CRUEL (The Buck Boys Heroes Book 2), page 15
Dinner wasn’t in bed, but it was on the couch in front of the fireplace with the flames of the fire and a few candles lighting the space.
Kavan put on soft music and as we ate, we talked about nothing and everything.
I told him about my sister’s business.
He talked about a company that he wants to acquire, and as we sat and drink red wine, I saw the sparks of trust in his eyes.
I glance to where he’s standing.
His hands are on his hips, his muscled chest broad, and his face a stark reminder of how savagely beautiful he is.
His gaze is cast toward the bank of windows that stretch the length of the room.
“What are you thinking about, Kavan?”
His eyes stay trained on the endless lights that are in view. “Life.”
“Your life?” I ask quietly.
He nods. “It hasn’t gone as I hoped, and I don’t need you to tell me that billionaires have it easy, Juliet.”
I can’t tell if he’s joking, but I don’t absorb it that way. “I don’t think they do. I don’t think you’ve had an easy life.”
He doesn’t glance in my direction. “Neither have you.”
Panic spears me, but I take a calming breath. I want him to know, but he needs to hear it from me. My past isn’t as complicated as his, but there are moments that I wish I could scrub from my memory.
His hands drop to the waistband of his sweatpants. In one fluid motion, they’re pulled down and he’s stepped out of them.
I stare at him.
Every inch of him is pure masculinity.
His hand moves to his rock hard cock. He fists it, stroking it slowly. “Do you know what you do to me, Juliet?”
I shrug out of the shirt, dropping it on the floor. “Show me.”
This is how he shows his adoration. This is how he expresses his love to me.
He displays himself, physically and emotionally in ways that make him vulnerable.
He’s on me then, his hands, his lips, and his teeth.
He dives between my legs, eating me with such force that I cry out when he nips my clit with his teeth.
I tangle my hands in his hair, riding his mouth, taking everything I can from him because he needs that just as desperately as I do.
Chapter Forty
Kavan
“I’ve never done this. I’ve never fucked a woman I’ve cared this much for before.”
I whisper that to myself as Juliet crawls on top of me.
I’m flat on my back in the middle of the bed, and she’s hovering above me. I can feel the heat from her pussy and see the need in her eyes. I hear it in her breathing too. It’s fast, almost panicked, as she attempts to circle my cock with her hand.
Her eyes widen with wonder as she watches the head disappear between her folds. Then she lowers herself slowly – so fucking slowly- onto my dick.
I reach up to grab her waist to guide her movements. “Take it slow.”
“Slow,” she repeats her eyes never leaving the point where our bodies are connected.
“Oh, god,” she whispers on a moan. “It’s so deep.”
I close my eyes to try and stop the need to pump hard.
I want to fuck this woman with everything I have. I want to show her what she means to me by making her come again and again.
I’ve done that twice already tonight with my teeth and my tongue, but this is so much more. This is the velvet heat of her pussy pulsing around me.
I move carefully, pushing up slowly so she can adjust.
Her head falls back. “I’m going to…”
I pump hard, once and then again, but it’s not needed. She’s already in the middle of another orgasm. The grip of her around me is too much.
I thrust up again and again, trying to control the need to just fuck.
“Please,” she murmurs. “Fuck me.”
I take control, spearing into her with solid heavy thrusts.
Watching her ample tits bounce with each plunge of my dick inside of her, I’m mesmerized.
Her lips part and my name spills out dressed in breathy mewls and moans.
“Juliet,” I whisper as I feel her tighten again.
Jesus, this woman.
It’s so fucking good. Every goddamn time is better and better.
“Coming,” she screams as she writhes on top of me, her hands trailing over my chest.
Her nails dig in to my skin and that bite of pain is enough to send me over the edge.
I empty into the condom with slow, smooth strokes just as her lips find mine in a kiss that feels as if she’s branding me as hers forever.
I wake to an empty bed.
I turn over to see if she’s crawled to the edge of the king-sized bed to give herself room to move.
I crowded her after we fucked.
I tore off the condom, trashed it and then ran my fingers over her pussy until she came again.
When she pleaded with me to stop, I gave in and tugged her next to me.
That’s the last thing I remember.
“Juliet!” I call out.
Silence greets me so I glance at the clock sitting on the bedside table.
It’s nearing midnight.
With a swing of my legs over the side of the bed, my feet touch the cooled hardwood.
The thermostat is set to automatically lower ten degrees at ten p.m. each night. I like the pinch of cool air on my skin when I rest.
Sliding my sweatpants back on, I take some comfort in not seeing my white button-down on the floor where Juliet deposited it.
Unless she’s stolen it, she’s still somewhere in this penthouse.
I make my way out of the room, down the hallway and around the corner and that’s when I spot her.
Staring into the fire, my beautiful love is deep in thought.
A blanket is wrapped around her body, but her legs are twitching. The rhythmic movement is a sign that she’s focused on something.
