The Second Chance Café (Hope Springs, #1) (30 page)

“I’m sorry,” Kaylie said a half hour later, once they had the house to themselves. “I’m fine, really. I promise.”

“I know you’re fine,” he said, his voice soft, his words for her ears alone. “You’re exhausted, excited, I doubt you’re sleeping. You’re running on empty. But I know you’re fine.”

She looked up at him, the circles beneath her eyes like bruises marring her tender skin. “If I could just get a full night’s sleep, it would help.”

He wanted to hurt everyone responsible for the nightmare that kept her awake. “What if I stay? I can camp out down here. You won’t have to worry about…whatever it is that has you sleeping with a knife.”

“That’s not how it works,” she said, stepping into him and cuddling against his chest. “I’d still wake up.”

His arms went around her, tightened, absorbed her trembling until they both stood still. “You don’t know that. You haven’t tried.”

“But I know me.” And then she leaned back to look him in the eye. “It might work if you were in the same room…”

The tension that had been floating around them like ground fog rose along his limbs. Ten felt it in the tightening of his muscles and skin, in the way he forgot how to breathe, in his clothes that felt heavy and damp, in his urge to shed them, to rid her of hers, too. “I can stay. In any room. Wherever you want me.”

“I think I want you to stay in mine.”

Desire gripped him, and he battled a rising groan. “Uhuh. Not if you think. You’ve gotta know.”

“I want you to stay in mine,” she said, no question, no doubt, no fear. “Will you please stay in mine? Will you please stay there with me?”

His jaw tight, he took her by the hand and tugged her behind him up three flights of stairs to the bedroom where she slept.

And where tonight she wouldn’t.

“A
re you sure?” Ten asked, still fully clothed and stretched out beside her on top of her quilt-covered queen-sized bed.

She was nervous. He could have no idea how nervous she was. But he could know how happy his being here made her. How ready she was for him. That she’d been waiting for him longer than even she could believe. And no matter how the night went, it would be perfect.

“Very. Are you?” She rolled toward him, slipping one leg between his, hooking her ankle behind his and winding their feet close.

He rubbed his knee along the inside of her thigh, the friction of the denim on denim warming her skin. She wanted to take off her jeans, but she didn’t want to move. His weight on the mattress, his heat, the scent of sunshine and sawdust and spice…She shivered and nuzzled close.

“Very very,” he said, though it took him a minute to respond, and his breathing shifted with the wait, growing ragged as if his racing heart was slamming into his lungs.

She reached up and brushed his hair from his forehead. She’d known him now for two months, and she didn’t think he’d cut his hair in all that time. She liked it long. She loved
how it curled over his collar, how she could tuck it behind his ear. She loved his ear, and got a shiver out of him when she tugged on the lobe. She loved his jaw, how defiant the line, sharp and strong, and the stubble he always wore, she loved that, too.

“Your eyes are closed,” he said.

“I know,” she replied.

“Are you falling asleep on me?”

“Not a chance.”

He laughed at that, a deep, full-bodied growl that she felt with her leg between his. “Good, because I don’t plan for either of us to think about sleeping for a while.”

She liked that, his confidence, that he would make such a threat, and that he meant it, because she knew he did. “I never mind missing sleep for a good reason.”

He moved his hand to her throat, trailed his fingers to the hollow, then lower, to the top button of her rose Henley tee. “This will be a good one. I promise.”

She opened her eyes because she wanted to watch, to follow the shifts in his expression as he touched her, to see his fingers, his hands, his skin against her skin, which was lighter than his, pale where his showed his time in the sun. He freed a second button, then the third, and pushed aside the fabric to slide beneath, sweeping his fingertips over the swell of one breast, then the other. Her nipples tightened and she shuddered, shuddered again when he slipped into her bra to feel for himself.

“I like that,” he said, his voice gravelly.

