and tightened them into hard, rigid peaks.
She crossed her arms over her chest, mortified that she hadn’t worn a bra. Could he see the effect he was having on her? Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
He gave a sigh. “Go to bed, Katherine,” he said at last, his voice gruff.
“I don’t want to go to bed. I want to stay here with you,” she said, getting fixated on his lips and the white scar that bisected the bow on top. What would it feel like to kiss him? To have him kiss her back? Anticipation made her feel almost giddy.
“That’s not a good idea.” His voice was so husky now she could feel it rumble between her legs, reverberating in the spot she stroked in bed at night while she was thinking about him.
“Why not?” Her heart fluttered in her chest when his brows lowered. She could smell him, soap and musk. The tense muscle in his cheek jerked.
“I think you know why.”
It was all the encouragement she needed. He wasn’t looking at her as if she was a kid anymore. Endorphins careered through her system, obliterating every thought but one.
Just do it, already. Kiss him.
Rising on tiptoes, she flung her arms around his neck. Her tender breasts flattened against rigid muscles as she pressed her lips to his.
Peppermint-flavored breath brushed her burning cheeks as he grunted a curse word. But his labored breathing yanked at the sweet spot between her legs. Greedy for more, she licked at the scar, and scraped her fingernails through the soft bristles of hair at his nape. His lips opened and her tongue delved into the recesses of his mouth. Harsh and insistent, she gathered his taste like a starving person—the delicious tang of peppermint and desire.
Big hands grasped her waist as reaction shuddered through him. And his long fingers fisted in the thin cotton of her T-shirt. Fierce joy blossomed inside her as his tongue tangled with hers—dominant and demanding. The vicious heat throbbed, making the sweet spot swell.
But before she could grab hold of the euphoria, before she could bask in the hot glow, he reared back and ripped his mouth away.
“Damn it, Katherine. Stop it.” Grasping her wrists in an iron grip, he thrust her hands down and shoved her back.
His crystal-blue eyes were like chips of ice in that lean, masculine face. “What kind of a game do you think you’re playing?” The harsh words slashed through the euphoria like a machete.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I thought...”
“What? That I wanted you to kiss me?” The sharp tone sliced to the bone. “I don’t.”
She hunched her shoulders. Dragging her wrists free of his grip, she clasped her arms around her waist, trying to hold the agony of his rejection inside. Why did everyone always reject her in the end? Why had she always been so unworthy of love?
She wanted to disappear. To fold herself up so small no one could ever see her again. Especially when the one question she’d never been able to ask before burst out of her mouth.
“Why not?”
He thrust his fingers through his hair, looking tense, and more agitated than she had ever seen him. “Because you’re just a kid,” he said, but his voice had softened. “And I don’t kiss kids.”
She forced her face up, her humiliation beyond bearing.
He looked shocked and angry and a strangled laugh burst out of her mouth—the hysteria going some way to mask the hurt.
She had wanted to get a reaction out of Jared Caine, and now she had. Unfortunately, it was the wrong one.
His eyebrow shot up his forehead. “You think this is funny?” he snapped.
It wasn’t—in fact it was easily one of the least funny moments of her entire life—but she could never let him know that.
“I think it’s hilarious,” she lied as she shoved her chin out and stiffened her spine, adopting the pose she had used so often before when sassing Lloyd Whittaker to disguise the pain of his rejections.
“You spoiled brat.” Caine’s face hardened. “You try a stunt like that again and I’ll put you over my knee and spank you myself. I don’t care whose damn sister you are.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” she shot back. “You’re not even any good at it.”
It wasn’t true, of course. For that brief moment of bliss his lips had felt so firm, so sure, so perfect.
Swinging round, she raced out of the room and slammed the door.
But, as fast as she ran, she couldn’t escape the misery spreading through her like a virus.
Hitting her bed, she shoved her head under her pillow to muffle the wrenching sobs that poured out.
She didn’t want him to hear her crying.
But as the anguish slammed into her full force, it brought with it the cruel punch of memory. And the sounds of her father’s ranting—the words he’d shouted at Megan while he’d beat her sister with a belt.
“You’re just like her, both of you. No loyalty, no respect. Both little whores.”
Katie curled in on herself, trying to hold back the images which had tormented her for two long weeks.
But they played in her mind like a horror movie: Megan’s broken body curled on the floor, her arms flung over her head, the vivid welts on her shoulder blades accompanied by their father’s taunts and the sickening thud of leather hitting bone.
Katie gulped in breaths, the sobs so violent they wracked her whole body.
But the sweet spot between her legs still ached to be touched, her lips still felt tender and her cheeks still stung from the rasp of Caine’s jaw.
And the hideous truth kept repeating inside her head, over and over and over again.
Lloyd Whittaker had been wrong about Megan, punishing her for something their mother had done, but he had always been right about her.
And now Jared Caine knew it too.
Five years later, the Amalfi Coast, Italy
PLEASE DON’T DIE...please don’t die.
Katie prayed for all she was worth, but the god of smartphone batteries wasn’t listening because the phone screen cut to black.
She whimpered and stopped walking—or rather hobbling—along the narrow farm road as it dawned on her that having had most of her worldly possessions snatched by a couple of teenage sneak thieves wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to her today.
The sun had sunk another inch toward the horizon, lengthening the shadows over
