Coming Undone (11 page)

“I’m so sorry, McKenna.”

She snorted and wiped her nose with the hem of her T-shirt. “I’ve been a lot of people, Ren. Been called a lot of different names since I was old enough to understand them. I prefer McKenna the most.”

Confusion darkened his gaze. “McKenna isn’t your real name?” He sat back on his haunches and squinted. “Really?”

“Con artists, that’s what we were.” She locked gazes with him and spelled it out. “My mother taught me the family business. We went from town to town, state to state, lying, conning, bilking people out of their money. Out of their savings.”

“Wow.” Ren shook his head. “That’s—I did not see that coming.”

“You’re not the first. Salim was my mark.”

Ren’s jaw dropped. “What?”

Chapter Eight

Ren sat back on his ass and stared up at McKenna. She didn’t flinch from him, continuing to stare him down with watery eyes and her chin angled in that stubborn way he secretly liked. He’d known she had secrets, but man, this one he hadn’t expected.

She’d been running a con on Salim?

“Speechless, are you?” Her mouth twisted and shame darkened her eyes for a moment before disappearing.

“Hey.” He touched her
knee. Her gaze dropped to his hand. “I’m not judging you, Kenna.” He was the last fucking person to judge. “Just…gimme a second to process this shit.” One minute he’s losing himself in the slick heat of her tight pussy, coming on himself like a pimply-faced virgin, and the next she’s telling him she’s a professional con artist. Damn straight he needed a breather.

She jerked a nod and crossed her naked legs, closing off his view of her naked and swollen sex. His mouth watered all over again. He swallowed, tasting her still. Shit. He wished he could regret losing control like he just did, but he didn’t regret a thing. He wanted more though, wanted to sink balls deep into her cunt, feel her come all around him, but she needed someone to talk
to. A safe place to lay her burdens down. He could give her that.

“Anything you tell me stays between us. I hope you know that.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I’m here. I’m in no position to cast stones, believe me, so if you want to share, please do.”

He watched her throat work when she swallowed, the way she plucked at the sheets. He didn’t push, just waited, and finally she lifted her head and cleared her throat.

“When other kids were in ballet classes or shit like that, I was slipping and falling in supermarket aisles and squealing at the roach that suddenly appeared in my food at restaurants. That’s how I grew up. It’s what I know.”

That wasn’t fair, not for a kid, but he stayed silent.

“My mother never had a job, but we always had the next person to fuck over, the next con.” She snorted. “Picking pockets, blackmailing cheating husbands, writing bad checks. Any kind of scheme, my mother thought of them, and we did it. A team.” She paused and bowed her head.

Ren took her hand, linked their fingers, and squeezed gently. Encouraging.

“One too many schemes, one too many lies, and suddenly my mother had warrants out for her arrest. We moved from down south up to New York. It’s big, fast, and we can blend in. Do our thing without anyone finding us. Like she said, things like what we do happen so often in the city, how would they ever find us?”

“Did they find you?”

She shook her head. “No. She zeroed in on a guy on Long Island, owner of a huge construction company, and they started dating. She then began writing checks to herself from his company account. He found out.”

“Shit.” A sick feeling settled in Ren’s gut. “What happened?”

She shrugged, but it was a half-hearted attempt at nonchalance. “He beat her. Metal
bat. Turned her into a stranger who no longer recognizes her name or her daughter.”

Fuck. “Man, Kenna. I’m so sorry.”

“While she was getting soft on her mark, I was working Salim. She’d seen him on the news and decided he should be my target. He had money and was high profile. I was to get close, get him to trust me, and then get into his accounts. To ensure he didn’t hurt us if he did find out, I also had to let him knock me up. Rope him into a lifetime of taking care of me and her.”

“That’s—”

“Sick. That’s what it is. Sick.” Her voice shook. “But she was my mother and I loved her. She’s all I have. All I had, and we’d been pretty successful up to that point. Besides, that’s how she got pregnant with me. A pinprick in a condom and a threat to a well-to-do businessman somewhere in Texas.”

