Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
I didn’t let either of them my entire life, and I wasn’t about to start then.
Plus, I had a tatted daredevil to take care of for the foreseeable future. That was my priority. I pushed all the other stuff away into folders in my mind.
“Right,” I said, closing the door. “You, there,” I pointed to the couch. “I’ll get food, water and set up your pills with a chart to track when we dose and how much.”
I turned to get started on those things, trusting Kane’s ability to shuffle the short distance.
But he grabbed hold of my hand with his uninjured wrist.
“No, you’re not doing any of that.” He swiped his tongue along his lip. “We’re going to the bedroom, and you’re gonna ride me.” His tone was drenched in authority. Desire. Hunger.
And although plenty of my own desire cropped up at his words, I swallowed it down, bugging my eyes at him. “Kane, you can’t be serious. You’re technically supposed to still be in the hospital right now. You have instructions to do nothing strenuous.”
Kane wasn’t swayed, stroking the inside of my wrist with his thumb. “That’s why you’ll be riding me, doing all the work.” He winked.
“I’m too heavy for that,” I groaned.
Kane’s gaze darkened, and his brow furrowed. “You are not too heavy for anything,” he snapped. “Most especially riding my cock. You gonna argue some more, or you gonna make me prove my point by carrying you to the bedroom?”
Hands on my hips, I glared at him. He wasn’t bluffing. “Kane, you cannot carry me. You were discharged from intensive care an hour ago.”
“Don’t care if I was pulled back from the gates of Hades two seconds ago, I’ll be carrying my woman to the bedroom.”
When he bent as if to do it, I held up my hand to stop him. “Fine,” I snapped. “We’ll go. But I’m not happy about it.”
He grinned in satisfaction. “Oh, yes you are, Chef. I can tell that pussy of yours is already wet.”
I pursed my lips.
He wasn’t wrong.
“Come on,” I huffed.
Kane chuckled as we walked to the bedroom.
“What’s so funny?” I barked over my shoulder.
“You,” he replied as we entered my bedroom. “Acting all pissed about riding my cock when I know you’re as desperate for it as I am.”
Again, I kept my lips a thin line, sucking in a breath through my nostrils. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Kane cupped my cheeks, tilting my head upward. “Only way you could hurt me, Chef, is if you leave me to walk this world without you. You gonna do that?”
I almost flinched at the intensity in his words, the possessiveness. Sure, Kane had been plenty possessive before, but this was different. Much different.
“No,” I said without hesitation.
His lips pressed into mine. “Good,” he growled against my lips. “Now ride my cock.”
“Chef.”
I was coated in a thin layer of perspiration, riding Kane.
He was right. My body had been desperate for this. Aching. Yes, I’d been ready and happy to forgo my own needs for Kane, but I was selfishly elated to know that he’d needed this. Us.
I’d realized we hadn’t done this since before he left. Since before I’d watched him tumble through the air, since I’d spent time thinking I was going to lose him.
I rode him harder, desperate for the fullness of him inside me, the friction, the aliveness and the free fall of another orgasm.
“Chef,” Kane repeated in a low grunt.
I stared down at him. He was clutching my neck, eyes on me.
They were clouded with desire, cords in his neck protruding, telling me he was close to finishing. But the ferocity of his arousal was something else. That same intensity as before, only deeper. Unending, it seemed.
“I love you,” he murmured, low and deep.
My body twitched as the words branded me.
“I love you,” I panted.
He hauled me down for a kiss.
“Milk my cock, then.”
And I did as requested.
After we were done, I cooked Kane lunch. It was the first time I’d cooked for him in my apartment. It felt … odd. Domestic, somehow. When I was in my kitchen at Inferno, I’d cooked him versions of the dishes we made there—heartier, with much bigger portions, but they were still sophisticated dishes. I’d been hiding behind techniques and fanfare.
No longer feeling the need to hide, I didn’t do that this time. Kiera had already stocked my fridge before we got back, so it was overflowing with all the things I’d requested and many I had not.
Champagne, beer, caviar and also packaged snacks that a third-grader might eat. I’d shaken my head with a smile, thinking of my friend as I began making something.
It wasn’t from any of my recipe books. It wasn’t something I learned to cook in professional kitchens.
No, it was my mother’s chicken soup.
“It’s a well-worn cliché, but it’s true,” she told me, chopping celery. “Chicken soup, the kind full of nourishing and warm ingredients, helps soothe illnesses and injuries, and it warms the soul.”