I saw it before when I glanced into her office to find her typing away on her laptop.
“Juliet,” I call out to her softly.
She doesn’t respond so I step closer. “Juliet.”
Still nothing, her gaze is pinned on the flames as they dance in the darkness.
I don’t say another word until I’m less than five feet from the couch. “Juliet, are you all right?”
The answer doesn’t come from within her, or perhaps it does.
No words leave her perfect lips, but they quiver and as she turns to face me, I see her tear stained cheeks.
Rushing toward her, I stop short of where she is. My hands fist at my sides, and I exhale. “Who did this to you? Who has made you feel this, Juliet. Tell me. I’ll...”
When my voice trails she glances up and into my eyes. “You’ll what, Kavan? What will you do?”
I’ll kill them.
Those words – those three fucking words – sit unspoken on my tongue.
She darts to her feet and with the blanket in her hand trailing behind her she walks barefoot across the room toward the bank of windows.
I follow behind her. “Tell me what’s wrong, Juliet. Did I hurt you?”
“No,” she whimpers. “You would never hurt me.”
She can’t know how much those words mean to me.
“Let me help you.” I scrub a hand over the back of my neck as she slows her steps. “Juliet, let me help you.”
She turns to face me, dropping the blanket at her feet.
I approach her with cautious steps because I don’t know how to comfort her.
“Kavan.” My name comes out of her wrapped in a sob. “I need to tell you something.”
Dear God, please don’t let it be that she’s in love with someone else. Please.
I move closer so I can cradle her delicate face in my hands. “Tell me, Juliet. You can tell me anything.”
“You can tell me anything,” she repeats.
I stare into her eyes. Is that what she needs? Does she need me to speak my truth before she will?
I kiss the corner of her mouth softly before I feather kisses over her forehead. “Trust me, Juliet. I’m not the man you think I am. You can trust me. I trust you.”
Her hand moves to my chin. It’s the gentlest touch but it soothes the pain that has lived within me for so long.
The urge to speak is almost too much. I want her to know my truth and I want it to be now, before she trusts me with hers.
“I didn’t kill him, Juliet.” My voice breaks. “I swear to you that I didn’t kill my father.”
Tears fall from her eyes. “I know, Kavan.”
I nod as I swipe the tears from her cheeks with the pads of my thumb.
“I know because I’ve looked in the eyes of a murderer, and that’s not what I see when I look at you.”
Chapter Forty-One
Juliet
His brilliant blue eyes lock on my face.
I see pain in the depths of them, when there should be relief.
He confessed what I’ve always suspected, and I confessed what he never could have known.
“Juliet,” he whispers my name. “What does that mean?”
To tell that story takes more strength than I have, but I need to do this.
After we made love, I got out of the bed and checked my phone.
There was a text from my sister, and a missed call, and three more calls after that.
So I put on Kavan’s shirt, snuck out of his bedroom and went into my office.
I called Margot and for the first time in ten years she didn’t ask where I was or who I was with.
She cried.
I cried, and then we cried together because we are finally free.
I take Kavan’s hand to lead him back to the couch.
I sat there, staring into the fire for so long I lost track of time.
He takes a seat next to me with his body turned to face me. He reaches for my hands. “Start from the beginning.”
I nod. “I was fifteen.”
He shifts his ass so he’s even closer to me. “Fifteen?”
“It was ten years ago.” I take a deep breath. “Margie was eighteen. It was the middle of summer. Our parents left for vacation. A cruise. It was a cruise in Greece.”
Those details don’t matter, but they are part of the tapestry of that moment in time. They all weave together to form the memory that I’ve never been able to shake.
He squeezes my hands.
I glance at the fireplace. “It was raining, so Margie turned on the fireplace that morning. It was electric but gave off a little bit of heat. She had summer school so she left to go to class. I forgot to turn the fireplace off.”
“Was there a fire, Juliet? Did the house burn down?”
Shaking my head, I glance at him. “No, no. I just remember that smell that day. It burned all day, until...”
“Until she came home from school?”
I ignore that because she never came home from school that day. The police found her at her friend’s house hours after it was all over.
“He came in through the balcony door.” I swallow hard. “Margie didn’t lock it the night before. We sat on the deck and she let me take a sip of one of our dad’s beers, but it was awful.”
“Who came in through the balcony door, Juliet?”
I look at his face. “Margie’s ex boyfriend. He told her his name was Doyle Creighton.”
“That wasn’t his name?”
I pick at the hem on the bottom of Kavan’s shirt before smoothing it with my palm so it sits flat on my thighs. “His name was Chevy Dorset.”
“Chevy Dorset,” he repeats.
I look at him again. “Chevy Dorset. He killed two people in Oregon before he ran to California, fell in love with my sister, and then when she broke up with him, he came to our house to kill her, but I was the only one there.”
I drink from the glass of water that Kavan handed me a few minutes ago.
I was the one who asked for it.
I could see that he needed a minute after I told him about Chevy.
