Uncensored Passion (Men of Passion) (16 page)

“You’re so quiet, Devon. What are you thinking?” she asked, breaking into his self-condemning reverie.

“I—ah—was just thinking that I don’t want to go back to San Antonio.”

“But your work, your life is there.”

“This thing between us, Kayla. It’s special. I feel it and I believe you do, too. Please remember that, no matter what happens later.”

“I know. I will. But maybe later will be even better than now. You want to hear my first impression of you, Devon?”

“Sure.”

“It was that you weren’t only gorgeous to look at, what I would call man candy of the highest degree, but you were so honest—afraid you were bungling the interview. That really got to me. I found that genuine sincerity impossible to resist.”

Honest? Sincere? God, she’ll hate my guts when she finds out I’ve been lying through my teeth.

Unable to think of anything to say that got beyond his raging guilt, Devon reached for her, drawing her up for a long, lingering kiss.

When they parted, she asked, “What say we order that dessert now?”

“Good idea.”

Trey phoned room service and ordered what she told him she wanted, a double fudge chocolate delight with extra whipped cream. And while they waited, he donned his own bathrobe and retrieved the Sheridan complimentary robe from the bathroom, handing it to Kayla. Just knowing she was naked under the robe made his blood heat with lust.

By the time their dessert arrived, the sexual tension between them escalated to a fever pitch. Trey felt as though he could actually see a charged electric current passing between them as the anticipation grew.

As soon as the door had closed behind the waiter, Kayla unbelted Trey’s robe and pushed it off then discarded her own.

“You want to take a shower first?” he asked her.

“No. Trust me, we’ll need that shower later.”

She led him back to the bed, pushed him down, and positioned the plate of chocolate dessert on the nightstand. Then she went to the bathroom, got a large towel, and placed it beneath his buttocks.

“This will probably get messy. Hope you don’t mind.”

“I’d be a fool to mind whatever you want to do. I’ve been a lot of things in my life, Kayla, but a fool wasn’t one of them.”

Laughing, she scooped some of the chocolate and whipped cream up and again surprised him when she slathered it on his groin. She began licking it off, making moaning sounds of pleasure as she filled her mouth with both the dessert and him, doing tongue-teasing things to his shaft that had him arching off the bed more than once.

Trey could feel the rush of adrenaline as the blood began pumping life back into his cock. When Kayla’s demanding mouth brought him erect and hard again, he rolled on top of her, determined to be the aggressor this time. He parted her legs with a demanding knee and with one hard thrust, drove deep into her wet core.

She wrapped her legs around him, lifting to receive every impressive inch as he moved in, almost out, then back in slowly, wanting to tantalize her as she had him. He watched her face in hot absorption…her eyes closed…her mouth open slightly…her tongue flicking out to wet her lips... Trey had never seen a woman who enjoyed raw sex more.

When he could see he had brought her to the brink, when he felt her nails clawing at him, when she was begging him for a release, he increased the rhythm to a pounding crescendo, gripping her hips and tilting them to increase the friction on her sweet spot as he took them both over the edge simultaneously.

Trey fell to her side, breathing hard, feeling sticky with chocolate and whipped cream, and totally amazed at his fourth, mind-numbing climax. Now, without a doubt, he was completely drained and exhausted.

It crossed his mind that maybe Kayla was as far from being a lesbian as a woman could be—that maybe she was a nymphomaniac. Then again, he thought nymphos couldn’t be satisfied, and he knew that he definitely had satisfied her. No, but for certain she was definitely a strong-willed, independent thinker. Just the kind of woman he had always wanted. A challenge, yet feminine in every way.

Whatever the hell she is, I’ll take her.

He wanted to take her forever. He had never felt this way about a woman before. The thought of leaving her, of never making love to her again, sobered him.

We really do have something special. We’re phenomenal together. It’s as if we’ve known each other forever instead of only hours, and it’s all based on a lie. One she won’t forgive.

Kayla broke into his silent recrimination with her suggestion, “Let’s take that shower now. Although you look awfully tempting dressed in your chocolate,” she teased, laughing and shaking her head as she surveyed their dessert-covered bodies.

