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Kane didn’t speak as we cleaned up the trash. Nor as I took his hand and led him toward the bedroom. He was quiet as I changed clothes in the closet. And when I offered him my toothbrush.
But with every button he undid on his shirt, a little pressure released in my chest.
I had zero regrets about what I’d said.
I meant it.
I was going to fight for him until I took my last breath.
Hopefully sometime before then he’d surrender.
He took off his shoes and socks.
My heart rate sped up as he undid his belt, unfastened his pants, and let them drop to the floor. His dress shirt hung open, giving me a peek of his torso. Time had not been unkind to him.
It made no sense, but his body was more attractive to me now than when we were in our twenties.
My fingers tingled to touch his chest, every defined ab muscle . . . all of him.
“You weren’t kidding when you said you were going to fight for me,” he said with a hint of amusement. “I just didn’t think you had it in you not to be fair about it.”
I slipped off my robe, and it was his turn to stare. He’d seen me in this nightgown before, but it was as if he were looking at me with different eyes. We weren’t arguing, not really. And there was no forbidden barrier between us any longer.
“Really not fair,” he muttered as he tossed the decorative pillows from his side of the bed and climbed in.
Nerves kept me rooted in place.
I was a grown woman. Getting into bed with a man shouldn’t be so unnerving. But I hadn’t been in this position in a very long time.
And it was Kane.
Of course he kept me off-balance.
“Do you sleep standing up?”
I growled and scooted in beside him. He knew how to erase my fears by irritating me.
I pulled the covers up to my chin.
“Is this a silent war?” he asked.
I glared.
“Interesting tactic. Give me a peek and then hide.” He rubbed his chin. “I might have underestimated you.”
“I haven’t been in bed with a man since college,” I blurted.
“Women?”
I smacked him in the stomach. “No one.”
He let out a long sigh. “I haven’t either almost since the last time we saw each other. Twenty years ago,” he clarified.
I ached for what Alma had put him through. She didn’t realize what she’d thrown away. He wasn’t the easiest person to get to know, but I was the one who’d kept him at a distance.
She’d had a generous man. One who could be kind and tender. It had to have been terrible for him to suffer through such cold rejection. Even if he didn’t love her, didn’t crave her affections, no one wanted to be in a marriage like that.
I snuggled against him. Reluctantly, he put an arm around me. I tangled my legs with his. Our bare skin touched, electrifying me in the way only Kane could.