He takes the glass from me to place on the coffee table. “What happened that day, Juliet? What did that monster do to you?”
I reach for his hands and hold them in my lap. “At first, he didn’t know I was there. I heard footsteps. They were too heavy to be Margot’s so I ran to my bedroom, shut the door as quietly as I could and I called 911.”
“Good,” he says with a nod as if he’s trying to reassure both of us. “Good.”
“He heard me.”
Kavan’s brow furrows. “He heard you?”
“I didn’t realize that he was outside of my bedroom and heard me whisper our address into the phone. He kicked in the door to my room then.”
“Jesus.”
“He had a knife.” I close my eyes to shake off the image of that knife. “He demanded to know where Margot was.”
“Juliet.” His voice shakes.
“I tried to stay calm,” I tell him. “I told him we could leave the house together and go find her.”
“That was smart,” he affirms. “Very smart.”
“He wanted me to call her. I tried and tried but she hadn’t gone to class. She’d gone over to a guy’s house to…she went there to have fun.”
“So she never answered the phone?”
“It was hours later that the police tracked her down. It was over by then.”
“Over?” He shifts our hands so his are on top of mine now. “How did it end?”
“I thought he was going to kill me,” I say on a sob. “But I begged him not to. Hours later when the police stormed in, he just gave up.”
He gathers me into his arms then. “Thank Christ. Fuck, Juliet. I’m so grateful you’re okay.”
“I’m okay.” I cling to him. “I’m going to be okay.”
Drawing my gaze up to meet his with a finger on the bottom of my chin, he kisses my forehead. “I had no idea you’d lived through something like that. What prison is that bastard in?”
I finally manage a slight smile. “Hell. Chevy Dorset died in prison tonight.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Kavan
I carry her back to bed in my arms.
Resting her carefully on the sheets, I settle next to her.
Face-to-face I stare into her eyes. They are the eyes of a woman who has lived through trauma.
One of her hands moves to cup my cheek. “I’m glad I told you.”
“I am too, Juliet.”
“That day in the alley when you saved me, it was a lot.”
I tug her closer to me. “That had to have been triggering for you.”
She nods. “It was. I went to therapy when I was fifteen. It helped. It taught me how to deal with things. Bad things, good things, life.”
I know the feeling. I sought out help too after my father’s death.
“I wanted to tell you sooner,” she whispers. “I was worried that you’d find out on your own.”
I’m surprised I didn’t.
Before I approached Thurston with the idea of having Juliet write the article, I ran a complete background check on her. Nothing related to what happened when she was fifteen popped up.
“My name was kept out of it publically because of my age,” she goes on, “I don’t know how far your reach extends though, so there was a small part of me that wondered if you already knew.”
“I had no idea.”
“We moved after that to a house in southern California with a pool.” She smiles. “It was supposed to be our new beginning, but Margot always worried about me after that. She’s never been able to let that go.”
Her body slides closer yet.
“Thank you for telling me, Juliet.”
She looks at my face. “Thank you for understanding.”
I drop my lips to hers for a kiss. The intention is for it to be soft and comforting, but her hand falls to my chin to tilt my head.
Deepening the kiss, she moans. “I love kissing you, Kavan Bane.”
Groaning, I bite her bottom lip. “I fucking love kissing you.”
She moves to rid herself of my shirt so I do the same with my sweatpants, kicking them off in haste.
Her gaze trails over my body. “You sure know how to use all you have.”
I huff out a laugh. “That’s a compliment.”
Her finger wags in the air toward the cabinet across the room. “We need a condom.”
I drop a hand to her pussy to run a finger over her seam. “You’re right, we do.”
I slide to my feet and sprint across the room.
“Why don’t you have the condoms in your bedside table?”
I stop just as my fingers find the drawer pull. I take a deep breath, turn and smile. “I’ve never fucked a woman here before, Juliet. I’m still trying to figure all of this out.”
That lures her up to her knees.
Goddammit, she’s beautiful.
Her nipples are perked on her full breasts. Her hair is tangled around her face and her eyes are shining brightly as she smiles at me.
How the hell did I get this lucky?
“You have never fucked a woman in this bed?” She bounces slightly.
It’s almost too much for me to handle. “Stop moving, Juliet, or I’m going to blow my load right here.”
She scurries to the edge of the bed, drops to her feet and rushes toward me.
I stare because everything about this moment in time will be etched in my memory until I die.
When she drops to her knees at my feet, I let out a noise that was born from my desperate need for her.
“We can’t waste that, can we?” She grips the base of my cock in her hands. “I have another secret to tell you.”
I manage a stuttered chuckle as she licks the crown with the tip of her tongue. “Tell me now.”
Tilting her head, she gives me a clear view of her tongue on my cock, before she pulls back slightly. “The scarf may be my new favorite thing, but you are my all-time favorite person.”
I don’t get to reciprocate that because any words I may have spoken are lost when she takes me in her mouth.
