Free A Safe Surrender: A Donnelley Brother's Novel (Donnelley Brothers Book 2) by Alannah Carbonneau Page B

mine for what felt like hours, before he nodded. “I’d like a coffee.”
    As Kyle moved away, I breathed a breath of release. “I’m going to have to make a pot.”
    “At least your feet won’t get frost bite from the floors.” He stated matter of fact. “You should try to feed your fire throughout the night when its cold like this.”
    “Really?” I asked over my shoulder. “There’s an actual heater, though.”
    “Tends not to work quite as well when it’s below thirty-five degrees Celsius.” He shrugged. “These cabins aren’t exactly new.”
    I nodded. “Well, I happen to think it’s perfect the way it is.”
    “Where did you live before?” Kyle lowered his large body into one of the tiny wooden chairs around the table.
    “I lived in a lot of places growing up, but I settled with Rhett in a little town outside Edmonton.”
    “How long were you with him?” He asked, his tone tense.
    Turning around, I leaned my back against the counter as I listened to the coffee maker brewing behind me. “I started seeing him when I was fifteen.”
    “How old are you now?”
    “Twenty-two.”
    “You were with him for seven years?”
    I nodded, glancing at my toes. Damn, I really needed to paint my toenails. The purple paint was beginning to chip. “Yes. And before you start wondering how - he wasn’t always a bad guy.”
    “But he turned into a bad guy?” Kyle asked darkly. He looked so angry and that shocked me. Kyle didn’t really know me, and he had no reason to be angry with Rhett for what he did other than for the principle of it. Laying a hand on a woman is wrong. I know this - everyone knows this. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. It does.
    “I suppose.” I nibbled my lower lip as I tried to swallow the build up of emotion in my throat. Thinking of Rhett was hard. I’d loved him so much. In him, I’d found the ability to believe that there was more in store for me from this life than pain.
    I’d been so terribly wrong.
    ...I leaned back on the bed, Rhett’s bed, in his cousin’s house. I’d been in this room so many times before, but never like this. Never with Rhett nearly naked and me panting beneath him. This was different from all the other times I’d slept over at his house. I’d been with him for a year. I was sixteen now, old enough to do this - or that’s what everyone said, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t terrified. Jana said it hurt the first time, but she also said that sex felt good. I had to believe her. Everything I let Rhett do to me felt good. Every time he touched me, it was amazing.
    I wanted this. I want this, I want this, I want this.
    “Fuck, you’re hot.” Rhett growled as he lowered himself onto the bed between my legs and my heart raced painfully. It was uncomfortable.
    When I’d agreed to spend the night here, I hadn’t thought this was how it would turn out. I’d spent so many nights here, and Rhett had never pushed for this. But we’d been seeing each other for almost a year and I knew he was growing impatient. I knew he wanted sex and I didn’t want to lose him.
    Lifting my hands, I traced the lines of his chest with my fingertips. He was a beautiful man, and he was only eighteen...
    “Kami?” The deep sound of Kyle’s voice brought me back to the here and now. Shaking my head of thoughts of Rhett, I focused my eyes on Kyle who was gazing at me with confusion. “Where’d you go?”
    “Nowhere.” I turned my back to him, feeling shaken at the memory of my first time. It had started out so sweet and turned out so frightening - kind of like my entire relationship with Rhett.
    “I take it black.” Kyle said from behind me and I jumped. “Sorry.”
    “I didn’t know you were so close.” I waved away his apology, handing him the mug. “Black coffee.” I scrunched my nose. “Isn’t it a little bitter?”
    “Coffee’s coffee. So long as I’m getting a hit of caffeine, I’m good.” I watched him raise his mug to his lips and couldn’t