10 Ways to Steal Your Lover (17 page)

 
      
A lump formed in her throat at the raw
pain in him. She wanted to comfort him, but she understood that the best thing
she could do was listen as he let his own secrets out.

 
      
“It was ridiculous, I know, but it was
how I felt. I ignored it as much as I could, told myself that it was just lust
making me crazy. Lust that would go away when I found out more about you. You
don’t know how hard I looked to find something wrong with you, but the more I
got to know you, the deeper I fell. I tried not to love you, I tried not to
want you. I even tried leaving you behind, but the only thing worse than seeing
you with him was not seeing you at al.”

 
      
Delilah sighed, slowly walking closer.
Down the wide steps of the palatial bath, finally sitting on the last step
above the water line and folding her legs under her.

 
      
“There’s plenty wrong with me. I’m picky,
I have no idea how to make myself useful, I’m pig-headed, I have the hardest
time admitting when I’m wrong.”

 
      
Like that needed pointing out. After all,
she was the one who’d spent three years trying to convince herself that she
wanted to be a society wife, that she enjoyed being appreciated for her beauty
and not much more. Allowed herself to be patted on the head for her goals of
getting a master’s degree, to set it aside, class by class, semester by
semester. She had almost been willing to sacrifice her other dreams too—of
children, a home set far enough from the city that she would always see the
stars overhead and feel her roots settling at her feet. Clean air and open
spaces. She’d nearly convinced herself it was a girlish dream, impractical to
have it all in this day and age, that growing up meant letting it go.

 
      
God, the lies she’d told herself out of
fear…“But worst of all, I’m blind.”

 
      
He turned from the glass finally, fixing
her with a smoky gaze so hungry, so restrained, the ache in her heart deepened
until she had to put her hand over it. The mess she’d made of both their lives
was almost unforgivable. She hoped. He needed the truth from her now and she
needed to give it to him. Had to face it for herself.

 
      
“You scared me, Kane. When Craig
introduced us, I was terrified because all of a sudden, my life felt like it
wasn’t mine anymore.” Like she had run smack into a crossroads and the fear
that she wasn’t enough, could never be enough, had kept her from even trying.
It was a feeling she’d run from for so long. “One look in your eyes and
something inside me clicked into place. I can’t describe it, I just knew nothing
was ever going to be the same and I wasn’t ready.” Her eyes stung at the pain
she could see in his stoic expression. Pain she’d put there. “No matter what I
did to you, you were always there, being what I needed, sharing yourself,
opening yourself to me. So I ran from you, from everything you made me feel and
realize. I told myself I was crazy to think of you as anything other than
Craig’s friend who was being nice to me, pushed myself further into my
relationship with him, even though it wasn’t making me happy. It wasn’t even
making him happy, but I was determined that if I just worked a little harder,
it would feel right. It would be right.”

 
      
But it never was.

 
      
And every time Kane visited, usually just
for a weekend, the wrongness became more and more defined.

 
      
She wasn’t the only one who’d noticed it
either. Craig’s work became his focus, his smiles for her growing shorter, less
intimate. They became less like lovers and more like friends who shared a bed
but none of their secrets. Their interests shifted, going in different
directions. They’d even tried to make that a positive aspect of their
relationship to their friends. They weren’t co-dependent. They could be there
for each other and not have it consume their lives. But that was the worst lie
they told each other, because every time she saw Kane, she could almost feel
what being consumed would be like and she’d want it a little bit more. Resent
Craig a little more for not believing she deserved it…

 
      
“Don’t I still scare you?” Kane asked,
his soft voice startling in the silence now that the pool had finished filing,
the water licking at her ankles, having slipped over her toes without her even
noticing.

 
      
She smiled at him, thinking of how she’d
told him this already. He just didn’t remember. “No. I’m not scared anymore.”

 
      
Turning fully, Kane strode through the
water toward her. Her mouth dried, anticipation speeding her heartbeat. It
wasn’t a new experience, not by a long shot. Just walking, he was so male, so
commanding. But now, she could feel his intent to touch her, to claim her and
her body went riot at the prospect. As she expected, his strong hand slid up
her back, cupping her shoulder, while the other grasped her hip, sliding her
across the wet marble step until he could mold her body against his. Her legs
settled on either side of his hips, the hard heat of his erection nestling
between her thighs while the sheet dragged in along with her, both of them
uncaring where it fell. “What do you feel with me?”

 
      
With me. Not about me. He wasn’t asking
about her emotions, not with that fiery intensity in his eyes and the
proprietary hold on the back of her neck. He knew she loved him. Knew she had
no intention of taking that declaration back or fighting his command to her
body. She was putty in his hands, something that might be embarrassing if she
couldn’t feel in every cell of her body that she did the same thing to him.

 
      
But given the torn marriage license, he
had no idea what she meant to do with that love. Would she tell him she was
still unsure of her future? That she wasn’t interested in being a wife on a
ranch now that she wasn’t legally attached to the role? The answer was so clear
that her soul practically sang with it. She made sure to meet his eyes,
everything within her steady. He needed to see that she’d made her choice.

 
      
“I feel ready.”

