NERVES COURSE through my body as I get off the bed and tiptoe to my bedroom door, my mind fixed on making my way to Cade. I know I shouldn’t be doing this. Before anything else happens between us, we need to have a long talk about what we are, about what’s happening between us. But I doubt that’ll happen.
We’re like magnets. Unable to deny the temptation between us, no matter how hard we fight it.
I stop in front of my door, wondering if maybe I shouldn’t go to him. Even Pippa could tell something was wrong with me when we had dinner tonight. She kept asking me why I was acting weird and I couldn’t answer her. Her questions were just another reminder of something else Cade and I need to talk about.
If we’re going to keep doing this, we need to tell Pippa.
I’m second guessing everything that’s happening between Cade and I when my door is pushed open.
“I couldn’t wait a second longer,” he growls out. Before I can respond, he grabs me by the hips and pulls me into his body. The door slams shut, making my heart race.
“Cade,” I scold, “Pippa could’ve heard that.”
He grabs both sides of my face and backs me into the closed door. God, why does he have to look so good in the moonlight shining through my window? “I really don’t care if Pippa hears. What I do care about is the fact I had to come find you.”
I melt into his touch as he tilts my head sideways, giving himself better access to my throat. He kisses along my jaw, his lips caressing the tender spot underneath my ear.
“I was seconds away from showing up at your door,” I confess.
“About fucking time.”
“You had to give me time to let Pippa go to bed. Plus, you put me in the room farthest away from anything in the house.”
“I didn’t trust myself around you, Goldie. For good reason, look at us.”
My eyes flutter shut as he nips at my skin. A moan falls from my lips when his tongue caresses away the pain from the bite. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll probably break my fucking heart again, yet here I am, unable to resist you.”
“Cade.” My hands find his chest. I mean to push him away, but I end up pulling him closer instead.
“I don’t want to do it again.” He presses his hips against me—hard—keeping me pinned to the door. I wouldn’t move even if he gave me the space to do it.
“Do what?”
“Hate you.”
I arch into him as his teeth rake against my tender skin. “You’ve already told me you didn’t hate me.”
“I wanted to.”
“I wanted to hate you, too.”
He pulls his face close to mine. It’s like he’s searching for every little secret of mine when he stares into mine. “And did you?”
My heart feels heavy in my chest. It aches at the memory of the last time I saw him. I remember sobbing in the airport; strangers stood around and gawked at me as I walked away from him. The truth was, I didn’t want to leave his arms, but he left me no choice. He didn’t love me, and I couldn’t fight for us alone. He made me walk away from us when I thought we’d be more than just one summer.
“Goldie.” He towers over me, his body caging mine in as he stares into my soul. “Answer me.”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I don’t know if I actually hated you or if I hated what you did to us. Does it matter?”
“Why wouldn’t it matter?”
“Because either way, things ended up the way they did. Whether I hated you or not, you hurt me. You were supposed to be the person who didn’t hurt me. And you ended up being the person who hurt me the most.”
Cade grabs the fabric of my shorts, sliding them down the tips of my thighs. I let him do it because I’m not strong enough to deny him. “I’d let you hurt me time and time again if it meant you’d eventually find your way back to me.”
He holds me steady as I step out of my shorts. I don’t pay attention to where he discards them. I’m too caught up in how he looks at me to pay attention to anything else. Cade stares at me hungrily. His gaze is possessive. He falls to his knees as his hands skim the sides of my hips.
‘I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t think you’d care,” I confess.
“Are these more lies you tell yourself to forgive yourself?”
Before I can get any words out, he lifts one of my legs and drapes it over his shoulder. He nibbles and bites against the inside of my knee. I moan, my hands finding his shoulders to keep myself upright. “If I knew you felt the same, I would’ve been on the first flight back.”
His tongue moves up my inner thigh. His breath is hot against my skin. He’s so close to where I ache for his touch, yet it feels like he’s so far away. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want you to risk your dreams for me.”
“Don’t you know you’ve always been my biggest dream?”
He sighs, his face incredibly close to my throbbing clit. If he just leaned a little closer, I’d feel his touch. I’d feel relief. He doesn’t give it to me. He makes me wait, drawing it out in pure torture. “I didn’t believe it back then.”
Cade presses a kiss right next to my clit. My knees shake in anticipation. His lips are too gentle against me. I want them rough and wild, unrelenting until I’m coming apart at the seams for him. “I won’t make the same mistake again.”
“What mistake?”
“Letting you leave me.” His tongue presses against my clit, circling it slowly. He must not want an answer from me because he becomes unhinged. He forces his head between my legs, his tongue plunging deep inside me.
My head hits the door behind me with a loud thud. I’m too caught up in the way he makes me feel to be worried about who could hear us.
