Cain’s eyes narrowed, a coldness I’d never seen before slipping over his features. “Have you been selling access to our servers, Rachel?”
She let out an ugly chuckle. “I might not be a CEO, but I’m not an idiot. I’m not telling you shit. But you should’ve realized how much the people around you have grown to know about the programs you designed.”
I didn’t think, I just lunged. This greedy little— She’d stolen Cain’s blood, sweat, and tears and sold it to the highest bidder. “You bitch!”
Cain caught me around the waist. “Don’t. She’s not worth it.”
I tried to shake loose, but Cain’s hold was too strong. “She stole from you!”
“I know. Calm down, baby. Calm.” I stopped my thrashing as Cain pressed his lips to my temple. “And that’s why she’s fired.” He looked to Vince. “Confiscate her company phone, computer, and tablet, and escort her back to Portland.”
“Of course, sir.” Vince held out his hand to Rachel. “Ma’am.”
Rachel threw the phone at Vince’s chest. “Fuck all of you.” She stormed back to the SUV and got inside. Vince raised a brow at Cain.
Cain released me and pulled out his phone. After a minute of typing on the screen, he looked up. “She’s locked out of the system.”
“You going to press charges, boss?”
Cain looked to the SUV, and that’s when I saw it. Pain. He hadn’t expected the traitor to be Rachel. Someone who had been with him since day one. Someone he’d thought had his back. “I need to get in touch with my PI, see if we can figure out just how much damage she did.”
Vince nodded. “I’ll put a tracker on her car. Just in case.”
Cain chuckled. “Thanks.” He watched as Vince strode back to the SUV and climbed in. He kept watching until the vehicle disappeared from view. Then he turned to me.
“I’m so sorry, Cain.” I didn’t go to him, didn’t reach out. Because it felt like a step in any direction was a step into quicksand.
He took two steps forward. “I’m not.”
“You’re not?”
Another two steps. “Nope.”
I licked my suddenly dry lips. “Why?”
Another two. He was just a breath away, but he didn’t touch me. “I’m free. I can start a life here without looking over my shoulder.”
“Are you sure you want that?”
Cain’s jaw clenched so tightly there was a faint clicking noise. “Why do you keep fucking doubting that?”
I looked over his shoulder, not able to meet his gaze. Rachel might be a bitch and a traitor, but she knew things about him that I didn’t. Things I might never know. And that burned.
“Please tell me the lies Rachel spewed didn’t get to you.”
My gaze flicked back to Cain. “You shared things with her that you won’t with me.”
“I did fucking not. I’ve told her nothing about my past. Anything she knows is because she snooped where she had no business. The person I’ve shared the most with in the past decade is you.” Cain reached out, grasping the end of my tank top and pulling me gently to him. “You are the one I want a future with. I never thought I’d say that. But I am.” He brushed his mouth against mine, soft and strong. “Is my future enough for you?”
“Yes.” I breathed out the agreement. It was instinct. There was no other answer. I loved this man, and I wasn’t letting him go. “You’re enough. Always.”
“Thank fuck.” Cain lunged, tossing me over his shoulder and startling a laugh out of me.
“Cain! My groceries.”
He growled but turned back to the Range Rover, grabbed the bags, and shut the back hatch. “Groceries aren’t exactly my priority right now.”
“I need them for later.” I had a surprise in store for the man who held my future, and I didn’t want some wild animal to steal it out of his SUV.
Cain jogged up the steps as if I weighed nothing. Pulling the door open, he tossed the bags on the floor and headed towards his bedroom.
I pinched his butt. “It’s a good thing there wasn’t anything breakable in there.”
“If there was, we could always buy more.”
I groaned. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to get this man to be practical.
Cain flipped me off his shoulder, sending me sailing through the air and landing on his bed with an oomph. He grinned wickedly at me. “Now, that’s better.”
I smiled back. “Better would be naked.”
