Kiss Me Kate (The English Brothers Book 6) (20 page)

It was a lot to absorb: some of it a relief, and some of it utterly heartbreaking. Her family—whom she’d always idolized so much—had done everything possible to sabotage her relationship with Étienne, and it made her feel very stupid, very, very sad and very, very, very angry.

Alex’s hot-headedness aside—though she would have some choice words for him
and
Stratton someday very soon—it was her father whose actions hurt her the most.

As an adult, Kate didn’t see her parents very much. They had retired to West Palm Beach a few years ago, and only came back up to New York for the obligatory holiday visits. The reality was that the chokehold they’d had on her life for so long was impossible for her to forget, and she was protective of her independence and privacy. There would always be a wedge between them.

She wondered, looking across the street at that rusty balcony, if maybe deep down inside she’d always suspected that her parents had something to do with her crushing loss of Étienne. Nothing overt, but perhaps she’d picked up on something in those dark days when she was crying herself to sleep… in her father’s manner, in her mother’s worried eyes, something whispered and overheard, but long-forgotten. Because the hurt she felt now wasn’t new or peculiar, it was old and familiar. That her parents were overprotective had been a grudging reality in Kate’s childhood and teenage life. But her father was supposed to love her, and instead, he’d engineered the breaking of her heart.

Coming up behind her, Étienne put his arms around her waist, clasping his hands beneath her breasts, and Kate leaned back into the solid warmth of his chest, closing her burning eyes as she drew a deep breath.

“It’s heartbreaking.”

“It is,” he agreed.

“If they’d all left us alone…do you think we would have done it? Gone to the same college? Found an apartment together?” Tears slipped form her eyes as she remembered the hopeful naiveté of her fifteen-year-old self.

“Absolutely,” he said firmly. “Nothing could have kept me from you… except
you
. I hadn’t received any letters. I believed your father. I truly
believed
you were finished with me.”

“I wasn’t,” she sobbed.

“I know that now,” he said, his voice somehow tender and furious at the same time. “What about you,
chaton
? What was it like for you? After we said goodbye?”

“I don’t have much to add,” she said, opening her eyes and reaching out to pull the sheers closed as he adjusted his grip around her, one thumb grazing gently over the nipple straining against her blouse.

His voice rumbled low in her ear. “I’ll take whatever you’re offering.”

Her skin tingled as he said this, her heart pounding with desire, with a longing to reconnect with and to him, and to somehow recapture what they’d lost in every possible way.

“I went home. I missed you every second. I told Lib as much about us as I could bear to part with. I re-lived every detail. I wrote you flowery, ridiculous letters of love.”

“I wish I’d seen them. I would have treasured them.” He dropped his lips to her throat, kissing her gently. “And then?”

Kate arched her back, leaning her neck to the side to give him better access to the throbbing skin there. “After two weeks with no answer, I called your mother. She told me she was sure you didn’t want to speak to me.”

“I was already gone,” he murmured.

“I wrote to you for two more weeks. Long letters, crying every night, wondering what had happened, asking why you stopped loving me.”

“I never did,
chaton
.”

“And finally…” Kate sucked in a deep breath as tears sluiced down her cheeks and her shoulders sagged. “I gave up.”

His lips, which had been nuzzling her neck, suddenly drew back, though his arms around her tightened, like he couldn’t decide how he felt about this.

“It was Lib who made me stop. She told me to give up. She told me it was over.”

Étienne took a shaky breath from behind her then rested his forehead on her shoulder.

Her voice sounded strained and broken in her ears as she continued. “I’m so sorry I never looked harder for you, never tried to find out what happened. I just assumed you’d decided that I wasn’t what you wanted. I assumed you’d moved on—”

“I promised you I wouldn’t.”

“I know,” she sobbed, speaking faster. “But you were so beautiful and sophisticated…and I was so inexperienced and fat and—”

He whirled her around in his arms, grasping for her chin and jerking up her face so he could look into her eyes.

“
Assez
!” he growled, his eyes fierce and his voice unyielding. “Stop.”

Kate searched his eyes, as his chest slammed into hers with every breath, his throbbing heart pounding against her breasts.

