Laura Kaye - Hard As You Can

“Yes,” Shane said, even though a part of him was already dying inside. Before the first words left her mouth, he reined himself in, slipping on his medic hat and borrowing a bit of the professional distance you were trained to develop when working life-or-death situations.

He didn’t want to scare her with his rage.

Slowly, almost mechanically, Sara recounted the downward spiral of events that spun out of her father’s arrest and the revelation of his massive indebtedness to the Church gang after his death in prison. The loss of her house, her belongings, her freedom. When she got to the moment when the first of the men had entered the basement room of Confessions, Shane turned onto his back and urged her to lay her head on his shoulder so he could hold her close. Over the course of four or five days, seven men came to Sara’s room. Often individually, once a group. She was raped, caned, and whipped before Bruno finally pulled her out, took her under his wing, and found her another way she could pay her father’s debts.

Shane’s chest burned with rage and regret. It was every worst-case scenario he’d imagined come to life. Prostitution, sexual slavery, forced labor. What hadn’t she gone through in the past four years? Sara’s voice drew him out of his thoughts.

Being forced to work at Confessions was when Sara slowly faded away. After Bruno’s rescue, she formally dropped out of college, cared for her teenage sister, and, at Bruno’s insistence, took on a new name. “By the time I realized what had happened to my life, it was too late to get it back again.”

“I’m so sorry, Sara,” Shane managed, hugging her in tight and kissing her forehead. “If I could take it away and bear it for you, I would.”

She tilted her face toward his and met his eyes. “You just did,” she said. After a moment, she burrowed into his body, and her muscles relaxed against him.

Shane reveled in the fact she’d felt safe enough to bare her body and her soul to him this way. He swallowed hard as a revelation overwhelmed him. “I’ve never felt closer to another person than I do to you.”

When she didn’t respond, Shane lifted his head to find her eyes closed and her face slack. After the day she’d had and the memories she’d shared, he didn’t blame her one bit, and he didn’t mind, either. They’d have plenty more time to talk and to love.

Sara had fallen asleep without a shirt, so Shane tugged the edge of the covers up over her bare skin. They never had managed to get changed. No matter. Whatever she needed, he was willing to do. For Sara.

Sara. Sara. Sara. The name suited her beauty and her quiet strength so well.

Emotion lodged in Shane’s throat.

He didn’t just want to be there for her tonight or tomorrow or during this mission, however long it lasted. Miraculously, Shane was flirting with thoughts of forever. When this was all over, she could come back to Northern Virginia with him. Or if she wished to live somewhere else, he’d consider that, too. Wasn’t like he loved the job he had. But he definitely loved Sara. Now he just had to find a way to convince her that she didn’t have to go on the run. That he could provide her and Jenna—when they got her back, because they would—a safe future.

Because he couldn’t live with any other result.

Y ou’re wearing my shirt,” came Shane’s gravelly voice from behind her.

Only the palest of sunlight filtered in through the window. It was still early. Sara lay with her back against his front and smiled. “I woke up in the middle of the night and changed.”

He hummed approvingly and snuggled his face into her neck. Little kisses rained down against her skin there. Shane stretched behind her, and he thrust his hips into her bottom.

Hello, Mr. McCallan. He was hard and thick and ready.

Arousal shot through her body, peaking her nipples and setting her blood on fire—and waking her all the way up.

Jenna. Fear slammed into her anew. Her thoughts raced with worry over what had happened to her sister overnight. The possibilities were endless, and too many of them were unthinkably horrifying. God, Sara wished there was something she could do.

Shane’s hand rubbed across her stomach, small circles that had Sara wishing he’d wander up or down.

They would do something. Tonight. The plan was mostly set. So couldn’t she let herself be in this moment with Shane?

As if he’d read her wants, Shane’s hand slid up to caress the valley between her breasts, ratcheting her desire for his touch everywhere. Testing the waters—of her own reaction, not his—Sara ground herself against him.

His groan spilled into her ear and spiked her desire. No panic. No flashbacks.

Nothing but Shane’s incredible body and kind heart making her feel safe enough to consider taking a chance. The other night, he’d given her one of the most incredible orgasms of her life, and they’d been mostly dressed. Now she wanted more.

She rocked backward again, and a thrill shot through her belly when he met her thrust with one of his own. What would it like to be with him for real, nothing standing between them? “Oh, Sara,” he said gruffly.

That’s right. Not Crystal. Not anymore. And God did it feel good to reclaim herself after such a long time of locking herself away.

It was Shane who’d helped her find the courage to come back to herself—or at least start to. She wasn’t naïve. She knew it might be a rocky road. But she couldn’t get to the destination if she never took the first step.

Part of the journey had been embracing Sara in place of Crystal, part of it had been coming out of hiding about what had happened to her, and part of it involved reestablishing control over her body.

And that had her thinking about the incredibly sexy and very definitely aroused man holding her tight against him.

After everything he’d done for her, Sara was ready for more of him. For all of him. And given how full her heart was with love for him—because that’s definitely what it was—Shane was the only man she wanted.

Shifting onto her back, she peered up into Shane’s heavy-lidded gaze. “I want you,” she said, the foreign admission of desire sending a zing of energy through her.

In the dim morning light, Shane rolled over, bringing his chest atop hers. The initial press of his weight created a phantom wave of panic that receded almost as quickly as it’d come. The minute her brain registered his scent and the increasing familiarity of his touch, she’d calmed again.

“God, I want you, too,” he said, claiming her mouth with a hungry kiss that soon grew urgent. Shane kissed, nipped, licked, and stroked until Sara was breathless and wet. He worshipped her neck, her collarbones, and, undoing the top few buttons, her chest.

With no secrets between them, Sara was able to relax as Shane kissed the soft mounds of her breasts, flicked at her nipples with his tongue, and sucked the rosy buds in deep. Her heart kicked into a staccato rhythm fueled entirely by desire, something she hadn’t felt in so, so long.

Sara stroked Shane’s hair and explored his shoulders and back. She loved the feel of him, and loved even more that she felt free to participate in this act in a way that was never true with Bruno. “Come here,” she said, pulling him back to her mouth.

He didn’t hesitate one second. Sara lifted her head to kiss him, taking his face in her hands, pushing her tongue into his mouth, swallowing the delicious groan her actions unleashed. When he finally pulled back, more light had filtered into the room, allowing Sara to see that his scorching gray gaze mirrored her own desire back at her. That someone so handsome and so good could know all the things about her she’d thought so ugly and undesirable and still want her was a miracle for which she’d always be grateful.