A few hours later, we lay in bed, half entwined.

Raye had her head on my chest, and my fingers were curled around the back of her neck.

She kept tracing her fingers over the tattoos on my chest and belly. Occasionally, it veered toward the ticklish zone, and she laugh when I flinched. “I never thought a big, tough guy like you would be ticklish.”

I finally retaliated by finding every last ticklish spot she had.

And there were a lot.

But even though I tickled her until she was begging for mercy, that didn’t keep her from tracing the tail feathers of the phoenix where they spread down low over my rib cage, or the flames that licked around my navel. I wasn’t going to stop her either. If she wanted to be touching me, I wanted her to be touching me.

Mine. The covetous way she’d whispered it kept circling around in my head.

There was something else floating around in my thoughts, too. Something that had hit me when I’d seen her slam her fist into Chad’s head.

I loved her.

As her hand wandered down near my lower abdomen once more, I caught her wrist. Rolling her onto her back, I threw my leg over hers and stared down into her face.

She made a face at me. “I’m not trying to tickle you,” she said. “I just like touching you.”

“I didn’t say anything,” I said mildly.

“You’ve got a look in your eyes.” She cocked her head, studying me. “What’s that look for?”

“You and I …we can’t even say we’ve been dating. We’ve only been out on a real date twice, and that’s this past week. I know this is going to sound kind of crazy…” I took a deep breath. I hadn’t ever been a coward, not in my whole life. I wasn’t going to start now. “But I don’t care if it’s crazy. And I’m not expecting anything from you, either. I just…Raye, I’m in love with you.”

Her dark blue eyes went wide. Her lashes fluttered. She opened her mouth, then closed it. I could see her throat working as she swallowed.

“You don’t have to say anything,” I told her. “I just…I wanted you to know.”

She lifted a hand and pressed it to my cheek. “Kane.”

As Raye tugged me down so she could kiss me, my heart flipped over. I’d told her, and here she was, kissing me and clinging tight.

I’d told her and…

“I love you, too,” she whispered against my lips. “Yeah, it’s fast, but it feels right.”

Her words knocked me sideways.

Jerking my head up, I stared down at her. “You…say that again.”

“I love you, too.” She shrugged as she smiled up at me. “I’ve never had anything in my life feel this right, so fast or not…I’m not going to fight it.”

I hooked my forearm around her neck and pulled her in close, burying my face against her neck.

She smoothed a hand up and down my spine. I didn’t even care when her hands reached that spot low on my back that was just the slightest bit ticklish.

* * *

“Finish school,” Raye said.

We had four boxes of Chinese in front of us and sat eating them naked on her bed. All those dates we hadn’t had and the time we were just now starting to spend together had made me aware of something – we had a lot ahead of us in the getting to know you department.

I wasn’t much on relationships, but I did know that it helped to know the person you were with.

One of her top five goals in life was to finish school.

I’d already told her I planned on owning the garage outright before another ten years passed.

“It won’t leave me with a lot of free spending money. I’m not real big on going on and partying or eating out a lot.”

Raye waved a hand. “My mother wasn’t much of a cook. I hardly ever got home-cooked food at home. That was one of the reasons I learned how to cook – and do it well – as young as I did. I prefer eating at home anyway. It costs too much. Except for Chinese from time to time.” She winked at me over a bite of crab Rangoon.

“Next goal?” I snatched the last piece of crab Rangoon from the box. She’d eaten three of the five.

She stuck her tongue out at me, but a grin flirted with her lips. It faded though, and she looked pensive, clearly thinking. “I want to get to know my brother better. Both him and Michelle. Family wasn’t something I had much of as a kid. I’d like to change that.”

I couldn’t imagine not having mine. Laying a hand on her knee, I squeezed lightly. She smiled at me and covered my hand with hers.

“What about your father? Do you want to meet him?”

Raye started to shake her head, then she stopped. “I don’t know. Jake mentioned it, said he’d probably love to meet me. Mom always told me he didn’t care about me, but…maybe she lied?”