“You were
everything
to me, Kate. I don’t care that we only knew each other for a week. I don’t care that we were fifteen. And I don’t care that we haven’t seen each other since. You were warm and funny, interesting and kind. You listened to me. You understood me. You
belonged
to me. We crammed more into those days than I ever could have thought possible—enough to live on for half a lifetime. I
never
forgot about you, I
never
stopped missing you, I
never
stopped wanting you, and I
never
stopped—”

“Don’t say it!”

“—loving you,” he whispered.

Her eyes blurred with tears, and she shook her head looking down at the hem of his undershirt against the skin of his throat. “That’s not possible.”

“It is,” he insisted. “It
is
possible.” He took her hand and flattened it over his heart, then covered it with his own. His voice was so tender, her knees buckled when he said, “Kate.
Amié chaton.
It’s beating only for you.”

She looked into his eyes, at the fierce churning green of them, and fringe of black lashes that framed them. His cheeks, cut from white marble, were tense, but his lips tilted up just slightly, and a small laugh of surrender made him shake his head with wonder.

“I never said goodbye,” he said gently. “Neither did you.”

“We barely…know each other,” she said in a weak, halting voice, so close to surrender. Her body leaned into his, her heat seeking his, her lips parting softly in invitation as she searched his eyes, his heart still hammering under her palm.

“That’s not true at all,” he retorted, palming her cheeks tenderly, his eyes never leaving hers for a moment. “And besides…I’m free. You’re free. There’s nothing stopping us from
getting
to know each other all over again. No parents. No cousins. No ex-girlfriends. No one to get in the way. Just you and me. Just us.”

“Is that what you want?” she asked, hope surging past fear. “
Us
?”

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” he answered, nuzzling her nose with his before dropping his lips to hers.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Room service.”

With Kate’s lips only a millimeter from his, their wine and beignets had arrived. Étienne exhaled in annoyance, turning his head toward the door, then back to Kate. “Let’s ignore it.”

Knock, knock, knock.

“Hello? Room service.”

Kate grinned at him and shook her head. “We can’t.”

“
I
certainly could,” he muttered as she pulled away from him to answer the door.

Étienne turned from the windows in time to see a uniformed waiter stride into the room with an elegant, linen-covered tray containing a silver wine bucket, two crystal glasses, and a basket overflowing with beignets. The New Orleans-style doughnuts covered with powdered sugar were one of Étienne’s favorite local delicacies. While attending nearby Loyola University for two semesters of law school, he’d certainly eaten his fair share. His mouth watered as the waiter set down the tray on the coffee table in front of a small loveseat, and Étienne reached for his wallet. Handing the waiter a tip, he shook his head subtly when the waiter gestured to the bottle.

“Leave the opener,” Étienne said softly, anxious to be alone again with Kate as soon as possible.

The waiter winked at him, setting the corkscrew on the tray and heading back out the door.

After Kate locked the door, she turned back to him, walking partway into the room before shoving her hands in her back pockets. This move had the benefit of thrusting her chest toward him, which made his mouth water further, but as she rocked back and forth on her bare feet staring at him, he wondered if she was nervous.

Reaching for the bottle, he sat down on the side of the loveseat closest to the windows and used the corkscrew to cut off the metallic cover. When he looked up, Kate still stood in the same place, watching him.

“I don’t bite,” he said, letting his eyes rest on her chest for a moment before looking back up. “Unless you ask me to.”

She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth as her eyes widened. “I, um…”

“Kate?”

“Yeah?” she asked breathlessly.

“I’m teasing you.”

“I know.”

Her shoulders relaxed a little, but she stayed where she was, close to the bed, several feet away from him, watching but making no move to join him.

Placing the bottle on the floor between his feet, he twisted the corkscrew into the cork, remembering Kate as a teenager. What had he done then to lighten things up when she was nervous? He searched his mind, grinning as he remembered how much she loved talking about her best friend.

“Hey Kate,” he said, looking at her as the cork was removed from the bottle with a pleasant popping sound.

“Yeah?”

“Tell me what Libitz would say about this.”

“This?”

He poured two glasses of wine, letting the opaque liquid splash into the wide bowl of each glass as her question hung in the air between them.

“You and me. Bottle of wine. Hotel room.”

He held a glass out to her, and she moved forward, standing across the coffee table from him and taking the glass. She raised it to her lips, taking a long sip.

