How did I get here, with this woman? So innocent, so pure—so fucking beautiful it hurts, and she doesn’t have the first fucking clue how she affects me, how badly I want to rip her clothes off and devour every last inch of her flesh, feel her sweet pussy wrapped tight around me, her mouth on me, her hands on me. How bad I want to worship her body, all night, all day.
And she can barely say the word sex out loud. Talking about holding hands and kissing.
How the hell do I handle this?
“Well? Do you?” She reaches a hand up, feathers it into my hair, past my ear; the touch makes my cock twitch and my heart palpitate. “Wish to have sex with me?” I can tell she had to try like hell to make that sound casual.
“Instead of answering that question,” I say, choosing my words with extreme care, “how about I ask you the same question? Are you ready for that?”
“No, I am not.” Her answer is immediate. “How can I be? I know nothing about it. How can I know to want it, or not want it, if I am ready or not ready? Of course I am not ready, Kane.”
“So why are we having this conversation, then?”
“Because…” she trails off, thinking. “You create feelings in me. When you look at me, when you touch me.” Another long pause. “When you kissed me, I felt so many things, and I did not know I could feel such things. In my heart. In my mind.” Her voice lowers. “In my body. In places where I have never felt anything before.” Barely even whispering, breathing. “In a veryprivateplace, Kane.”
My hands move without my instruction—slide up around her waist, resting on her hips. “Fuck.Stop, Anjalee. Don’t tell me this shit. I’m hangin’ on by a thread, here.”
She ignores me. “I want to know more of those feelings, Kane.” She looks down, at my hands resting on the very upper swell of her hips. “Like this. Your hands, there…” She moves a hand in front of her chest, over her heart, fluttering her fingers. “It makes my heart do this, like a little bird.” Leaning closer, voice so soft, so warm, so bold, so scared. “And in my intimate place, too, I feel this fluttering. And I like it, Kane. I want to know more.”
I feel myself growling, like a guard dog growls in warning before he starts barking, low, deep in my chest. “Dammit, Anjalee.”
“I trust you, Kane.”
Ripping me to shreds, this woman. Burning me to cinders. I should tell her everything, but I don’t.
She’d beg me to take her home, back to her parents, if she knew.
She wouldn’t look at me like that. Wouldn’t talk to me like that.
I’d lose her.
And I’m a scared, sick, twisted, selfish fuck, so…
I kiss her.
5Beyond The Kiss
Anjalee
His mouth, my goodness. So soft, his kiss so gentle. He is so large, so strong—he is all power, and the violence in him is always there, right under the surface. I see it, feel it, sense it. It frightens me, but it is a fright like a roller coaster, or a scary movie. The exhilarating kind of fear. I do not fear he would hurt me.
Pappa took us to a zoo, once. The tiger enclosure was my favorite, because the only separation from the viewer and the beast was thick glass. I stood there, a little girl, patting the glass, wishing for the sleeping creature todosomething. And then…it did. It turned, jumped, roaring, and its huge paws slammed against the glass. It would have devoured me, if it could have.
I screamed, but also I was laughing. I was very afraid, yes, but…it was my favorite moment of any zoo visit.
To be close to Kane is very much like this. His power, his violence, it is there, behind a thick shield. It will not touch me. He will not hurt me. Not ever. I know this, into my soul, I know it.
So when he kisses me, it is the exhilarating wild fear of being so close to the tiger’s teeth and claws.
My heart beats hard in my chest, and my hands tremble, but I do not stop. Nor do I let him stop. He feels me shaking and would pull back, inquire as to if I am okay. I curl my fingers into his hair, thick and golden, soft and cool. And I kiss him.
The quiver in my loins becomesmore, and I kiss him still, and the quivering becomes a heat. A pressure.
Kane tilts backward, leaning against the headboard, and I go with him. My one leg, crooked in with my heel against the inside of my thigh, must straighten because of the angles involved, and so then…my knees slip to either side of his hips. I am sitting fully upon him, like I would a horse. His zipper presses against my center, my intimate place. There is something hard behind his zipper, and I know it ishim, the part of a man I have never seen—at least, not real and in person, rather than on the internet.
His kissing steals my breath, and I have to pull away, have to breathe. I touch my forehead to his, holding on to his neck, his hair. Leaning against him, chest to chest, my heart crashing painfully behind my ribs, I just breathe.
“Anjalee,” he murmurs. “Fuck, you kiss me like that, and I…” he trails off.
