Finding West (13 page)

I ran my palms along her smooth
body, this perfect balance of muscle and flesh that made up her lovely form. I slid my hands down her sides and finally brought a thumb to her clit, making her gasp with the contact.

“Is it sensitive?”
I asked, watching her expression.

“
Yes, but I can take it.”

“I know you can, Kat,” I said, drawing circles with my thumbs.

She bit her bottom lip
as I added a tiny fraction of pressure, continuing to slide in and out of her tight channel, feeling my climax start to build once again. My balls were so tight and heavy, my cock ready to explode.

“Do you like it when I rub your clit?” I asked hoarsely.
Speaking was almost impossible in my state, but I wanted to reach her in ways my body couldn’t. I wanted us connected, mentally and physically.

“Yes.”

“Show me how you touch yourself.”

Without hesitation, she
reached down between us and touched my cock as it slid in and out. When her middle finger was slick, she dragged it between her folds, gliding it up and down.

“Do you think about
different men when you touch yourself?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you thinking about other men right now?”

She shook her
head, her legs tightening around me. “No. Just you,” she breathed, her fingers increasing in speed. A few seconds later, she began to tremble from the inside out. “West!” she cried as she climaxed once again.

To hear that name
—my name—on her lips made me feel strangely complete. In that moment, as I moved in and out of her, I decided I didn’t need my old identity because it couldn’t beat what I had now. I was West and she was Kat and we were perfect.

I gripped her hip and drove deeper, rising with each stroke. I bent over and gripped her to me, lodged deep inside her when I started to come. “Kat…” I ground out, my face buried in the valley between her breasts. Her insides quivered around me and I came and came, giving her everything I had.

L
ater, Kat fit herself into the crook of my arm, resting her cheek against my chest. I was struck with how perfectly she fit, so right. She laid there, her fingers crossing over my skin, tracing the scars they encountered.

“Why do you have so many scars?” she asked. “
Were you some sort of fighter or something?”

“Maybe I’m a dangerous assassin sent here to kill you,” I joked.

“Yeah, you’re doing a terrific job of killing me.”

I patted her ass. “Maybe my M
.O. is to fuck you to death.”

I knew I’d said the wrong thing when her hand froze at my navel. “This is just fucking to you then?” she asked with that edge to her voice.

I wrapped my arm tighter around her, rolling her closer. “No.”

“Then what is this to you?”

“Honestly, I don’t know yet. But I do know it’s a hell of a lot more than just fucking.”

That seemed to mollify her; her hand continued its expl
oration, tangling her fingers into the hair on my lower stomach. She yawned, causing me to follow suit.

“Kat?” I asked before either one of us fell asleep.

“Yeah?”

“Tomorrow it’s my turn,” I said
with playful menace. “Tomorrow I take control.”

She laughed softly. “
We’ll see.”

~

That night I dreamed that I was back in that nursing home, talking to an old man with a deeply lined face and eyes like mine. He was suffering from Alzheimers and could no longer remember anything.

“Do you remember how you used to love to sing?” I asked
him. My question was met with a blank look. I persisted, sure that if I talked long enough I’d stumble upon something that would unlock his memories. “You tried to form a band with your friends but they were all too busy with their lives to take it seriously. You write songs at home, then attend open mic nights at bars.”

The old man shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs in his mind. “I don’t remember any songs. I only remember her.”

“Katherine Hollister,” I said with a bittersweet smile. “She loved listening to you sing. But you lost her.”

“Why?”

My mood darkened and the muscle in my chest cramped up. “Because you’re not a nice guy, Luke, and she finally figured it out.”

15

KAT

I woke up with a huge smile on my face. I was sore in so many places, but it was a pleasant kind of ache, a reminder of what had happened last night.

West and I had had sex.
Not only had he made me come twice, but I had also stayed in bed with him. Never in my twenty-five years of existence, had I stayed the night with a guy. This was a momentous—and fucking scary—event.

We
both slept on our sides facing each other, with my head tucked under his chin. His long arms were wrapped around me, and I’d be damned if it didn’t make me feel safe and wanted.

As carefully as possible, I shifted around so I could look at his sleeping face. Even with the wan light coming through the blinds,
the sight of him took my breath away.

Honestly, I had no idea how this gorgeous man could ever think
I
was beautiful—but hell, if he had weak eyesight, then who was I to buy him glasses?

I sighed.
It was official: I cared about him. I couldn’t deny it any longer.

Because I’m a complete hornball, I slid my hands down his back and cupped his ass, massaging his cheeks as I pulled him against me. I noted with a surprised gasp that he was already hard.

“Mmmm.” His hold tightened as he flung one brawny leg over me. He ducked his head under and nuzzled my neck. I laughed, tickled by his scruffy face as much as his good mood. “I could get used to waking up like this.”

