First Comes Love (New Castle Book 1) Read online

  His expression changed to shocked disbelief. “Seriously?”

  “Yup. Pretty shitty.”

  “And you still talk to them?”

  “I tolerate them for Mia’s sake. They take Mia every Sunday, like I said. I don’t usually tag along. I think they have a better relationship when I’m not involved.”

  “That’s pretty tolerant of you.”

  Her feigned casualness faltered as her stomach flipped and heated at his words. It wasn’t safe to let him affect her so much. Back to indifference. “No, I’m just a kid trying to make it as an adult. I can use all the help I can get.”

  “You’re pretty accountable. That’s more than most adults can claim.”

  Mia was her responsibility and feeling sorry for herself or complaining through difficult times only made things worse. “Well, it’s easy to make sacrifices for someone you love more than yourself.”

  “See? You sum up your hardships with some optimistically, poetic line. That’s amazing.”

  She didn’t know when it happened, but somehow the conversation turned to squarely focus on her. The urge to flee hit hard. Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. She’d gotten pregnant when she was seventeen. Amazing women didn’t do stuff like that.

  “It’s a compliment, Kat, take it.”

  Lips trembling into a smile, she looked at the floor. She never found time to pat herself on the back. Back pats didn’t pay the bills, so why bother? But still, to have someone other than Jade recognize her accomplishments was really nice.

  Nervously blinking, she slowly lifted her gaze. Confidence was hard when you didn’t always have faith in yourself. “Thank you.”

  She didn’t know how to get past the awkward emotional exchange. It was good to actually talk like this with another adult, but it was also unfamiliar and painfully personal. She couldn’t share anymore, especially when she didn’t really know the person she was sharing with.

  Clearing her throat, she turned the tables on him. “Okay, your turn. Does your boss know you’re staying at his house?”

  “I told you, I’m the boss.”

  “Yes, but you work for someone. In this case, the owner of the house.”

  “Kat, I bought the house. It’s mine. I own it. I’m fixing it up to live there.”

  Her smile faltered. “What? But you said…” she trailed off. He’d said the owner of the house was an independent, single, businessman with no children. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “We all hide our cards until we’re comfortable with our hand, Kat. Sometimes we even lie.”

  “Did you lie to me?”

  “No, but you lied to me when you felt threatened. You told me you had an alarm system, in case I was planning on robbing you or something. But I don’t see one installed anywhere.”

  Unease washed through her—cold and unsettling. He was grinning, but there was no dimple and his eyes seemed flat and untouched. If she’d known he was their actual neighbor, she might have acted differently.

  “I didn’t say it because I thought you were going to rob—”

  “Sure you did. You saw a large, unfamiliar, black man hanging around your house and you lied to protect your cub.”

  She gasped. “It wasn’t because you’re black.”

  “Maybe not. I’m sure there were a lot of reasons. I’m a man. I’m bigger than you by a long shot, and you didn’t know me from Adam. But I’m also not blind. I’m probably the only black resident within a ten mile radius.”

  As she tried to pinpoint her motive she couldn’t see past her shame. Deep down, she might not have lied if he was white. Tyson had an intimidating presence, but maybe his race subconsciously made her a little more suspicious of him. “I’m sorry I lied. You seem like a nice man.”

  He nodded, as if accepting her apology. “You seem like a nice woman.”

  It would only take a small movement of her fingers to touch his hand resting on her counter. He was beautiful, and if she was being honest, his coloring was part of his beauty.

  She had never hung out with black people, mostly because her family didn’t have any black friends. She really did live a sheltered life, but perhaps she was more sheltered than she realized. Did that make her racist? She might have seen a black man at first, but over the past week, she’d stopped seeing Tyson as anything other than a man. His color didn’t even register anymore.

  His voice interrupted her thoughts. “You did the right thing, with a strange man so close to your home. But I need to know if the color of my skin is an issue, since we’re going to be neighbors.”

