A swell of emotions fills my chest. I have never in my entire life felt as connected to one person as I do to this man. My mother used to say, “Stay alert. Listen to your gut and think with your mind.” And I am. I’m listening to my gut. I’m thinking with my mind. I press my lips to Kace’s.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Kace moans with the flick of my tongue and cups the back of my head, deepening the kiss. In a shared breath, the divide between us of hours before is gone, and we sink into the kiss, into each other. The room fades, silent but for the sounds of need for one another, and the fingers of my free hand tangle in his hair, holding him to me.
His hand slides up my spine, strong and firm, and settles between my shoulder blades, his lips parting mine, his eyes meeting mine. A sense of exactly what he said, belonging here and now, together, swells between us, a flame that simmers and then ignites.
In this moment, the need to remove anything and everything between us overcomes me. I reach for the hem of my shirt but my injured hand and laden arm won’t seem to cooperate. Kace catches the cloth with me.
“I’ll do it,” he offers, and when my hands fall away in silent approval, he gently eases my shirt over my head and my arm, tossing it away.
I’m left in a lacy black bra that he bought me and somehow that very idea feels all the more intimate. His hot gaze slides over the swell of my breasts beneath the lace before he folds me against him, his breath warm on my nipples.
He kisses me, just lips to lips, a soft caress, before he unhooks my bra, his hands sliding under the straps to slide it down my shoulders. My lashes lower with the heat radiating off his body into mine. I lean back and let the bra fall away, my nipples puckering in the cool air.
His hands caress my sides, and settle on my hips. When I open my eyes, he’s watching me, not my naked body but my face. Slowly his gaze lowers, my breasts heavy, my sex clenched. And when his eyes meet mine again, he murmurs, “God, you’re beautiful.” He folds me into him, pressing my naked breasts to his naked chest, his lips brushing mine once more before he lowers me to the couch.
“We’re going upstairs where we have more room and I know I won’t hurt you.”
“I’m okay right here.”
“Until we hit your hand.” He stands and takes me with him, reaching for my pants. “But we can leave these here. They bother me.”
I laugh and a blink later, it seems I’m naked. Completely naked and he is not. This is not a first with Kace. In fact, it’s a theme between us. With any other man, I’d feel vulnerable, but Kace is different. And this is not just about the bedroom games he plays. It’s about control, something I’ve decided is important to Kace for reasons beyond dominance. I think it’s about his father. About his life on the road that started so very young. I think it’s about death and loss. Tonight, it’s about our fight, about almost losing me.
He scoops me up and starts walking.
I curl into him, my hand on his thundering heart that tells his secret: he’s not fully in control. There’s power in this knowledge but I don’t want power. He can have it. I just want him. And his thundering heart tells me what I’ve wanted to know: he’s here, really here with me. He’s all here with me. And I with him.
Kace climbs the stairs to my bedroom and lays me down on my back, leaning over me, his hands on either side of me. “Don’t move,” he orders softly.
He pushes off of me and stands up.
I move.
I lift up to my one good elbow, watching him reach for his pants. He pauses and fixes me in his stare. “You really are horrible at following orders.”
“I prefer orders given while you’re naked and up close and personal.”
His lips quirk. “Is that right?” he asks, removing a condom from his pocket, and about ten seconds later, he’s naked, his cock jutting out, hard and thickly veined. He is hard all over, a perfect masculine specimen by anyone’s taste. And those tattoos, musical notes that dance a path all around his ripped abs and further down, get me every time.
He tears open the package holding the condom and my gaze jerks to his.
“Yes. And I’ll, of course, be perfectly submissive when you’re up close and personal.”
He laughs, closing the space between us and when his knees hit the mattress, I ease onto my back. He’s over me a moment later, his powerful legs shackling mine. “Here I am.” The sweet weight of his body settles onto mine as he asks, “Now are you going to take orders?”