 
      
“Ready,” he repeated. “For me? For what a
life with me would mean?” She knew that’s what he was asking for. Not just a
lover. Not just a bride who’d rocked his world after some kind of wild elopement
he still couldn’t quite bring into focus. He wanted her to be part of his life,
good and bad, higher water and lower ground. A part of him, just like he’d
demand to be part of her. Kane wasn’t Craig, he wouldn’t settle for a shadow of
love and commitment. He’d accept no less than all of her, because that’s how
much of himself he would give.

 
      
“Is that why you tore up the license?
Because you didn’t think I was ready for a life with you?”

 
      
His jaw clenched and he blinked, beads of
water dripping off his long lashes, but he didn’t look away. If anything the
hand at her nape tightened, tilting her chin upward. “I want you, Delilah Anne.
Never doubt that. I want a life with you. With your voice and your touch and
your thoughts and your arguments. I want your grace and your mistakes and your
promises and your everything, all twisted up with mine. I want it so bad that I
feel like I can’t breathe whenever I think about being without you.

 
      
“But I’d be lying if I said you didn’t
scare me too. Let’s face it, almost everyone I’ve ever loved, I’ve lost.
Everyone except Craig and Jesse. No matter how hard I held on or how long I
prayed, I lost them. Maybe that’s why I never made a move, never tried to tell
you how I felt. I never wanted to lose you, too. Especially not now that I’ve
touched you, held you. Not now that I know you feel the same way. But that’s
why I’ve been holding onto you so tightly, onto that hope that we were really
married. Like it would keep you safe, keep you mine. But that paper isn’t going
to change anything. The license would just be a lock around your neck. It would
make you my wife, but it wasn’t going to make you my woman. Wouldn’t make me
your man. Sure as hell wouldn’t make you any less gone.”

 
      
His lips traced her jaw as he spoke. As
if he couldn’t help himself. Her own hands weren’t idle, tracing the small
rippling muscles at his sides, working up over the rise of his pectorals,
winding up his neck to tangle in his hair.

 
      
“Your parents were wrong about a lot of
things,” he rumbled, the timbre of his voice rough and strained. “But they were
right about one thing. I can’t hold you to a promise you made when you weren’t
sober. And I won’t have a wife who doesn’t come to my life with her whole
heart.”

 
      
“Oh, Kane—”

 
      
“I was wrong to put so much pressure on
you. I’ve waited this long for you to love me. I can wait until you’re ready to
start a life with me.”

 
      
“Kane—”

 
      
He stole her words with his lips, his
tongue delving deep, demanding a response she was helpless to hold back. She
sank into the flavor of him, the feel of him so hard and male around her.
Fluidly, he pulled her off the step, surging backward through the water to the
deepest part of the bath. Deep enough to float, for his big body to cradle
hers, his broad hands settling on her ass, keeping them chest-to-chest. The hot
water created a delicious slickness where her nipples slid across the expanse
of him. Where her open thighs notched her to him, the thick shaft of his cock
jutted into her folds. She tilted her hips, seeking the firm flesh against
hers.

 
      
He broke away with a groan, his hands
subtly grinding her against him. She let him, biting back her own gasps of
pleasure while he buried his face against her neck.

 
      
“Kane?”

 
      
“Hmmm?”

 
      
She took in a slow breath, her body going
from deep hum to full rev at the erotic slide of his sex through the folds of
hers. Almost entering her before going slowly up, then back down where it
started, before the teasing starting all over again. It would be so easy to
push down, to take him in and let him fill her until there wasn’t a part of her
that wasn’t part of him. But if she did that, he’d think the conversation was
over. That making decisions for the both of them without discussing it with her
was okay.

 
      
She was done with that.

 
      
Done with biting her lip and not saying
what she wanted, what she needed.

 
      
What she needed, more than anything else,
was to get through to him.

 
      
After that, well, then he could spend the
rest of the night making it up to her for being an autocratic, oblivious,
self-sacrificing…man.

 
      
She loosened her hold with her legs,
using her grip on his shoulders to push her body out of his grasp. Before he
realized she was pulling away, she was already at the other side of the deep
pool.

 
      
His groan this time wasn’t nearly as
pleased.

 
      
Which was fine, because neither was her
glare.

 
      
She crossed her arms, ignoring when his
brows lifted in distraction as the motion pushed her breasts above the water
line. She pointed at her face. “Up here, sex addict.”

 
      
“You’re supposed to be over here.” He actually
punctuated that by putting his hands on his hips.

 
      
She decided not to think about what he
was using to point out her proper position. “That’s a matter of opinion. My
opinion, which—in case you haven’t figured it out—is the one that matters, says
I’m just fine right here. Alone.”

 
      
His scowl darkened into a glower.

 
      
“If I wanted someone to tell me what was
best for me and make decisions about my life for me, I’d still be living with
my father.”

 
      
A flickered blink and he lost some of the
thunder on his face.

 
      
“And if I wanted a man who pretended he
was thinking of me when he was really thinking of himself, I’d still be with
Craig.”

 
      
His eyes narrowed, the green nearly
glowing with displeasure, but the tense lines of his body relaxed even more.