“That can be arranged.” Cain tugged the tee over his head, and I followed suit, pulling off my tank and slipping off my shorts. Cain cursed. “Seriously, no bra again?”
I bit my lip, staring up at the gorgeous man in front of me, a picture of smooth, tanned skin over hard, lean muscle. I wished I had a lick of artistic ability in me. I wanted to immortalize him just like this. “I’m kind of anti-bra when I can get away with it.”
Cain stepped closer to me, reaching out a hand and swiping a thumb across my nipple. It beaded under his touch. “You know that means I’ll constantly be staring at your tits from now on, wondering if you’re bare under there. People are going to think I’m a pervert.” I couldn’t hold in my laugh. “Oh, you think that’s funny, do you? That I have zero control when it comes to you? That you make me lose all common sense?” He gave my nipple a light pinch, twisting as he went.
I sucked in air. “Cain…” My voice was breathy, pleading.
“You like that?”
I nodded.
He pinched both nipples, a little harder this time, and sparks danced through my nerve endings as heat flooded my core. Cain slipped a hand under my hair, tugging my head back to grant him better access. He took my mouth in a slow assault. Stoked the fire that had been lit when he pinched my nipple and driving it higher.
I reached out, making quick work of the button on his jeans and pulling them down. With a dexterity I certainly didn’t possess, Cain kicked his pants aside. I grasped his cock and he sucked in a sharp breath. The smoothest silk that seemed to grow impossibly harder as I stroked. My fingers wandered. I wanted to know every inch of this man’s body, inside and out. He may not be able to give me his past, but I could have this. And I wanted to know it all. What turned him on, what drove him higher, what made him absolutely lose his mind.
I cupped his balls, tugging just slightly, and Cain tore his mouth away from mine, eyes blazing. “Are you trying to make me lose it?”
I grinned. “Maybe.”
“Fuck. I need a condom.” He strode towards the nightstand, starting to open it.
“I’m on the pill now. And I got checked.”
Cain’s head jerked in my direction. “When?”
I licked my lips. “When I had my follow-up at the doctor in town.”
Cain’s eyes turned molten, the dark blue in them seeming to almost glow. “I’m clean. I’ve never gone without a condom.”
“Take me.”
There was the briefest moment of hesitation before Cain lunged, covering my body with his. I knew how much this meant. He was giving me a piece of his trust. It wasn’t everything, but it was more. And all I needed were little pieces of more along the way.
Cain’s cock bumped my opening as his lips trailed up my neck to my ear. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He didn’t hesitate this time. With one slow thrust, he was inside me, bottoming out and stealing my breath.
“Cain.” It was a whisper and a plea. For what, I wasn’t exactly sure. But Cain seemed to know somehow. The pace he set was deep and slow, as if he were trying to fill all of me, imprint himself on every last cell of my body.
He cupped my face with one hand as he moved, his thumb brushing back and forth across my cheekbone. The movement stilled for the briefest moment, and he held my gaze with his, so much passing between us. “You’re everything to me.”
Tears welled in my eyes. A feeling of belonging overtook me. Of being cherished. I hadn’t felt anything close to it in so long. We weren’t
the perfect people, but we just might be perfect for each other. “You’re everything to me, too.”
It was all he needed. The slow strokes were gone. In their place was a punishing pace that seemed almost feral, as if Cain needed to be closer, deeper than ever before.
I moaned, arching my back and granting him access. Hooking my legs around his hips, I dug my heels into his ass, spurring him on. The feel of him with nothing between us was everything. My fingers dug into his shoulders, my nails biting into his skin.
Cain cursed and thrust even deeper, the movement sending the room spinning. As if everything I could see or feel cracked like frozen glass. One more stroke and the glass shattered. My world came apart around me, and I knew things would never be the same.
36
Cain
“Where are you going?” The bed dipped as Kennedy rolled away from me, disrupting my light snooze. A nap that was needed because she had drained every ounce of energy from my body.