Trey slid off the bed and saw the mess they’d made of the sheet, even with the towel there. “The maid is going to hate me.”

“She’ll be envious,” Kayla said with a laugh as she grabbed his hand and led the way to the shower.

After they had lathered each other and washed away the soap and chocolate and dried each other off, they fell back onto the clean side of the king-sized bed. It was then that it dawned on Trey that he had not used a condom.

What the hell was I thinking?

But of course, he hadn’t been thinking at all. Couldn’t think with all the things Kayla was doing to him.

He wanted to ask her if she was protected. Surely she was. He knew asking now would sound hypocritical and maybe even callous, as though he was rethinking what they had experienced together, thinking perhaps that she was trying to trap him, so he kept silent as she snuggled against him, yawning.

He kissed the top of her head. “Sleepy, beautiful lady?”

“I am. Guess I kind of wore myself out.”

Trey chuckled. “I’ll say! You sure as hell wore me out. Let’s just take a nap.”

“Sounds like a plan. I confess I didn’t sleep well last night, thinking about our meeting today.”

“Really? Neither did I.”

Trey glanced at the bedside clock radio. It was only 5:20 p.m., yet the room lay in deep shadows, since the curtains were closed. He inhaled a deep, contented breath, his fingers smoothing along her arms as she once again snuggled against him. He had never felt so at peace, so sexually satiated, and yet so internally at war with himself.

He listened as her breathing evened out, indicating she had drifted off to sleep. But Trey lay awake dealing with his guilt and wondering how he could right the wrong.

How can I justify this to Kayla so she’ll understand and forgive me?

He didn’t think he could, and that knowledge sat like a rock in his stomach
. No matter what I discover about Kayla, I will never report that back to Dr. Romero and Gavin Johnson. There is no way I will let them destroy her.

Trey knew he was out of a job. He was also, he admitted silently, as he looked at Kayla curled contentedly next to him, out of his mind over this sexy, mysterious woman who had taken him to sensual heights he never knew existed.

CHAPTER 16

Unexpected revelations—Earlier Saturday, 3:10 p.m.

Luke answered the house phone. They had all been lounging in the library when the call came. Usually Luke worked half a day on Saturday, but he had the day off this Saturday, and was toying with some lyrics. Lee and Harm were catching up on some paperwork. All of them had been pretending to be interested in what they were doing while they were, in actuality, silently of one mind.

Where was Kayla? What was she doing? Why had she mysteriously opted to forgo their shared Saturday time with no more explanation than she had an important meeting to attend, something she couldn’t put off?

It wasn’t like her. It had them all wondering and worrying.

“Saradon residence,” Luke said.

“Luke, it’s Kayla. How is everything going?”

“Fine, hon. Where are you? When are you coming home?”

“I’m afraid I won’t be coming home tonight. The meeting is lasting longer than I thought it would, and since we’re still in discussions, I’ll be staying in town tonight. I’ll be home sometime tomorrow. Give all my love.”

Before he could ask anything else, she hung up. Luke frowned at the phone as Lee asked, “What did she say?”

“She said the meeting was lasting longer than she thought and they were still in discussions, so she wouldn’t be home tonight. She’d see us tomorrow.”

“Did she say where this meeting was being held?” Harm asked.

Luke shook his head.

J.J., in his youthful, impulsive way, voiced what they all were thinking, “Think she’s with some new guy?”

“If she is, she’s feeling him out, trying to decide if he would be a good fit for us,” Harm said in her defense.

“Dammit, there are four of us! What the hell does she need with someone new? If she brought a new guy in, that would cut our time with her short, ” J.J. blustered. “Aren’t we enough for her?”

“Don’t get your dander up, J.J. We don’t know that’s what she’s doing,” Lee said. “If Kayla said she’s in a meeting, then she is. Has she ever lied to us?”

They all had to agree that she never had. Yet the doubt, now planted firmly in all their minds, persisted as the day wore on. And though no one voiced it, they were all thinking how empty the house seemed without her.

* * *

Kayla woke up in the arms of her handsome lover. She looked at him, sleeping soundly beside her, and her heart skipped, remembering the intimacy they had shared and how completely he had submitted himself to her desires.