“Hold on,” I said, wriggling out of his arms
and getting up. I walked to the window and opened the blinds, bathing the room in morning light.

West’s eyes were
burning as he watched my naked form crawling back onto the bed. “Come here,” he said, reaching out. “I want to bite your ass.”

I shook my head as I remained just out of his reach, grabbing a pillow and holding it up to my body. “I want to take a good look at you first.”

“Only if I can look at you too.”

I hesitated, feeling shy. I’d been drunk on desire last night and
under the cloak of darkness I’d had no qualms about being naked. I’d sobered since then and it was considerably brighter now, and my body, along with its flaws, was now clearly visible.

West tugged at the edge of the pillow I was holding. “If you’re too chicken, it’s okay
.”

I
knew exactly what he was doing, how he was manipulating me, but I reacted to it all the same. “I have nothing to be afraid of,” I said, launching the pillow at his face.

He folded the pillow under his head and grinned, but his eyes were more serious as they slowly took me in. I tried not to wither from his scrutiny. Instead I focused on his naked body, starting
at his long feet, traveling up his muscular legs, lightly covered in hair, and further still to those sexy indentations at his hips. My eyes flew to the dark thatch of hair at his crotch and the impressive length of flesh in the center of it. His cock jumped up a few times; I looked up at his face in surprise only to find him grinning.

“He says hi and wants you to shake his hand,” West said.

I shook my head, chuckling. “Let me guess, he also wants a morning kiss?”

West surged up to his knees and grabbed hold of my waist, holding me against his naked body. I swear, the sensation of bare skin against bare skin almost made me swoon.
If I was the swooning kind of girl, that is.

He started
to kiss me, but I turned my head to the side. “Morning breath.”

“So? I have it too,” he said and, with a hand on my cheek, turned me back to face him. “Kat, you’d better get used to this because I plan on kissing you every morning after we wake and I don’t think I have the patience to wait until after you brush your teeth.”

I rolled my eyes. “You are so romantic.”

He took hold of the back of my head, h
is eyes flicking down to my lips, leaning in, when a pounding on the front door interrupted us.

“Who the fuck could that be?” West g
rowled, sucking on my lower lip before releasing me.

I scrambled off the bed, throwing on his shirt and grabbing a pair of shorts in the chest of drawers. “I think my potty mouth has rubbed of on you.”

He grinned, falling back onto the bed. “There’s a joke in there somewhere about you rubbing other things on me.”

“I think you just made it.”

The knocking came again, more insistent this time. “Stay!” I told him and ran out the bedroom.

“I’m coming. Hold onto your nuts, for fuck’s sake.” Without checking the peephole, I flung open the front door
and was surprised to see the sheriff. “Drew?”

He was not in his uniform; instead Drew wore
jeans and a thick flannel jacket, his hands in his pockets. “Kat,” he said a little breathlessly, his eyes taking me in.

I crossed my arms over my braless chest. “Stop looking at me like that.”

He frowned. “Relax. I was just looking at your interesting outfit.”

“What? I wear men’s clothes all the time.”

Drew stepped inside, nodding sheepishly. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry for assuming you and that stranger were… you know. It’s just… you’re wearing his shirt.”

Huh. I found myself
with a dilemma—deny or confirm? Needless to say, I’d never been in this situation before, so I opted not to say anything about it at all. “Why the hell are you here anyway? You haven’t come out here in over a year.”

He scratched the back of his head, looking much younger than his age. “Actually, I drive out her
e once in a while to check up on you,” he said, then added quickly, “and Mrs. Fyfe and Franny down the road.”

Maybe it was the fact that I’d
just bared myself to a man the night before, but Drew’s confession gave me an unusual warm feeling in my chest. For once I didn’t want to punch him in the face for butting into my business. “Well, thanks. But you don’t have to worry about me. I’m okay.”

Drew’s eyes surveyed the room. “So where is he?”

“I think he’s still asleep.”

“And you two are getting along?”

I felt my face flush as I thought of the ways West and I were getting along. My body threatened to overheat at the memory of what we’d done… and what we had yet to do. “Yeah. Just peachy.”

Drew’s eyes narrowed. “You’re hiding something.”

“No I’m not.”

“You have two settings: angry and aloof. Right now you’re neither. Now, I might not have
trained in a big, fancy police academy but I got this job because I’m good at reading people,” he said and pointed a finger at me. “And you are hiding something.”

“Fuck off, Drew,” I said, giving him the finger. “There, you happy? Now if there’s nothing else, I still have some things to attend to.”

“Like putting up a tree,” he said, the fact that I didn’t have a single piece of Christmas decoration not escaping his notice.

“I don’t celebrate Christmas. I’m Buddhist
.” In actuality I was raised Christian but hadn’t wanted to put up a tree in a few years. It was just too much work and did nothing to cheer me during the holidays anyway.

He huffed impatiently. “
Right, and I’m a Scientologist.”

