Page 81 of Ulune's Daughter

I give her ass a small slap that I hope won’t be audible in the dining room. “Then I’ll have to make it memorable.”

She squeezes me and steps back. “Everything with you is pretty memorable. Ready for the claggiest apple pie you’ve ever had?”

“Claggiest? What’s that?”

Kellan grins. “Something my friends Teddy and Charlie say. It means thick and heavy and not in a good way.”

“Er, yeah, sounds great.”

Chuckling, she leads me back into the dining room.

She’s right. Her mother’s apple pie isn’t good, but at least it doesn’t have cinnamon in it. Finishing it and coffee allows us to escape at last, though. We stop at the little bar before we leave town. Kellan has a glass of wine instead of a shot or two, so I figure dinner wasn’t a total disaster.

When the bartender circles back to see if she wants another glass of wine, I lean in and whisper, “You’re getting fucked either way, but if you want a spanking, one glass of wine’s the limit for a scene.”

Her electric blue eyes go as wide and round as an anime character’s.

She puts her hand over the top of her glass. “That’s it for me, thanks,” she tells the bartender.

I wink at her.

I drive her Jeep, which has a sticky clutch she talks me through, back to Bevington. I don’t think she’s incapacitated after one glass of wine, and I could wash her blood free of the intoxicant if she insisted on driving, but I like the symbolism of taking the wheel.

I catch a rare break back at her place. No sign of Law. I want to dance my way to her bedroom but settle for scooping her up and carrying her to bed.

She laughs and throws her arms around my neck. “I haven’t gotten this treatment before.”

“You should have.” I spin, whirling her around and grinning at her squeal. “Not to bad-mouth your previous boyfriends, but they suck.”

She giggles. “They did. Do.”

“I know you didn’t want to see them tonight, but I was kind of looking forward to excessive P.D.A. in front of your sister and your ex.”

She kisses my neck. “Stick around. We’ll have other chances.”

“I plan to,” I tell her.

I set her on her feet beside the bed and pull my shirt and sweater off over my head. I love how Kellan’s eyes widen when she sees my pecs. The way her ice blue gaze slides over the huge, unfinished tattoo covering my left shoulder before it slips down over each ridge and dip of my torso. Makes every butterfly in the outdoor pool with my skin stinging and muscles screaming worthwhile.

Kellan holds her hands up. “May I?”

“No. Kneel.”

Her eyes get even wider. She goes down on one knee and then the other, not Luca’s sinuous submission. But I like her hesitancy, her unpracticed surrender.

I step close, unbuckling my belt and opening the buttons on my jeans. I point at my groin. “Sniff.”

A gorgeous flush spreads over her cheeks. She leans in and takes a deep breath. I don’t think she smells anything other than fabric softener, but I love having her there, her nose buried in warm denim, kneeling at my feet. I clutch the back of her neck and press her even closer.

“Take off your shirt and your bra. Show me your breasts.”

Her hands stay on my hips, fingers digging in slightly. The buttons of her shirt pluck themselves free. Her shirt unravels down her arms, unspools to her waist. Her bra pops open and slips down to pool with her shirt. She stretches her head to the side, giving me a view of the long tendon in her neck, her collarbones highlighted by the moonlight, and the sweet swells of her breasts.

“Sit back on your heels.”

She does, looking up at me, her face half in shadow from the moonlight filtering through her bedroom’s big windows.

“You’re beautiful, Kellan. And I feel sorry for your exes for never seeing you for what you are.”

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