Wait for Me (14 page)

His fears confirmed he stopped in at the pub, picked up a beer, and headed up to their room. Opening the door, he walked past the sofa facing the river and the edge of the forest where he'd found Brian and Morgan.

Crossing the room, he caught the scent of Kenya’s sweet shower gel floating under his nose, and he ached to crawl in beside her in bed. He wanted to forget the scene in the woods, knowing that visual had been engrained into his memory forever. 

Closing the window, he removed his shoes and entered their room. The sight of Kenya asleep under the covers brought his hand to his groin, feeling himself harden at the thought of what lay beneath the yellow sheet. Setting the beer on the writing desk, he stripped his clothes and went into the bathroom for a shower.

Morgan had been the woman everyone suspected was Kenya. And knowing Kenya desired her sister’s approval whether she admitted it or not, he couldn't shake the sliver of suspicion moving down his spine. 

Flipping the light switch until the small glow of the night light shown beneath the lever, he exited the bathroom while scrubbing a towel over his hair. A white sheet of paper drew him closer to the table. Kenya’s handwriting stared up at him. She’d made a mockup of the accounts they spoke of in the tackle room. He picked it up and read through the process to trap Graham in action. One time use codes for each farmer and a master code for him to accept their deposits. The moment he went to check the balance, his location would be simple to track. He set the paper down.

He held the towel to his waist and reclined on the chair. Jonathan turned up the beer bottle and took a deep drink. Why would his mother accept such a death blow of a contract? She'd practically signed away his birthright before he was born and never told him. Now Kenya's keeping secrets of Brian blackmailing her. When did he lose control? 

Judge eyed him from beside the bed. His dog loved his woman and Judge could spot an evil personality a mile away. He’d never liked Brian but loved Kenya the moment she stepped into their home. Brian had to have looked into Kenya’s background to have Morgan up here. Did his woman know she would be here?

Traitors circled him and one might be lying in his bed now. He’d fought the notion of her being a spy and now this.

“What’s going on, Jonathan?” her voice carried through the air, making him set the bottle down on the table. Crossing his ankle over one knee he stared at her sleepy form trailing down to the soft curve of her back.

“Pull the covers back. I wanna see you.” He took a long pull from the beer before tossing the empty bottle into the low, metal wastebasket. The thud rang through the room. Kenya sat up, clutching the covers over her breast. Her brown skin glowed under the low light off the far table.

Her words were groggy, “I’m here for two more days. Since you’ve lost trust in me, I left a break-down of the account for the farmers on the desk. Have your people look it over. If they have any questions, they can get back to me. Tomorrow morning I can go out to the farms with you if you like, but then I’m going shopping before I go back home. There’s nothing here for me.”

“I said pull the covers back. I wanna see you.” He barely recognized his voice, it was laced with doubt.

He licked his lips, tasting the last of the beer. Kenya lowered, lowering the covers back her naked body a masterpiece under the soft lighting. Her breast swayed with each sleepy step she drug across the thick carpet. The simple unconcerned way she rubbed circles over her flat stomach, he found oddly sensual. Light hit the soft dip on either side of her thighs as her muscles worked moving her closer. Slipping her arms into the robe at the foot of the bed, she cinched the belt before standing before him.

Uncrossing his leg, he let the towel drape between his thighs and allowed her to situate herself on his lap. Her warm body curled into his chest. 

Was this what he wanted? Reaching over her hip, he tucked the soft fabric of her robe under her feet. Resting his head along the wall, he realized she knew him better than he knew himself. 

"Trust isn't a gift; it's a degree of faith. If there’s the slightest chance for us to fix this, you have to stop testing me.” She ran her fingers absently through his short chest hairs.

“I test everybody, Kenya. It’s how I do things. Trust is everything to a man like me.”

Kenya said dryly, “And to me.” 

“How well do you know your sister?”

"My sister?" She dropped her shoulders. "She's my sister, I guess as well as any sister you don’t get along with."

"Talked to her since we've arrived?"

She looked up at him. "How much have you had to drink? You know Morgan and I don’t see eye to eye on anything. Why?"

"One of my staff thought a guest reminded him of you."

