out for a minute. Did you want to tell me something?”
An odd hesitation followed.
“Alec, you’re sure everything’s all right?”
“Lilly’s been talking to Audra.” His cousin cleared his throat. “And it sounds like you two have been spending some time together.”
Oh, shit. How close were those two friends? Kane shut his eyes, remembering the scent of Audra’s hair and the wet clasp of her body on his fingers. The heat of her kiss and the sweet way she came apart in his arms. Had she told her best friend of their latest encounter? He hoped not. “We, uh, had dinner with Amber and Jessie one night.”
“Okay. Well.” Alec blew out a breath. “I think I should warn you…Lilly agrees.”
Kane opened his eyes to see Audra now in conversation with a young mother attached to a stroller. She was smiling down at the stroller’s occupant, a tow-headed cherub who could just as easily be Audra’s own child. Someday there’d be that for her—kids, a husband, all the things she thought she’d lost when her intended groom hadn’t shown up on the beach.
The painful twinge in his chest was new, but he ignored it.
She deserved that complete, warm family unit, he told himself. She deserved the best of everything.
Including the sexual satisfaction only you seem to provide, a little voice inside him whispered. Boastfully.
He ignored that, too, and redirected his mind back to that warning Alec wanted to issue. “What are you worried about, cuz?”
“Audra lost some of her self-confidence, thanks to my ex-friend Jacob.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” But she’d gained some sexual confidence in the last few days hadn’t she? After all, she’d eventually managed to ask for what she needed from him last night.
“She’s beautiful, you know that,” Alec continued.
“No doubt.” Dazzling.
“Successful, funny.”
“She has shit taste in TV programming, though.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” Kane smiled, thinking of her grisly shows.
“Some man is going to fall in love with her.”
“Of course.” Fucker better treat her with a thousand times more respect and care than the last one.
“Her plan is to let that happen, then break the dude’s heart.”
“Huh?”
“Walk away, when that man has laid himself at her feet. She thinks it’s how she’ll fully recover from the rejection. Then she’ll go on to find her real, happy future.”
Kane considered that a moment. It was a ballsy move, or at least intention, and after what she’d been through, he figured she owed it to herself to give it a try. “Go, Audie,” he murmured.
Alec cleared his throat again. “That guy’s not going to be you, is it Kane?”
His hand tightened on the phone and his spine snapped straight. “Christ, no.” His whole body wanted to throw off the very idea of it. “As if I’d fall in love. You know I won’t. I never put anyone else’s welfare above my own and I think that’s pretty much a given if a man’s going to give his heart away.”
“Yeah, well,” Alec said, then blew out a sigh. “I’m just checking—”
“No need,” Kane said, and turned to head back to his office with only one last swift look at Audra, bright as a butterfly beside the fountain. “I’m still the same selfish fuck I’ve always been.”