Keith looked at her intently, still waiting for her reply. With those dark eyes on her, she could feel her armor melting away. He could see it. He could see through her angry protests and her taunts. He could see her, and she was ashamed of what he saw.
“Stephanie,” he said softly, “you have to want more. You're
worth
more.”
“I . . .” She choked. “I . . .” Her eyes stung. She was unable to hold back the tears any longer. She turned away in frustration, not wanting to cry in front of him again.
He reached out for her and she frantically shook her head and waved him away. She tried to seek refuge in the hotel room bathroom, but Keith stopped her. He tugged her back toward him and wrapped her in his arms.
“Don't touch me, damn it!” she hiccupped as she buried her face against his shoulder, linking her arms around his neck as she sniffed. She left black streaks of mascara on his T-shirt as she wept.
“I'm not touching you,” he murmured, rubbing her back.
“I don't need anything from you. I don't even
like
you!” she argued between sniffs, clinging to him, not wanting to let him go.
“So you keep telling me,” he said with a wry smile before lifting her head from his shoulder and lowering his mouth to hers.
Stephanie didn't fight him. To the contrary, she stood on the balls of her feet and passionately kissed him back. When she felt herself being lifted from her feet and carried across the room to the hotel bed seconds later, she docilely let Keith do it. She wanted his hands on her. She wanted to ease the throbbing between her legs and the ache in her heart. She didn't care if he would mistake her affection for manipulation, or if he would turn cold as soon as it was over. At this moment, all she wanted was him.
They continued to kiss even as they undressed, standing by the edge of the bed. She felt the familiar warm tingle on her skin as his hands trailed over her body while he opened buttons, lowered the zipper of her denim skirt and pulled away her shirt. The vibrating heat snaked its way up her limbs as his teeth toyed with her lips, as his tongue delved into her mouth.
Her breathing deepened. Her lashes lowered. Her nipples hardened and she pressed herself eagerly against his chest. When she felt her denim skirt being roughly pushed over her hips and down her legs, she was almost dizzy with desire. She staggered drunkenly on her heels and fell back against the mattress. He lowered himself on top of her and she spread her legs wide in willing invitation. She cupped his face and dragged his mouth back to hers.
He didn't pull his lips away, even as he slowly peeled her bra straps from her shoulders and pushed the bra cups to her waist. He took a breast in each hand and kneaded them lovingly before lowering his mouth to one of the nipples. She moaned and arched her back. She bit down hard on her lower lip just as he lowered one of his hands. He pushed past the elastic band of her thong and his fingers crept between her legs. He massaged her, teased her, making her moist, making her groan. She closed her eyes again and twisted and bucked underneath his touch.
He hadn't known her body very long, yet he seemed to know instinctively what it wanted and what it needed. He removed the thong completely and slowly shifted to the end of the bed, leaving a trail of kisses all over her body that made her whimper and moan. He eased her legs over his broad shoulders and lowered his mouth to the wetness between her thighs, lashing her clit with his tongue. The torturous teasing became even worse. Her twisting and bucking only increased. She clenched the bedsheets in her fists, dug her nails into his shoulders. She fought to take shallow breaths, feeling her chest rapidly rise and fall. When she felt that she could endure it no longer, the sensation reached its peak. The trembling and shaking started. Her back arched and her toes curled. She shouted his name over and over again as the spasms washed over her body.
She wished the sensation would never end, but she knew she would die if it didn't.
“Oh, God,” she moaned breathlessly minutes later when her body finally went slack. “Oh, God.”
She wasn't given much time to recover. He slowly flipped her over. She prostrated beneath him on all fours, naked save for her high heels.
Unlike last time when they had given away completely to abandonment, this time he did pause to use a condom. She shuddered with anticipation while she waited for him to put it on.
When he steadied her hips and entered her from behind, she accepted him almost with relief. Her body finally had gotten what it had been yearning for. His pounding had her clutching the sheets again, but this time to steady herself. She closed her eyes and suddenly the room became only noise and sensation: the feel of his hands on her, the mattress digging into her knees and elbows, the sound of his groans, the creak of the bedsprings, and the rapid beat of her own heart in her ears. Then there was the familiar throbbing at her center that grew wider and wider until even the tips of her fingers seemed to quiver.
She only opened her eyes when she came again, feeling as if she was just given an electric shock. She shouted his name for the umpteenth time as she felt the tremors crest over her body and her thighs began to quake. She felt Keith jerk inside her with his own release and heard him shout her name a second later. Her arms no longer seemed able to bear her weight and she slumped forward tiredly, barely able to see because of the tendrils of hair that had fallen into her eyes. He slowly lowered himself on top of her. He lay half on her back and half on the mattress, breathing deeply.
They lay in silence for several minutes, both trying to catch their breaths. He pulled himself from her and slumped on the bed beside her. He trailed his hand along her bare spine and then the roundness of her behind. When her breathing and her heartbeat finally slowed, Stephanie turned her face away from his. She gazed at the headboard.
She was resigned to what she was about to say, but knew she wouldn't have the courage to say it if she had to look at him in the face. She was about to break the biggest Gibbons family rule. By this admission, she was giving Keithâa manâall the power, but she had to get it off her chest.
“I love you, Keith,” she murmured.
The hand that had been caressing her stilled.
“I know you don't believe me when I say it, that you think someone like me couldn't mean it, but I do. I love you and I don't want anything from you, all right?”
She felt him shift at her side but he still didn't speak a word.
“I'm not trying to get anything out of you. I'm not saying that you . . . that you have to love me back,” she continued. “I just . . . I just wanted you to know that I love you.”