It’s the effect he has on me. I stop seeing reason around him. I forget how much hurt we’ve caused each other, how long it took to try and get over him. My heel digs into his back in an attempt to pull him closer even though his face is buried inside me.
Cade proves a point with his tongue. He proves that I have no hope of being anyone’s other than his. My heart, body—my entire being—is his. At one point, I may have actually hated him. Or maybe I hated how much I was his, even when I thought he didn’t want to be mine.
He’s making things clear as ever now. I’m his, and he’s mine, but there’s still so much we have to figure out.
Right now, it doesn’t matter. Everything could blow up in our faces tomorrow, and it probably will, but for tonight, we can pretend. My hips buck as pressure begins to build. I know my fingers aren’t gentle as they rake across his scalp, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He licks and laps at me, a loud growl of pleasure coming from his lips. His fingertips dig into my skin as he keeps one hand on my inner thigh, keeping me wide open for him. The position allows his tongue to go so deep, hitting the spot that sends me over the edge.
I moan as an orgasm ricochets through my body. I bite down on my lips, trying to stay quiet as he doesn’t let up. He makes no attempts to slow his tongue, to keep me quiet. He works my clit, milking the orgasm for everything I’ve got. He pulls his face from between my thighs, his mouth glistening from my cum. I’m seconds away from my knees giving out beneath me.
As if he could read my mind, Cade stands up and lifts me by my hips. My legs wrap around him as he walks us to the bed. He lays me down gently. His smell surrounds me, from his body hovering above me and from the sheets below me. I can’t escape it, and I don’t want to.
His hands are warm as they drift underneath the T-shirt I’d worn to bed. I let him pull the fabric off my body slowly. I’m expecting him to say something. The room is silent except for our rushed, heavy breaths. Cade slides off the bed, keeping eye contact with me as he slides his pajama pants off. He wears nothing beneath. I’m met with this sight of his hard, thick cock. It stands at attention, the tip wet with precum that glistens from the moonlight that drifts through the window.
His chest pulls in, his muscles taut with the movement. He’s so fucking perfect, his hard, chiseled muscles exactly what a romance novelist’s dreams are made of. My eyes are traveling over his rippling ab muscles when Cade finally breaks the silence.
“Do you see this?”
“See what?”
“How hard I am for you?”
Heat pools in my cheeks and between my legs. My arousal still coats his face, and yet I’m blushing from his words, unable to look where he wants me to.
“Look at my cock, Goldie.”
My eyes meet his. They’re dark and clouded, his pupils so wide I can barely see his amber-colored irises anymore. He stares right back at me, challenging me to listen to him. I can’t help it, there’s so much desire in his features that I have to do as I’m told.
I want to see how much he wants me. I want to know I’m not the only one feeling this way.
I take my time, memorizing every single muscle on his body before my gaze focuses on where he wants me to.
His fingers wrap around the base of his shaft. He pumps up and down, keeping my attention.
“Do you see what you do to me?”
I think about the wetness between my legs, the proof still coating his face of what he also does to me.
He lets go, his dick still pointing toward the ceiling with how hard it is. Cade climbs onto the bed, settling himself between my legs.
“You can’t hide what I do to you,” he notes, running the tip of his cock against my clit. “I can see how wet you are for me, baby. I can still taste it.” He pushes in a little deeper, making me moan in pleasure. “Our bodies can’t lie to each other. I’m wrecked for you, and despite you fighting it every chance you get, I know you’re wrecked for me, too.”
My eyes squeeze shut. His words, his touch, the feelings between us, are just too much for me to handle.
“Look at me,” he demands, his voice closer this time.
I close my eyes even tighter. I can’t look at him, not with the overwhelming sense of passion I’m feeling. If I look at him, I might not ever leave this bed. I might stay here forever, never writing another word, just to keep things like this and I know I can’t do that. I know I can’t lose myself, I can’t lose the parts of me I’m proud of that’ve developed since the moment I left this town—since he told me to leave.
I’ve laid in his bed so many nights of my life. He’s always been my comfort, my safe space. I was young and naïve to think that I’d ever find this same feeling with anyone else. The problem is, I did leave this town. I did leave him. I followed my dreams and I’m happy, despite the missing piece of me that had always stayed behind with him.
Now I’m faced with the catastrophic realization that the dream I thought I had—the big city, the busy lifestyle—might not have been my dream at all.
He roughly grabs me by the chin. It takes me by surprise so much that my eyes pop open.
Cade’s quiet at first, letting our bodies do the talking. He slides deeper inside me. His actions are slow but powerful. I feel him everywhere, my body gladly stretching to fit him, to connect our bodies. He rocks in and out of me as a moan falls from my lips.
“I’m yours.” One thrust. “I love you.” Another thrust. “I won’t survive if I lose you again.”
