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“That was hours ago, baby,” he placed me back on my feet. “Now that I have you, I want every second you’ll give me.” Kane looked comfortable and happy that I was there which was just what I needed to dispel any remaining nerves.
My concerns about my own appearance evaporated as I noticed he wasn’t wearing his usual security badass uniform. He was in sweatpants. Sweat. Pants. Lingerie for men as far as I was concerned and sweet lord did they look good. The gray fabric molded to his muscular thighs perfectly and when he turned around his glorious ass flexed with the movement. It was absolutely criminal how perfect that ass was, I wanted to bite it.
He was wearing a faded green shirt with USMC written across his broad chest and his feet were bare. I felt my cheeks heat and tingling started in certain places, even his feet were sexy.Do not check out his feet, he is going to think you are a freak and you already had thoughts about biting his ass.
I tore my eyes away from Kane to look around the loft. It was neat and orderly with exposed brick walls and deep brown leather couches that looked like you could sink into them and fall asleep or devour a good book. A massive television hung on the wall opposite next to framed pictures of Kane and Gray.
In the first picture, they looked so young, dressed in their uniforms on the day of graduation from boot camp. My parents and I had been there, along with Kane’s father, and we had all been proud of them. In the second picture, they were older and more packed with muscle. Gray had his arm around Kane’s shoulders and the dumbest grin on his face. Kane’s arms were crossed but I could still see the small smile hidden beneath his beard. It was taken on the day they opened Falls Security. I looked away quickly, feeling guilty. I shouldn’t, we were all adults and what Kane and I did was between us, but it felt wrong keeping secrets from my brother.
Something furry brushed against my legs and I shrieked and jumped onto his low, wooden coffee table. A fluffy black and white kitten with one blue eye and one green looked up at me curiously before walking over to Kane and winding in between his legs. “You have a cat?” I asked, surprised as he helped me down off his furniture.
Kane reached down and picked up the furball in question, scratching behind its ears. Sweet honey butter biscuits, if sweatpants were lingerie, then a delicious man holding a tiny kitten gently in his big hands was porn.
“Daisy found him behind the building one day, trying to get into the dumpsters. He was a tiny, skinny little thing and she begged Gray to keep him. But you know how allergic he is to cats so she turned those big doe eyes on me and the next thing I knew I was at the pet store buying cat supplies.”
“Thisis Mr. Fluffernuts? I thought she made him up,” I reached out for the cat to sniff my hand.
Kane laughed ruefully, “Oh, he is one hundred percent real and there was nothing I could do about the name after Daisy announced it.” I giggled knowing how true his statement was, my niece had the whole team of badasses wrapped around her finger.
When Daisy was around two, Gray and I had taken her to the park and she fell off the stairs, scraping her knees. My brother looked at that playground equipment like he was going to pull a grenade and blow the whole thing up. God help anyone she chose to date in the future.
“You’re just full of surprises, Kane Rodriguez.” He had rescued a cat and moved it into his home all because my niece had asked him to. The knowledge that he could be a big softie made me fall even more for him. I stood on my tiptoes and laid a quick kiss on his lips. “I really need to wash the fried food smell off of me.”
“Go shower, baby,” he smacked me on the ass and pointed in the direction of the bathroom.
I walked down the hall, taking in as much as I could. The floorplan seemed to mirror Gray’s loft with three doors in the hallway off the living areas. The first on the left seemed to be a private office with a large desk supporting three computer monitors and an enormous black leather chair. Locked file cabinets lined one wall and an impressive looking gun safe was on the other.
Moving on, the next door I came to was the bedroom, I looked over my shoulder to see if Kane was watching me. The coast was clear so I tiptoed into the space. A wall of windows drew my eyes immediately to the ceiling where three skylights stood next to one another. The large, comfy looking bed dominated the wall opposite and was covered with a navy comforter, and grey and navy-blue pillows were arranged neatly against the wooden headboard. Floating nightstands were attached to the dark grey wall flanking the bed and I longed to look inside the drawers but resisted when I noticed the metal shelves covered in books.