"I had dinner in the pub tonight and I didn’t see any black guests. Maybe she was visiting someone in town and they came to ride the ponies?"

"Mmm," he moaned. She didn’t know her sister was here, that he could see. What's the woman up to?

Kenya's warm hips wiggled over his lap until her legs straddled his lap. Her hot sex penetrated the towel wrapped over his lap and he felt his body rising, aching to slip inside his woman.

"I'd hoped to be back in time to swim with you tonight. Things came up I had to take care of." He paused rubbing the backs of his knuckles over her hard nipples beneath her robe, watching the dip in her throat pulse. She wanted him. "Tomorrow we'll get up early, go down to the stables, and ride out up the mountains on the horses before we go into town. Can you ride?"

She ducked her face and kissed his chin. "It's been a few years, but I’m sure it’ll come back to me after a few minutes,” Kenya mumbled as she stifled a yawn. She touched his chest, “Not Max, though. I’ll take a calmer horse or at least one not so large.”

He played with the ends of her hair spilled around her shoulders. "I’ll take Max and you’ll ride Troy. We’ll go up into the hills, let you see the sheep and their prize wool. Many fashion houses deal solely with our farmers."

Kenya cuddled into his chest, her gentle breathing warmed his bare skin. “I’d like to buy my father a sweater before I leave. Can we stop in town tomorrow?”

He hugged her tight. "Will you attend the picnic with me? One of the nearby farms is having a big luncheon; they hold one every few weeks. Keeps the community feeling strong out here so far from Dublin and other popular cities. I can make my rounds. Many of the farmers own specialty stores in town."

"That's what I hoped to see coming to Ireland, culture maybe pick up some Irish lace, not fight you," she mumbled kissing his chin.

He angled forward to stand hefting Kenya's sleepy form up his body. "Come on, I wanna be inside you."

"See, I trust you with my body. How would you feel if I said no?"

Jonathan's knees buckled. Stumbling over the carpeted floor, he barely made it to the bed before he dropped her. Kenya bounced over the surface.

Her skin burned beneath his hands, smoothing down her arms, closing his fingers around her hands. "That’s cruel, pretty lady." The covers shifted as he placed Kenya to the center of the bed. Her robe gapped open and he smoothed the skin of her inner thigh until her breath caught from his touch. Crawling up over her legs, he rested his chest between her thighs. He said, "No matter what's going on between us, you never deny me your body. Why, Kenya?"

Up on her elbows, Kenya brushed hair off his face. "What a strange question."

Kenya held his face and he pushed his hands down, raising his body to accept the soft caress of her lips. Pushing back he waited for her answer.

"I never deny you because you're never more honest then when you make love to me. You’re completely open and in the moment. You’re compassionate and giving, and yes at times you have me clawing the bed to get away from you, you never take your pleasure before I'm satisfied."

The woman could break him down just talking to him.

"Have you ever given in just to please me? Or let me do things to you just to get me to go away?"

He lifted off her as she scooted to a sitting position leaving him sprawled over her knees. "I don’t know where all this is coming from, but I gave in once. When you took me to the jazz club the first time when I needed to do some reading."

He smacked her hip. "Sex, Kenya. Ever just accepted it?"

"What's going on, Jonathan? You never push if I'm uncomfortable with something. What's bothering you?" She kissed him above the eyes.

He pulled her down until they lay facing one another. Untying her robe, the silky material slid down her shoulders. Kenya lifted her hip and helped him remove the barrier to her body. His towel he untucked and dropped both over the edge of the bed to the floor.

Judge's tags rattled as he trotted over and curled up on Kenya's robe and put his head down.

"He's gonna sleep on my robe."

“He likes your scent." He cupped her face. "Look at me, Kenya. As a teen I witnessed a man make his date go down on another man in the alley in the rain behind the club Sophie worked in one night. When she finished, he left her there, crying and wet—lost.” Kenya leaned into the curve of his hand on her cheek.

