Craving Caden (Lost Boys Book 2)

by Jessica Lemmon

  “Oral therapy.” I slipped my palm from her neck and grazed her collarbone with my fingertips. Her skin was so soft. Was she soft everywhere?

  She cleared her throat as she backed away from me, straightening her clothes to occupy her hands now that they weren’t pawing at my shirt. She was covering for her reaction to me. I knew the tactic well, but I didn’t want her to cover. I just wanted to do it again. She reached for her bag and came out with a pen and a pad of paper.

  “What’re you doing?” I frowned.

  She stared at me for a beat and then grinned. Rather than answer me, she scribbled something down while I leaned back on the blanket and waited. I squinted up at the sun, watched the leaves of the trees sway in the breeze. An older couple walked by with a dog in the distance.

  When Tasha’s pen stopped moving, I snatched the journal from her hands, eager to know what was so urgent that she’d stopped kissing me.

  “Give it back,” she said.

  No way. I held it up when she made a grab for it.

  “It probably won’t make sense to you, anyway.” She made a swipe for the notebook again, but I climbed to my feet and blocked her, the advantage of long arms on my side.

  Her loopy handwriting was easy to read. She was wrong. I understood just fine.

  Slight hesitation before the kiss. Spoke clearly after. Enunciated TH sound in “three” well. Asked a full question without any stammer or hesitation.

  That was what had been going through her head while I’d had my lips pressed to hers? My confidence took a hard knock knowing she was merely using me as a test subject.

  I thrust the paper and pen at her.

  “Don’t be mad. I had to write down what happened so that I didn’t forget.”

  Don’t be mad? She’d sterilized that kiss. She’d turned me into a goddamn science experiment.

  I glared, hoping she could read the words on my face because I sure as shit wasn’t going to attempt to say them. I hadn’t been thinking earlier, and because I hadn’t been thinking, the words came out fine.

  Without stammer or hesitation.

  Now I was thinking. Hard.

  She was watching my mouth and waiting. Too bad I was disinclined to participate in her outdoor laboratory. I held out my palm.

  “What?”

  “K-keys.” Fuck. Of course.

  “I’m not giving you my car keys.” Her brow pinched angrily.

  She wasn’t the only angry one. I snapped my fingers.

  Stubbornly, she folded her arms, so I bent, scooped up her pack and the blanket, and marched to the car.

  She followed me around to the trunk and unlocked it. I did what any responsible, mature adult would do…and snatched the keys from her hand.

  “Give those back!”

  I held them out of reach, keeping hold of the blanket and her bag in my other hand. No, not super mature of me, but I was feeling used and irked and half-horny. I was keeping the damn keys.

  “Do you want me to report you for grand theft auto?” she snapped, and I tried not to notice how hot she was when she was threatening me.

  I tossed the blanket and her bag into the trunk while she informed me I wasn’t allowed to drive her car and how I was being unfair, and she was only trying to help.

  Even through my stubbornness, I could concede her point on my being unfair, and a big part of me knew she was trying to help. But I wasn’t missing out on a chance to drive this baby, and she owed me one.

  “G-get in.” I don’t know if it was my fixed expression of impatience or my steely tone, but she didn’t argue. She climbed in as I was adjusting the seat and easing back into the best-smelling leather I’d ever sat my ass on.

  I stroked the steering wheel, flexing my fingers and taking hold of it as gently as I had Tasha’s neck during our first kiss.

  Our fake kiss.

  Inhaling a lungful of new-car smell, I flipped through her preset radio stations. Pop. Pop. Country. Jazz? No way. I punched another button. Ahh, there we go. Rock. I cranked the song—by the Black Keys—as Tasha buckled her seatbelt and stroked the nylon crossing her breasts.

  Retesting her theory, this time on my terms, I leaned over and touched my lips to hers. After a gentle kiss that made me want more, I said, “Let me show you what this baby can do.”

  Chapter Nine

  Tasha

  Wow.

