I pushed against him, dropped my hands from his, and stepped back.

He did the same, eyes wide and glassy, lips wet from me.

My hands drifted to my own mouth, covering it. Oh God. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I definitely wasn’t supposed to feel so much while it did.

“I’m sorry,” Kane said, wiping the taste of me off his lips. “I’m so sorry if that was unwanted, it’s just—”

“It’s fine.” Because it had been fine. But there was a cost.

And I was starting to think when it came to Kane, the cost was my heart.

Again.

How many times would I let mine shredded?

Sixteen

Kane

I’d thought I read her right. Thought that while I was moving toward her earlier that her breathing had picked up to nearly match the racing of my heart. I’d thought that when I touched her, and she shivered beneath me she wanted to kiss me as much as I’d been craving her.

Until she pushed me back and ran out of the tent, mumbling something about how it was time for us to get married, and now we were saying our vows, this sham of a wedding to a woman I was actually starting to like who could barely look at me.

Our hands were held together, hers clammy and tense. When I tried to calm her down by brushing my thumb over the back of hers, she’d tensed, swallowed, and squeezed her eyes close.

So I’d stopped, because apparently what we’d done earlier was too much for her. Too wrong for her, and of course it was.

Her ex-fiancé was practically forcing her into this position by terrifying her, cheating on her, and backhanding her like a little bitch.

Of course she wouldn’t want to be touched by another man.

I cleared my throat, trying to get her attention while our officiant, an ordained minister Holly had found, who had a thick head of graying hair and kind eyes and could wear a suit almost as well as any of the guys on my team, guided us through the declaration of intent.

It was then that she finally glanced at me, and I spoke the vows, guided by the minister.

“I, Kane Andrews, with this ring, I thee wed, and I do promise to love, honor, and cherish you, in good times and bad, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part.”

Emotion clogged my throat as I spoke vows I didn’t fully mean, so different than the last time I’d done this, and yet with Emmersyn in front of me, held no regrets I was doing it again, to this woman, for this reason.

That kiss had knocked me on my ass even if it’d scared her and had her barely unable to look at me. I turned to Alix, my best man, and took a simple gold band from him.

I squeezed her hand as I slid it on her finger and whispered, “Hey, look at me.”