Having Her: Lies We Tell, Book 2 Read online

  Her expression changed. Became softer. She moved, pressed a kiss to his mouth, fleeting and soft. “Shall I change?”

  And in his hazy, drunken brain, it suddenly became clear why he was here. He’d come for her. She’d seen what he had to deal with. She’d seen his mother screaming on the floor. She’d seen him exhausted and at the end of his rope. She’d seen everything. And he didn’t have to explain or talk about it because she knew. Because she’d been there too.

  He lifted a hand and touched her cheek. “No. I don’t want a slave tonight. I want you.”

  “Me?” The word sounded almost shocked. “Are you sure? I could go get the costume—”

  “I’m sure. Kara, please.”

  She stared at him and he couldn’t interpret the look on her face now. Then she said, “Lie back.”

  He lay back on the bed, closed his eyes. And he felt her hands on his chest, on his arms, stroking him lightly, gently. Exploring him. Then her mouth at his throat, trailing kisses around his collarbone and down, the flick of her tongue against his nipples, light tracing fingers on his abs.

  So good to be touched like this. So good be touched at all. The gentleness of her, the hesitancy of her touches, as if she wasn’t sure she should be doing this. Then her growing confidence that sent a crack straight through his heart.

  He kept his eyes closed, let her explore. And when she stripped his jeans and boxers from him, he lifted his hips to help her. She ran her hands up his thighs, wrapped her fingers around his cock, the touch tearing a groan from him. Then she squeezed and the groan became a growl. “That’s right, baby girl. Just like that.”

  She stroked him, made him ache. Made him want to push her beneath him and bury himself inside her. Take control. But he didn’t. Screw control. He didn’t need it. Not tonight.

  Kara moved, holding him. Then he felt her tongue on his cock, swirling around the aching head, delicate little licks like a cat.

  The breath hissed in his throat and he arched back into the mattress, fire streaking straight up his spine. Then heat engulfed him as she took him into her mouth.

  “Oh fuck, Kara.” Pleasure hit him, a wave of it spinning him around, taking him away. Turning him over and over in a current made only of sensation. Of the wet heat of her mouth and the softness of her hair over his thighs.

  Vin reached down, tangled his fingers in that softness, lifted his hips, driving himself into her mouth until it was so fucking good he couldn’t stand it. “Baby, wait,” he groaned, wanting to pull away so he could take her, too, but by then it was too late.

  She took control, pushed him over the edge, pleasure exploding in his brain like a hammer blow and all he could was lie there as the climax gripped him tight, wringing him dry.

  And afterwards, when the vicious pull of it had lessened, he just didn’t have the energy to move, a delicious lassitude creeping up on him.

  He felt like he’d left something unfinished but he couldn’t seem to remember what it was. At the end there was a cool hand on his head and a voice in his ear telling him to sleep.

  So he did.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kara woke up feeling trapped. Again. A heavy arm snaked around her and over her stomach, a hand pressing between her breasts. A possessive kind of hold.

  She lay there for a moment, her eyes closed, enjoying the sensation. It felt good to be held like that. As if she wasn’t allowed to get away or escape. Not that she wanted to. In fact there was nothing much she wanted to do but lie here in Vin’s arms.

  After a moment, the body lying curved around hers moved, hot bare skin shifting against her back. A muscular thigh eased between her own, pressing gently against her sex. She shivered, desire igniting in her blood.

  She hadn’t been able to resist crawling into bed with Vin. He’d gone to sleep so quickly, the vodka and the orgasm doing their work almost too well. She hadn’t minded.

  “I don’t want the slave tonight. I want you.”

  She knew he wanted her. Shit, she’d always known that. But it hadn’t been until he’d said those words that she’d truly believed his desire wasn’t just because she fulfilled his need for control. That it was her, Kara, that he wanted. Not only the slave girl.

