Craving Caden
Lost Boys, book 2
Jessica Lemmon
Craving Caden is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Jessica Lemmon
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Lemmon Ink.
Cover concept: Jessica Lemmon
Cover design: Passion Creations by Mary Ruth
Dedication
For Amy Wade.
I’m so blessed to have you in my life!
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Sneak Peek
Daring Devlin - Chapter One
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Jessica Lemmon
Prologue
Caden
When I woke up in the hospital room, fuzzy from pain meds and disoriented, you’d think the first thing on my mind would be my memory of the accident. The exploding glass and the sound of my car, Blue, crumpling around me. Eerie silence and the warm, sticky ooze of blood sliding down my face.
You’d be wrong.
My first thought was on the blonde hovering over me. Her big blue eyes, her full mouth, and the concerned expression on her face.
As of that moment, Tasha Montgomery drowned out the pain thumping inside me like too much bass on a speaker. I never wanted her to see me as weak. Fragile. Broken.
Hell, once upon a time I approached her with cocky confidence, assuming she’d say yes to my idiotic advances. Nothing like a knock on the head to bring your former stupidity to a screeching halt.
Where once she’d avoided me because I was an asshole, now she doted thanks to the accident that had robbed me of my voice.
I couldn’t say I liked that better.
Chapter One
Tasha
I parked my BMW in the Wilson driveway, cutting the engine and sighing in resignation. The garage door was open, and two tennis shoes poked out from beneath a pale blue vintage car.
The shoes belonged to my “patient,” Caden Wilson. Cade, as he was known to his friends. I called him Cade too, though I’m not exactly sure he considered me his friend. I wasn’t sure what we were.
I stepped out of my own vehicle in sparkly flats and tugged at my short denim skirt. The moment the snow had thawed, I’d been filled with gratitude that winter was over. Much as I loved my boots, I was a spring girl. New beginnings and fresh starts and all that.
I debated for a second before leaning back into the driver’s side and grabbing my backpack from the passenger seat. Cade hated this pack. It represented the uphill climb to regain his speech. I was here to help. I had a job to do. If he didn’t see it that way, it wasn’t my problem.
After his accident, I filled in as his physical therapist when he’d run off every other therapist who came his way. He hadn’t let me do much before and allowed me to do even less now. But his physical injuries were no longer an issue.
Cade’s problem was with his tongue.
I wasn’t a speech therapist, but Cade’s father didn’t care about titles. As long as Cade was willing to work with me, Paul Wilson kept me around. Paul and I spent a lot of hours next to Cade’s hospital bed those first few days. Cade had drifted in and out of consciousness and was as silent as a stone statue.
I had witnessed the accident that night, and every instinct told me Cade needed a friend to wake up to. Most of the crowd on Alley Road had bailed after the crash, since street racing was illegal. An ambulance plus cops being deployed hadn’t inspired a lot of loyalty. His closest friends, whose interests were pre-law like him, popped in but then out again, not having the stomach to sit with him. The bandages and cuts on his face from the windshield didn’t deter me. I watched over him worried, hoping each time his long eyelashes fluttered they wouldn’t reveal the pain swimming in his eyes.
Paul was grateful I’d stayed. He’d been my father’s accountant for years, so I’d seen him around before our rendezvous at the hospital. Mine and Cade’s past wasn’t peachy, but knowing he was hurting, I couldn’t walk away.
So, I didn’t.
Cade was my second job, in a way. I was currently pulling an internship at Ridgeway Rehabilitation Institute. I’d been at RRI for a few months and I enjoyed the work. I was good at it, according to my instructor, and I was working with patients who didn’t hate me, which was a plus. By summer, I hoped to start my career there by obtaining a paid PTA position.
Working with Cade was a blip on an otherwise wide-spanning radar. Or so I told myself. I took a deep breath to announce my arrival, but someone else did it for me.
“Hey, Tasha.” My best friend’s boyfriend, in all his tall, dark, suited beauty, appeared in the garage, bag on his shoulder.
Devlin Calvary was Cade’s half-brother, an unforeseen twist that had surprised them both. Last year, they’d discovered they were half-brothers who shared a mother. I had to sit down and draw a flowchart to understand how that’d happened. A lot of lies, as it turned out.
That partly explained Cade’s bad attitude. He learned his parentage was half fiction, and then he threw in a car accident that had injured him and taken him out of college. And trust me, he hadn’t been the most pleasant person before his injuries. At least he wasn’t slicing me in two with that sharp tongue of his. Some days I was surprised I was trying to help him regain his speech. Maybe this time around he’d use his powers for good rather than evil.