She grinned at me over her shoulder as she picked up the shirt I’d hastily discarded on the floor. “Stay where you are. I have a little something in store for you, but I want it to be a surprise. So, no peeking.”
I watched her body bend and twist, graceful even while just getting dressed. “I’ve got all the surprise I need right here. Except you keep covering up my view.” I leaned forward and grabbed the corner of the t-shirt she’d just put on, pulling her towards me.
Kennedy bent, brushing her mouth against mine. “Behave.”
“Now, why would I want to do that?”
She grinned. “Because good boys get rewards later.”
I pulled a full-on pout that had Kennedy cackling as she headed out the door. I didn’t like her away from me. I wanted to touch her anytime I damn well pleased. Having her near meant breathing easier. I needed to get a grip. This was getting ridiculous.
I pushed out of bed, pulling on a pair of boxers and grabbing my laptop. I needed to get some things in play for Halo. I booted up the computer and reached for my phone, hitting Jake’s contact.
He answered after only two rings. “Hey, man. The new program looks great. Not that I’m as well-versed as you are, but from what I can tell, it does everything we were hoping for.”
My gut clenched. I really hoped my number two didn’t up and quit on me. “About that. There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Okay.” The sound of a door closing came over the line. “Sounds serious.”
“It is.” I picked up a coin from my nightstand and flipped it over and over between my fingers. “I found the leak.”
Jake was silent for a moment before clearing his throat. “Who?”
“You’re not going to believe this. It was Rachel.”
Jake sucked in an audible breath. “No, shit? How’d you find out?”
“She as much as admitted it, but there’s more.” I set the coin back on my nightstand. I could get away with not telling Jake what I’d done with the dummy programs, just send him a new one and say I’d updated a few bugs. He’d never have to know that I doubted him, that I had tested him. But that wasn’t fair. I owed him the truth.
So, I spilled it all. The list of people I’d narrowed things down to, my plan to cross him and Rachel off my list first so they could help ferret out the culprit, Rachel’s nasty explosion at Kennedy. I told him everything.
Jake was again silent, and it lasted longer this time. “So, you gave me a program that sends you an alert as soon as it’s uploaded to a new computer?”
“I did.” The program has to run for at least twenty-four hours, but he didn’t need to know the ins and outs, just that I’d tested him. And for that, he deserved an apology. “I’m sorry, Jake. I needed to know I could trust my people at the top. But I’m sure you’re pissed as hell right now. And that’s fair. If you don’t want to work for me anymore, I’ll understand, but I hope we can get past this.”
There was more silence, then the shuffling of papers and the sounds of Jake rising from his chair, pacing maybe? “I get why you did what you did, it just sucks to be on the other end of it. I need a couple of days to wrap my head around this.”
“Take all the time you need.” It was the least I could give him.
“Thanks.”
Jake hung up before I could say goodbye. I had a feeling I’d be looking for a new second in command before long. Jake and I had never been friends exactly. But I’d destroyed the little bit of trust between us, and that was almost impossible to rebuild. Maybe it would be better to part ways, start fresh with someone new. I’d give Jake a more than generous severance package. He’d earned it.
The sounds of a mixer whirring wafted in from the kitchen. I winced. Kennedy was cooking. She’d mastered scrambled eggs and a few other things, but she’d never ventured out on her own, making something from scratch. Hopefully, she wouldn’t start a fire. Or cut herself. The possibilities for harm were endless, and my chest began to constrict, the panic setting in.
I took a slow, deep breath, in through my nose, and out through my mouth. She would be okay. I was right here if anything happened. She needed her freedom, even in something as simple as cooking, and I had to give it to her. I never wanted to clip her wings, I wanted to help her fly.
I forced myself to relax against the pillows. I could focus on work. I’d ignored my email inbox for far too long, getting sucked into finishing the new Halo program and being distracted by all things Kennedy. And it wasn’t a distraction that I thought would fade with time. Kenz was endlessly fascinating. Hell, I’d been transfixed just watching her get dressed. I’d never tire of just watching her move through space, through life.