“I like it, too,” she whispered. “I like it a lot.” She thought she would really like it if he used his mouth, but she wasn’t ready to say that. She spoke with her hands instead, mimicking
him, releasing the snaps of the work shirt he wore, two, then two more, then another two until she’d bared most of his chest. He was fit, his muscles solid when she pressed her palm there, his hair soft, silkier than that on his head, a pleasure to her fingers.

She learned what he liked, playing beneath his shirt, listening to the sounds he made, feeling his temperature rise. Beneath his hair, his skin was smooth, and she lifted up onto one elbow to taste him, lowering her mouth to kiss him, flicking her tongue over the hard center of his nipple the way she wanted him to flick hers, circling, drawing on him with her lips, biting softly until he growled and pushed her to her back. He hovered over her, delivering on his earlier threat and thrilling her.

His eyes were bright and flashing when he said, “My turn,” and lifted her shirt by the hem to bare her, slipping a hand around her back to release the clasp of her bra. He pushed it out of the way and leaned down, wetting her, sucking her, lapping at her with the flat of his tongue before moving his mouth to hers and slipping inside. It seemed she’d been waiting hours to kiss him again.

She brought both of her arms around his neck to hold him close, slanting her head to meet his, bumping his nose with hers, laughing and then finding him again, his lips, his teeth. His breathing grew harsh and hot on her cheek, and she wondered if he felt the same warmth from her exhaled breath.

And then he was gone, sliding down her body, finding her nipple again. The contact had her arching her back, pressing into him. She wanted more. Oh, so much more. And she used her hands on his back to tell him, her nails scraping him lightly through the fabric of his shirt.

She wiggled her hips, working her way underneath him, feeling the hard bulk of his erection first at her hip and then at the juncture of her thighs. It was a glorious sensation, having him there, knowing she was responsible for that thickness and weight. She lifted into him, and he ground down, rubbing her just right so that she thought she might die.

She shivered, felt the hairs on her arms flutter, and her belly grew heavy and tight, and it fluttered, too. “Do that again.”

He growled out a laugh, kissing his way down her torso, stopping when he reached her waistband to deal with the button there, to unzip her fly. On his knees now and bracketing her thighs, he told her, “Raise up,” and when she did, he worked her jeans down her hips and off. He tossed them to the floor, his gaze on the damp fabric of her panties striped in lilac and white.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, still staring below her waist, a focus that brought a smile to her mouth, then brought a laugh. “What?” he asked, looking at her then, and she swore she saw a flush stain his cheeks.

“Nothing.”

“You laughed. It’s not nothing.”

“My laughing bothers you?”

“I’m about to get naked. And I am nowhere near as gorgeous as you are. Yes, your laugh bothers me.”

“Don’t let it. It’s a happy laugh. I’m glad you like what you see.”

“I’m not sure
like
is a strong enough word. You’re just…amazing.”

“So…get naked.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and this time he laughed, though she wasn’t sure he was amused as much as trying to stave off the shift from playful to intense. He straightened and shrugged out of his shirt, baring his shoulders and chest and the flat, flat plane of his abdomen where a strip of dark hair left her mouth dry.

Another part of her, a part that was already damp, grew wetter, and ached. She clenched her muscles there, slid a hand down her belly to her panties that were in the way. But before she could push them down, Ten shook his head and said, “Wait.”

Leaving her hand where it was, she gave in, her gaze following as he stepped off the bed and out of his jeans. He wore boxer briefs, black or navy, she couldn’t tell, and the fabric clung to his thickly muscled thighs. Clung, too, to the head of his penis where it bulged atop his erection. She swallowed, nervous, hungry, anxious, but hungry most of all.

She didn’t know this side of him, but she was certain he’d be as focused and exact as he was with everything he did. The idea of having all of that for herself…she was about to burst with the want, she was consumed with anticipation, and she was so,
so
ready.

As if reading her mind, he removed her panties, used his knee to spread her legs, and cupped her sex with his palm. His fingers were deft and clever as he parted her where she was slick, dipping lower to ready her, to stretch her…

She dug her fingers into his biceps. “Ten?”

He didn’t answer except to stop, going stiff above her.

“I think I should tell you something.”

