Saving Rain: The First Novel in The Rain Trilogy (21 page)

“Don’t do that!” Kas demands.

Raina jerks her head up at the forcefulness in his voice.

“Don’t chastise yourself. Don’t make yourself feel guilty,” Kas admonishes, knowing, all too well, that look in her eyes.

She blushes, wishing she could hide from his seemingly supernatural talent at reading her.

Running his hands down her arms, he decides to change the subject to pull her away from her self-punishing thoughts. “How did you start learning different languages?”

Raina softens her gaze as she ponders Kas’ question. “My first nanny was from Russia originally, and I heard her talking in her native language on the phone. I couldn’t tear myself away from the conversation, trying to figure out what she was saying, it was so beautiful. She taught me a few words, and I was in love. I asked her to teach me more, and she taught me all she could before my father told her that he no longer needed her as my nanny. I was devastated, I really liked her. She gave me CDs of how to learn Russian before she left, and I listened to them repeatedly until I understood every word, then I looked on the internet and found music and books in that language and continued to learn it from there.”

Kas lets out a little chuckle. “So, your first foreign language was learned at age five,” he states incredulously. “Okay, my little over achiever, what was your next language?” He can see the tension ease from Raina as she smiles at him and his benign poking.

“There were Hispanic girls in my school, most of them were older than me, but I would hear them talking outside with each other, so I searched the web for ways to learn Spanish. Then, I was hooked after that, I wanted to learn every language I could. Languages are so beautiful and mesmerizing, they just pull me right in until I have to learn every word that I can find.”

Kas loves how she brightens when she talks about things important to her. “You’re beautiful, and I don’t mean just on the outside, Raina. You are so beautiful inside, too, I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re a paradox, so kind and gentle, but yet so strong and brave.”

Raina hears his praise of her but feels unworthy. “I’m not brave,” she whispers, “I learned very quickly to not fight my father, to not provoke him. I never fought him, or did anything to purposely anger him, not until after what happened with Brian.” Her gaze drops as she continues, “I just let him hit me. I didn’t struggle because I knew how much worse it would be if I did.”

Kas gently squeezes her hand. “You were a child, Raina, a very scared child. Your father terrorized you. You have nothing to be ashamed of for practicing self-preservation. Your father is twice your size, physically, you are no match for him,” he tells her, taking her chin and gently forcing her gaze to meet his. “What you did, going to Judge, finding a way to force your father to tell about Brian, that took guts. Don’t even try to tell me that you’re not brave, you are the most courageous person I know.”

They spend the next hour talking and holding each other, taking breaks for more mind-blowing kisses. Raina licks her lips and tries to calm the rapid beating of her heart after one of her out-of-mind experiences. Her mind shoots back to last night and how angry Kas was with her. She knows he will never beat her, but she wonders what his actions will be at his most angered state with her. “So, what will you do when I do something to make you angry?” she asks hesitantly.

“Last night, you saw as bad as it will get with me. If you do something that makes me mad, the most I’ll ever do is yell,” Kas assures her. Then playfully continues, “But if you pull another stunt like you did last night, I will take you over my knee and paddle that pretty derriere of yours.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

Kas gives her a smile. “No, I wouldn’t,” his smile turns into a wolfish grin, “well, not unless you want me to.”

“Uuhhhh,” Raina shrieks and laughs before she whacks him with the pillow.

Kas holds his hands up in surrender and laughs before looking at her, love and pride shining in his eyes, “Now, that’s my girl.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

They are still up talking into the wee hours of the morning. Kas pulls Raina into his arms again, kissing her forehead. “I’m glad you chose positive outlets to turn to instead of alcohol, drugs, or promiscuity.”

“I can’t stand the thought of drinking after I’ve seen what it did to my father, much less drugs, and I’ve never been with anyone, except with what happened with Brian.”

“That doesn’t count,” Kas proclaims forcefully. “You didn’t give anything to him, he took it from you.” He looks into her beautiful eyes before softly asking, “You didn’t sleep with Chris?”

“No, that’s what the fight was about, even though I told him up front that I’m waiting for marriage before I make love for the first time.”

Hearing that she didn’t make love with Chris makes Kas immensely happy, and hearing her say that she wants to save herself just endears her to him even more. He knows how rare it is to find someone who waits anymore. He sees sadness cloud her eyes, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“I know that’s stupid, I know it’s too late for that.”

Raina is amazed by his gentleness, when he presses his hand to her heart and looks tenderly into her eyes, “In here, you are just as pure as any untouched virgin, and that’s what really counts, Rain.”

His words shoot straight to her heart, and she throws herself into his arms, not knowing just how fiercely she had needed to hear him say those words to her, especially after his learning that she isn’t untouched.

