Chapter Twelve
Sky nearly launched off the bed when Kane went down on her. It was like being picked up by a ten-foot wave and tossed up into the air, spinning head over heels and then plunging down into churning water. She pressed her fist against her mouth to keep from screaming. She’d always been embarrassed that she was loud during sex, but Kane had loved it. Encouraged her. He’d claim he wanted people to hit the walls and tell them to tone it down.
“Just lets everyone know how good I am in bed,” he’d teased, when she’d blushed once when a hotel guest had banged on their door one night when they’d barely been able to make into the room. They hadn’t been able to wait to take off clothes or get to the bed before Kane had pushed her up against the door, rolled on a condom, picked her up and sheathed himself in her body. “And out of it,” he added, probably trying to make her laugh at his arrogance.
Good hadn’t begun to cover Kane’s skill sets, especially those of a horizontal nature, and she didn’t need to think about how many women he’d done this with since, but clearly he’d had lots of additional practice or her memory had really been lax.
The first orgasm hit and Kane continued to crank her higher through to the next one.
She gripped his shoulders with her thighs as he nipped her clit and then soothed over it with his tongue, over and over, until she felt the build again. She needed him inside her now. Right now. She grabbed his hair and pulled, trying to give him the message that she needed more. A lot more.
“Get a condom,” she said, trying to wiggle further under him and pull him up on her body even more. She should have known that was useless. Kane was six foot one and all honed muscle.
“My way,” he reminded her, looking up at her, his middle finger circling her clit while two other fingers stroked. His eyes gleamed like hot metal. “You agreed.”
Had she agreed? Being this close to his fire and not jumping in? Impossible. She would have said anything to be able to touch him again, have him. But he did kiss his way up to her breasts, and as his teeth teased them to aching attention, he scissored his fingers deep inside her slick channel.
“God, Kane, more,” Sky chanted. “More, more, more.”
“You feel so perfect. So tight and perfect.” He groaned the words as he laved each one of her nipples while his fingers moved in and out of her.
Sky wanted faster. Harder. She needed it.
“These are so perfect Sky. Mine. Beautiful.” He laved one nipple with his tongue and then sucked it deep into his mouth.
“Not sure I’m going to share them with the next baby.” Sky could barely hear him through the blood racing through her body. She ground against his hand, and then let go of his hair and then his shoulders so that she could grab his ass to pull him on top of her exactly where she needed him. When had he become such a talker? She wanted action, and Kane had always been on board with hard, fast and dirty action.
He’d only talked to tell her what to do, and she’d loved how he’d been so bossy in bed or wherever they happened to be. She’d loved to make him lose control and curse and give up trying to get home and pull over wherever, whenever. It had been the only time she felt confident with him, equal.
She wrapped her legs around his narrow hips.
“We don’t have forever,” she whispered kissing her way along his jaw and then nipping him hard enough to get his attention.
“I want forever.” He cradled her face in his palm. “Forever with you, Sky.”
Sky stilled under him.
“I want you to give that to me.” His eyes searched hers.
Sky felt like she stood on a precipice, a waterfall running under her feet, mist rising up to claim her, hiding how far the fall was. All this time he’d been demanding, taking. Now he asked.
“Okay,” she said. She had no other choice. She couldn’t imagine her life without him anymore and didn’t want to.
“Please, Kane, please,” she said, cupping his hard jaw and reaching up to kiss his lips. It was a tender kiss, laced with passion. “Please, now. I need you.”
He bowed his head, eyes closed, and then when he looked up at her, she saw something she’d never seen before, something she didn’t dare name, but she felt like for the first time since she’d watched him walk away all those years ago, they’d connected at the level she’d so desperately craved.
He angled his erection at her entrance, teased her by rubbing against her clit and her hot, wet entrance.
“Kane.” She caught his hips. “Condoms.”
He hung his head, breathed in deeply. “You make me forget my own name.”
“Hurry,” she urged. He leaned over the bed and snagged the strap of his duffel bag and dragged it to him. He pulled out a condom. Sky took it, ripped the wrapper with her teeth and rolled it on him.
Kane hissed in a breath. He sheathed himself in one deep stroke. Sky stiffened and had to bite back a yelp.
“Did I hurt you?” Kane froze in place but caught her face between his palms. “Sky?”
“Sooo perfect,” she whispered finally enough in control of her body to speak. “More. Please, Kane, I need more. You have to move. Harder. Deeper,” she ordered or begged, practically shaking with desire. Her hands threaded through his hair, and for a moment, they just stared at each other in the golden light heralding the pending evening.
“I missed you,” she breathed shakily.
He kissed one temple and then the other. He pulled back a little so she was forced to look into his eyes.
“We’re getting married, Sky. We’re going to be a family.”
