Chapter 13

thirteen

Nevaeh

Who knew rockstars were so busy?

Kane is almost never home. Since moving in, I’ve thoroughly explored the house, apart from his studio/office, and his room.

I’m not complaining that he’s always off working, because I’ve been working, too. Taking so much time off after the attack set me back more than I thought, and I still haven’t caught up.

But I’ve been looking at the screen of my laptop for so long, I’m starting to see double, so it’s time to shut it down. Besides, I asked Kane to be home for dinner tonight, and he promised he would be.

After scouring Pinterest again for a recipe, I settled on enchiladas. Only, I decided to stick with Mom’s recipe rather than follow a new and untried to me recipe from the Internet. Mom’s enchiladas are freaking fabulous anyway, so I figure they’ll be a hit with Kane, who I have yet to see complain about anything he eats.

With the goods in the oven, I hurry to my bedroom to change into something nice. Tonight is the night I get to know my soon-to-be husband.

I’m just changing into a cute little white dress when I hear the door open and voices—voices—echoing down the hall.

My heart lurches in disappointment and alarm. Apart from Candace, we haven’t had anyone over.

Why wouldn’t he tell me he was inviting people?

I feel foolish now in my dress with my hair done in beachy waves because I let it dry in braids while I worked. I’m even wearing makeup, something I haven’t bothered with.

Urgh, I want to strip it all off, throw my hair into a bun and hide under my covers.

I’m not ready to meet his friends, because his friends are more than likely the rest of Devils Heartbreak, and ain’t no woman ready for that.

I’m reaching up behind my back for the zipper of my dress, having tugged it down, when a knock sounds on my door. I freeze, heart pounding, eyes big as I stare at it with the kind of fear one might stare at a portal to the underworld.

Oh no. Oh God. Oh no. “Nononono.”

Now I’m struggling to pull the zipper back into place, but it’s never as easy to get the damn things up.

“Coming in, Sunshine,” Kane’s voice sounds through the door. A squeak of distress is the only thing to leave my lips as the knob twists, and he slips inside.

I freeze as though I’ve been caught in the act. In a way, I kind of have. Here I was, trying to make myself pretty for my fake—what the hell is he supposed to be? My fake fiancé? Fake boyfriend? What?

Either way, I’d been trying to doll myself up for him in the hopes of—what—I don’t even know.

Ugh. I’m a fool.

A big, overdressed, overdone fool.

His eyes do a full sweep, boiling the blood under my skin. I just know he can see the blush in every part of me, because I swear, I see the ice in his eyes melt as he comes closer.

“You pissed at me, Sunshine?”

“Wh—what?” I’m still struggling with the zipper. Although I’m trying to do it non-chalantly so he might not notice. Stupid dress, I’m starting to sweat. “Why would you think I’m mad at you?”

“Haven’t answered a single text I sent in the last three hours.” I shiver at the way he prowls closer, his big body taking up so much space in the big room. I swallow hard. He continues, “Makes a man think one of two things.”

“What are those?”

“His woman’s left him. Or she’s pissed at him.” His head tips slightly to the side. “Know you didn’t leave, because not a single alarm was triggered on any of the doors, so that leaves me with pissed.” He stops a breath away from me, angling his head in a way that makes me feel dwarfed by him. I hate that I love it. “So, I’ll ask again, you pissed, Sunshine?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Then why ignore my attempts to reach you?”

“I was cooking.” Why am I so breathless? “I had the music up loud. I couldn’t figure out how to connect my phone to your system—so the texts didn’t come through what I was listening to. I—I’m sorry.”

“You haven’t thought to check your phone in three hours?”

I shake my head again, giving up and dropping my hands to my sides. Screw this stupid dress. “I was otherwise distracted.”

His eyes drop again. Even though I’ve never been so hot in my life, I shiver.

His voice pitches deliciously low. “I see that.” He wets his lips as his eyes feast on every inch of me. “You look beautiful.” His eyes come back to mine, and he asks brazenly, “For me?”

Scorched. I’m scorched. If he doesn’t stop looking at me like that, I’ll be reduced to cinders.

“It was, um, for you,” I stutter. “But I hear you’ve brought friends.”

“The guys.” His lips pull in a small smirk. “You’d know if you read your messages. Though, had I known what you had for me, I would’ve told them fuck no when they asked to come tonight.”

My breath shudders. “I guess we need to communicate better, don’t we?”

“We have time to practice,” he murmurs a promise that makes me feel even warmer. I can practically taste the sin on his breath. “Fuck, I like this dress.”

“I can’t get the zipper up.” My breath catches when a big hand lands on my waist, and he starts to circle around to my back, dragging his hand across my belly as he goes. The sensation of his heavy touch, his big hand on me like that, like it’s his right—it nearly brings me to my knees.

“Let me,” he rumbles into my hair. It’s all I can do to bite back my moan. The shudder that rolls through me? Yeah, I have no hope of stifling that.

