Page 18 of Brutal Mate

She only stopped again when her lungs were burning for air. Still on edge, she listened again, trying to sense whatever it was that had been watching her. She hadn't heard anything in pursuit, but then again, all she had been able to hear was her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.

Leaning over with her hands on her knees to try and catch her breath, she almost jumped right out of her skin when her cell phone started to ring in the back pocket of her jeans.

“Shit!” she exclaimed as she grabbed the phone and pressed the accept button. “Lauren! You scared the crap outta me!”

“All I did was call like I said I would when I finished work!” Lauren protested, and Miley pursed her lips. She had almost forgotten talking to her that morning. It felt like an age ago now.

“Sorry, I'm real jumpy.”

“When aren't you?” Lauren asked, and Miley could imagine her scowling into the phone. “What's the matter this time?”

Miley couldn't help herself. She reeled off the story, starting with her father's debts, adding his plan to marry her off to have them paid, and ending with her escaping to the woods.

When she had finished, she was even more breathless.

“Girl, I think it's time you hit up that grandma of yours up north!” Lauren exclaimed when she had finished, and Miley's chest tightened. She gasped. Why hadn't she thought of that? The thought had crossed her mind so many times over the years. She'd even fantasized about it with Lauren, both of them dreaming about how they'd run away to her Grandma Peters's farm up north one day just to get away from all the shit in Nightstar for a while.

But they'd been kids then, back when her father had told her wonderful stories about how he had grown up on a farm and his mother had made fresh biscuits daily and everything was perfect save for the fact his daddy was a drunken piece of shit. Miley guessed the apple didn't fall too far from the tree, but the last time she had heard anything about her father's parents, it had been a conversation she had overheard about how her father wasn't going to attend his daddy's funeral.

Miley had never met either of her grandparents, but she had always longed to meet her grandma, even if it was only down to misguided girlish dreams. Maybe Grandma Peters was her last chance at freedom?

She yawned hard. “You might be right, but I don’t think I'll get very far tonight. Do you think maybe I can stop at yours for the night? Would your mom mind?”

“Don't be stupid! Mama loves having you over, if only to tell me she wishes I were more like you!” Lauren laughed. “Get your ass over here and I'll make us some hot cocoa!”

***

Miley had never felt safer than she did in his arms. Those strong, powerful, muscular arms wrapped around her and held her tight. He didn't speak, but if he had, he would have said something along the lines of, “Don't worry, you're safe with me.”

And when his fingertips stroked under Miley's chin, she turned her face up to look into those familiar charcoal eyes.

Her heart skipped a beat, panicking for a second as she recognized Kane. Unsure of how she had gotten there, she started to pull away, but his arms pulled her close again.

She didn't fight him. She knew she should, but she didn't want to.

His presence was powerful, dominant and aggressive, but it was nothing like her father. In fact, he made her feel quite the opposite.

And when he leaned down, his lips barely brushing hers, all she could do was enjoy the feel of his warm flesh on hers.

“Wha—” she started to ask what was happening, but before she could, he kissed her deeply.

And for the second time that night, her head spun. This time it wasn't pain or fear or even force that made her head spin. Though his kiss was forceful, it was the pleasure she found in it that made her head spin so delightfully.

When he pulled her so close that their bodies melded against each other, her heart skipped another beat. They were unbound, unencumbered by the restrictions of clothes, their naked bodies becoming one as Kane laid her down so gently that it brought tears to her eyes.

A small voice in the back of her mind told her to scream, told her to kick and fight and do whatever it took to get away from him, but that voice was quickly quieted by the way he came down on top of her, cupping her face in his hands to kiss her again.

He kissed her lips, her jaw, her throat, even her breasts, and every touch of his lips was like being branded by fire. Yet it wasn't painful. It was intoxicating.

And when he placed a light touch of his lips between her legs, her entire body went wild.

“Fuck!” she cursed, biting her lip when she realized she had said it aloud.

When Kane came up again, he smiled down at her with a devilish grin, reaching down between their bodies to guide himself deep inside her.

Miley expected it to hurt. She had always been told her first time would hurt. But it didn't. It felt like nothing she had ever experienced before.

She opened her legs wide to him, her arms wrapping around his neck to pull him nearer.

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