His heart ached for her. A child shouldn’t have to do the things she’d done.

“I did my homework on Salim, but we know the internet didn’t even get it half right. Bumped into him at a hotel bar, spilled red wine all over him, and offered to pay for the cleaning service. A fail-proof classic. I acted like I had no clue who he was, and when he asked me to dinner two weeks later, I paid and gave him my cheek when he leaned in for the goodnight kiss.” Her lips quirked. “Men are always intrigued by the woman who shows no interest in them. The chase. I didn’t throw myself at him. I kept missing him when he called. Made him sweat for a while before I agreed to date number two. Again I insisted on paying. Insisted on the kiss on the cheek. The night of our third date, we got closer. I was in his bed when the call came in about my mother.”

“How did he find out?”

“He came with me to the hospital. The name of my mother’s next of kin wasn’t the name I’d given him.” Disgust rang out in her words. “I was so messed up, so frantic, that I wasn’t on point, wasn’t on my game. He heard the name and did some quiet digging.”

“Christ!”

She laughed. “Yeah. As I sat at my mother’s bedside, out of my mind with grief and not enough sleep, he came in and told me how shit was gonna go. He knew all about me and my mother, knew she was wanted, and he could turn her in, or I could do what he told me to do, whenever he told me to.”

Bile rose in Ren’s throat. Salim was a snake and deserved to be gutted like one.

“I laughed in his face. My mother was in a coma, and the doctors weren’t sure she’d survive. We’d had some money saved. I figured I’d pay her funeral expenses and use the rest to disappear. But she woke up. And she didn’t know her name. Didn’t recognize me or where she was. Didn’t know the year or who was president.”

“That must have been hard.”

“It was excruciating.” McKenna’s voice wobbled. She swiped at her leaking eyes. “She needed more care than the hospital could provide, needed special treatment. The money I’d saved evaporated mighty quick. I got a job waiting tables, but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.”

“So you took him up on his offer.”

“I kept asking myself ‘how bad can it be?’ I’ve been through some tough shit. I could handle Salim. He wanted me to look good on his arm, pretend to love him in public. I could do that.” She held Ren’s gaze. “I was so wrong.” She took a breath then let it out slowly. “At first, it was okay. Just me and him. If I made myself forget about the shit he held over my head, I enjoyed him. Then came the requests that weren’t really requests. He’d have his bodyguards watch us, then he’d bring over a friend to watch. Then that friend would want to touch, and I’d be doing things that disgusted me.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He wished he could take it all away for her, shoulder the burden she carried. He kissed their joined fingers. “So sorry.” More than anything, he admired her now. Her strength. She’d been through so much and she was still kicking, still fighting.

“I’ve been an adult for a long time, Ren.” She sighed. “I could have said no to her, you know? I could have said enough. Walked away from it. I wish there was a better and more convincing reason other than I love my mother. She’s the only family I have. She’s protected me. Lied for me. Stole for me. For me.”

He nodded. “I know, Kenna. I know.”

“Do you?” she asked. “You understand that I had to do it for her? That it was my turn to step up to the plate and sacrifice for her?”

“I do.” He got up on his knees and crawled over to her. “I understand.” He sat next to her on the bed and pulled her into his arms, holding her tight. She clutched his sides, burying her face in his chest. The need to protect her rose in him, a familiar thing, along with admiration, lust, and more he didn’t examine too closely. He feared putting a name to what he was rapidly coming to feel for McKenna Lacey.

“I’ve been alone with this for such a long time,” she murmured. “Never thought I’d share it with you. Never thought I’d be here with you like this.”

He chuckled. “Makes two of us.” He liked it, the feel of her in his rms. He knew better than to wish for more, but man. If he could, he would. He’d stay. So many things needed to be dealt with. Things he’d been putting off for far longer than required. He glanced over at the digital clock on her nightstand.

