I laughed. “It’d be a hell of a way to go, though.”

“That it would.” He pressed his lips to my temple. “I have to get rid of this condom.” Cain eased me off him, and I rolled to my back, wincing a bit at the loss of him.

Cain was back in a matter of seconds, pulling back the covers and ushering me under. As soon as I obeyed, he pulled me to him so that I was lying on my unbruised side, head resting on his pec. “Do you feel okay?”

I let out a bark of laughter. “I feel like a noodle.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Oh, it is definitely a good thing.”

Cain ran his hands through my hair. “Glad to hear it.” He paused for a moment. “This changes things. You know that, right?”

“How so?”

The smooth strokes of his fingers through my hair took a stutter-step. “This thing between us, we’re going to explore it.”

I tilted my head back so I could see Cain’s face, those beautiful, storm-blue eyes. “Are we now?”

“We are.”

My lips twitched. “Is that your way of asking me to be your girlfriend? Are we going steady?”

Cain scowled. “I’m not fifteen.”

“Aw, shucks. I was hoping for your Varsity letterman’s jacket.”

Cain shook his head. “Do I need to fuck you again? You have entirely too much sass for someone who just had two orgasms.”

I grinned. “Give a girl a second to catch her breath, would you?” I laid my head back on his chest. “Did you play sports in high school?”

Cain’s body locked under mine as his hand froze in my hair. The fingers began moving again. “Nope. Not really an organized sports kind of person.”

“What kind of person were you?”

The tension in Cain’s muscles wasn’t going away. “Just not into a lot of group activities.”

Something about this was all wrong. It wasn’t like I was asking for state secrets, just a glimpse of who Cain had been at fifteen. I risked a push. “What were you into, then?”

“Nothing, really. Just your average high school guy stuff, I guess.”

It was a brush-off, and I knew it. I had laid myself bare for this man. Physically, emotionally. And he couldn’t even tell me what his hobbies were. As my mind ran through the time I’d known him, I realized something. Cain only shared personal tidbits on his terms. What I knew about him would barely fill two pages in a notebook.

He knew everything about me, but I knew almost nothing about him. But, somehow, it felt like my soul recognized his. Was that a lie? My brain tricking itself because there was burning chemistry between us?

No.I knew him. Enough of him, anyway. I’d seen the kindness in him when he played with Lizzie. The generosity of his spirit in everything he gave away. The protectiveness in how he cared for the people who were important to him. I knew the important things. But I’d thought I knew the important things about people in my life before. People I loved. And in a blink of an eye, they’d turned into strangers capable of destroying everything we held between us.

30

Cain

Kennedy let outa little moan as she stretched, her perfect backside pressing against me. “Careful,” I warned, palming a breast in my hand. “You might not be ready for what that action could bring.”

She turned her head to look up at me, her eyes executing a slow, sleepy blink. “Morning.”

“Morning, baby.” I swept my lips across hers, but she pulled back. I scowled.

“Morning breath.”