Devlin adjusted the duffel bag on his shoulder. He was dressed for work in a deep charcoal-gray suit, a blue tie arrowing down to a shiny leather belt. He was the owner of a high-end restaurant in town, so he dressed to impress. He was wily, but since he’d fallen for my best friend, he’d become…well, not tamed, but there was a light air around him that hadn’t existed before they met. Rena and Devlin were inseparable, which had changed him for the better. Rena finally found the happiness she deserved. They brought out the best in each other, which was what couples were supposed to do.
“Hey.” Devlin kicked the sole of his brother’s shoe. “Therapist is here.”
Cade didn’t respond. That wasn’t unusual.
“You are a glutton for punishment, Montgomery.” Devlin’s mouth twisted into a smirk—the one my best friend Rena favored. His comment wasn’t venomous. He used to be a jerk. Now he was almost cordial, which was an adjustment for me.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, curious.
Devlin had lived with Cade and Paul when he was younger and had returned to help after Cade’s accident. Recently, Devlin had moved into Rena’s apartment. Their relationship had moved fast—at the time I worried it was too fast—but I was also lost in a thick smokescreen of envy that had clouded my judgment. I wasn’t proud of that jealousy, but it was there. At the time I was holding out hope that my ex, Tony, and I might have a future together.
Boy, was I wrong.
“This is the last of my stuff,” Devlin said, thumb hooked under the strap on the bag hanging from his shoulder
. “So…”
We both glanced at the beater of a car in the garage. Cade hadn’t moved an inch. One of his legs was straight out, next to an open toolbox and a few grease-covered rags, and his other foot was on the ground, knee crooked.
Devlin’s mouth pulled into a smile. “Enjoy your session with Mr. Sunshine.”
Okay, he was a looker, I’d give him that. But he wasn’t my type. Rena wasn’t anything like me. She was a bad girl who’d played good for years. I was a dying breed—the last of the good girls—a type-A, perfectionist only child who knew my place and measured my value by how much I could achieve.
“Well.” Devlin pushed a hand through his medium-length black hair and flicked a glance to the upstairs window where Cade had spent nearly every waking and sleeping hour since his accident. “He’s outside, so there’s that.”
True. I wouldn’t be climbing the stairs to his dimly lit bedroom today.
“Good luck.” Devlin walked to his SUV. I waved goodbye as he backed out of the driveway.
I pulled back my shoulders, readying for today’s challenge. Remember when I mentioned I was a type-A perfectionist? My drive to be praised and to do my best was a fire I started, but my father happily fanned the flames. Nothing seemed to please him, but that was another story.
I went into my field because I genuinely wanted to help people. Cade had given up on himself and his future, and my walking away from him would almost guarantee he’d never leave his bedroom. And I guessed a future playing video games and grunting every so often wasn’t what he wanted.
Lately, though, I didn’t feel like I was helping at all. We’d pretty much retreated to separate corners over the last month.
But he’s outside. That was major progress.
“Good afternoon!” I chirped. The wrench sound ceased for a second before starting up again. “Are we doing your session in the garage today? The change of scenery is nice.”
No comment from my captive audience. I sighed.
Most of the time I felt like I was failing miserably, but I continued to show up and try, try again. The money was a nice bonus, but that wasn’t why I showed up. At first, I told myself it was a favor for Paul, and then later I told myself it was my own never-say-die attitude, but there was only one real reason I continued to put myself through so much rejection.
I did it for Cade.
We were running out of time. Soon I wouldn’t ask myself if I should or shouldn’t bother showing up. I would graduate, pass the state board exam, and land a full-time position. I wouldn’t have time to come here and listen to myself talk.
I kicked Cade’s shoe like Devlin had, backing up quickly when Cade rolled out from under the car on one of those low wheeled carts mechanics use. His golden-brown eyes locked on mine.
He was a royal pain in the ass, but somehow still the most gorgeous guy I had ever seen. I’d thought so since I first laid eyes on him at Ridgeway University. Despite our mutual dislike, my appreciation of his fine-tuned biceps, the tattoos cascading down one arm, and his firm, wide shoulders hadn’t gone anywhere.
He stood and snatched an orange rag to wipe his hands and continued scowling at me. I think. I was no longer looking at his face. My attention was consumed with thick, rounded biceps and strong shoulders, visible thanks to a well-worn T-shirt with the sleeves cut off.
“This is new.” I gestured to our surroundings. “I thought you’d turned into a vampire. I rarely see you in the daylight.”
He grunted as he bent and put his tools away. His typical response. I tried not to admire the way his faded jeans hugged his backside and failed. Cade had a nice ass.
When he stood, I averted my eyes from his well-built physique to his short, shaggy mass of sandy-brown hair. Unbidden, my heart stuttered in my chest.
Every inch of him was hot. From a pair of mid-length sideburns to the holes in his ears where the piercings had closed after he stopped wearing the studs. Tattoos snaked up his left arm, intricate designs, some colored, some not. An array of animals and symbols, metaphors for what I had never found out. Not that I asked. There were lines we didn’t cross, and his tattoos were one of them.