  And it hadn’t been until that moment that she understood she wanted to be more than that for him too. She knew he didn’t feel about her the way she felt about him but that didn’t mean she had to hold back. He wanted her. He wanted Kara in all her fucked-up glory.

  So that’s what she’d given him.

  At first she’d been hesitant, used to the master-slave dynamic during sex, but that hesitancy had soon gone by the wayside. She hadn’t touched him for so long and he was so beautiful. All tanned skin and sculpted muscle. Not an ounce of fat on him. The legacy of his hard, physical job.

  It had been intoxicating. The way she’d made him shake, made him moan, made him cry her name. For once she’d had the control, the power and the confidence, and she’d loved every second of it.

  She hadn’t even cared that he’d gone to sleep, only getting in beside him and wrapping her arms around him. Warming herself against his heat. Feeling so good that finally she’d been able to give him something. A measure of the peace he’d once given her.

  The hand between her breasts shifted, sliding down and under her T-shirt, his palm sliding over her bare skin. She let out a small, ragged breath as he cupped one breast, his thumb gently tracing around her nipple. It hardened beneath his touch.

  “Hey,” he murmured in her ear, his voice soft and roughened with sleep. “I’m sorry. I was selfish last night.”

  “You’d had four shots of vodka and an orgasm. I would have been amazed if you’d stayed awake more than two seconds.”

  He shifted again, the heat of his erection against her hip. His thigh pressed a little harder and she found herself pushing down onto it, the friction tantalizing her. “Yeah, but still. Given the quality of the orgasm, you deserved more than me going to sleep on you.”

  You deserved more…

  Yeah. She was starting to think she bloody did. “Such as?”

  “Such as me returning the favor.” His fingers pinched her nipple, sending a bolt of pleasure straight to her sex.

  Kara shivered against him. “And here was I thinking we weren’t sleeping together again.”

  “This isn’t sleeping.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I can’t change my mind?” A very conscious imitation of her words the day before. His hand shifted beneath her, curling under her arm, sliding under her T-shirt. His other hand cupping her other breast. Doing the same thing, thumb circling her nipple then brushing over it. Pinching gently. The breath escaped her. She could feel herself getting wet. Aching for him.

  “I think we need this, baby,” he murmured against the back of her neck. “Both of us do. It’s better than pain. Better than vodka. And I just don’t think I can keep my hands off you when I’m close to you.”

  He was right. They did need this. The release. The comfort. The connection with another person. Hell, not just another person. It was each other they needed.

  She would never find this with another man. She would never love another man. It would only ever be him because there was no other person who understood what she needed like he did.

  “Yes,” she said, arching against him, gasping as his fingers brushed her now button-hard nipples. “Yes, do it.” She lifted her hips, working herself against his thigh. Desperate for more contact, for more friction.

  The feel of him naked against her was amazing. Always it was she who was naked, he who was clothed. Now their positions were reversed and it was an insane turn-on.

  He kissed her behind her ear, bit her gently at the sensitive point where shoulder met neck. Not as hard as he’d done that time in her bathroom, but enough to add a sharp edge to the pleasure.

  “Easy,” he murmured as she trembled, his kiss soothing at the same time as his hands incited.

  “Oh
…don’t…I can’t…”

  “Hush.” His breath slid over her shoulder, pleasure twisting harder inside her as he moved a hand down, stroking over her stomach. Sliding under the waistband of her panties, pushing through the damp curls between her thighs.

  “Oh…Vin…”

  His clever fingers stroked through the wet folds of her sex. Then he shifted suddenly, tugging down her panties, pulling them off her. Turning her over onto her back, he gently pressed her thighs apart and Kara’s breath caught.

  She trembled, feeling open and exposed. Laid bare to his gaze. “You meant it, didn’t you?” she whispered. “Last night. When you said you wanted me?”

  He didn’t smile for reassurance. Just gave her that hard, level look that was by now familiar to her. “You really have to ask me that question? After all that stuff I told you last night about how beautiful and sexy you were?”