“You could be. You have that whacko look about you.”

“You think you’ll ever get tired of being a…” He let the sentence drop and huffed in anger.

“
A what, Drew?” I taunted. “A bitch, perhaps?”

He glared at me
. “I was going to say jerk. But asshole works too.” He reached inside his jacket and threw a gift on the dining table before charging to the front door. “Merry Christmas,” he said before slamming the door shut behind him.

“
Shit, I
am
a bitch,” I said, feeling guilty as I reached for the gift. Sure he’d goaded me, but I shouldn’t have risen to the occasion.

The gift
was wrapped in red Christmas paper with Santa Claus and reindeers all over it. I unwrapped it carefully, hoping that my doing so might help alleviate the guilt. Inside was a CD of Ray LaMontagne’s
Till the Sun Turns Black
. “He remembered,” I whispered.

“What?” West wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head.

I turned around, finding him wearing only jeans slung low over his hips. “It’s nothing,” I said, dropping the case back onto the table and standing on my toes to kiss him. This nearly naked man didn’t really need to know that when Drew had helped me move in, I’d bemoaned the fact that I’d lost my Ray LaMontagne CD along the way.

“One day you’ll tell me the story of you and Sheriff Drew,” West said, kissing my nose.
“But not today.” He bent over and effortlessly lifted me over his shoulder, taking long strides to my room. A second later, I was flying through the air as he threw me onto the bed.

“Easy there, Tiger. You might b
reak this dainty little lady,” I said, a little breathless from the fall.

He crawled onto the bed and crept over me like a predator
. “There is nothing dainty about you, Katherine Hollister,” he said in a husky voice that shot straight to my nether regions. He came closer until he was right on top of me, caging me in with his limbs. “You are strong and fearless and that’s what I love about you.”

A little thought niggled at the back of my head, wondering when it was that I’d told him my entire name, but
his eyes had me lost and his words had me tingling. “You
love
that about me?”

He gri
nned and, if it was possible, looked even sexier. “To be honest, Kat,” he said, dipping his head and kissing the sensitive skin on the underside of my jaw. “I don’t know where lust ends and love begins.”

I
fought the urge to moan and pushed against his wide chest. “You can’t possibly mean that. We haven’t even known each other that long. Love takes months, years to develop.”

He
pressed a soft kiss on my lips. “Does it?” he asked, and in that moment as we exchanged breaths, I could almost believe that love could take place in the space of a few days. This burn in my chest, this need to be as close to him as possible both in mind and body, only helped support that case.

“West, please don’t say shit like that.”

“Is it so hard to believe that someone could feel that way about you?” he asked, sitting up onto his haunches, straddling me with his legs. He took my hand and held it against this chest. “I came to your door a hollow man in more ways than one, but you filled me up. You gave this brain of mine something to think about and this heart of mine someone to care about. Is it so inconceivable, then, that I have fallen for you?”

His words were too pretty, too perfect
. Even in the haze of want, I saw the danger in them. “Yes.”

A look of irritation crossed over his features. “Then I’ll just have to show you,” he said and
grabbed the hem of my shirt, pulling it up and over my head. The shorts flew off me next, and I lay under him completely naked. He squeezed me by the hip bones and growled in appreciation. “Your body makes me want to do so many things.”

I raised an eyebrow. “
What kind of things?”

He leaned down and
whispered against my ear, “Wild and impolite things.” He bared his teeth, his hand trailing down to the wetness between my legs. “You think you can handle that?”

“And more.”
But I wasn’t so sure anymore when his hand made contact with my heat. I could have exploded with that alone. I gasped when he started mimicking my movements last night, sliding his middle finger up and down my folds, dipping into my cleft to tease at that nubby spot inside then slipping back out to tease me once more.

My back arched up
as the pressure began to increase. Just when I was getting close, he stopped. “What the hell?” I gasped.

He tsked. “So impatient.” He shuffled lower until he was kneeling between my legs, then he grabbed hold of my thighs, slung them over his shoulders, and went to town.

Holy fuckballs.

I’d never had anyone go down there before, never felt the nearly-overwhelming sensation of someone’s tongue touching me where I was most sensitive. It was hot and wet and a little rough, and holy hell, did it feel good.
I wouldn’t have gone without sex for so long if I’d known that’s what I was missing out on. Then again, the few men I’d been with had never even hinted at doing this. West was the first in the ways that mattered.

He slid a finger insi
de me and began to play with my g-spot again while his tongue worked me over, ramping up the pleasure to a million-gadjillion. My butt lifted up off the mattress in an effort to get more of him as I grabbed his head and shoved his face deeper into me.

My entire body was clenched and bowing off the bed when West made a rumbling noise with his
mouth that reverberated into me and set me off. I came with a silent cry, my eyes closed as the lower half of my body jerked and trembled with pleasure.