Page 57 of Kane

Embarrassed, overcome, shaking, I lean down to press my body against his. For a moment, he allows this, his large, rough hands roaming my back from shoulders to the waist of my jeans. And then, gently but firmly, he lifts me up.

“Sit up for me, honey,” he murmurs, his voice gentle and low. “Wanna see you.”

Shaking, fearful of…I do not know what, except perhaps the newness of this, of being seen, of being naked with a man for the first time—I sit up, covering myself with my arms.

He lounges on his elbow and waits. “Anjalee.” He reaches a long arm, fingers touching my jaw, tracing up to my ear, to my neck. Frees my hair from the ponytail, letting the thick cool mass of it sweep down around my back and shoulders. “Show me yourself, honey. Please.”

Slowly, hesitantly, I lower my arms. Rest my hands on my knees, heart pounding madly in my chest, in my throat. My nipples throb, painfully erect. Are my breasts the right size? Too small? Too large? Are the dark circles around my nipples too large, too dark? Are my nipples too fat, too puffy?

For a long time, he just looks at me.

Until I squirm, unsure of his reaction and becoming increasingly self-conscious. “Kane…?”

“Fuck,” he breathes, hissing the word through his teeth.

That word, like hisbabe, has too many variations and subtleties of meaning, so I cannot know what this one means.

He curls forward, so I sit in the hollow of his bent body, knees to one side of me, his shoulders to the other. One of his hands slides to my waist, holding my side above the jeans. The other rests on my back between my shoulder blades. This hand presses me forward, angling me toward him.

Still he has said nothing.

His eyes on mine, then on my naked breasts, he wriggles closer yet, some of his weight on my lap. I rest my hands on his shoulders, and then feather them into his hair, waiting, watching. He presses his mouth to my waist, and I gasp at the softness and warmth of his lips on my skin.

“Kane?”

“Sssssh.” I feel the shushing sound on my flesh, and it causes my skin to pebble.

“But I—”

“Quiet,” he commands. “I’m busy.”

His mouth slides up, over—to my centerline, a few inches below my breasts, above my navel. His tongue touches me, wet and ticklish. Hands at my ribs, and my pebbled skin tightens all over, my nipples now hard as pieces of diamond. And then…

He cups my breasts in his hands, and my breath escapes in a sound which is not quite a moan, nor a sigh, but something of both. “Fuckin’beautiful,” he growls, the words rumbling against my belly.

The worry, the insecurity, they dissolve at his voice and his words. My fingers tighten in his hair. “You really think so?”

His mouth withdraws, and I feel his gaze—I meet his eyes, and notice he seems almost angry, or puzzled. “Think I wouldn’t?”

I shrug, a tiny, insecure lift of a shoulder. “I do not know, Kane. No man has ever touched me or looked at me. I know you have seen many naked women before, and I cannot help but wonder…” I shrug again.

“How you compare,” he finishes.

“Correct,” I whisper.

He releases my breasts, his eyes on mine. “You’re right. Seen a lotta women. Lotta beautiful women, lotta beautifulnakedwomen.”

“This doesnotmake me feel any better, Kane,” I say, my tone sharp, snipping.

“Wasn’t done,” he says. He lifts up, and his mouth drifts to my breast, to my hard, erect nipple, and his lips close around it, his tongue flitting against it—I whimper, a soft, shrill, shocked breath. “No comparison, Anjalee.”

My eyes are closed, mouth open, gasping as he repeats his kiss, lips sliding to my other breast, closing over my nipple and licking.

“Eyes open, babe,” he orders. “Watch.”

I force my eyes open, and he cups my breast in his hand, the rough calluses sandpapery against my soft skin. Lifts it, thumb rubbing over my nipple—already so hard, it tightens further, and heat tugs in a hot line between my nipple and my intimate center.

“Fuckin’ perfect,” he says again. “You—everything about you. But especiallythese.” He cups my other breast, kissing it, licking, tongue circling the hardened bit of sensitive flesh.