Ohhh, interesting, what did Kane Rodriguez read in his spare time, I wondered. I anticipated to find non-fiction books about wars and military maneuvers. Maybe even stereotypical male-dominated espionage novels.
My assumptions were wrong, however, science fiction paperbacks lined the shelves next to a large collection of graphic novels. Baskets filled with actual comic books were stacked neatly next to one another beneath. I trailed my fingertips over the cracks in the spines. These books were important to him, not only did he keep them in the room where he slept but they had clearly been enjoyed over and over again.
“My mom used to buy me comics,” I whirled around at the sound of his voice, a contrite look on my face at getting caught snooping. “The books,” he nodded at the bookcase behind me, “not what you expected?”
I smiled at him sheepishly, “I was a bit surprised.”
Kane looked at the shelves as he rubbed the back of his neck. “When I was really young, I didn’t talk much. Did you know that?” I shook my head in answer.
“My parents tried everything, doctors and therapists, play dates with other kids my age, but I wouldn’t say more than a few words. One day, Mom came home with a bag full of superhero comics, Batman, Superman, the X-Men. She spread them out on the kitchen table and told me to pick one. After I had chosen, she started reading it to me. We stayed up late every night for a week as she read those comics out loud to me. It became a ritual for the two of us. She would ask me questions about which characters I liked and didn’t like, who I thought had the coolest costume. They became more complex than just yes or no and eventually I had caught up to the other kids. When she died,” he swallowed and looked down at me. “It felt wrong to stop. Like she would really be gone if I stopped reading.”
“Kane,” I went to him and wrapped my arms around his middle, resting my head on his chest. This strong man, former Marine and current security badass had just given me a beautiful gift. He shared something with me that was raw and vulnerable and real. Life wasn’t always easy and sometimes you lost people you loved before you were ready to say goodbye.
I squeezed him tighter, wanting desperately to help him keep that lovely memory of his mother alive. Kane’s hands clasped me to him and we stood there, existing in the pain of his confession, becoming closer with every breath taken. I could feel his heart pounding against my cheek and hoped a tiny piece of it could belong to me one day because oh, how I would cherish and protect it for as long as I lived.
Kane stroked my hair with his big hand and pulled back to look down at me. “Dinner is almost ready if you’ve finished your snooping,” a smile tugged at his lips.
Refusing to feel embarrassed, I released him and started to leave the room. “I suppose I am done for now,” I tossed over my shoulder.
After closing the door to the bathroom, I turned to survey the final room of his home. A large, black-framed glass door enclosed the shower with multiple shower heads and a bench off to one side. The freestanding bathtub was tucked away behind a brick column that led to the sloped ceiling and another breathtaking skylight framed the night sky. I was sure it brought in the most beautiful sunlight during the day.
I turned the taps in the shower and when steam began to fill the space, I removed my uniform and stepped under the warm spray. After perusing the bottles on the shelf, I opened the body wash and inhaled deeply. It smelled just like Kane and I couldn’t help the secret thrill I got from knowing my skin was going to smell like him all night. I bathed quickly and stepped onto the soft black bathmat, wrapping the fluffy towel around my body that had been placed thoughtfully on the towel hook.
A pile of neatly folded clothes sat next to the sink and I touched the soft fabric before dropping the towel to put them on. Kane had left me sweatpants similar to what he was wearing, black boxer briefs and a Little Falls varsity baseball shirt. No matter how many times I tried to roll up the sweats they continued to fall off my hips so I opted for the t-shirt and rolled-over briefs. I looked at myself in the mirror and decided the briefs were longer than the shorts I wore to work on a daily basis. I left the bathroom and padded on bare feet back to the kitchen.
“It smells amazing in here.”
Kane turned from the stove with a smile on his face. His eyes heated as they swept my body like a caress. Quickly crossing the space between us, his mouth dropped to mine as his hands roamed my body.
