Small-Town Redemption

She opened her eyes, the glint in the light blue depths warning him he may have made a misstep.

Wouldn’t be his first.

She stormed up to him, all painted-on jeans, long legs and bad humor. “We are going to have sex, you hear me?” To punctuate her statement, she undid the top button of her shirt.

Kane paused in the middle of taking another sip of coffee. Raised an eyebrow. It was a bluff, that single button. It had to be. She didn’t have the guts to undo another one.

He hoped.

“Right here,” she continued, proving him wrong by yanking another one free. “Right now.” And another. “So stop pretending to be noble and take what is being offered to you.”

She dragged her shirt off her arms and threw it on the ground like a football player spiking the ball after a touchdown. Held his gaze, her breathing ragged, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her pale skin fairly glowing in his dimly lit kitchen.

His body responded to the sight of the soft curve of her breasts, her flat stomach and the ever-so-slight indentation of her narrow waist, and he considered, seriously considered, doing just that. Whether it was due to her being half-naked, his recent sexual dry spell or simply his resistance being down didn’t matter. In that moment, he wanted her. It pissed him off, this sudden, vicious need to have her.

Again and again and again.

That’s what his father would have done. What Kane had been brought up to do. Take what was so easily offered, so carelessly given. He’d been born into a wealthy family. A powerful one. Raised to believe he was better than others by virtue of his last name and his father’s financial worth.

Throw in his looks, and there had never been a shortage of available females ready and willing to do whatever it took to make Kane happy. To get his attention, to be on his arm—or in his bed.

There was a time when he wouldn’t have cared that Red was his employee’s sister, that they barely knew each other. That she didn’t want him so much as she wanted to use him. He would have used her, too, then set her aside without another thought or care.

He liked to think he wasn’t that big of a prick anymore.

“Seriously?” Red asked through gritted teeth, her arms splayed as if to point out she was, indeed, partially naked and offering herself to him. “This is something you have to think about?”

“No,” he told her in all honesty as he set his mug down. “I don’t have to think about it at all.”

He closed the distance between them, noted how she started to step back before catching herself. She lifted her chin as if facing the grim reaper head-on.

Kane moved closer, stopping shy of actually touching her. “You want me, Red?”

Her eyes widened. She licked her lips. “Yes,” she said, holding his gaze, all stoic and brave, her pale skin beckoning him to touch, the pulse beating rapidly at the base of her throat enticing him to taste. Her scent wrapped around him, making him want something he had no business wanting, something he never would have even considered before she barged into his apartment and stripped off her shirt.

“You want me to touch you?” he asked, his voice rough, his caress whisper-soft as he slowly trailed his fingertips up her arms.

A blush started at the base of her throat, bloomed in her cheeks. He wanted to press his lips to the side of her neck, to feel the warmth of that color washing over her skin. She swallowed hard, then nodded once, a quick jerk of her head.

He’d known she was irritable, temperamental and overbearing. He never would have guessed she was also a liar.

He settled his hands on her shoulders, kept his touch light. Impersonal. “You want to have sex with me? You want me to make you come? Because that’s what I’d do if you were in my bed. I’d strip you bare,” he murmured, for some reason envisioning doing just that. In intimate detail. Scowling, he forced the image from his head. “I’d touch you everywhere with my hands, my lips.” He leaned in, put his mouth close to her ear. “My tongue.”

Gasping, she reared back, her spine hitting the counter with a sharp thud. She pressed herself against it as if that alone could stop his words, could stop him from coming closer.

It couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Not yet. Not until he’d made his point and made it well.

“Or maybe you don’t want something as ordinary as sex in a bed,” he continued quietly. Relentlessly. “Something as mundane as soft touches and reverent kisses.”

He nudged one thigh between her legs, ignored how she stiffened, her hands going to his chest. She didn’t push him away, stubborn thing that she was. But her fingers trembled against him.

“I...” Her nails dug into his skin. She cleared her throat. “A bed is...fine.”

“You didn’t come here for a tame experience. We could do it here, on the floor or the table. Or maybe you’d like it against this counter, hard and fast. Your legs wrapped around my waist.” His voice dropped, grew husky. “Me buried deep inside of you.”

She flinched, but it wasn’t enough, not when she hadn’t pushed him away yet, hadn’t tried to cover herself. Hadn’t slapped him, called him a few choice names and stormed off. Not when, for a moment, she’d reduced him to the man he used to be.

“I’d make you feel good,” he promised, tracing lazy circles just below her collarbone. She shivered. “You wouldn’t care that it was me on top of you. I could make you forget your name.” He paused, laid his palm flat above her breast, felt her heart beating, too hard, too fast. “I could make you forget him. At least for a little while.”

She opened her mouth, but he shook his head before she could deny what they both knew was true.

“I could do all of that,” he continued. “If I wanted to.” He stepped back, the move not as easy to do as he would have liked. One more thing he blamed on her. “I don’t.”

Her fingers curled, scraping his skin before she slowly lowered her arms. “You...what?”

“I don’t want to.” He kept his voice flat. Cool. Honest. “I don’t want you.”

Her throat working, she hunched her shoulders, curling into herself and staring at him like a puppy he’d drop-kicked. Guilt and regret nudged him. Told him he could have been more sympathetic. Kinder. Except he’d learned to reserve his sympathy for those who truly deserved it.

And that kindness would only be used against him.

Besides, this wasn’t his fault. It was hers.

All hers.

She yanked on her shirt. “You don’t want me? Fine. Great.” Her head bent, her hair hiding her face, she buttoned it. “But let me tell you something, buddy, you’re the one missing out here. Not me.”

That was better, so much better than the disappointment that had been in her eyes a moment ago. The hurt.

“Someday,” he promised, “you’ll thank me for this.”

Her head whipped up, her eyes narrowing. “And someday you’ll kick your own ass for passing up the opportunity to be with me.”

Lifting her pointy chin and haughty nose, she swept past him, regal as a queen.

Because he worried she might be right, because she’d come here and stirred up this unwanted hunger for her, he snatched her arm. Whirled her around to face him. “Should I be honored that someone of your high moral standing offered herself to me?” he asked, his voice silky despite the tightness of his jaw. “Grateful to help you prove you’re over some other guy?”

“Yes...I mean...no. I mean...I...” She tugged her arm and he let go. She stepped back, her top teeth worrying her lower lip. But she held his gaze. “This isn’t about anyone but you and me. I’m here because I...I’m attracted to you.”

There it was. The truth. Part of it, anyway, said in a rush. A guilty secret.

An attraction that was purely physical. If she ignored it long enough, the flash of heat between them would eventually flicker and fade. When presented with a bright, burning flame, the best thing, the smart thing, was to keep your hands to yourself.

She wanted to touch it, to feel its burn. A good girl taking a walk on the wild side. Rebelling against the endless repetition of her tidy life and daily routine, the expectations of others and her own boredom.

“You’re here,” he said, “because you thought getting laid would make you feel better.”

Her shoulders snapped back. But then, that seemed to be her natural stance—rigid. Uptight. Condescending. “You don’t know anything about me.”