Kas holds her, his heart so full of love for her that he feels as if it will burst from the seams. “You’re sleeping with me tonight.”

Raina pulls her head back, and Kas chuckles at the dueling emotions flashing in those gorgeous jade eyes.

“I will be a perfect gentleman, I won’t try anything. I just don’t want you alone after everything we’ve talked about tonight.” Kas sees a glint of disappointment flash quickly through her eyes when he promises to be on his best behavior, and he leans in and kisses her tenderly, overwhelmed by the obvious struggle she is having holding onto her morals and not giving herself to him. He forcefully tells himself that if things get heated between them in the future, he will stop. Even if she begs him to make love to her, lost in the heat of the moment, he will stop. After she told him about wanting to save herself for her future husband, he would never do anything to take that away, even when he plans on being that man in the future. The not so distant future, if he has anything to say about it.

Kas lifts Raina effortlessly into his strong arms, and she snuggles closer into him as he carries her into his bedroom. Gently, he lays her on the side of his bed, pulling back the covers, before he takes one of his t-shirts out of a drawer for her. He turns around while she undresses and slips into his shirt, taking a moment to hold the collar to her nose, inhaling the unique, sexy scent of him.

“You can turn around now,” Raina calls to him as she slips underneath the covers.

Kas turns and looks at her lying in his bed. He adoringly gazes at her beautiful face and her silky hair spilled across his white cotton pillowcase like a satin, auburn river, and he could swear that he was looking at an angel. His beautiful, broken angel.

Rain drops fall softly against the tin roof, and the early morning beckons Kas to awaken. He feels the seductive heat of Raina’s body snuggled close to him, her back pressed into his chest, her head tucked sweetly under his chin, and her tantalizing rear tucked tightly against a part of him that is already fully up and ready to play. He chastises the rebellious part of him that doesn’t seem to follow the rules the rest of him has set. He carefully scoots back before Raina awakens and feels the hard, protruding part of him pressed longingly against her cotton covered flesh.

Propping himself up on his pillow, he stares down at the most beautiful woman in the world to him. He lightly brushes a stray auburn strand away from her face, studying her features, so soft and relaxed in her peaceful slumber. His mind returns to her confessions of the dark secrets of her childhood last night, and he is torn between murderous rage and bone-deep sorrow. He stares down at her innocence, even more pronounced in her sleep, and can’t fathom how any man could raise his hand to cause her pain.

His eyes drink in her creamy ivory skin, the soft pale pink of her cheeks, and the fullness of her slightly parted lips. Her long, dark lashes flutter softly against their snowy backdrop, and he can’t stop himself from leaning down and brushing a kiss across the corner of her eye. His angel stirs, a soft moan escaping her luscious mouth as she slowly awakens, turning and snuggling her face into his warm chest.

Kas lays his knee over his other leg, pressing it against the mattress, not wanting to scare her off with the rock hard state of his nether region. “Good morning, sweetheart,” he whispers, running his knuckles softly down her cheek and kissing the top of her head.

“Mmmmm, good morning,” Raina sleepily responds, snuggling even closer.

The urge to make her his in flesh is almost uncontrollable as she innocently and unknowingly causes him to painfully throb from her squirming to get as close to him as possible. He grits his teeth as she squirms again before finding her sweet spot wrapped up in his arms. Despite the pulsating throb between his thighs, he feels so peaceful just holding her, giving her a taste of what it should feel like in a man’s arms.

He would love to stay in bed and do nothing except hold her all day long, but he didn’t get much work done yesterday. He wishes he could spend his Saturday morning with Raina, but obligations call. Kissing her forehead, he gently starts to pull away from her, “I’m sorry, baby, I need to go into work for a few hours.”

Raina wraps her arms around his muscular torso and pulls him back to her, snuggling against him for few seconds longer before she presses her lips to his bare chest and gives it a quick kiss, sending his southern point jolting back to full attention again. “Can I go with you?”

Kas wants to punch himself in the face at how he has put her into a position to where she has to ask his permission to go, due to him earlier forbidding her from helping on their case until she rested. Knowing all of what he knows now about her past, he understands her tenacious actions much better, but he still detests how she pushes herself too hard, leaving herself exhausted. He wishes he knew the reasoning behind her actions before, so he could have handled the situation differently.

“Of course you can go with me,” he whispers, hoping she hears the apologetic tone in his words. He would flat-out tell her again that he is sorry for his stubborn bossiness, but she is so at peace this morning after her tumultuous state last night, and he doesn’t want to spoil it. Sitting up in bed quickly, he realizes, that with all that has happened over the past couple of days, he hasn’t had the chance to tell her that they got El Diablo.

Raina sits up, taken aback by his sudden hurriedness.

Kas slides out of bed and pulls her gently to the edge. “I’ve got something to tell you,” his voice is both excited and relieved.