“She’d tell me to jump you,” said Kate softly, her eyes brightening with amusement as Étienne choked on his wine.

Damn.

Maybe she was right…there
were
things he didn’t know about Kate English, like the fact that she was more confident than he remembered. His dick swelled in his pants, so he took another sip of wine, telling himself to calm down.

“I always liked Libitz.”

“I thought you had her earmarked for J.C.,” said Kate, offering him a teasing grin as she sat down on the corner of the bed, diagonally across from him.

“I like her. I don’t
want
her.”

Kate dropped her eyes and took another sip of wine.

Damn again
. She was hot, she was cool. She looked nervous, then she talked about jumping him. His Kate had some wiles. She wasn’t totally innocent anymore, and it made a wave of jealousy break over him as he realized that there had been other men in her life…and probably in her bed.

“Is that what you usually do?” he purred, throwing his arm across the back of the loveseat in an effort to look casual.

“Usually?”

“When you’re about to make out with someone? Jump them?”

“Am I about to make out with someone?” she asked saucily, wetting her lips before taking another sip of wine and holding his eyes over the rim.

“Yeah,” said Étienne, wondering how much more teasing he could take. And
damn one more time
, because when they were kids,
he
was the tease. Now? Kate was holding her own, and his body was getting hotter and hotter from the verbal foreplay. “You are.”

“No.”

His eyes narrowed. “No…you’re
not
about to make out with someone?”

She shook her head, her eyes darkening as she answered him. “No, this isn’t what I usually do.”

“So I’m special?” he asked.

She laughed softly, the sound breathy and sexy, before taking another sip of wine. “You
were
the first.”

“What if I want to be the only?” he asked, as startled as she by the words, yet unable to stop them from leaving his lips.

She tilted her head to the side, her sexy teasing exchanged for a more serious look. “You want us to be exclusive?”

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I want you all to myself for a while.”

Her lips parted in surprise as she touched the rim of the glass to her lips and tipped it back to finish her wine.

Fuck, she was way too far away, though it was convenient she was sitting on the bed. He threw back the rest of the wine and filled his glass, standing up and making his way haltingly around the coffee table, to sit down beside her. He filled her glass to the brim, placed the almost-empty bottle on the floor, then turned to face her.

Her eyes were unguarded and tender as she gazed back at him, her nipples pebbled against her silky blouse, torturing him with every breath she took.

“There haven’t been many,” she whispered earnestly.

“I hate all of them.”

She grinned suddenly, about to laugh. “Are you jealous?”

“Completely.”

“Should I be jealous too?”

It was true that he’d had many lovers after Kate and before Amy—lovers and girlfriends and one-night-stands. But his answer was simple. He shook his head slowly, taking another long sip of wine before placing his glass on the floor next to the bottle. “No.”

“Why not?” she breathed, letting him gently pry her wineglass out of her fingers to set it on the floor beside his.

“Because the only woman I ever
really
wanted,” he said, as his fingers buried themselves in her glorious hair, his thumbs lightly stroking her jaw, “was you.”

***

Though Kate’s mind issued one fruitless, final warning against walking down this path with Étienne Rousseau for the second time in her life, her heart and her body had already surrendered. And if she was honest, she’d clock her hopes to the night Stratton had called to say that they were going to be working with the Rousseaus on a deal. She had fought for the deal just to be with Étienne again—just to have a chance to find out if what they’d shared had been in her head, or real. Understanding their unlucky history, their heartbreaking “almost,” the wistful “could have been” that was stolen from them by the people they loved? It made her desperate to be bound to him again, to recapture what was ripped away from her so brutally long, long ago. Knowing he’d tried to connect with her, that he’d wanted her, that he’d always loved her blew the roof off of any lingering hesitation, and as his lips touched down on hers, her mind gave up the struggle and yielded to him completely.

She’d waited a lifetime to figure out what had happened between them. Why he’d rejected her love and withdrawn his. And to know now that he hadn’t…to know he’d cared for her as much as she’d cared for him somehow started mending something that had broken inside of Kate a long time ago. And suddenly, all she wanted was to slide back into love with him.

Flattening her hands on his T-shirt, she smoothed them down to the hem, pushing the material back up the ridges of his smooth, warm chest as his tongue slipped into her mouth and his fingers abandoned her face to unbutton her blouse. She shrugged out of it at the same time he reached behind his head and pulled off his T-shirt.