  “It’s not,” she immediately assured him in a very small, but honest voice.

  “Good, because I like you, Kat. I’d like to get to know you. I wouldn’t want there to be something as ridiculous as the difference in our race to cause a barrier between us and our having a friendship.”

  Friends. Tyson wanted to be her neighbor and her friend, yet the way he was looking at her, dark smoldering eyes staring right through her as if she were naked behind only sheer whispers of secrets, told her he wanted more.

  She didn’t do more. Ever.

  Her lashes lowered and she stole a glance at his hand, his arm, and his chest. Heat bloomed somewhere dark and deep within her. Her thoughts fragmented and a little demon inside prodded her to touch him. What would he feel like? She actually considered accidentally bumping him.

  Soft and gravelly, he asked, “Can we be friends, Kat?”

  Swirls of breathless suspense rushed through her, awakening her blood like heated honey. When his voice dropped to that deep baritone whisper her body anticipated things her mind didn’t understand. It was drugging, lazy and tempting. Seductive.

  Her gaze softened and her neck extended as the tension in her shoulders eased. Her voice was low and raspy, nothing like the way she usually sounded. “We can be friends, Tyson.”

  A sort of lightheadedness took hold of her as those full, fringed black lashes lowered and his eyes darkened. Smoldering. Deep pools of onyx, flecked with swirls of amber looked into her and she could see the thin brindle edge of his irises. Focusing on the delicate V beneath his lip, she swallowed.

  Flutters tickled her stomach taking her to a place just between uncomfortable and pleasurable, soft and fast. They hadn’t moved at all, but they needed to slow down. Like a tattoo needle, her heart raced.

  That was when he touched her face.

  Using the soft edge of his knuckle, he grazed the line of her jaw from her ear to chin. It was enough to ground her, making her aware of the physical space she occupied.

  Her skin prickled as though she was falling. Her arms itched to cover herself, but her blood was too sluggish for her to move. She could barely get oxygen to her lungs let alone her brain.

  A strangled whimper tickled her throat as he leaned in. His scent intensified, slipping inside of her as she sucked in a deep breath at the first brush of his lips. Like a laden balloon flies on its last breeze, kissing the air between sky and earth, his mouth hovered over hers, a caress somewhere in the space between.

  His fingers pinched the edge of her chin, pulling her lips slightly apart. And then the space between them was gone. His plush, firm lips pressed into hers and she was drowning. The first slow lick of his tongue had her breasts tightening.

  Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!

  He barely touched her, yet she felt him everywhere. This was nothing like the kisses she’d shared with boys in high school, with Jeremy.

  He pressed closer. The thin layer of clothing separating them was insubstantial as his front molded to hers. His weighty palm pressed over the center of her stiff spine, trapping her against him. No one had ever touched her so intimately.

  How did she get here? Tongue to tongue he kissed her, slow and soft. His slanted mouth gently opened and closed. She could no longer deny the affect he was having on her as her body softened as her lashes lowered.

  Amplified by her blindness, her senses caught fire. His lips sealed
to hers as his large hand slid beneath her hair and a moan of satisfaction slipped from his mouth to hers.

  She hadn’t been kissed in years and never had she experienced anything like this. If this was kissing what the hell had she been doing before?

  He slowly slid his tongue over her bottom lip. Palms gently skidding over her clothing to her skin, he caressed her from shoulder to wrist and eased away.

  A soft squeeze of her hands was the last warning she had that the kiss was over. Her spine extended as her mouth followed his. His soft chuckle had her opening her eyes. Dazed and intensely aroused, she blinked at him. Holy crap! What had she done?

  He was still close, but with the hold he had on her wrists, he had complete control over their contact. He measured her through thick lashes, and breathed deeply through his nose as if memorizing her scent, sending shivers up her spine.

  “You smell like sunshine,” he whispered.