This time, his statement shot a thrill through her. Two days with Kane and now she couldn’t picture her life without him. She knew there were many things they needed to sort out, but right now she didn’t care. She just wanted to burn with Kane, and when he began to move in that familiar rhythm that she matched instinctively, Sky felt she could soar. She could be anybody she wanted if she had Kane by her side.
*
Sky draped across his chest. Her hair hid her face. His breathing had finally calmed down, and his heart rate was near normal, but he felt drained. Wasn’t sure how he felt—where they went now.
Forward.
“Sky, I’m sorry.” He decided that even though he wanted to take a nap—he’d had little sleep last night since Sky had woken him up every two hours, and his headache today had duked it out with his dark thoughts and churning emotions—he needed to ensure Sky was on board with the plan tomorrow.
“Why?” she asked sleepily, rolling over to prop herself up on his chest.
“I didn’t know about your parents. I didn’t know that you felt like you didn’t belong,” he said.
“Nobody knew,” Sky said. “My parents were very social with their church, with my father’s law firm, with the private school where my brother and I went, and I bet no one suspected.”
“Still, Sky, we were friends. We were lovers. You gave your heart and your body to me. I should have taken better care of you. I should have known.”
“I know you are a kick-ass bull rider,” she said, tracing something on his skin, with a finger. “Are you psychic, too?”
He’d forgotten that his sweet, shy girl had teased him when they were alone.
“I should have trusted you enough to let you in all the way, but it was such a habit by then, such a way of thinking that I wasn’t…” She broke off.
“Wasn’t what?”
“Lovable.”
“Sky.” Kane gathered her close. “You are lovable.” But even as he said that, he knew he’d never told her he’d loved her. She’d said it so many times to him, but never once had he looked her in the eye and committed to her beyond the next day and definitely not the future.
She’d needed something from him he’d been reluctant—damn, unable—to give her. And why? Because he had his own demons taunting him on both shoulders.
“So we start again,” Kane said, determined. “Honest. Open with each other this time.”
“You want to do that?” She leaned up so that she could put fists on his chest and rest her chin there. “Can you do that a real partnership?” she asked. “It’s not like you talked much about your feelings or your family. You mentioned Luke, and we watched him at a few rodeos in California and in Colorado, but you rarely talked about your mother or father. If you want me to feel safe with you, you need to feel safe with me.”
Kane rolled away from her and threw an arm over his eyes. He couldn’t hear her breathe while the seconds tick off on his massive watch.
“Like you, I didn’t know who my father was, not really until I was six or seven. I’d never had a dad. I thought Luke and I had the same dad. But when I was six and started school I was really smart and the school couldn’t handle me or challenge me. That’s when my mom started trying harder to get financial support from my biological father. She’d tried before. He was wealthy and connected, but as I got older, she was more motivated. She wanted to send me to a better school. He wanted to pretend I didn’t exist.”
Sky trailed her fingers up and down his arm, her touch soothing.
“He was from a very wealthy family, and when she’d had the affair, she hadn’t known he was married and already had three daughters. He didn’t want his wife to find out he’d cheated. He didn’t want his daughters to realize they had a brother. He had three blonde blue-eyed princess daughters. No way would I have fit in, but my mom thought that me being a son would change his mind. A lot of my childhood was colored by my mom trying to get him to acknowledge me by stalking and ambushing him with me as co-conspirator and then later, when he got the police involved, she got help from legal aid to take him to court. He had a lot of influence so she hit a lot of walls, until later, but by then it was too late. I didn’t want him, his money or his influence to pave my way.”
“What about your other brothers? Where do they come in?”
“You want all the dirt?”
“Is it dirt?”
Sky pressed herself against his side. Her fingers stroked through his hair. His eyes drifted shut.
“Do you want a pain pill?”
“No. I don’t like to use anything unless I really can’t take it.”
She kissed one of his bruises, and then kissed a trail down his body. “I’m sure that has yet to happen, tough guy.”
“That feels good,” he said softly for the first time feeling the years and the heartache fall away if only for a moment.
“So the dirt?”
“Not dirt. Just life. Messy. Sad. My mom had a tough father. Abusive I think. She was a bit wild. Still is. Probably is manic-depressive, but she doesn’t like the medication. Tries to control everything with a naturopath. But she fell in love with a bull rider when she was fifteen. Got pregnant and ran away with him. He wanted to marry her so he was taking her back to the ranch in Marietta, Montana, to get her dad’s permission to marry her since she was a minor. It was Christmas Eve. He thought he timed it right, hoping for forgiveness. Instead they hit ice, and another car plowed into them. My mom nearly died, and was unconscious for weeks. The babies were delivered and adopted out. She never knew she was carrying twins. Her boyfriend was older and was given the choice of jail for sex with a minor or being deported. It took him a year to get back to her, and they ran away again and a year later had Luke.”