I shook my head. She was distracting me even when she wasn’t here. I zeroed in on my laptop screen. “Work. Emails. Kennedy later.” I lost myself in proposals and inquiries, sending a message to HR that I’d need a new assistant. I politely suggested a male this time.
Time flew by in a blur of reading and typing as I remembered why this company was so important to me and got excited again about what I could make it into.
“Cain.” Kennedy’s voice calling from the kitchen jolted me from my thoughts.
“You ready for me?” I called back.
“Yup, come on out.”
I closed my laptop and set it on the bed. Rising, I threw on a pair of sweats and a tee. As I opened the door of my bedroom and stepped into the hall, the scent of something sweet—and distinctly not burned—filled my senses. I grinned wide as I headed for the kitchen. My girl had done it. She needed this win.
Kennedy beamed as I walked into the kitchen. She threw her arms wide. “Ta-da!”
I looked down at the creation in front of her and froze. It was one of those rainbow chip cakes. The ones with the multi-colored sprinkles in the frosting and in the cake itself. Just the sight of it, sent me hurtling back in time.
“Cain?” Kiara looked up from where she was coloring.
“Whatcha need, princess?” I set down my pencil next to my math book.
She rolled her lips together the way she always did when she was nervous. “Do you think maybe this year I could have a cake?”
My chest tightened the way it always did when it was so damn obvious that Kiara didn’t have the same life as other little girls. Then heat seemed to spread through me. Our good-for-nothing mother sure as hell wasn’t going to get her a cake. It was four o’clock, and she was already at the bar, drinking away the little money we had. Good thing I lifted cash from her purse whenever I could. If I didn’t, Kiara and I would probably starve.
I looked at Kiara’s hopeful face. Turning six was supposed to be fun. I forced a smile. “I think I can figure something out.” I’d make sure I did, even if I had to beg one of the neighbors to help me.
She smiled huge. “Maybe I can get one of them rainbow cakes!”
My brow wrinkled. “A rainbow cake?” Shit, I didn’t even know what that was.
Kiara’s head bobbed up and down. “Yeah! You know the ones that h
ave all the sprinkles in the frosting and in the cake, and they’re all different colors?”
The tension in me eased a little. That was a cake from a box. I could handle a cake from a mix. I would make it every year for her if it put that kind of smile on her face.
“Cain?”
Kennedy’s voice shook me from the memories. I had made the rainbow cake for Kiara that year. For her sixth birthday, and every birthday after until I’d left for college. Until I’d left her alone. Abandoned her to a woman I knew wasn’t any kind of mother.
“I can’t.” My voice was hoarse, even to my own ears.
“Cain.” Kennedy’s voice was so incredibly gentle. There was no anger, not even any hurt, just concern. “What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry. I just can’t.” I turned on my heel and fled.
37
Kennedy
What the hell had just happened? I looked down at the cake I’d worked so hard on. I’d read the instructions half a dozen times, just to make sure I got it right. But this wasn’t about me. There’d been pain in Cain’s eyes. So raw, it seemed to claw at my chest, tearing at the flesh there.
How did so much pain come from me making him a cake? Cain hadn’t trusted me with his pain. Would every step I took forever mean guessing where the landmines lay? Hoping I didn’t step wrong and get blown to bits? Because as much as I knew his reaction wasn’t about me, it still hurt. No, it killed.
I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to withstand a lifetime of that. Of rejection for no discernible reason. Of thinking I was helping, only to hurt instead and then be punished for that pain.
I gripped the granite counter, the edge of the stone cutting into my hands. I welcomed the bite of pain and pressed down harder. I’d spent most of my life walking on eggshells, attempting to avoid my mother’s disapproving judgment, making sure I didn’t disappoint my father with dreams that differed from his.
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