  His fingers released her wrists leaving an impression of heat, making the chill that replaced his touch all the more unsettling. He took a step away and she stood frozen in place. Was he leaving? Was that it? Shouldn’t that be it? What was she thinking?

  He picked up his tools and took another step toward the door. “Goodnight, Kat. I’ll see you around.”

  His words registered and she finally blinked. They were neighbors. There would be no avoiding him. Fingers trembling to her lips, she cursed under her breath, knowing she’d just made a terrible mistake.

  Chapter Four

  He was such an idiot.

  Stumbling home about as steady as a blind man, Tyson cursed himself for being twenty kinds of a fool. She was no more than twenty-one or twenty-two. She was a baby for crying out loud. Her youth was evident in everything from her shy questioning eyes to the way she kissed. Christ, she even smelled young. And he, well, he was a letch.

  “You’re an old pervert,” he mumbled to himself as he crossed onto his property.

  But there was something irresistible about her. Something delicate and unspoiled, something from her past that took from the confidence she should rightly have.

  Tyson walked through his front door and tossed his tools on the floor. Dim, dreamlike images of Kat played through his mind. His hand closed around the cool neck of a beer and he shut the fridge. Her face, soft with that wistful look of inexperience, filled his mind and his equilibrium slipped into that of a teenage boy again.

  Fuck. He was strung tighter than a guitar string after a simple taste of those sweet, kiss-provoking lips. Chucking the beer cap across the room he groaned. His back hit the wall of his sparse living room as his weight dragged to the floor.

  This was bad. How had he gone from a little flirting to mauling her in her kitchen in only a couple days?

  He stopped by to make sure everything was all right. It was a simple fix that a plumber might’ve charged her a fortune to fix, but he hadn’t gone there because it was the honorable thing. He went there, because he finally had an excuse to get close to her.

  The pressure of temptation had drilled through him like a molly bolt the second he brushed against her when she came to his door. Softer than rain, her skin had briefly touched his, but it was enough to have him dressing and grabbing his tools within a few minutes and chasing after her like some lovesick pup.

  There was something so exquisitely simple about Kat. A strange and delicious shyness that was nothing like the other women he knew. Her outlook on life, although somewhat jaded by difficult events, was still fresh and untried in so many ways.

  There was a sort of trusting hopefulness about her that came and went like the tide, her natural inclination to behave as women in their early twenties often do pulling against her common sense. He liked when she showed glimpses of her unguarded self.

  He had no intention to pursue the desires stirring inside of him, until she looked at him with innocent eyes and he recognized the curiosity banked there.

  Her gaze caressed him like a hand, slow, and teasing as her pulse noticeably fluttered. When her cheeks flushed like a blushing cloud and that delicate little smile hung lopsided on her pretty face, white-hot enthusiasm burst inside of him.

  His body shivered, remembering how her voice had gone low and raspy. Something inquisitively suggestive reflected in her eyes and he needed to touch her.

  Her skin was softer than silk. Once his thumb neared her lips, his mouth grew insanely jealous. Before considering the consequences, he was leaning down and kissing her.

  Kat was a woman who hadn’t been kissed much. Her lack of experience was evident in her timid reception. He had to coax her soft mouth open and when she finally kissed him back, his need transcended to raw hunger. Seizing the moment, he possessively took a sampling of her sweet mouth. Knowing how skittish she could be, he was careful not to act too aggressively.

  His body throbbed and his cock wept when she eased forward, her mouth chasing his, silently asking for more, but he had to walk away. He didn’t want to stick around to witness the moment reality came crashing back to her. Sometimes she was strung so tight he thought she would snap. But like a violin, the softest caress could make her purr.

  Ty sipped his beer and let his head hit the wall, hoping to knock some sense into his thick skull. He shifted his legs in an attempt to make room in his pants as his mind replayed her sweet little moans. She probably made all sorts of delicious keening sounds during sex, a mixture of raw, unguarded headiness and untried wonderment. He wanted to see if he was right. But that would never happen.