Sky’s eyes were dark with sympathy.
“So you didn’t know you had two other brothers until when?”
Kane sighed. “I met Colt and we figured it out at last year’s rodeo. Then Laird, his fraternal twin, at Christmas Eve last year. A miracle.”
Even he could hear the bitterness. She ran a finger over each of his eyebrows, and then down his nose. Traced his lips and he kissed the tip of her finger. He remembered this. Her sweetness. It hadn’t been all desperate and hungry coupling.
“So you and your mother both missed time with their children.” Her voice ached. He hadn’t thought about that. Put it like that he was really a whiny jerk. His mom had missed thirty years. What was three to that?
“The plan has always been to work a ranch. Rebuild the Wilder brand stronger than before.”
“The plan?” She cut to the heart of it. “Is that your plan as well?”
“It was,” he said cautiously. It had made sense. He wanted to bring his mother some happiness and peace. And maintain some kind of relationship with Luke. “But now I have you and Montana to think about.”
Sky ran her fingers along his scalp again, this time a little more rhythmically, and he felt his headache ease almost instantly.
“We don’t have to solve everything now.”
“Yes, we do.”
“So you met your father?” Sky asked, her cheek against his chest and one hand still rhythmically stroking back his hair. Her voice was mildly curious.
Kane swallowed the bile that rose up. “Yeah.” He tried to keep his voice neutral to keep the questions to a minimum. He knew he was going for a whole new Kane Wilder, a man of fewer secrets, but it sure as hell didn’t feel comfortable.
Sky continued to stroke him. He’d felt she’d been his secret weapon when they’d been together. She’d cooked. She’d taken care of him—talking to him while he took his post-ride ice bath, soothing his bruises with arnica, massaging his aches, taping him when necessary, and biting back the fear he could feel, but they never acknowledged.
“I never met my father. I don’t even have a picture,” she said.
“He’s a jerk.” Kane rolled over and pinned her to the mattress. Night was starting to close in and Montana might or might not wake up soon. He’d tried his best to tucker her out. “And my dad’s a bigger jerk. I don’t want to be that guy. I swore I’d never be a man who would reject his child,” he said fiercely.
“You’re not,” Sky yielded, her body going soft and welcoming underneath his. “You’re not him at all. We’ll figure this out, Kane. We’ve got time.”
He peeled off her shirt again but kept his mouth shut. In his business, he couldn’t and wouldn’t count on time.
*
Monday slightly after noon, Sky walked out of her last exercise class. Kane’s truck idled in front of the gym.
She was not happy she’d only had a few minutes to take a quick and cold shower after four workout classes. Her capri workout leggings that spelled out Burn in red/orange fiery letters up each thigh should probably have stayed in her gym bag. Kane looked amazing from what she could see.
“Did you give notice?” he asked first off.
She hadn’t wanted to, but knew it was important to at least see this through until the end of the tour in six months—not that she and Montana would travel with him the whole time necessarily. She wasn’t sure what would happen, but much like her pregnancy until she was handed a child, she’d decided she’d play it by ear.
“Friday’s my last day teaching.”
He grimaced but jumped out of the truck, took her gym bag and opened the passenger side door for her. He helped her inside the cab.
“Thank you,” she said, noting his crisp dark jeans, crisp white shirt open at his throat and shiny cowboy boots.
He smiled. “Ready?”
Sky laughed. “I suppose I should say bring it on, but since I taught two spin classes back to back after a pump and a hot yoga class, I think all I’m ready for is a bucket of sun screen, kale and blueberry protein smoothie and lounging on a few noodles in the pool. You’re lucky I snuck in a quick shower,” she said as he drove off, rather quickly.
Bull rider. Kane did everything fast. Well, except sex. She snuck a peek at him and he navigated Scottsdale traffic and headed southwest toward downtown Phoenix. He’d definitely taken his time last night. Sky felt like her body was still liquid, and the way he’d woken her up before dawn should be illegal. She blushed. “You look nice,” she said quickly trying to distract herself. Their daughter was in the car. “Do you have an interview or meet and greet today?”
“The AEBR events usually start Thursday, but since Phoenix is my hometown I have more obligations here usually. I do have two meetings with potential sponsors later this afternoon that can’t be avoided.”
Sky reached into the modified center console remembering Kane kept it stocked with water. Instead she saw a bottle of champagne. Real champagne from France. Not a sparkling wine or just bubbles.
“I thought your meeting was with a potential sponsor.” Sky looked at him. “That seems a bit premature, but you always were confident.”
“Congratulations!” Montana yelled and tossed a fistful of red petals at her. “Mommy’s getting married!”