The room was dark, and she wondered what time it was as she carefully moved from his arm and slid off the bed. She went to the bathroom and closed the door before turning on the light. She checked her watch. It was 8:45 p.m.

After using the facilities, she surveyed her image in the mirror. Her face was red from abrasion from rubbing against Trey’s day-old beard growth and the hair on his chest and groin area. She smiled with the memory.

She had wanted to make the time with Devon a fanciful romp both could cherish once they’d parted, but it had turned into something more. Much more than she’d bargained for—certainly more than she knew how to cope with, she suddenly realized.

Shaking her head, still staring at herself in the mirror, Kayla silently admitted
, I don’t want him to leave. Wonder if he would stay if I asked him to? Would he be receptive to our lifestyle? Would the others accept him?

For the first time since she’d made the decision to be with Devon, Kayla was feeling guilty, knowing she had betrayed her partners. She knew the reason why her guilt was so acute. Her betrayal went deeper than just sex outside of the family, which her men would probably understand and accept. But what they might have trouble accepting was the fact that she cared so much for Devon Walker that she’d lied to them. She had put him above them, even though they were so devoted to her. Something she would never have believed she would have done.

She couldn’t explain why she had such a connection with Devon, but she did. He touched her somewhere deep within her soul, in a way none of her partners had ever done.

With that realization came another wave of guilt. How did she tell them about Devon without hurting them? And yet perhaps it would become a moot point. It all depended on how Devon received the news of her secret. Could he adjust to the polyandry lifestyle? Would he? She decided to feel him out first, before even broaching the subject.

Having made that decision, she reentered the bedroom and was surprised to find him awake and sitting up in bed, waiting for her. “Did I wake you?”

“No. I woke because you weren’t beside me. I felt alone. The way I’ll always feel if you aren’t near.”

His declaration shook her. She bit her lip before saying, “Devon, maybe we should talk.”

“We should.”

She curled up beside him and played with his chest hair, wondering where to start, what to say that wouldn’t send him running for the hills, thinking she was crazy for the way she preferred to live her life. She thought the best way to start would be to determine what had molded him into the man he was.

“Tell me about your life, Devon. Tell me what you want, what you expect to accomplish. I want to know everything about you.”

“Again, who’s interviewing whom?”

“No interview, just full disclosure.”

Trey winced. He was thankful for the darkness so she couldn’t see the guilt that he knew was surely written all over his face at that moment.

“Tell me about your childhood, for a start.”

“I don’t like to talk about that.”

“I know. I could tell, but perhaps you should. Talking about it will release it from hurting you, and I think you need that.”

“Shrinking me, Doc?”

“Think I’ve proven I’m pretty good at that,” she threw out the double entendre with a laugh, and he joined in.

“You damned sure are.”

Sobering, she prompted, “Tell me.”

After taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Trey began to open up about his scarred childhood.

“I have no idea who my father was. And the only thing I know about my mother is that she considered me a mistake she couldn’t deal with, so she abandoned me as a newborn. She left me on the steps of a church with a note pinned to my blanket, giving my name, my birth date, and said that she thought I’d be better off without her because living on the streets was no place for a kid. She added that she had no idea who my father was, that he could have been any one of her many johns.

“I was put in the system. Later I found out the authorities tried to find her, but finally gave up. The first foster home was good. The Markhams. An older couple who were really great. I was there until I was six, and that was the happiest time I can remember. But then they had to give me up because Mr. Markham got sick and Mrs. Markham was trying to deal with his pending death and the bills, or whatever. Anyway, I was put back into the system.

“I was then sent to the Donovans. They were a Catholic family with three kids of their own. They had decided to take in foster kids for the money they could get. I found out pretty quickly that was their reason for taking me in. It certainly wasn’t because they wanted another boy to add to their brood. Their boys were all older than me. Kirk was thirteen. John was eleven. Lou was nine. They resented me from the get-go and pretty much made my life a living hell. They did the same with the girl the Donovans had taken in, too. I felt sorrier for her than I did for myself. I’ve often wondered what happened to Cindy.”