  “You were drunk. And…no one’s ever wanted me, Vin. Not one single person.”

  That piercing gaze remained on hers, searching. “You think I came here last night only for the vodka? Shit, if I’d wanted that I could have gone to the nearest booze shop. No, I came for you, Kara.” He said it so firmly and with so much certainty there was no denying it. “And now I want you to lie there and let me give you what you gave me last night.”

  She couldn’t speak, a dense, heavy emotion sitting in her throat.

  “It’s okay, baby,” he said, his voice softening, becoming even rougher. “It’ll be good, I promise.”

  Of course it would be. It always was with him.

  He shifted lower between her thighs, spreading her open. Then his head bent and his mouth covered her.

  She let out a strangled cry.

  His tongue flicked over her clit lightly before pushing inside her. Tasting her. She lifted her hips but his hands gripped her hard, holding her down onto the bed as he began to explore her, taking his time like she was a landscape he wanted to map and had to do so slowly and carefully in case he missed something.

  She closed her eyes as the pleasure wound tighter and tighter. And it felt like she was leaving herself behind. Not just shedding her skin but erupting out of it. Becoming something else.

  Something without the self-doubt and the anguish. The guilt and the worthlessness. Something better. More truly herself than she’d ever been.

  She reached down, threaded her fingers in the softness of his hair, tangled them tight. Gasped his name, giving herself up to him totally.

  He murmured against her skin, encouraging words, erotic words. Words that added to the fire. “Fuck, you taste good. Like honey.” He slid his hands behind her knees, lifting them up and over his shoulders, teasing her clit with short, hard licks while he slid his fingers inside her. “God, I could eat you forever, baby, and never get tired of it.”

  “Oh, Jesus…Vin…” Her hands twisted in the sheets, the pleasure building to levels she couldn’t contain. Couldn’t keep inside. But then she didn’t want to. She wanted to break out of the cocoon she’d been in. Break out of her whole goddamned life.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” he murmured in a dark, hungry voice. “Give it to me, baby girl. Give it all to me.”

  Kara put her head back and cried out in ecstasy as Vin drove her over the edge, feeling herself fly free. Weightless. And when she came back down to earth, she knew that nothing would ever be the same again. She was different. Changed.

  She lay there still shivering with the aftershocks as he turned her on her side, sliding up behind her, one arm pushing underneath her to wrap around her waist, holding her against him. His other hand gently coaxed her knee up, hooking it behind his. Then he shifted his knee out, easing her leg wide, positioning himself. And slid into her, deep and slow.

  Kara groaned, still far too sensitive for the hard length of him. But his arms circled her, holding her tight until her breathing had slowed and she could manage. Then he reached for her chin, turned her head, leaned forward and took her mouth in a shattering kiss. She could taste herself on him, a small electric thrill of arousal shocking her.

  Vin began to move, slowly, carefully, and she didn’t think she could do it again, the last orgasm had been so intense. But somehow she was there once more, in the middle of a current, surrounded by his body, by his heat, by the taste and feel of him.

  For the first time in her life, she felt totally protected. Totally safe.

  For the first time in her life she felt she was home.

  She twined around him like a vine, kissing, moving restlessly, the sensation building and building until he took them both over again, until they were shaking and panting and breathless.

  And when it was over, Vin pulled her in close, keeping a tight hold of her as if he couldn’t let her go.

  Neither of them said anything for long moments.

  “Why didn’t you stay in the car yesterday?” he said at last.

  “I told you, I wanted to help. Was that so bad?”

  “It is when your pregnant partner is close to your violent, schizophrenic mother in the middle of a psychotic episode.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  She felt his head turn, his breathing warm on the back of her neck. “I did tell you stay in the car for a reason.”

  “When have I ever done what you told me? Apart from the slave stuff, naturally.”

  His arm tightened around her. “You should have.”

  “I know. But…you have to deal with so much stuff on your own, Vin. And it’s not fair.”

