Page 29 of Deal with the Devil

“Wh—what?” I’m still struggling with the zipper. Although I’m trying to do it non-chalantly so he might not notice. Stupid dress, I’m starting to sweat. “Why would you think I’m mad at you?”

“Haven’t answered a single text I sent in the last three hours.” I shiver at the way he prowls closer, his big body taking up so much space in the big room. Iswallow hard. He continues, “Makes a man think one of two things.”

“What are those?”

“His woman’s left him. Or she’s pissed at him.” His head tips slightly to the side. “Know you didn’t leave, because not a single alarm was triggered on any of the doors, so that leaves me with pissed.” He stops a breath away from me, angling his head in a way that makes me feel dwarfed by him. I hate that I love it. “So, I’ll ask again, you pissed, Sunshine?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Then why ignore my attempts to reach you?”

“I was cooking.”Why am I so breathless?“I had the music up loud. I couldn’t figure out how to connect my phone to your system—so the texts didn’t come through what I was listening to. I—I’m sorry.”

“You haven’t thought to check your phone in three hours?”

I shake my head again, giving up and dropping my hands to my sides.Screw this stupid dress.“I was otherwise distracted.”

His eyes drop again. Even though I’ve never been so hot in my life, I shiver.

His voice pitches deliciously low. “I see that.” He wets his lips as his eyes feast on every inch of me. “You look beautiful.” His eyes come back to mine, and he asks brazenly, “For me?”

Scorched. I’m scorched. If he doesn’t stop looking at me like that, I’ll be reduced to cinders.

“It was, um, for you,” I stutter. “But I hear you’ve brought friends.”

“The guys.” His lips pull in a small smirk. “You’d know if you read your messages. Though, had I known what you had for me, I would’ve told them fuck no when they asked to come tonight.”

My breath shudders. “I guess we need to communicate better, don’t we?”

“We have time to practice,” he murmurs a promise that makes me feel even warmer. I can practically taste the sin on his breath. “Fuck, I like this dress.”

“I can’t get the zipper up.” My breath catches when a big hand lands on my waist, and he starts to circle around to my back, dragging his hand across my belly as he goes. The sensation of his heavy touch, his big hand on me like that, like it’s his right—it nearly brings me to my knees.

“Let me,” he rumbles into my hair. It’s all I can do to bite back my moan. The shudder that rolls through me? Yeah, I have no hope of stifling that.

I’m not even sure I’m breathing when he hooks the tiny zipper between big fingers, slowly inching it up the length of my spine. Kane drags his rough knuckle over every smooth inch of my spine as he tugs the zipper into place. But before I can move away or spinto face him, he gathers my mass of beach wavy hair into his big fist, pushing it over one shoulder.

His breathing sounds ragged as he dips his head. I feel warm, smooth lips and rough stubble against the bare skin of my shoulder blade. I can’t move. I can’t even breathe as I stand rooted in place. My heart is thundering to a rhythm of Kane’s creation as I stand in front of him, my eyes drifting shut as he kisses a trail from my shoulder blade to the soft curve of my shoulder and neck. The nip of his short stubble into my soft skin has a pressure building between my legs that shouldn’t be building for a touch so simple. But it is.

When his big hand moves from my back around my waist to pulse in a gentle squeeze, I breathe his name, “Kane,” even as I let my head drift to the side, giving him more access.

Not a man to be offered something and fail to take, Kane parts his lips against my skin. His tongue is hot as it flicks my flesh, and my knees really do wobble this time—but it’s when he gives me a gentle nip with his teeth that they fail me.

Kane’s ready for it, though. He catches me with his palm in my belly, pulling me back into his hard front. It’s not the only thing that’s hard, though. I can feel the press of his arousal now against my back. I want to feel it in other places.

I want him to throw me on the bed and have hisway with me. Ravish me properly like all the men before him failed to do.

“Kane,” I breathe again as a bellow yells the same from the other side of the door.

It’s enough to pull me back into the present. Into reality.

I jump in his arms, trying and failing, to jump out of them.

“A minute,” Kane barks back, and I flinch. Both at his tone and the fact that I’d been seconds away from begging him to fuck me.

This is fake. Fake. Fake. Fake. Fake!

Don’t complicate it with sex, Nevaeh. You’ve never been the kind of woman who can separate sex from emotions, so know better.

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