  My lips still hummed from the kiss Cade had stamped onto my lips a moment ago. He hadn’t stuttered. Was it bad that I’d noticed? I couldn’t help it. I was trying to help him “fix” his mouth, tongue, and lips. Though now I wasn’t thinking of fixing him. I was thinking of how good he’d tasted.

  Focus.

  So. What did I learn? His nurse Moira was half right, but I was also half right.

  Cade’s tongue was tense. He needed the oral exercises I suggested—needed to physically limber up so he could speak clearly. But he was anxious as well, and that underlying, dormant anxiety was causing him to doubt himself. Apparently, he needed mental and physical therapy.

  Not bad for a student who was not a speech therapist, I thought smugly as he pressed the gas pedal on my Z4 and zoomed us away from the museum.

  The moment he let his frustration take over, he lost control over his tongue and he was back to stuttering. But after our incredible kiss, one that shut my brain down and turbo-charged my erogenous zones, he’d spoken perfectly.

  I was so proud I could have kissed him.

  Again.

  Cade had adjusted the driver’s seat to accommodate his longer legs. He was both tall and broad, making my powerful Z4 delicate by comparison. He gripped the steering wheel and I admired his hands. Blunt, squared fingertips. Nice knuckles. I’d never really admired a guy’s hands before, but he had really nice ones. His biceps flexed, causing the tattoos on his arms to flinch when he punched the button to put down the driver’s side window.

  This car was ridiculously expensive. I’d looked it up online and learned that my father had purchased a sixty-thousand-dollar vehicle for me. Actually, with the additional satellite radio and voice-command function, it was probably closer to seventy. He liked to give me nice gifts, sure, but a paranoid part of me had worried at first that he was trying to control me by buying me nice things. Though it didn’t seem so paranoid after he’d threatened to stop paying for the car if I continued seeing Cade. What would Daddy say if he saw Cade driving me around in it, I thought with an evil smirk. It wasn’t like me to be rebellious, but damn, it felt good.

  He gunned the engine, roaring down the highway and slipping around other cars smoothly. My back was pressed to the seat, my heart thundering, my limbs shaking. I hadn’t found speeding sexy, but with Cade behind the wheel, all I could think of was how well he handled my car and if those very nice hands would feel equally nice on my body.

  If the way he’d moved his tongue along mine had been any indication, I’d bet he could work the rest of his fantastic body just as skillfully. I hummed in the back of my throat as I pictured him doing wicked, wonderful things to me. Good thing the radio was cranked, or else he might have heard.

  I liked sex, but it wasn’t like me to need sex. The closeness was my favorite part, or at least it was before I learned that Tony had been “close” with other women while we dated. In hindsight, I recalled how he’d been focusing on himself more than me during. He’d mostly admired his own body. Flexing his biceps, showing off washboard abs. And while I could admit that every inch of his brown skin was achingly attractive, learning he was a cheating bastard made him ugly on the inside.

  Cade was different.

  But he didn’t used to be, I argued as I studied his healing knuckles. He used to be a cocky jerk out to grab a cheap thrill. He used to be like Tony.

  But now he wasn’t. He had…is grown the right word? That accident had shaken more than his confidence. It also might be responsible for his attitude. Which, even though he could be recalcitrant or bossy, was still an improvement on before.

 
“Badass,” I heard him say over the next song—this one by Disturbed.

  I tried not to appear excited by his speaking clearly. I didn’t want to upset him again. I wondered if the lingering effect from our kiss was responsible for untangling his tongue. Or maybe it was him driving this car the way it was meant to be driven.

  He was in his element behind the wheel, as if he’d driven my car a thousand times before. He was comfortable in control.

  Control.

  I stared unseeing out the windshield as a puzzle piece slid into place. Control. That was it. When Cade felt in control, he spoke clearly. Granted, we’d still need to do mouth exercises, but if I let him run the show, I bet he’d be back to himself in no time.