Both panting, they stared at each other for a split second before colliding, their lips smashing and teeth clashing as Kate fell to her back on the bed and Étienne shifted to lie on top of her, kissing her with a passion and abandon, a primal hunger that flooded her body with heat and anticipation. He cradled her face with his hands as his tongue slid silkily against hers, the heat of his chest flattening her swollen breasts under his hard muscles.

His lips skated down her throat, pressing soft kisses and licks, resting on the throbbing pulse of her neck before sliding lower to the valley of her collarbone, where he sighed her name, “Kate, Kate, Kate” mixed with breathy French endearments…
Chaton…Mon coeur…Mon chere…Mon chou…
and Kate suddenly remembered he’d done that when they were teenagers. She’d been wrapped in his arms, the hammock swinging them lightly, their bodies joined together under an old blanket as sweet French words tumbled from his mouth and filled her ears. A disbelieving giggle started in her chest, rising to her lips where it escaped with a joyful sound.

Étienne leaned his head up from her chest, a lock of jet black hair falling to his forehead as he looked at her curiously, his lips glistening. “Are you laughing?”

“Mm-hmm,” she hummed, pillowing her hands behind her head and smiling at him with wonder. “I’m smiling. I’m laughing. It should be impossible, but it’s not. It feels like a dream, but it’s not. I’m finally with you again.”

“Not impossible,” he said dragging his lips back and forth against the bare skin of her chest. “Not a dream.”

“But still…unbelievable.”

His lips tilted up as his eyes twinkled with happiness, and for a split second Kate saw so clearly the boy she’d fallen in love with—the hopefulness in his eyes, the devotion, the longing. As he slid up her body to look into her eyes, his rigid erection pushed insistently against the softness of her sex. A familiar warning, a promise made a lifetime ago. He cupped her face again, rocking into her gently to share his intentions, his desire.

“It’s fate,” he whispered. “
Stony limits cannot hold love out…and what love can do, that dares love attempt.
”

“Romeo and Juliet?” she asked, loving the feeling of his weight on her, the darkness of his eyes looking into hers, the feeling of him pressed so urgently against her.

“We’re a little like them,” he said, caressing her face. “Don’t you think?”

“You mean our families keeping us apart?”

“Mmm,” he murmured. “But we’re not fifteen anymore.”

“No,” said Kate, raising her eyebrows and arching her pelvis into his. “We’re not.”

As she lifted her back, his hands took advantage, unclasping her bra efficiently, then reaching up to touch the straps and looking into her eyes as he drew them down her arms.

“I’ve never made love in the afternoon,” said Kate, throwing her free arm over her eyes as a bit of self-consciousness made her swallow nervously.

“I’ll be your first,” he said. “Again.”

“I’m not…”
fit
, she thought, averting her eyes as he pulled her bra away from her body.

“Kate, look at me. You’re beautiful,” he reassured her, reading her mind.

His soft, sharp inhalation of breath made her lower her arm, and she found him staring down at her breasts with reverence and longing. When he flicked his eyes up to hers, they were almost black. His tongue darted out to lick his lips and his voice was low and gravelly.

“I’m going to love you all afternoon, Kate. And when it gets dark, I’m going to love you some more. These…” he said, leaning down to capture one nipple between his lips and tug lightly before releasing it, “…are perfection. And you…” he said, circling the other nipple with his tongue until Kate whimpered, “…are the co-star of my dirtiest dreams.”

For a very good girl raised in a very restrictive household, his words shot through her like a bolt of fire, and she grabbed his head, guiding him back to her breasts roughly, pushing the wet heat of his mouth against her chest until he was sucking on her again. His tongue made dizzying, electrifying strokes that made Kate’s head thrash on the pillow, while his fingers gently pinched and twisted, making her breathing shallow and fast, her hips driving up at him with every long draw.

“I can’t…” she murmured. “I can’t…”

“Then let go,
chaton
,” he said, before sucking her nipple back into the heat of his mouth, his damp fingers slipping into the waistband of her jeans. Finding the hidden nub of aroused flesh he only stroked once or twice before Kate screamed his name, her fingers flexing in his black hair, her head thrown back, her body tense then trembling as he brought her to her first climax.