Beth Andrews - Small-Town Redemption

And what she wanted was Kane.

“Take me to bed,” she told him, albeit a bit shakily. “Now.”

* * *

WHY HIM?

Kane sighed, the movement causing his shoulders to rise and fall, which in turn caused Red’s breasts to brush against his chest. She didn’t have a lot going on in that department, but she had enough for his body to notice.

Hell.

Reaching behind his neck, he tugged her hands apart, then set her away from him. “Sorry, Red. Not interested.”

He went into the kitchen, but not before seeing the hurt, the embarrassment, cross her face.

Not his problem, he told himself, pouring more coffee into his cup. It wasn’t up to him to soothe or coddle her. She’d come here, had come to him. He hadn’t asked for her attention or her clumsy attempts at seduction.

She stomped after him, the embodiment of a woman scorned, complete with narrowed eyes and red splotches coloring her cheeks. She’d come to him and obviously wasn’t in a hurry to leave.

“What do you mean you’re not interested?” she asked, sounding incredulous. Disbelieving. “You’re a man. I’m a woman.”

Sipping his coffee, he looked her up and down. Her hair, red as a clown’s wig and stick-straight, fell past her shoulders. Heavy makeup hid the freckles on her nose and upper cheeks. She’d done something to her eyes, had lined them in thick black, used dark shadow on the lids then coated her pale lashes with what looked to be several layers of mascara. Her lips were a glossy pink.

She looked like a kid who’d gotten into her mother’s makeup.

“Just what I meant,” he said. “Not interested.”

Maybe he’d been a little bit interested a few minutes ago. She was right about one thing; he was a man. And she had been plastered against him. Not that skinny women with bad attitudes did much for him, but her hands had been soft on his arm, her fingers warm. And, he had to admit, she smelled good, really good, her perfume subtle and sweet. A contrast to her do-me heels and the permanent scowl she wore around him.

Practically vibrating with fury, she slapped her hands on her hips, the move tugging her shirt open and giving him a glimpse of smooth, creamy skin and the edge of a lacy black bra.

His body stirred. It was that damn man thing again.

“Oh, no. You are not doing this to me. Do you have any idea how long it took me to straighten my hair?” she asked, jabbing at her head hard enough to drill her finger right into her brain. “I can’t breathe, my feet hurt and I paid one hundred dollars for this stupid push-up bra.”

He let his gaze drop to her chest for one long, lazy moment. When he raised his eyes back to hers, she swallowed visibly. He smirked. “You might want to get your money back.”

She blanched before color rushed into her cheeks. She opened her mouth, no doubt to lay him flat, but then she shut her eyes and inhaled deeply, which, admittedly, did some interesting things to those small breasts.

On second thought, maybe that bra had been a good investment.

She opened her eyes, the glint in the light blue depths warning him he may have made a misstep.

Wouldn’t be his first.

She stormed up to him, all painted-on jeans, long legs and bad humor. “We are going to have sex, you hear me?” To punctuate her statement, she undid the top button of her shirt.

Kane paused in the middle of taking another sip of coffee. Raised an eyebrow. It was a bluff, that single button. It had to be. She didn’t have the guts to undo another one.

He hoped.

“Right here,” she continued, proving him wrong by yanking another one free. “Right now.” And another. “So stop pretending to be noble and take what is being offered to you.”

She dragged her shirt off her arms and threw it on the ground like a football player spiking the ball after a touchdown. Held his gaze, her breathing ragged, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her pale skin fairly glowing in his dimly lit kitchen.

His body responded to the sight of the soft curve of her breasts, her flat stomach and the ever-so-slight indentation of her narrow waist, and he considered, seriously considered, doing just that. Whether it was due to her being half-naked, his recent sexual dry spell or simply his resistance being down didn’t matter. In that moment, he wanted her. It pissed him off, this sudden, vicious need to have her.

Again and again and again.

That’s what his father would have done. What Kane had been brought up to do. Take what was so easily offered, so carelessly given. He’d been born into a wealthy family. A powerful one. Raised to believe he was better than others by virtue of his last name and his father’s financial worth.

Throw in his looks, and there had never been a shortage of available females ready and willing to do whatever it took to make Kane happy. To get his attention, to be on his arm—or in his bed.

There was a time when he wouldn’t have cared that Red was his employee’s sister, that they barely knew each other. That she didn’t want him so much as she wanted to use him. He would have used her, too, then set her aside without another thought or care.

He liked to think he wasn’t that big of a prick anymore.

“Seriously?” Red asked through gritted teeth, her arms splayed as if to point out she was, indeed, partially naked and offering herself to him. “This is something you have to think about?”

“No,” he told her in all honesty as he set his mug down. “I don’t have to think about it at all.”

He closed the distance between them, noted how she started to step back before catching herself. She lifted her chin as if facing the grim reaper head-on.

Kane moved closer, stopping shy of actually touching her. “You want me, Red?”

Her eyes widened. She licked her lips. “Yes,” she said, holding his gaze, all stoic and brave, her pale skin beckoning him to touch, the pulse beating rapidly at the base of her throat enticing him to taste. Her scent wrapped around him, making him want something he had no business wanting, something he never would have even considered before she barged into his apartment and stripped off her shirt.

“You want me to touch you?” he asked, his voice rough, his caress whisper-soft as he slowly trailed his fingertips up her arms.

A blush started at the base of her throat, bloomed in her cheeks. He wanted to press his lips to the side of her neck, to feel the warmth of that color washing over her skin. She swallowed hard, then nodded once, a quick jerk of her head.

He’d known she was irritable, temperamental and overbearing. He never would have guessed she was also a liar.

He settled his hands on her shoulders, kept his touch light. Impersonal. “You want to have sex with me? You want me to make you come? Because that’s what I’d do if you were in my bed. I’d strip you bare,” he murmured, for some reason envisioning doing just that. In intimate detail. Scowling, he forced the image from his head. “I’d touch you everywhere with my hands, my lips.” He leaned in, put his mouth close to her ear. “My tongue.”

Gasping, she reared back, her spine hitting the counter with a sharp thud. She pressed herself against it as if that alone could stop his words, could stop him from coming closer.

It couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Not yet. Not until he’d made his point and made it well.

“Or maybe you don’t want something as ordinary as sex in a bed,” he continued quietly. Relentlessly. “Something as mundane as soft touches and reverent kisses.”

He nudged one thigh between her legs, ignored how she stiffened, her hands going to his chest. She didn’t push him away, stubborn thing that she was. But her fingers trembled against him.

“I...” Her nails dug into his skin. She cleared her throat. “A bed is...fine.”