Kiss of Heat (19 page)

Kane shifted beneath her. His hands smoothed up her back, his head turning so he could bury his face in her hair.

“Mmm. Love you,” he muttered as his arms contracted around her and the band around her heart tightened.

He was so fierce, so hard and yet a part of him was so filled with confidence that his love alone could heal the wounds on her soul, the demons in her mind. Perhaps, over the months he had in part eased that pain, but there was still so much more left inside her.

Kane, help me!
She flinched as the memory of her own screams echoed through her mind.

Her stomach clenched, razor-sharp pain streaking through her womb at the memory of that blinding moment that she had realized she was losing the child he had given her.

She wanted to get up then. Wanted to rush from the room and hide from the memories as she always had. She needed to escape, but something more powerful held her where she was. Held her locked tight in Kane’s arms while everything inside her mind rejected the memories and the emotions that being there caused.

It wasn’t meant to be, Sherra.
Dayan’s voice was a demonic resonation from the past.
It was an abomination. There was no humanity in it…

She flinched as she remembered the words. Doc Martin had told her differently years later, of course, that the development of the fetus had been perfectly normal. But then, horror had singed her.

I saw him leave, Sherra. Escaping to save his own skin. He won’t be back.
She had screamed Kane’s name as Dayan was forced to hold her down while the scientists and doctors attempted to save her life. But there had been no saving the baby that had barely begun.

She didn’t want to remember. She closed her eyes, trying to hold back the tears as the memories began to rip through her. Violent, filled with her screams, demonic laughter and images that she had hidden from herself for so long.

The guards had raped her less than a month after her miscarriage. The drugs that had been forced into her body had mercifully dulled the memories, but nothing could dull the knowledge.

She could hear their laughter in her nightmares.

“Take it, bitch. You can fuck that bastard Kane, you can fuck us…”

No! Despite her exhaustion she attempted to jump away from the man holding her, to escape the nightmarish visuals playing out inside her head.

“Sherra.” His arms tightened around her, his lips pressing to her forehead. “You can’t keep running, baby. You have to stop. Now.”

“Let me go.” She realized then that tears wet her cheeks, dripped to her breasts. Sobs were ripping inside her chest as she fought to hold them back.

“I can’t let you go.” The sound of his voice had her staring down at him as she jerked back.

Shock held her still for a long moment before her hand reached out, her fingers touching the moisture on his cheeks.

“Don’t,” she whimpered, shaking as her own tears fell faster. “Oh God, Kane, don’t let me do this.”

“It was my baby, too.” His voice was husky, filled with regret, with pain. “But even more than that, Sherra, you’re my soul. You’re every breath I take. I would give my life to have saved you. I would give it now if it would mean I could go back and spare you this pain.” The dampness from his eyes soaked the swarthy complexion, lined with pain and regret. “I would do anything, everything, baby, to ease this pain for you.”

She was shuddering with her sobs now, fighting to hold them back, to keep the pain inside, buried, where it could never hurt her again.

“I wanted to die,” she suddenly wailed, feeling him flinch, seeing the pain that tightened his face and made his own tears run faster. “I begged them to kill me.” He rolled her to the bed, his arms wrapping tightly around her, sheltering her, holding her steady as her soul collapsed and her sobs echoed around them. “I begged them to let me die because I couldn’t face it… I couldn’t survive without you…” She was beating at his chest, her blows weak and ineffectual as the years of resounding agony poured free. “I wanted to die without you… And now, I don’t know how to accept that you’re here… I don’t know how to live…”

“It’s okay, baby.” He rocked her, soothed her. Against his scarred chest he allowed her to shed the tears that she had held back for so many years. “One day at a time, Sherra,” he told her huskily. “We’ll both learn to live again, one day at a time…”

* * * * *

The heart that had shattered within Kane’s chest so many years ago broke again. The temporary patches he had affected to survive ripped apart, leaving his soul bleeding as he held his woman in his arms and shared her agonized tears. The child he had never known had been taken from him, but the woman he had loved beyond life had been scarred in a way that had never healed, would never truly heal.