Just a little past ten p.m. They had time. Not enough, but they had some.

“Where’s Salim tonight?” he asked.

“Chicago for a business meeting. He’ll be back in two days.” She snuggled deeper into him. “I’m yours tonight, Ren. Make it all right.”

“It is.” He sank his fingers into her hair and tugged her backwards until their eyes met. “It’s all right.” He kissed her neck, pressed his lips to her throat. “Tonight it’s you and me. Nothing else matters.”

Her lashes fluttered.

Releasing her, he stood and removed his jeans. “Come. Let’s lie down for a bit.” He stretched out on the bed and she moved with him. He hugged her to his
side. She slid a leg between his thighs. He smiled. Burying his nose in her hair, he closed his eyes and listened to her breathe.

****

He came awake to nimble fingers tugging down his boxers. Keeping his eyes closed, Ren lifted his hips. Sprawled between his thighs, McKenna kissed first one hip bone then the other, a feather light touch. She removed his underwear then kissed the inside of his thighs, smoothing her palms down his legs.

His cock slapped against his lower belly, the tip already wet, slicking him with pre-cum. He moaned low in his throat, legs rubbing up and down on the mattress. She nosed him, burying her face in his balls and inhaling. He reached down blindly, gripping her hair.

“Kenna.” Arousal roughened his voice.

She moved with a low chuckle, and hot breath teased his cock head.

Ren bucked. His cock jerked. She touched him, a hesitant touch, with the pad of one finger, tracing the length of him. He grunted, arching. Her tongue followed the path of that one digit, licking him until she got to his base. He hardened even more, balls growing heavy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been touched like that. Must have been at least six months, when he stopped over in England, but that had been a quick in-and-out fuck. No time to savor, to luxuriate in the pleasure.

McKenna was giving him that, and no matter how much he wanted to fist her hair and demand she take him in her mouth, he wanted the feeling to last.

She cupped his balls, weighed them, testing him. Ren spread his thighs wider, gave her more room to explore while he gritted his teeth and yanked on the mattress. A wet finger traced his ball sac, dancing over the seam, then dipped lower, blazing a moist trail from his balls over his taint and circling his hole.

His eyes popped open. “Kenna.” He growled her name. A warning. But she hadn’t heard him, maybe she didn’t care, because she tapped him there, knocked on his back entrance, and Ren wanted to fucking howl. Somehow he found himself lifting off the bed, head tipped back, and she twisted the finger, dipped inside.

He heard himself breathe, heard the pants. His chest rose and fell, lungs burning. Fuck. He ached. His ass flamed. He’d never been there, in the position she had him in then, but he was open. In more ways than one, open to the pleasure as she sank deeper into him.

He dug his heels into the mattress and rose off the bed. McKenna went in, past the first
knuckle. He gritted his teeth. Shit. She invaded him in torturously slow increments, fucking him until his balls pained him with the need to come.

“Kenna, gonna come.” He rolled his hips, and she was in all the way to the last knuckle. He
yelled. She took him in her mouth, swallowed his cock as she moved within his ass. “Shit. Shit.”

Her free hand gripped his balls, tight, twisted, and he roared out his release, shooting down her throat while the finger in his ass searched him out, worked him over. Dimly he heard the sounds she made while she swallowed him, the moans. He felt her as she humped his leg, coming on him and leaving sticky wetness behind. She sucked him dry then cleaned him up before finally letting his limp shaft slip from her lips. She removed the finger inside him and climbed up his body, kissing him, transferring his seed to him. He licked at her mouth, holding her head in place as he licked his salt and bitter cum from her chin.

When they separated, she peered down at him. “Am I in trouble?” Her eyes flashed with mirth and the tone she tried to school into casual mocked him with shaky laughter.

He grabbed her by the neck and kissed her again, thrusting inside, relishing the taste of him on her tongue. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“You’ve never had your ass played with?”

He shook his head. “Not something I’d ever thought about one way or the other.”