Later that afternoon, I grab a nap in my room. I don’t ask for permission and refuse to feel guilty when everyone else carries on with their chores. They chose this life. If they want to run themselves ragged, that’s their choice.
It’s a lifestyle I can’t even begin to understand. I learned yesterday that Ross and Mel have made huge financial and personal sacrifices for the sanctuary. Not even their evenings are free. Mel spends most of her nights tackling piles of paperwork, while Ross is on the phone sourcing funding for the sanctuary and writing animal welfare articles.
A tap on my door wakes me up. I sit up in bed just as Kane enters my room. Troubling heat floods my belly at the sight of his broad shoulders, muscular body, and irritatingly handsome face.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
I take a sip of the water on my bedside table. “I’m aching in places I never thought possible.”
“Hard work will do that to you.”
Annoyance rises up. “Here we go again. The noble kidnapper lecturing the spoiled princess.”
He frowns. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
I stand and face him, my heart beating too fast. I’ve had enough of him claiming the moral high ground. “I think that’s exactly how you meant it.”
Kane eyes me warily. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
“Says the person on the wrong side of the law.”
But my snappy retort is spoiled because my gaze keeps drifting to his mouth. Of course, he notices. He’s a man who notices everything.
For a breathless moment, we stare at one another.
Then he says, “I think I better leave.”
“Yes, run away,” I mock, the words knocking aside all my carefully constructed barriers of caution in their rush to touch something in him. “That’s what you do best.”
Judging by the tightening of his jaw and the energy radiating off him, I’m getting to him. The problem is, he’s getting to me as well.
The air between us thrums with tension.
He steps closer. I remain rooted to the spot.
“What are you pushing for?” he asks in a low voice.
“What do you think?” I whisper, my breath quickening.
For four, maybe five, heartbeats, he stands there, the conflict playing out on his face. Then he closes the distance between us and says roughly, “Remember, you asked for this.”
He takes my face in his hands and his mouth comes down on mine. My senses flare with the taste of him, the dry scrape of his stubble against my skin, the warmth of his mouth. Heat pours through me. I dig my nails into his shoulders and his hands slide across my back, crushing me against him.
AndI wish... I wish with a painful, hopeless kind of desperation that Kane was a businessman I met at a cocktail party, with a tuxedo taming that powerful body, ladies covertly eyeing his rugged attractiveness, but his gaze fixed only on me.
The kiss slows and deepens. Kane’s hands move up my spine, his fingers tangling in my hair. My joints become loose and soft, and I press closer to him. A moan slips from my throat.
Instantly, he pulls back, setting me away from him. His cheekbones are flushed, his eyes blazing with desire.
I stare at him in a daze, still staggering from the impact of the kiss and the suddenness of his withdrawal.
We stare at one another in silence, our breathing labored and uneven.
Finally, Kane breaks the silence with a hard laugh, his lips twisted with self-loathing. “You represent everything I’m fighting against,” he forces out, his hands clenching and unclenching, as if it’s my throat in his grip. “I look at you, at your life, and I can’t stand you.” His voice drops to a rough whisper. “Yet I still want you. I can’t get you out of my head and it’s driving me crazy.”
I draw in a shaky breath. My eyes burn. I pushed him to this and now I’m paying the price.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he says, his expression tortured. “It seems all I’m doing is hurting you and apologizing afterward.”