  Two houses and fifteen years—that’s what separated them. The chances of him fucking a woman like Kat were so low he was pathetic for even entertaining the fantasy. A pretty young mom like herself probably had high hopes for a nice young husband.

  Pushing out a slow breath, he tried to let go of all thoughts of getting Kat naked. For all he knew, she was furious with him. As much as he used the excuse of fixing her sink to get into her house, he didn’t want her to think she owed him anything.

  Massaging his temples, his empty beer hung from his fingers as he sighed. The depraved fantasies running through his mind needed to stop. Those sultry lips parted. His name on her tongue. Her smoky gaze crawling over him like little kisses. The last thing she needed was her middle-aged neighbor making her uncomfortable.

  Groaning, he acknowledged what he needed to do, but snuffing out his attraction to her wouldn’t be easy. There was no telling his cock that she was out of the question when it perked up like a fucking weathervane every time she was around. And it wasn’t just the sexual tension that stirred him. Her presence was refreshing, wholesome and tempting.

  Her family sounded like a bunch of assholes. Clearly they didn’t understand one thing about their daughter. Life was messy and accidents happened. There were plenty of girls who got pregnant when he was in high school. What kind of parents discarded their child at such a vulnerable moment in life?

  But who’s looking out for Kat?

  Retrieving another beer, he popped the cap and returned to his spot on the floor. He let out a frustrated breath and roughly rubbed his palm over his face.

  “Not your concern, man.”

  He laughed thinking about her little labels everywhere. She definitely had her shit under control, but something told him she was overdue to have some fun. No twenty-one-year-old should be that grown up. She was probably more mature than him.

  No matter how tempting it was to interfere in her life—show her a little fun—he had to maintain a safe distance, because they were, in fact, going to be neighbors. His lust was probably one-sided anyway.

  He was supposed to be looking for a wife, concentrating on starting a family of his own, not intruding on someone else’s. Once the house was done, he’d be back to his normal schedule and Kat would be someone he passed maybe once a week on the occasion that she was unloading groceries while he mowed the lawn.

  Cruising the marriage aisle was something he’d never done. His life had revolved around the simple foc
us of starting his business and watching it grow. It wasn’t until his sister Sophia got sick that he started worrying about shit like mortality. And it wasn’t until she died that he realized how goddamn lonely his life had become.

  Not wanting to sink into that swelling tide of memories, he finished his beer and hauled himself off the floor. Working a screwdriver under the rim of the paint can, he uncapped the lid. It was time to put pointless fantasies away and get something done.

  He should have put on music, but he was already involved and didn’t want to stop. The slow spongy swish of the paint roller and his even breathing was the only sound in the empty house. His mind switched to autopilot, as he dragged the roller up and down the wall, and his thoughts wandered anyway.

  Death was a naked fact of life. Everyone died. Some old, some young, the point of it all was to make use of time while time remained. Since Sophia’s passing, he’d suffered a nagging guilt that he wasn’t utilizing his time wisely—missing all the opportunities his sister wished she could have had. He didn’t want to leave this world without a trace.

  He’d spent years building a legacy, but what the hell did a construction company mean in the grand scheme of things? Family was what mattered. He wanted to see his hard work passed onto a son or daughter, not some employee. And he wanted to leave behind more than an investment. He wanted to invest himself in the ongoing life of his children so they could do the same.

  Thirty came in the blink of an eye. Thirty-five rung in quick like the bell of a boxing match. By then it had all seemed redundant and meaningless. His days passed routinely with little blips of interest along the way, but there was never anything significant happening, never anything exciting.

  Sure, his friends had gotten married and had children and that was exciting, but those events were theirs. He had nothing going on in his own life deserving of such celebration. Time was running out.

  Moving the lamp and bucket he was using for a table to the other side of the room, he dragged his tarp over the cement floor and replenished the pan of paint. Rotating his shoulders, he fell back into the repetitive motions of rolling the walls.