  Our drive was over way too fast. Even he looked disappointed when he pulled into his driveway and shut off the car. He stroked the steering wheel almost sensually and I wished he would touch me again.

  Purr.

  I wanted more of his mouth. I wanted to explore the tension humming between us. Which made our relationship a hell of a lot more complicated than before.

  “Done?” he asked.

  I blinked out of the fantasy forming in my ribald imagination. I was sad to see it go. If he was asking if I was done with him, the answer was easy: not even close.

  “With our session?” I asked. “We didn’t do anything.”

  “We did ssssomething.” He pressed his lips together, his eyelids closing in frustration.

  That elongated S didn’t put a damper on my attraction to him. I touched one of his hands strangling the steering wheel. The muscles in his arms bunched as he glared out the windshield. He was too hard on himself.

  “Your stammer doesn’t bother me,” I told him. “I’d rather you talk to me than not.”

  “Y-you like me w-weak.” He jerked his hand out from under mine and got out of the car. The entire vehicle shook when he slammed the door.

  Lassoing my temper, I got out too. He punched in the code and the garage door rattled to the top.

  “Are you implying I enjoy watching you struggle?” I called out on my approach.

  “Yes,” he said, his teeth bared like a wild animal.

  “Well, I don’t.” I was his friend—didn’t he know that? He should. It was me who’d stuck around and waited for the ambulance with him. Everyone else—all his other street racing “friends” had scattered. I’d refused to leave him crumpled over his steering wheel, bloody and hurt.

  “You have no idea what I enjoy,” I bit out.

  His mouth was a hard line, reminding me of the firm pressure of his lips when he’d kissed me. His hand wrapped around my wrist and he leaned close. “Yes. I do.”

  I wanted the kiss his eyes promised, but then the front door opened, and the moment was lost. He dropped my wrist and took a purposeful step away from me as his dad walked outside.

  “Oh, hey, guys,” Paul Wilson greeted as he walked toward us, his leather briefcase in hand. “Sorry. Didn’t meant to interrupt.”

  Cade squared his jaw and turned his back, disappearing behind the door leading to his room. I sighed.

  “Still nothing?” Paul asked. He cared about his son. His and Cade’s relationship was strained, but Paul was trying to make up for it, which was more than I could say for my own father.

  “He’s doing better. Being out of the house helped.”

  “Good. That’s good. Where’d you go?”

  “Art museum. We spread out a blanket on the lawn.” A blush warmed my cheeks as I recalled the mind-blowing kiss.

  Paul nodded, seeming a million miles away. “That’s a nice car, Tasha.”

  “Thank you.” Cade had parked my Z4 in the middle of the driveway. “I’m in your way.”

  “You can move back after I leave,” he offered.

  “No, that’s okay. Cade and I are done for the day.” Apparently.

  “I appreciate what you’re doing for him. I know he can be unpleasant.” Paul gave me a pained smile. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He reached into his bag and brought out an envelope. “Your money for this week.”

  I hesitated. The dynamic had shifted between Cade and me. Taking money from his father felt wrong.

  “Actually, this was more of a, um, unplanned visit.” I waved off the envelope. “No charge.”

  “I wouldn’t feel right about not paying you for your time.” He frowned.

  “I wouldn’t feel right about accepting payment since I was here for personal reasons.” I took a physical step away from him and hoped I hadn’t said too much. “Cade is my friend. And I’m not an actual speech therapist.”

  “It’s not gambling money.” His eye twitched. “I’ve been sober for sixty-five days now.”

  Oh great. Now he thought I wasn’t accepting the money from him because I believed it was ill-gotten.

  “I wasn’t implying that at all,” I insisted, fearing I was making things worse. Awkwardly, I gestured to my car. “Honestly, Cade and I were just…hanging out.”

  “Oh.” Paul, quick on the uptake, glanced at the window over the garage and then back to me. “I see.”

  With a tight smile, I considered that I really needed to ask Paul to keep this to himself. Yes, I was enjoying my little rebellious streak, but I also wasn’t anxious to have another unpleasant convo with my father.