  “It’s not about fairness.”

  “Yeah, yeah, life’s not fair, right? I just think…you shouldn’t have to do it all by yourself. You’re helping me with the baby. Why shouldn’t I help you with your mum?”

  Silence behind her. Just the sound of his breathing.

  Then he said bleakly, “You can’t help. She’s not ever going to get better.”

  Kara put her hands over his where they rested on her stomach. “No. Maybe I can’t help her. But I can help you.”

  “Why?” His voice was a whisper. “Why would you want to help me?”

  “Because I know what’s it like to feel you’re alone.”

  He said nothing and she wondered if she’d perhaps overstepped the mark or gone too far somehow. But it was too late to take it back and besides, she didn’t want to. Things had changed.

  “She tied herself to the towel rail. Do you know why?” he said at last.

  “No. Why?”

  “Because she has a demon in her head that tells her to kill. And she’s terrified she’ll obey so she ties herself up so she can’t. That’s also why you couldn’t find a knife in her apartment. I took them all away. She can’t have them, not even an ordinary butter knife.”

  Kara went very still, afraid even to breathe in case he stopped talking.

  “She was okay when Dad left,” Vin went on. “At least for the first year. But then her episodes got progressively worse. She drank and wouldn’t take her meds, which didn’t help. And then, when I was seventeen, I caught her outside Ellie’s room with a knife in her hand. The demon told her to kill her daughter so that’s what she was going to do.”

  “Oh my God,” Kara whispered, the breath freezing in her chest.

  “I knew I couldn’t leave her alone with Ellie after that,” Vin said, his voice going flat. “I had to lock away the kitchen knives in a safe too, just to be sure.”

  He had to deal with that. At fifteen. God, that was too young to be responsible for his own parent. Too young to be a parent to his own little sister. And she should know—she too had been made to take responsibility far too young.

  He’d always seemed such a control-freak. Now she knew why.

  She blinked fiercely, her eyes prickling with tears. “You never got help?”

  “Help?” A bitter laugh. “What help? Social services? The medical profession?”

  “What about your dad? Did you ever try and get in touch—”

  “Fuck no. He ditched al
l responsibility the moment he walked out that door. And there was only one other person who cared enough to protect Ellie and save Lillian from herself and that person was me. I had no help and I didn’t need it.”

  God, no wonder he was hard. No wonder he took everything so damn seriously. He’d had to shoulder such a tremendous burden. “Ellie doesn’t know, does she? I mean about how sick your mother is?”

  “No. She doesn’t. And she never will.”

  Kara couldn’t argue with that. Knowing your own mother wanted to kill you—even if she was sick—would be a pretty terrible thing.

  “I won’t tell her,” she said thickly. “I promise.”

  Vin said nothing. Just held her. But she could feel the weight of his anger and frustration and grief pushing against her like a tide.

  She couldn’t let this stand. She couldn’t let him do this alone.

  Pushing at his arms, Kara wriggled out of his grip.

  “Hey,” Vin protested, “where are you going?”

  She didn’t answer, slipping from the bed and going over to the chest of drawers near the door.

  “Kara?”

  Ignoring him, she knelt and pulled open the bottom drawer. The collar was there where she’d left it, wrapped in an old T-shirt. She got it out, unwrapped it, then stood and went over to her dresser, taking the little key from an old metal tin she used as a jewelry box.

  Finally she turned to face him.

  He was sitting up, staring at her in puzzlement, the white sheets a perfect foil to his tanned skin.

  Kara crossed to the bed then sat on the edge of it, her back to him. “Help me do this up,” she said as she slid the cool metal of the collar around her neck.

  Behind her she could almost feel his surprise. There was a moment of hesitation then his fingers brushing her skin and the snap of the padlock shutting.

  Mine. Yes. He was hers.

  She turned, met his dark blue gaze. “Any time you need vodka. Or me. I’m here for you. Understand?” Then she held out the key. “This is yours.”