If he smiled a dimple dented one cheek, and if he really smiled, he revealed straight white teeth. Not too white—he wasn’t battling a coffee addiction with Crest Whitestrips like I was.
In the case of my wayward attraction to Cade, I blamed my ex-boyfriend, Tony. If Tony hadn’t been such a dickhead, we would be looking for an apartment together and planning our engagement. He majored in sports medicine, I in physical therapy. We had similar upbringings. Similar goals. Similar interests. Well, save one. Tony Fry was interested in sleeping with multiple women without the others knowing, whereas I was more the monogamous type.
That was where our paths had ultimately veered.
Cade crooked a finger, motioning for me to come to him. There was something playful in his eyes crowding out the anger. Maybe that’s why I did as he asked and took one cautious step toward him, and then another.
The smell of motor oil mingled with a piney fragrance that could be soap or deodorant gave him an earthy yet dangerous quality. Plus, he looked damn good with oil smeared on his shirt and across one cheek.
His eyes darted to my lips, and back up, and then…
I was looking at his back as he walked away from me. Not into the house via the entrance from the garage, but through a door on the left. A door that opened to a flight of stairs. He tipped his head for me to follow.
I took the stairs behind him, stunned at what I found at the top. “Whoa.”
The Wilson house was large, with a three-car attached garage. I’d always assumed that behind the windows over said garage was storage space. Maybe that’s what this used to be, but now it was a functioning apartment. Not as big as mine, but much bigger than the bedroom Cade formerly occupied.
His bed stood in one corner, the mattress bare. On the far wall was a kitchenette outfitted with a sink, microwave, and refrigerator. Cardboard boxes were stacked along every wall including the one that opened to the bathroom.
“Nice place,” I said, my footfalls causing a faint echo. Other than the bed, dresser and love seat, there wasn’t much in here. “Quite an improvement from sleeping across the hall from your father.”
I heard the soft exhale of breath as Cade brushed by me. He opened the refrigerator, pulled out an orange juice carton, and took a few slugs.
Fingers tightening around the strap of my backpack, I tried not to stare at his throat, or the trickle of sweat that ran down the side of his neck. From there my gaze flickered over one muscular shoulder and got lost in the maze of ink swirling over his flesh.
All the while I reminded myself that I didn’t find sweaty guys dashed with motor oil attractive.
Parts of me listened. Other parts of me did not.
Cade Wilson didn’t look like a guy who would one day be a lawyer. And again, so not my type. I liked boys in khakis. Oxford shirts did it for me. Well-groomed, well-spoken. Those were qualities I didn’t only admire, I required.
My response to Cade was off the grid. He awakened some deep, dark carnal part of me. Which was my only excuse as to why I was now inexplicably attracted to his shaggy, messy, never-styled hair. And why I was drawn to the patterns of ink on his body. I didn’t think I was the only one who felt that way. I had noticed his golden stare, when he thought I wasn’t looking, that held a combination of spite and curiosity.
We had a history. It wasn’t a good one.
“You’ve gained muscle,” I said. It wasn’t a flirty comment, more a professional observation. Improving bodies was my job. Noticing his went with the territory. His sprained wrist had hampered his weightlifting until it healed, but he’d more than regained the muscle he’d lost.
He licked a droplet of juice off his bottom lip. I dropped my backpack on the love seat, unfazed by the sensual slide of his tongue or his attitude.
Mostly.
“Now that I’m here and you’re here,
why don’t we do actual therapy today instead of you ignoring me and me doing my homework?”
His bland gaze said what he didn’t: Hard pass.
If only he’d give in and cooperate. I could have my own moment of personal triumph, and he could go from stoic, silent statue to proper chatterbox.
His face scrunched.
Maybe not.
“The kind of therapy I’m proposing would be more like a workout.” I gave him a smile. “You like to work out, right?”
No response. Just the same bland stare.
“Only we’ll be working out your face instead of your arms. Think of it as bench presses for your lips. Curls for your tongue.”
One brown eyebrow arched as the side of his mouth curled at one corner. It wasn’t exactly a smile, but interest lit his eyes. I thought about what I’d said and scowled.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” If he thought I was flirting with him I could hang up the idea of ever helping him speak. Though the idea of his tongue on mine was… Gosh. Distracting. I repressed a shiver.
That hint of a smile vanished from his face. I wish I could say it satisfied me to see it go, but he had an amazing smile. He used to smile often. Before the accident, he was a grinning idiot most of the time. The problem with that godlike, grinning specimen was that he’d had a big mouth and a forked tongue. He’d impaled me with it once. I hadn’t forgotten.
“Aren’t you even going to try?” I asked.
He returned the juice carton and slammed the fridge door.
“Cade.”
Craving Caden (Lost Boys Book 2) Page 1