“I would dream of you,” he finally whispered, clearing his throat as he tried to talk through the emotions tearing him apart. “After they told me you were dead, I would dream of you. Dream of rescuing you, holding you. I would dream of what could have been, what should have been. When I awoke, the pain would nearly destroy me, because it was only a dream. But it’s not a dream now, baby. I’m here with you. I’m holding you. And God help me, if I have to let you go again, it will kill me.”

Her breath hitched.

“I didn’t want to love you,” she whispered. “But when I saw you again for the first time, I knew I had never stopped.” She shook her head, weariness filling her voice. “I never stopped, Kane. No matter how hard I tried.”

“I won’t let you go, Sherra. Not ever again.” He held on tighter to her, flipping the blanket over her when she shivered, cocooning her with his warmth. “Just hold onto me, baby. I’m right here. I’ll always be here.”

He felt her slip into an exhausted sleep then. Her body slowly relaxed in his arms, her head resting comfortably against his shoulder as he allowed himself to hope, to pray that the wounds would finally begin to close.

“I love you, kitten,” he whispered as his own eyes closed and sleep took him. A gentle, healing sleep, free of pain or demons, and for once without the haunting arousal that had taunted him for so many years.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sherra awoke to a sweet languor that she couldn’t remember ever experiencing. Even after that first night with Kane she hadn’t know this sense of satiation, of complete contentment. His arms, strong and warm, had enfolded her throughout the night; the sound of his heartbeat echoing at her ear had comforted her, soothed her.

There had been no nightmares, there had been no demons rising from the twisted half memories that had snaked through her unconsciousness on even the best of nights. There had been none in Kane’s arms.

“Awake?” His voice was drowsy, rough and sexy. It sent a small tremor of awareness skating up her spine and heat spearing between her thighs.

“Awake.” She smiled, her tongue licking lazily at the reddened mark on his chest.

It was sensitive. She felt the shudder of response that tightened his muscles, saw the tenting of the sheet as his cock began to harden.

She lifted the light cover, peeking under it with false curiosity and then with heated wonder.

Had she ever taken the time to really
look
at Kane’s cock?

She flipped the sheet off his body, moving down until her head rested on his tight abs and she watched the slow engorging of all that luscious meat. Her mouth watered at the sight of the dark, heavily veined shaft and the wide flared head that grew faintly damp with the pearly drops of pre-come that seeped from its slitted eye.

She ran her hand along the side of his leg, then over the lightly haired thigh to the heavy weight of his scrotum. She cupped the silky flesh in her palm, watching as the bulbous head of his cock pulsed until it spilled yet another drop of its creamy fluid.

“Sherra, baby.” There was a thread of laughter in his voice. “It’s not nice to tease a horny man.”

“Tease?” Her tongue licked over the indention of his belly button as the little droplet spilled to his hard stomach. “Am I teasing?”

She blew a soft breath over the sensitive crest and watched as it flexed again, swelling further in response to the warm air blowing over it. In response to her. Amazement filled her. The first time she had seen him, so many years ago, he had filled her with a sense of wonder and excitement. All other males paled in comparison to Kane. And still, there was no other man that she could even consider doing this with.

“Sherra, kitten,” he growled. “Are you going to do anything with that hard-on you’ve brought to life or are you going to admire it all day?”

“It’s well worth admiring,” she whispered as she felt his scrotum tighten, watched the beat of his blood in the ridge of veins that extended around the thick flesh. “It’s actually a sight to make a grown woman’s mouth water at the thought of tasting it,” she assured him with a smile as the heavy cock jerked in reflex at her words.

“Just the thought?” he asked her, his voice strained as the hard muscles of his abdomen tightened beneath her head.

“Well, the intention?” she asked as her tongue flicked out that last small distance and swiped over the throbbing head of his erection.

Kane gasped, his hands tightening in her hair as he lifted his hips, pressing his cock firmly against her lips. Sherra opened wide, her tongue licking greedily around the flared crest as her mouth sucked him in. His groan was a dark, rough growl of passion and need that sent her own pulse rate rocketing and her pussy flaming.

