Page 145 of At the Edge of Surrender

For once, Kane was silent, too.

But I supposed the tension that strained between us said plenty. The way it felt as if the oxygen had grown so heavy and dense that it was nearly impossible to draw it into my lungs.

Awareness curled and wound around us.

Wisps of electricity that felt like pinpricks crackling across my skin.

It took us only a few minutes to get through the downtown area of Moonlit Ridge, and Kane was soon slowing to turn right onto the dirt drive that wound around Kane’s.

The club wasn’t busy yet, the parking lot sparsely filled, the hour just past eight. It felt as if it’d been one of the longest days of my life, yet it had also passed in a blur.

Being among these people that I didn’t want to find comfort in.

But that’s what I’d been.

Comfortable.

Floating through their care and laughter. Wary of the easy conversation but unable to stop myself from contributing.

As if it were natural.

But this wasn’t.

Natural.

This thing that burned between me and Kane.

It was something so outside of what I knew. Wrong on so many levels, yet in some way, it felt as if it was supposed to be.

The SUV bounced down the long lane, and the club disappeared behind us as we wound through the dense trees that grew up along the edges of the road. The headlights speared out in front of us, illuminating the gorgeous scenery Kane’s home was surrounded by.

Rather than pulling around to the detached garage, he came to a stop in front of the porch where he always parked his bike.

Silence swamped us when he killed the engine, and the air grew even heavier.

So heavy I was afraid it would crush me.

Obliterate the last pieces I was trying to hold together. Kane seemed caught in it, too, staring out the windshield for the longest time before he finally opened his door and slipped out, the man so brutally beautiful it was getting more and more difficult to look at him without completely losing myself.

But how could I not after the way he’d held me last night? After he’d shown me he was so much more than the callous intimidation.

He quietly shut it behind him before he was at Maci’s door, his movements fluid as he unbuckled her from her seat.

She barely stirred as he pulled her into his hold. It shouldn’t look so right when the man tucked her carefully against his chest.

But, God, it did, my little niece so at ease in his massive arms.

He knocked the door closed with his hip, ambled up the steps and across the porch, then maneuvered the key into the lock.

So adept he might as well have done it a thousand times.

Blowing out some of the tension, I forced myself to move, and I climbed out and followed them inside. I locked the door behind us, and I kept my footsteps as light as Kane’s as he carried Maci upstairs.

At the top landing, a dim light burned in the hall, and he crept into her room and laid her on her bed. I moved in behind him, and I went to the dresser and pulled out a pair of pajamas that had been stocked in Maci’s dresser on the first day we’d come here.

I edged up beside him, and that unstable air in my lungs locked all over again as we peered down at the child.

“She’s so perfect,” he murmured.

---