Without another word to Kyle, Kara rushed out of the bathroom and tracked a path to the other room, ready to tell Luke and Royce to get lost, only to find them gone. Blake sat on the edge of the mattress, fixing her with a tormented look that tore at her heart. She pulled the door shut behind her and rushed toward him, falling on her knees in front of him. She took a deep breath and then made her confession. “Blake, I…”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SEVEN

I love you, and I’ve never said that to anyone. If you
don’t—”

Blake slid his hands into Kara’s hair, pulling her lips to his, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, and she tasted like the love she’d proclaimed, like sweet surrender and a chance at happiness he never thought he’d know again. But no matter how much he wanted happiness to be as easy as a confession, it wasn’t.

He tore his mouth from hers, staring down at her, this woman who’d pulled him from a certain grave. She loved him and it was heaven, but it was also a hell he couldn’t escape. They couldn’t escape. His thumb stroked her cheek. “I love you, too, Kara, but you need to know what ‘more’ means with me.”

He watched relief wash over her expression, her body softening into his, as if she’d been on edge, as if she actually doubted his feelings. “Whatever you are, Blake,” she vowed, “whatever you have been or will be, I’m here. Like I’ve never been with anyone in my life.”

He wanted nothing more than those words, and to kiss her again, to make love to her and show her how much she meant to him, but it wasn’t that simple. He knew how messed up he was over Whitney and how deep that damage ran. How it had impacted not only who he was, but who he and Kara, would be together. He owed it to her to make sure she did, too.

Blake moved off the bed to join Kara on the floor. He moved behind her, his knees straddling her knees, so that she faced the bed, her back to his chest. He inhaled on regret, hating that for a few minutes, he was about to make her feel uncomfortable, but he had to do this. Without any preamble, no soft words, no seductive caresses, he tugged her dress up her body, over her head, and then tossed it away. Before her arms were even down, he reached for her bra and unhooked it, shoving it forward down her arms so she’d get rid of it. He wasn’t gentle. He wasn’t tender. He didn’t kiss her or caress her. He was what he’d been before her, what the hell of his life had made him. What she needed to fully understand.