“The lady from the alley, I mistook her for a hooker. My mother helped her into the restaurant's kitchen.” He shook his head. “She wasn’t a hooker…her man was a dick. He’d beat her up…bruised her face and stood there as she cried in the rain…on her knees.” He traced a finger over the puckered skin of her naval while the picture flashed through his mind. A hiss escaped Kenya as he nudged the underside of her breast making the nipples tighten. “She had your complexion."

“You were what, fourteen?”

Nodding absently he continued, “She’d caught me with my nose pressed in the crack of the kitchen door while she ate over the table in the back…tried to smile at me…wanted to give me some money for getting her help.”

“I remind you of that woman?” Kenya murmured, stroking his face. “And the reason you stopped me in the shower.”

"Not just the woman, later when I started having sex, I never enjoyed a woman going down on me." It made him nauseated.

"You enjoyed it with me," she offered.

"So did the man in the alley with the woman."

"Jonathan, you're not the man in the alley. I wanted to do that for you. You didn’t force me."

Didn’t matter to him, the memories end the same. The man disrespected that woman, using her for money.

“I offer my limo services to women that find themselves in that position 'cause I couldn’t help that lady and assumed she was a hooker. The night Cedric brought you to the penthouse; I cleaned you up and watched you sleep. Thinking someone left you stranded pissed me off. I couldn’t look at you any longer.”

"There's just so much I don’t know about you, Jonathan. I feel so lost at times…don’t know what you need or if I can even provide it for you."

"Notice I come to you over everyone?"

She became his shelter and had no idea what she meant to him.

"I do that for you?"

"I have things I'll never tell you. Baggage I'll never open in front of you. And a tendency to protect what's mine regardless of the consequences."

"Okay," she said, her fingers resting on his hip. She'd slid her other arm under his shoulder, resting her head on the pillow.

“I’m telling you this because there are times you can’t question what I do or don’t tell you. Just accept it. Can you handle that?”

Closing her eyes, Kenya moved into him kissing his mouth. He cupped her behind pulling her tight to his groin. Pinning her down with his body pressed her into the mattress with his legs atop hers now. He nudged her thighs with his knee. She held them together and he placed a hand to the bed keeping his weight off her. 

"Does that mean you can't handle what I just told you?"

“I don’t know how I feel about everything you said,” she admitted.

"And?"

"I should be kicking you to the curb and grabbing my things."

"Gonna leave me, Kenya?"

She pushed him back on the bed until his shoulders touched the sheet. Kenya lifted her leg over his hips and resting her knees to either side of his thighs she sat straddling his body. “The fact you trusted me enough to tell me that, I’ll pardon you’re ugly stare when you came into the room."

She rose up on her knees grasping the length of him then brought her body down over his thick shaft taking him until there was no place left for him to go. Kenya leaned forward, bracing her hands on his chest, her nails digging into her flesh. The sight of her with her eyes closed and her head dropped, he knew she waited and gave her body a minute to adjust to him filling her. Kenya brought her head up, shaking the hair off her shoulder to spill over her back. "You asked if I could ride a horse earlier. I'll let you decide."

“Aye, yer a good lass!”

“No Gaelic, it’s like kryptonite.” Kenya cupped her hand over his mouth. “I’ll be on all fours baying to the moon and wake up tomorrow with carpet burn across my forehead.”

Fisting one of the pillows, he tossed it to the floor. “Problem solved Mo Ru’n."

Chapter Seven

Brian settled Morgan into the jeep, angling his body to eye the surrounding landscape. Jonathan had walked up on them last night and he hadn’t heard him approaching. He would need to be more aware with Jonathan on the grounds. His son and the American would be a problem if she didn’t keep him out of his way. His plan needed to get underway before his son showed up with an heir from Kenya.

The jeep bumped along the rough terrain as they made their way to the outlying farmers. Salmon and trout farmers lined the banks as the hills were filled with sheep roaming in the warm morning sun. The cool nights brought them out early to warm in the sun. Brian counted the dollar signs seeing the hills filled with sheep, knowing what their wool garnered and what the herders could make at the fairs. Especially from American and Italian designers coming in to purchase the wool personally, to have exclusive rights to certain farm’s yield each year. Many paid a high premium and Brian made certain to get a cut from the farmers for allowing them to graze their sheep off the estate’s land.