I’m not even sure I’m breathing when he hooks the tiny zipper between big fingers, slowly inching it up the length of my spine. Kane drags his rough knuckle over every smooth inch of my spine as he tugs the zipper into place. But before I can move away or spin to face him, he gathers my mass of beach wavy hair into his big fist, pushing it over one shoulder.

His breathing sounds ragged as he dips his head. I feel warm, smooth lips and rough stubble against the bare skin of my shoulder blade. I can’t move. I can’t even breathe as I stand rooted in place. My heart is thundering to a rhythm of Kane’s creation as I stand in front of him, my eyes drifting shut as he kisses a trail from my shoulder blade to the soft curve of my shoulder and neck. The nip of his short stubble into my soft skin has a pressure building between my legs that shouldn’t be building for a touch so simple. But it is.

When his big hand moves from my back around my waist to pulse in a gentle squeeze, I breathe his name, “Kane,” even as I let my head drift to the side, giving him more access.

Not a man to be offered something and fail to take, Kane parts his lips against my skin. His tongue is hot as it flicks my flesh, and my knees really do wobble this time—but it’s when he gives me a gentle nip with his teeth that they fail me.

Kane’s ready for it, though. He catches me with his palm in my belly, pulling me back into his hard front. It’s not the only thing that’s hard, though. I can feel the press of his arousal now against my back. I want to feel it in other places.

I want him to throw me on the bed and have his way with me. Ravish me properly like all the men before him failed to do.

“Kane,” I breathe again as a bellow yells the same from the other side of the door.

It’s enough to pull me back into the present. Into reality.

I jump in his arms, trying and failing, to jump out of them.

“A minute,” Kane barks back, and I flinch. Both at his tone and the fact that I’d been seconds away from begging him to fuck me.

This is fake. Fake. Fake. Fake. Fake!

Don’t complicate it with sex, Nevaeh. You’ve never been the kind of woman who can separate sex from emotions, so know better.

Dammit. I know better.

“Sunshine?” Kane calls when the footsteps and laughter drift away down the hall.

I spin in his arms, forcing myself to look at him. “We can’t lose control like that again, Kane. There needs to be boundaries, so we don’t get confused.”

“I’m not confused.”

I pull in air through my nose and let it out slowly the same. “You might be experienced at checking your emotions at the door when you fuck someone, but I’m not.”

Why am I angry?Oh, maybe it’s because I’m still throbbing between my legs and I left my box of vibrators in my nightstand at the apartment—and I told Kane everything the movers packed could be taken to storage, so my vibrators are all there.

Kane frowns. He’s still sporting the raging erection I really should know better than to play with, considering how threatening it is even behind his jeans, but I think I’ve pissed him off. I don’t know why the thought is somehow thrilling.

“I don’t want to hear about all the men you’ve fucked in the past, Nevaeh.”

My mouth pops open. “It’s not like there’s a whole team of them!”

His eyes close, like he’s trying to reign control of his temper. “Fuck.”

“I’ve had four partners, Kane.” I don’t know why I press on. Death wish, I suppose. “And you know what, sex sucks. So how about we just keep it friendly and uncomplicated between us, okay? Simple and clean, like we agreed when we made the deal.”

He leans in, growling, “That’s the last time you talk to me about the boys you’ve let inside that body, Sunshine. Won’t tell you again, understand?”

“What?” A thrill I don’t understand goes through me when a muscle in his hard jaw jumps.

“You’re to be my wife, and I’m a jealous, possessive man.” His voice is darkly, deliciously low. “You fuck me, or you fuck no one. You think of fucking me, or you think of fucking no one. And there’s nothing friendly and uncomplicated between us, Sunshine. For the year you’re my wife, I’ll think of being inside only you.” Oh, holy hell. I shouldn’t like that. I really shouldn’t, but I do. Boundaries. “We have a show to put on now. And there’s nothing uncomplicated about fooling men who don’t fool easily.” He catches my jaw in his big hand, claiming my mouth in a possessive, borderline vicious kiss that drenches my panties before he rips away from me, leaving me breathless and aching in the worst way. Then he walks to the bed, drops a little black box onto the cream duvet, before he says, “You’re my fiancée as of tonight. Bring your A-Game, baby.”

With those parting words, he exits.

I stand for a long while, staring in shock at the box. Finally, I gather enough courage to tiptoe across the space as though this sham might come crashing down to crush me if a single floorboard creaks.

I lift the box, open it, and stop breathing.

The ring inside is—everything. It’s nothing a fake fiancé would purchase. There’s too much thought in this ring to be fake. Only, that’s exactly what we have. Fake. A deal. Not real.

The diamond in the center is big and round and bound by warm yellow gold. Circling the massive diamond in the center is a ring of smaller diamonds bound by gold starbursts that make the ring look endearingly like a sunshine.

My heart throbs with violent emotion in my chest that I should not feel for my fake fiancé.

I slide the ring onto my ring finger, hide the box in the nightstand and do one more thing I shouldn’t have to do because of my fake fiancé.

I change my panties.