“Would she do that?” Raye hadn’t told me much about her mom, but what little she had shared hadn’t exactly painted a pretty picture.

Raye made a face, tapping her chopsticks on the box in front of her. “I want to say no.” She shot a look at me. “I want to…but I can’t.” With a shrug, she looked away.

“What’s stopping you from meeting him?” I asked.

She opened her mouth, then closed it. After a few seconds, she said, “I just…” But she ended up shaking her head, one hand lifted as if she could pull the words she needed from thin air.

“You don’t want to be rejected, do you?”

“No,” she whispered, looking vulnerable.

Turning my hand over, I laced our fingers together. “Take your time and think it through. You’ll figure out what’s right for you.” Letting go of her hand, I took my fork – chopsticks were yet another skill I hadn’t mastered. Stabbing a piece of sweet and sour chicken, I shot Raye a look. “I’d like to mend fences with Dinah. We’re better now than we were, but we’re not close the way we were as kids. I’d like to fix that. But the only way to do it is to show her I’m not going to mess up again.”

“You’ve been doing that since you got out of prison.” Raye swayed close and kissed me. “You can’t keep trying to prove yourself. She can either accept you or not. If she doesn’t, that’s her loss.”

When she would have pulled back, I cupped her cheek and held her close for another soft, slow kiss.

She tried to turn her head away, laughing. “I taste like kung pao chicken,” she said.

“You taste like Raye.” It was a taste I’d never get enough of.

She broke away first and the two of us, without saying a word, started to clear the food from the bed. She rose up onto her knees, leaning over to put everything on her dresser, just barely in arms reach. As she leaned forward to add the last box, I caught her hips and bent my head, pressing my lips to her butt.

She hissed out a breath and looked over her shoulder at me.

“I’ve got so many ways I want to take you,” I murmured against her skin, kissing a path upward and moving in closer.

“Is that a fact?”

“Hmmmm…” I reached her shoulder, using my grip on her hips to pull her back flush against me. “Look.”

I felt her head move, felt her body tense and knew she’d seen.

There was a mirror on the wall across the room, and she could see us, see me as I slid a hand around and cupped one full, lush breast. “Do you see me touching you?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

“Yes…” The breath stuttered out of her and she arched her spine, thrusting her hips back against me.

I rolled mine forward, and she jerked as my cock cuddled up against her ass.

Adjusting us on the bed, I nudged her forward until her hands were braced on the mattress. “Keep watching,” I told her. Then I tucked the head of my cock against her entrance and slowly fed it into her wet, waiting depths.

She whimpered, tightening around me, so slick and hot already.

Her head bowed forward. I caught her jaw and nudged upward. “Keep watching, Raye.”

Her eyes met mine in the mirror, and she shuddered, her spine arching in a long, elegant curve. But she watched.

As I withdrew, then drove back in.

As I slid a hand around and toyed with her clit.

As I began to shaft her with hard, deep digs of my cock.

Even as her body began to quake in reaction, the orgasm bearing down on her.

She kept watching.

I curved my hand over her throat and felt the mad flutter of her pulse. She clamped down tight around me, then abruptly shoved back against me, sitting on my cock. I groaned as her silken wet pussy clamped around me like a fist and she wiggled and bounced, trying to take me deeper and faster.

“More?” I asked.

“Please!”

I grabbed her hips and lifted her, then brought her down. Up, down, feeling the drag and glide of her cunt. It was erotic, sweet as hell.

She wailed out my name and came, hard and fast.

I buried my face against her back and started to grind against her, gritting my teeth as the sensations spread through me.

She milked and squeezed me, still in the grips of her climax and the final milking sensation sent me over.

We fell back into the bed, me clutching her to me, Raye curling up into the curve of my body.

“I love you,” I whispered against her neck.

She shivered, a soft sigh escaping her. “I love you, too.”