“I think you just did.”

“Y
ou’re a virgin.” It was such an oversimplification that it sounded ridiculous, but it was the only thing Ten could think of to say.

“I know.” Her grip on his arms lessened. “I’m the one who hasn’t had sex.”

He wasn’t going any further until he understood what they were doing here. This was major. A big, big deal. But when he tried to pull his hand from her sex, she tightened her muscles and held him. That, of course, sent a new surge of blood to where he was already thick with it.

So all he could ask was, “Why?”

She looked up at him, her gaze smoky, her smile sure. “Is that really what you want to ask me?”

No. What he wanted to ask was, why him? “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I just did.” She moved her gaze to the side of his face, his hair, brushing her fingers through it to tuck it behind his ear.

He couldn’t think for the way she was touching him, with purpose, with design, distracting him, luring him in, lingering. “I mean before.”

“Before I took my clothes off?” she asked, and her hand stilled, her gaze returning to his.

“Something like that,” he said, wishing they weren’t having this discussion with their clothes off. He was having the worst time staying on track, what with her thighs so smooth where they rubbed against his, and her breasts plumped like cushions for him to rest on.

“Because I didn’t think it mattered.”

That brought his mind back to business. “How could it not matter?”

“I want to be here. I want to make love with you. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the only thing that does.”

He wanted to believe her, to agree with her, but…a virgin. He didn’t want her to regret her decision, or to hate him afterward because he wasn’t the right man. He wanted to be the right man. He wanted tonight to be unforgettable. He wanted—

“Ten?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you forget about me?”

“Never, baby,” he said, then added, “Not a chance.”

“Do you believe me?”

He nodded, swallowed, and nodded again, staring into her eyes as he did, and falling. How could he not believe her when her skin was flushed and her pulse visible beneath the translucent skin of her neck? Her eyes bright, the color lost to arousal, like he was lost to his.

“I believe you,” he finally said, the words scratching their way up his throat.

“Then can we stop talking now?”

She had no idea what she was in for. “I guess this is when I should tell you that I’m a big believer in talking during sex.”

Her lips parted, and she caught at the lower with her teeth, teasing him, and it worked because nothing about the move was practiced. It was pure Kaylie, genuine and unaffected and true. “Then
don’t
stop talking or…anything else.”

He took a deep breath, shed his hesitation along with his briefs, and settled between her legs. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re going to. I know that. But it’s okay.”

He couldn’t say anything to that. All he could do was bring his mouth down on hers in a kiss so soft she sighed beneath him, melting and spineless as she lifted her legs, dragging her heels down the backs of his thighs. He wasn’t quite as soft after that, his tongue hungry in her mouth, his body shuddering from her touch.

“You like?” she whispered, her lips at the edge of his.

“More than you know.”

“Tell me.”

“Kaylie—”

“I don’t want you to hold back. I want everything. I want all of you.”

And so he told her, moving down her body with his mouth, whispering against her skin, licking certain spots and making her squirm, smelling her and squirming, too. She was soft and sweet, her scent of sun-soaked flowers so familiar he felt a tug in the center of his chest. But he didn’t talk about that. He couldn’t talk about that. Not when she’d brought her thighs up his sides in invitation.

He knelt on the bed between her legs, holding her as he kissed her the way he’d been wanting to for days, tasting her, drawing her hips off the bed as she pushed against his mouth, whimpering as if asking for more.

“You like?” he asked, his voice like sandpaper to his ears.

“More than you know.”

“Tell me.”

“Unbelievable. Please. Oh, please. I want…” She stopped, shivered, gooseflesh pebbling the skin of her thighs where he held her.

“Are you cold?” he asked, pretty sure her trembling wasn’t about the room’s temperature.

“No.” She shook her head on the pillow. “I want more of your mouth. And I want to come. And I want to feel you inside me. That’s what I want most of all.”

Magic words. All of them. Words that had his body tightening, growing harder than he already was. But since he knew this wouldn’t be easy on her, he held himself in check and lowered his head.