Cade had gone very still. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but his eyes darkened to the color of dark walnut, and the flames reflected in them matched the anger that came off him in waves. "But you didn't run. You couldn't."
Emily shook her head mutely, unable to speak. She hadn't known what was happening to her. She had known that the massive creature who held her fast by the wrists was an alpha, but even as his fingers dug cruelly into her skin, she sensed that something was happening inside her, something even more impossible to fight than her captor.
"You were the only omega," Cade continued, his voice almost a growl. "Sloan was one lucky bastard."
Lucky, because omegas were so rare—that's what they'd all told each other before taking such a stupid risk. The chances of transitioning were so small they didn't seem real.
"H-he sure didn't think so," she mumbled.
Cade seemed astonished. "Why the hell not?"
Emily shook her head, feeling the familiar shame rise inside her. She shouldn't have said anything. "Forget it."
"I will not forget it," Cade said in a voice like hammered iron. "Tell me."
Tears threatened to gather in Emily's eyes, but she willed them away. Girls like her didn't have the privilege of using tears to get their way. But she had started this story, and she meant to finish it.
She took a deep breath, deciding not to sugar-coat the truth in any way—even though it would confirm what this alpha was probably already thinking. "Sloan always says it was his rotten luck that I was the one he touched. That it was a cruel trick that I was the omega instead of one of my friends."
"I don't understand."
Emily shook her head in frustration. Why was he being so obtuse? "You wouldn't say that if you'd been there. If you'd seen my friends. I'm not exactly the pick of the litter."
"What the hell does that mean?" Cade sounded angry now, leaning forward in his chair, his hands in fists.
He was really going to make her say it. He must have a cruel streak, Emily decided, feeling her own anger stir. "The other girls are all beautiful, okay? They have long legs and skinny waists—the kind of bodies that could make even those hideous bridesmaid dresses look good."
Long seconds ticked by in silence, confusion mixing with the anger on Cade's face. "…And?" he finally prompted her.
Emily felt like shouting at him. It was just so obvious! "And I'm not any of those things! I'm short and fat and—"
"And so goddamned gorgeous," Cade cut her off in a thunderous voice that shook the floor, "that an alpha in the prime of his life would risk his community, property, and life—just for the chance to bring you into his home."
Emily's mouth hung open. For a moment she couldn't breathe. No one had ever spoken about her like that.
Not one goddamn soul.
Was Cade teasing her? Or did he have some other agenda, some awful aim she hadn't yet guessed? But the range of emotions playing across the alpha's face held no revulsion, not even an iota of distaste.
She knew Cade wasn't a liar, but even as she struggled to make sense of his words, another part of her brain was coming up with a thousand reasons to reject them.
"That's kind of you," she said stiffly, the best she could come up with.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, I'm not being kind, Emily." Cade abruptly stood, sending the chair crashing backward into the wall. Emily flinched, but instead of hitting something, he knelt again on the floor in front of her.
This time when he took her hands in his, she tried to pull them away—it was too much, too confusing.
But she of all people knew she couldn't disobey an alpha.
Especially one who was staring into her eyes as if she were the only thing that mattered to him in this moment.
And dear God, there was a part of her—a part so deep that Emily didn't even know that it existed—that wanted desperately for that to be true.
"Sloan is a bastard for hurting you," Cade rumbled. From his touch, she could sense that he was holding back his anger—anger meant for someone other than her. "And if he said that you were anything other than the lushest, most alluring woman he's ever set eyes on, then he's a fucking idiot as well."
Then Cade did something that caused Emily's heart to stutter in shock, before starting to pound wildly. He leaned forward, his eyes drifting down to her lips.
Could he…was he really…yes—this alpha really was going to kiss her.
And if he did that, Emily didn't think she could prevent herself from kissing him back. Sliding her hands along his broad, muscular shoulders. Pressing her body closer to his.
And then Cade would pick her up again, and this time she forget to hold herself stiff in his arms, and she'd melt into him as he carried her to his bed, every bit of her reason floating away like dandelion fluff.
And then…
And then she'd be stuck. And the whole thing would start all over. Tonight would be heaven, but tomorrow? Tomorrow she'd be right back to being someone else's property.
Goddamn it.
Cade had promised never to hurt her. Emily had believed him. But she had been wrong before…so wrong. She couldn't take the chance of trusting a man based on his smoldering eyes and seductive words. Trust took time to earn. It took proof.
It took everything Emily had to shrink from Cade's kiss, pressing herself back in the chair. She'd thought he might stop her. Force her. It was a huge relief that he didn’t.
So what was this faint sense of disappointment?
Emily pushed the thought away. "I'm getting tired," she said shakily, faking a yawn. "Would it be possible for me to take a bath before it gets too late?"
Cade stared at her for several long seconds before getting to his feet, his eyes going opaque. When he spoke, his voice was formal. "Of course. Wait here, and I'll draw you one."
"Thank you."
Cade started to leave, then turned around again. "I meant what I said, Emily. I'll never force you, but that doesn't mean I'm giving up. Remember, I can read everything in that luscious scent of yours. I know how badly you wanted what was about to happen just now. And when you're ready, I'm going to make you forget everything and everyone that came before me."