She slowly turned around to face him. She was terrified at what she might find when she looked at his face. Was he horrified by her confession? Would he doubt her again?
Instead, she found understanding in his eyes. He reached out and pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes.
“It took a lot for you to say that, didn't it?”
She lowered her gaze to the crumpled bedsheets. “You have no idea how much. The women in my family don't fall in love. We certainly don't admit that we did.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I think I'm in love with you too.”
Her eyes leapt back to his face in surprise.
“I don't know when it happened. I don't know
how
it happened. We haven't even known each other that long, but it's what I feel.” He slowly shook his head in bafflement. “I came charging into that bar ready to beat the hell out of any man who put his hands on you. I went in there to get you and bring you back, because you belong with
me,
Stephanie Gibbons.”
He trailed a finger along her cheek. They both climbed to the top of the bed and lay silently for several minutes, holding one another.
Stephanie felt as if she could stay this way forever wrapped in his arms. She raised her head and watched as Keith's eyes started to drift closed. She shook his shoulder and smirked. “Oh, no, you don't. Don't go to sleep on me,” she whispered. “Not yet.”
His eyes popped back open. He gave a tired smile. “It's your fault I'm falling asleep. You wore me out, lady.”
She trailed her fingers along his chiseled chest, then his stomach. Her eyes lingered on a jagged one-inch scar that marred his torso. She felt the callused skin underneath her fingertips. “How'd you get this?”
He raised his head and leaned forward to get a better look at where she was pointing. He cocked an eyebrow. “
That
is a stab wound.”
She sat up from his chest and gazed at him in amazement. “Are you joking?”
He laughed. “Believe me. I wouldn't joke about something like that.”
“When did you get stabbed?”
“Back when I was a cop. Before I joined the ATF,” he said, fingering the scar. “That little souvenir was from a perp who didn't want to go to jail quietly.”
“Good God, Keith!” she exclaimed. She cringed in anguish as if
she
was the one who had been stabbed. “You must have been terrified.”
He linked his hands behind his head. “No, not really. I didn't even realize that I was stabbed until about a half an hour later, when my partner pointed out that I was bleeding all over my uniform. I was more pissed that the guy got away from me when I tried to get him in handcuffs. I chased him for a good half a mile before I could tackle him to the ground and get those handcuffs back on.”
Her gaze returned to his body. She wondered what other tales lay on his dark, smooth skin. Her eyes stopped when she noticed a brand on his right arm, just beneath his shoulder. It was about the size of a silver dollar and it looked like the number nine but the branding was so crude, she couldn't really tell what it was.
“So what's this?” she said, pointing at it. “How'd you get this one? It definitely doesn't look like someone stabbed you there.”
He slowly shook his head. “No, no one stabbed me. I did that one myself.”
“How?”
“I took a coat hanger and used a pair of pliers to make a 9. Then I put it over the kitchen stove and burned it into my skin.”
She cringed all over again. “Why on earth would you do that?”
“To fit in,” he answered bluntly. “All the guys I looked up to had one. It was the symbol of the 9th Street Crew and I wanted a brand just like theirs.”
Stephanie fell silent. She rested her chin back on his chest and gazed into his eyes. “Was this back when you were in East Baltimore?” she asked, remembering what he had told Myra Beaumont more than a week ago.
He nodded.
“And that's what you had to do to belong?”
He pursed his lips. “Among other things,” he said cryptically.
She trailed her fingers along his chest again. “Among other things?”
“Yep.”
She looked at him expectantly, waiting for details.
When he continued to gaze at her and not say a word, she hesitated.
“It doesn't . . . It doesn't sound like you want to talk about it.”
“It wasn't a high point in my life, Steph. Who
would
want to talk about it?”
She didn't want to pry, but part of her ached to know more about him. The more she found out about Keith Hendricks, the more complex he seemed, and she wanted to know every facet of him. She was in love with a man whom, admittedly, she barely knew anything about. She felt like she was playing a game of catch-up. What food did he like? What books did he read? What did he do to relax? Where and how did he grow up?
“But you were young, Keith,” she persisted, tilting her head, trying to draw him out. “A lot of people do crazy things when they're kids, honey.”
“Yeah, well, when most people talk about the crazy things they did when they were younger, they're talking about the candy bar they stole from the drugstore. Or they're talking about the time they broke into their parents' liquor cabinet and took a sip from their dad's bottle of schnapps. They aren't talking about the time they got chased down by police, or when they skipped school to be a drug dealer's lookout. They won't tell you the story about when someone shot through their window and almost killed their mother because all the dealers in the neighborhood had marked them as a snitch.” He gritted his teeth. “I'm pretty sure that's not what they mean when they say, âI had a wild youth.' ”
He was right. When she thought of most people's crazy childhoods, none of those stories came to mind. Stephanie had been wild and rebellious in her youth. She had been the spoiled little rich girl who would climb out of her bedroom window and shimmy over the balcony railing of her mother's terrace to sneak to a party with friends. She had bowed to a dare and skinny-dipped in a lake not far from Chesterton. She had partied and got drunk with the rest of them, but she had never experienced anything remotely close to what Keith had experienced in his life.
“All of those things happened to you?” she asked softly.
“Yeah, and none of it I'm proud of. Some people like having street cred. Frankly, I don't.” He closed his eyes. “If Mike hadn't found me on that corner twenty-five years ago, who knows where I would be right now.” He opened his eyes and shook his head. “No, I know
exactly
where I would be: I would either be serving twenty-five years to life in prison, or lying six feet deep in a cemetery.”
“You had it hard, didn't you?”
“More than you know. But other people had it worse.” He shrugged. “At least I got out. A lot of my friends didn't. I bet most of them are dead or in jail now.”