  “Could you…” I let out a nervous laugh. “I mean, if you didn’t mention that I am continuing to hang out with Cade to my dad, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “None,” I lied with another smile. “He thinks that work and class are too much for me to handle this close to graduation. I told him a tiny white lie that I was no longer seeing Cade just to keep him from worrying. You know how stressful that whole tax thing was for him.”

  “Yes. It really was,” Paul said gravely, his mind evidently going back to the debacle my father mentioned. I was suddenly grateful for that nugget of information.

  “You won’t mention my being here to him, will you?”

  “I don’t know, Tasha…” He sucked in a breath, his newly sprouted conscience eating at him.

  “Cade and I are so close to a breakthrough. He spoke today. Clearly. Only a few words. Don’t tell him I told you that. He’s excited, but I don’t want to embarrass him.”

  “That’s wonderful news.” Paul gave me a genuine grin.

  “It really is.”

  “I won’t mention this to Morton.”

  Relief. “Thank you.”

  He offered the envelope again. “Please.”

  I pushed his hand away gently. “I’m hanging out with Cade because I want to, not because you pay me to.”

  “Of course.” He considered the envelope one final time before tucking it into his briefcase. “You’re welcome here anytime. As long as your schoolwork is not affected—”

  “It’s not,” I assured him.

  Paul walked to the garage, and I turned toward my car. As I was adjusting the seat so that I could reach the pedals, I spotted Cade at his bedroom window, but the reflection on the pane was obscuring his face.

  Chapter Ten

  Tasha

  “Do you think I should have taken the money?” I bit the side of my finger. I’d just reiterated the story to Rena about Paul Wilson and the envelope. “I hope I didn’t offend him.”

  I was sitting at Oak & Sage’s bar—alone, since the doors were still locked. Cade wasn’t here. I made sure before I showed up. I hadn’t spoken to him at all this week.

  My best friend was looking at me like I’d lost my mind.

  “I’m probably the wrong person to ask if you should have accepted an envelope filled with cash, since I myself accepted one not too long ago for that one.” Hoisting a thumb over her shoulder, she gestured to Devlin, who was bustling around the restaurant preparing to open. “Why didn’t you take it?”

  She didn’t know about the kiss yet. I hadn’t yet called up the courage to admit it.

  “It’s not as if you didn’t earn it,”
she continued. “You’ve been fitting in Cade’s therapy between a full class load and another job.”

  True, but…

  “Cade and I have become…friends.” I wrinkled my nose. That word felt wrong. We weren’t really “friendly,” and that kiss had been far more than friendly.

  “Taking Paul’s money after—” I peeked over my shoulder. A hostess rolled silverware at a nearby table, but I didn’t see anyone else. “Can I tell you something?”

  “You’d better.” My best friend leaned over the bar.

  “He kissed me,” I whispered.

  Rena’s jaw dropped. Then she grinned. “I knew it. Tell me everything.”

  “I took him to the museum lawn for our session. I wanted to try the straw thing. Thanks, by the way, for those.” Rena had been the one who’d gifted me a handful of wrapped straws.

  “So you skipped the straw idea and sucked face instead?” She erupted into giggles.

  “Shh!” I smiled, even though she was sort of laughing at me. “The straws were useless after he drank all my water.” I demonstrated the ooo and puh exercises he’d refused to do next.

  “You had to know he wasn’t going to do that.”

  “If he ever wants to speak clearly again, he needs to try.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Go on.”

  “I visited one of his former speech therapists. She believes a lot of his problems are in his head.”

  “That makes sense. He and Devlin have been through a lot—apart and together. Learning they were related, the accident. Paul’s recovery from a gambling addiction. Sonny going down for his crimes.”

  For everyone’s crimes. He’d landed on a grenade for Devlin. He might be the last honest criminal alive.

  “He was being uncooperative, so I thought I could try something else. An experiment of sorts.” I swallowed. “I decided to kiss him, but he beat me to it.”