Emily opened her mouth, but no words came. It didn't matter. Cade was already gone, disappearing to another part of the house. Seconds later, she heard the sound of water splashing into a tub.
Chapter Seven
The sounds coming from the bath were driving Cade mad.
Every lap of water against the side of the enameled cast iron tub, every splash of every drop shaken from Emily’s hair or dripping off her skin drove him further to distraction.
Sure, she was simply taking an everyday bath, scrubbing and rinsing her body, but the images that floated through his mind were an all-out seduction.
How could it be anything else when she was wet and naked mere feet away with nothing but a single door between them?
Cade had been fantasizing about this exact scenario from the moment he first laid eyes on Emily.
Who could resist, given that body? Those creamy full breasts…those supple, plump limbs…that glorious ass that he longed to wrap his hands around…those hips made for bearing pups. Any alpha with a pulse would be lying if he said he hadn't thought about losing himself in all of that.
The problem was that Cade's fantasies went beyond just fucking her…way beyond. His own senses were on such high alert that it was almost painful, her scent and the sound of her humming almost immobilizing him with desire. The bouquet of her scent was the only air he wanted to breathe.
He had planned to check the cupboards to see if he had any of Aric's moonshine left, but instead, he found himself standing frozen like an idiot in the kitchen, imagining those pretty, capable fingers working the fragrant oatmeal soap into a rich lather as Emily’s big cornflower blue eyes drifted shut.
He heard her sigh and imagined her lifting one of her feet to wash every little toe. He tracked the water's path in his mind as she squeezed the spo
nge above her breasts, making them glisten as the rivulets ran between them, down her cute rounded belly, between those thighs—
Cade's cock was so hard he wouldn't be surprised if it simply shattered at the thought of Emily's thighs. They would be soft and silken, like pillows for his face as he went exploring.
He'd abrade her with the stubble of his beard as he kissed his way up from the inside of her knees, making her beg him to stop, but he wouldn't, not until he'd teased her nerves to frantic heights, and then—oh yeah, then he'd introduce her to his tongue.
But even that wasn't what had Cade feeling like he'd landed back in his first wet dream. What Cade wanted— would tear down his own house for—was seeing his own desire echoed back in Emily's eyes. Of knowing she wanted him as much as he wanted him.
And the thing was, Cade would bet everything that she did. Even if he hadn't seen it in her eyes, he would have known from the deep, florid scent of her burgeoning desire.
That omega had desperately wanted to kiss him when he'd leaned in. Hell, he'd wager she'd thought about it all the way home. And Cade knew that she would have let him, too, if he'd kept chipping away at her defenses.
But he'd promised her he wouldn't.
And an alpha always kept his promises.
Any alpha who was worth a damn, anyway. Now there was a thought that distracted Cade for a second or two—there was one sick, worthless, doomed fucking alpha out there who had no idea what was coming for him.
But for the moment, Sloan would keep.
There was another reason Cade hadn't forced the issue: he wasn't looking for anything less than everything. He wasn't interested in a rushed encounter or one that left even a trace of a misgiving. He didn't want Emily holding back or keeping him at a distance.
He wanted her out of her mind and begging for it. He wanted to feel her adorable little fists hammering against his chest, wrapping her sweet thighs around his hips, screaming his name like she'd seen salvation driving the devil out of town.
Oh, and he wanted to take his time helping her unlearn every moment she'd spent with that piece of shit. He wanted her to explore his body, play with him, stroke him, tease him to her heart's content—right up until the second he showed her what a real alpha tasted like.
Goddamn. The images of Emily's long blonde hair bobbing against his hips as her cherry lips strained to encircle him was too much.
Cade ground his teeth in agony, trying to hold back a roar of frustration. He couldn't stay here another minute, listening to her soaping herself and drinking in her scent, and not tear that door off its brass hinges. But doing that would only scare the hell out of her and make her retreat even further.
So Cade turned away. He flung open his front door and stepped out into the early summer evening. A part of him wished the temperature would drop all the way down to zero and freeze his balls.
Instead, the forest around him was rich with the scent of new life, taunting him with blossoms and honey-sweet growth—the perfect complement to Emily's alluring fragrance.
But it wasn't the fault of the season that Cade couldn't cool the fire inside him. He could dive into a six-foot snowbank in the middle of January, and the heat in his blood would melt it all away.
There was only one way to get any relief from this kind of desire: it had to be spent.
Cade planted his feet at the edge of the garden, yanked open the fly of his pants and grabbed his raging cock.
He was already so primed and ready that merely the act of wrapping his fingers around his shaft took him nine-tenths of the way there.
His head fell back as the sounds from her bath found him, having followed him outside as if they knew how hard it had been for him to leave. He inhaled the scents of soap and skin and—holy mother—her slick drifting into the bathwater, luring him like the sirens coaxing sailors from their goddamn rock.
It should be him in there washing her body, tenderly stroking her perfect breasts, working down to the sacred cleft between her legs.