She clenched her thighs to relieve the pressure, a moan slipping past her throat as she tasted more of the salty seed that spilled into her mouth.

“Come here.” Kane’s order was harsh, the words dragged from his chest as his hand lowered to her hip. “Come over me, baby, let me taste that sweet kitty.”

Fiery waves of lust seared her womb as she lifted to her knees, her mouth lowering to take more of his erection as he guided her until her thighs bracketed his face.

The first touch of his tongue caused her to flinch with the pleasure. A second later she pressed her pussy closer, eager for more, desperate to feel his tongue plunging deep inside the hungry depths of her cunt.

Her mouth lowered on the flesh rising hard and eager from between his thighs, trying to swallow as much of the thick shaft as possible. The steady, greedy licks of his tongue and the suction of his lips on her pussy as he drove her insane was all she needed to lose what little sanity she still possessed as she tried to consume his cock.

She wanted all of him, his semen filling her mouth, spilling down her throat as he sucked every drop of cream from her pussy. She wanted it now. Needed him now.

The sounds of heated moans and hungry suckling mouths wrapped around her. Her fingers cupped and caressed his balls as his lips surrounded her clit and two fingers pushed demandingly inside her vagina. She jerked, driving herself harder on the penetration as she took his cock deeper, sucking it eagerly as his mouth ate with greedy ferocity at her creamy cunt.

Her orgasm was building. She could feel it tightening in her womb even as she felt Kane’s scrotum drawing up tight to the base of his erection as her other hand pumped the hard length of his shaft. She wanted to taste him. Wanted to feel every hot drop of his seed shooting into her throat.

She felt his fingers thrusting into her harder, deeper, a second before he withdrew, drawing her juices back to the entrance of her anus before pushing them deep inside her pussy once again, joining them with a firm, heated stroke of a finger up her ass.

Sherra tightened, a scream escaping her throat, vibrating around his cock as she exploded. At the moment of her release, Kane groaned hard and deep, his fingers quickening inside her, his tongue lashing at her throbbing clit as his hips thrust upward, burying his cock deeper in her mouth as his come began to pulse in fast, hard jets from the tip of his cock.

He filled her mouth, the taste driving her higher as she swallowed every rich drop, her moans a plea for more.

“Enough.” He lifted her away from him, pushing her to the bed when she struggled against him, her hands pressing him back to the mattress.

“No. Like this.” She rose above him, throwing her thigh over his hips, rubbing the wet flesh of her cunt over the hard ridge of his erection before allowing the wide head to tuck against the entrance to her pussy.

“Hard, Kane,” she whispered, lowering her lips to his as she prepared for the invasion. “Hard…”

Her back bowed, her wail of satisfaction and pleasure piercing the silence of the room as he impaled her, separating the gripping tissue with one fierce, determined thrust.

There was no struggle for control, no attempts to delay the driving need for orgasm. The sounds of wet flesh slapping together, whispered, hungry growls and heated cries filled the air around them.

Sherra lowered her head to his chest, her tongue licking over the mark she had given him a second before she scraped it with her lethal canines and applied a firm, erotic suction to the overly sensitive flesh.

His release triggered hers. Hard, convulsive, it ripped through them, tying them together, binding them, and once and for all piercing the final barriers to Sherra’s soul.

“I love you,” Kane cried out as he jerked beneath her, filling her with his seed, his hands hard on her hips as he held her to him. “God help me, Sherra, I love you…”

Her head raised, a languorous satiation spreading through her body, leaving her drowsy, weak, and yet filled with a strength she hadn’t known she possessed.

Her hand reached out, her fingertips caressing his cheek as his surprise at the touch filled his eyes. And Sherra knew in that moment, if she ever lost him again she wouldn’t,
couldn’t
survive the pain.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“I’d like you to move your things into my room.” Kane made the surprise announcement as they were gearing up for the day.

Dressed in her customary snug black pants and matching tank top with her hair braided down her back, Sherra was pulling on her jacket when he spoke. She paused before shrugging the material farther up her shoulders and carefully checking the weapon holstered on her thigh.