Cold Pursuit - Carla Neggers [50]
Since she was still sore from her afternoon with Kyle, Melanie hadn’t wanted to make love to Thomas, but that was what a good Asher wife would do. Now, lying next to him in the king-size bed he had once shared with his dull, brainy first wife, she gave a silent moan of pain. Honestly, though, how could she not have seduced her fiancé when he needed a distraction? What she was to him—and she hoped he realized this—was a woman who would put him at the center of her world.
He was a generous, thoughtful, gentle lover—not the unthinking, relentless piston Kyle was. Unlike Thomas, Kyle didn’t care whether she was satisfied or not, but he liked it when she writhed and screamed…and begged.
She could hear herself a few hours ago.
“More…more…don’t…ever…stop.”
And later, when he’d awakened her from a doze with a hard, erotic slap, her moans of pain as she’d pleaded with him. “No more…I can’t take it, Kyle. Please. Stop.”
But he’d known she hadn’t meant it. He’d lifted her by the hips and straddled her and took her from behind, every yell she gave for him to stop only fueling him, as if he was deliberately doing the exact opposite of what she wanted.
Except they both knew that wasn’t the case. She’d made that clear months ago. She wanted every vicious thrust into every eager, hot part of her. When she and polite Thomas were married, she would be able to call upon the memories—the sensations—of those months of near-violent sex with Kyle.
There had been times when he’d gone too far. When he’d hurt her—shamed her—and made her do things she didn’t want to do. To him, to herself. But that fear, pain and humiliation ended up only adding to the pleasure and intensity—the risk—of their next encounter.
Not that Kyle had ever been aware he’d gone too far or had ever apologized. That would have required a level of introspection he simply didn’t possess.
That afternoon, he’d been particularly ruthless and selfish, but he’d taken a certain amount of care not to leave any visible redness, bruises or scrapes. He was aware that she was going back to Thomas.
After she and Thomas were married, Kyle would have to find someone else.
The thought of another woman crying out for him didn’t sit well with Melanie at all.
He could be in Black Falls by now. Whether or not Thomas had agreed to hire him, Kyle intended to be in Vermont tonight. He had gone up there several times in the past couple of weeks since Nora had first become a problem—watching her, formulating a strategy.
Kyle was, after all, the planner.
Melanie tried to quiet her mind as Thomas snuggled closer to her and flopped an arm over her middle. She extricated herself from him and rolled closer to the edge of her side of the bed. She couldn’t bear for anyone to touch her right now. After she’d returned to Thomas’s house, she’d tried to relax in the library, flipping through magazines for ideas for their New Year’s Eve wedding. She wanted it to be elegant and romantic.
She stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. She loved everything about her life with Thomas. It was the life she’d been meant to lead: privileged, quiet, elite, sensible. Her family was concerned that Thomas was fifteen years older than she was, but otherwise they were delighted. He was everything they’d ever wanted in a son-in-law.
They’d never met Kyle. They wouldn’t. Her almost year with him had been a detour. It wasn’t the real Melanie Kendall. But it had made her a stronger person; she’d be a better Mrs. Thomas Asher because of it.
She turned onto her side, her back to Thomas as he slept soundly, snoring faintly. Kyle had stayed at a roadside motel outside Black Falls in April. They’d hiked up the north side of Cameron Mountain from an old, remote logging road that was at least a ten-mile drive around the base of the mountain from the Camerons’ lodge. No one had seen him before or after they’d left that old man in the cold. Kyle would have been equally careful on subsequent trips to Black Falls. If he had any concern someone would recognize him when he showed up to look for Thomas’s daughter,