Not one more drop of slick should be sacrificed to the bath, not when he'd scale the whole damn mountain range in the distance for a taste of it. Cade squeezed his eyes shut and whipped his cock to a frenzy, pretending it was her soft hands, her lush cunt, her hot, wet mouth. He gripped the sturdy post holding up the deer fencing, his fingers leaving deep grooves in the wood, as the pleasure became too much.
He ought to be there already. He ought to be past there. Goddamit—Cade needed some relief from the need that woman caused in him.
Then he heard the softest sigh of pure pleasure turning into a faint, rhythmic hum. There were soft splashes as she started touching herself, her humming turning to moans.
The thought of her making those sounds because of him—all for him—rocketed Cade over the edge.
There was a ground-shaking crack as the force of his grip split the post he was holding onto, but Cade barely noticed as he shot past the peak, and blinding pleasure pulsed through him.
Wave after wave of come shot from his cock, spilling into the earth, bathing the soil with his own seed.
And then, when it was finally over, Cade nearly doubled over with the agony of realizing that it still wasn't enough.
He'd come like a Mack truck, but his cock felt like it had gone for a tricycle ride. He knew what he'd felt just now was only a pale shadow of what was possible with Emily.
Jerking off with the thought of her in his head was like dying of thirst under the Niagara Falls. To actually be inside her? To fill her with all that come? To lock their bodies together with his knot and feel them become one? Cade would die for the chance.
And anyone who had that chance and squandered it was an abomination who didn't deserve to breathe the same air.
As Cade jammed his still-half-hard cock back into his pants and zipped up, it occurred to him that there lay the real trouble.
Sloan was a tyrant and a coward for taking his rage out on his omega. His words had been as ridiculous as they'd been cruel.
But no matter what the bastard said or did, and despite any insult he hurled at her, Cade knew for a fact that Sloan would never willingly give Emily up.
The reason was as simple as it was irrefutable. There was simply no way an alpha—even one as useless as Sloan—could walk away from an omega so powerful that even fantasizing about her caused another alpha to splinter a solid redwood post.
Emily was right: the bastard would come for her.
But that didn't mean that Cade would let him have her. No fucking way.
Emily had been to hell and back. Cade was a realist—he knew there were traumas from which it was impossible to recover, wounds that never scabbed over. But it didn't matter. Even if Emily never healed from her past enough to truly be his, Cade was afraid he was already hers.
The water had cooled, her fingertips had pruned, and Emily knew that it was time to get out of the tub.
The relief she’d sought by touching herself had been short-lived. She hadn’t done that since before coming to the Boundarylands—Sloan had managed to demolish any such urges left in her—but it was impossible not to be moved by the presence of a gorgeous alpha, even if the most he’d done was to carry her a few dozen yards.
But touching herself hadn’t done anything to relieve Emily’s craving. If anything, it had only heightened it—and that was dangerous.
She could not afford to be distracted when she was with Cade. She reminded herself that he didn't consider her lazy—not yet, at least—but worry still nagged at her. She didn't want him thinking she was an inconsiderate guest for staying in the bath so long.
Guest. Was that what Emily was?
She knew she wasn't his omega. From the first hour in his house, Emily could tell that their relationship would never be like the one she had with Sloan.
Somehow guest didn't capture her role here either...but it was the best she could come up with. After all, Cade hadn't forbidden her from leaving, so she wasn't a prisoner.
Emily was s
till a little fuzzy on the details of being an omega. For instance, she'd heard that once an omega started to bond with an alpha, she physically couldn't be apart from him until the claiming process was complete. But that had never happened between her and Sloan.
Emily had expected—dreaded—the formation of the bond as she endured her first heat with Sloan, but when she finally came out of it, she couldn't detect any sign of attachment to him.
She'd tested herself by waking before dawn the next morning and hobbling as far away as she could get, something like pride budding inside her the further she got. Even when Sloan woke up and came after her, catching her near-collapse two miles down his drive, the fact that that terrifying bond hadn't formed kept a tiny flame of hope alive inside her.
But Sloan had been anything but happy. When Emily's second miserable heat passed without a bond forming, Sloan became convinced that she was to blame. He was certain there was something broken inside her that needed to be fixed. Something that kept her from behaving like a real omega.
As Emily toweled off, she couldn't help but wonder what would happen if she tried to take off down the road now. Would she make it only a few yards before the invisible force of a growing bond with Cade stopped her? Or would she be able to just keep on running?
Did she even want to run?
Emily shook the thought from her head much as she shook the water from her hair before wrapping it up in the towel. It was a waste of mental energy. Even if she did want to leave, there was nowhere to go. She would never voluntarily return to Sloan, but his threats of violence meant no one else would touch her.
If only…but no. There was no point wishing that she could go back to Vancouver.
Even if Emily found a way to escape the Boundarylands, it would never work. There was only one thing more reviled by beta culture than alphas, and that was omegas. Half a dozen of her beta friends had witnessed her transition. Even if they hadn't, she'd been away too long for anyone to believe that nothing had happened, that no alpha had touched her.
Cade: The Boundarylands Omegaverse Page 5