She looks up at him, self-consciously tugging his t-shirt lower on her legs. She runs a hand down her hair, hoping it isn’t too wild.

He feels a tug on his heart as he sees worry flash in her eyes at her early morning look. “Darlin’, you look absolutely beautiful,” he tells her truthfully, taking in her untamed hair as it cascades over her shoulder and back in sexy disheveled waves. As a blush colors her cheeks, he rubs his thumb across her lip and leans in to to kiss her, but she stops him. He pulls back, uncertainty wavering in his mind.

“I need to brush my teeth,” she blushes from embarrassment.

Relief floods through him at hearing her words. His worry, thinking that she regretted their kisses from last night, dissipating.

“What were you going to tell me?”

“We got the man that was holding Claudia.”

Raina jumps off the bed and throws her arms around Kas’ neck. His t-shirt comes up high on her thighs in her distracted excitement. Her pink, lace-trimmed panties peek out from underneath the bottom of his shirt. Kas glimpses a flash of firm, creamy flesh on her thigh, leading to a small succulent section of bare flesh, perfectly full and rounded, below the delicate lace trim of her panties, and he has to remind himself to breathe. She steps back, pulling the t-shirt down when she realizes it had come up too high when she hugged him. She bites her lip, which sends a jolt of electricity spiraling into Kas, not doing anything to help his current state of raw desire and devouring need.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, as a flicker of shame starts in her eyes.

Renewed anger ignites in him as the shame that he hates with a passion, pops up on her face. It doesn’t take a doctorate in psychology like Chase has for him to know that the emotional abuse her father subjected her to has caused more pain and lasts much longer than any amount of welts and bruises. When he thinks of how her father blamed her, calling her a whore for what Brian did to her, he has to force himself not to jump into his jeep and drive to her father and kill him with his bare hands.

He knows that he will have his moment with her father, but now is not the time. She needs him now, and he’s too angry to be sure that he wouldn’t lose his usual strong hold on his self-control and actually kill him, or at the very least, cause lasting damage if he doesn’t give himself time to regain his control. He tilts her chin up to where she has to meet his gaze. “Sweetheart, I’m going to say something, and I want you to listen really well,” he commands her. “You do not have to feel ashamed for anything you do around me. I respect you more than I have ever respected anyone. You deserve nothing but respect and love, and I have an immense amount of both for you, so I don’t want to ever hear you apologize to me again when you haven’t done anything wrong, do you understand?”

Raina nods softly, and he kisses her forehead, pulling her back into his arms. “I’m going to take a shower. We can stop at the bakery on the way if you want. I’m thinking something full of chocolate sounds good for breakfast today.”

Raina laughs, “Sounds good to me, too.”

Kas playfully pops her on the butt. “Sorry, I just couldn’t resist. By the way, I really, really love how pink looks on you,” he winks and ducks into his bathroom as she grabs his pillow, launching it at him.

Kas
and
Raina
finish their chocolate glazed doughnuts as she flips through transcripts to translate, and he looks over the files from the information gathered from the captured traffickers.

“Do you think Erik is here? I would like to look at the computers recovered at your last raid, if that’s okay?”

“I called him while you were in the shower, he should be here soon.”

Raina looks up at him over her transcripts. “This mind reading thing of yours is starting to get a little creepy,” she teases.

Kas laughs, “Darlin’, sometimes I wish I could read that mind of yours.”

Raina raises her left eyebrow and bites her lower lip as she continues to gaze at him.

He leans in closer to her. “Like right now,” he whispers.

“Now, Agent Pierce, I thought you were the best decipherer of micro expressions in this entire region,” she taunts him, her voice soft and sexy.

Kas pulls her chair to where it is flush to his, and he places his hands on each of the chair arms, returning her stare with hot, hazy desire filled eyes.

Raina pulls her knees in closer to her as she leans her shoulders closer to him. “Did I say something wrong . . . sir?” she playfully smirks.

Kas waves his finger slowly back and forth as he shakes his head in mock disapproval, “Huh uh, no messing with the boss allowed. Just sit there and let me amaze you with my brilliant expertise.”

Raina bites back a laugh as he sends her a teasing warning glare, “Uh, so sorry, sir.”

“Now, that’s much better.” He moves his face to where it’s barely an inch from hers. “I can tell by your increased heart rate, shallow breathing, and how your pupils are dilated that you really,
really
want me to kiss you right now,” Kas sweeps his eyes over her body, “and I can tell by your knees tucked tightly to your chest, but your posture leaning closer to me, that you are afraid to let yourself embrace your, let’s say,
sensual
, feelings for me, but you are slowly expanding your boundaries.”

Raina swallows hard, knowing that any person with half a clue could’ve read the first part, but he hit the nail square on the head with the last bit.