Page 11 of Kane: One Night with a Biker

“Are you mad?” I’d been afraid to ask, but I needed to know.

“Mad? No, I’m not mad. Why would you think that?” His whiskers scraped against my shoulder.

I turned to face him, barely able to make out his features in the dim light. “You seemed like you didn’t want to, but I’m glad we did.”

“I’m not mad at you, Abilene. I’m mad at myself. I don’t deserve you, and eventually, you’re going to realize that.”

“Stop. It’s you I want.”

“You wouldn’t feel that way if you knew the truth about me.”

Nothing he could say would change the way I felt about him. “Tell me then. What’s so awful you don’t think I can handle?”

He stared up at the ceiling and his body tensed. “I’ve got bad blood.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Have you ever wondered why I ended up at Mama Mae’s?” He reached for my hand and twined his fingers with mine.

I squeezed his hand to encourage him to continue. “Tell me, Kane.”

“My mom came home late from work one night and my dad was high on something. He thought she was cheating on him. Whatever he was on made him paranoid.”

The walls of my chest squeezed tight.

“He squeezed the life out of her right in front of me. I was eight years old.” He rolled onto his side and faced the wall. “When I say I’m not good enough for you, I mean it. Something inside him snapped that day, and the same thing could happen to me.”

“No, no, no.” My eyes burned as they filled with tears for what he’d been through. I skimmed my palm over his shoulder. “Kane, you’re a good man. I’m so sorry that happened to you, but you’re nothing like your dad. You said yourself he was high on something. You’d never do something like that.”

“Maybe not, but I don’t want to take that chance.”

“So what? You’re going to be alone for the rest of your life?” I climbed over him and knelt by the side of the bed. “You’re not like him.”

“You barely know me, Abilene.”

I pressed my palm against his chest. “I know your heart. You’re a good man, and you deserve to be loved.”

“We might have to agree to disagree on that.”

“That’s not good enough for me.” The resignation in his voice made me want to curl my body around his and protect him from his pain.

“We don’t always get what we want, little bird.”

The defeat in his tone nearly wrecked me. I needed to show him how good it could be between us. He just needed a little faith. “I’m going to prove it to you.”

“And how do you think you’re going to do that?”

“Give me the next five days. Promise me you’ll keep an open mind and an open heart.”

“Why? What are you plotting in that gorgeous head of yours?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.” I leaned in, my mouth inches from his.

“If I say yes, will you get back up here on the bed and let me fall asleep?”

I nodded, already pulling the covers back and nestling against him. He wrapped his arms around me and soon his breathing evened out. Sleep didn’t come for me for a long, long time. I was too busy thinking. I needed to get Kane to trust me. If I wanted him to believe he deserved love, I’d have to show him how lovable he was. That would be easy on my part since I’d already fallen head over heels for him. But I only had five days to make him fall desperately in love with me.

Time was short, and the clock was ticking.

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