There was only him. Only me. Only our rapidly approaching releases in the dark confines of this room.
“Tasha.” My name left his lips on a broken, desperate sigh.
I dragged my fingers along his jaw. “I’m ready.”
He cupped my bottom and tilted my hips. Then he drove deep to meet me, faster and harder than before. Something unfamiliar in my belly coiled, winding tighter and tighter as he moved. I bit my tongue to keep from screaming his name.
“Fuck being quiet,” he said on a labored breath. He increased his speed, the headboard slamming the wall and the mattress creaking.
“Say my name,” he commanded.
“Cade,” I whispered between sharp breaths, aware I was hurtling toward an intense release.
“Louder.” He slammed deep again, and that coil began to pulse.
“Cade!” I cried out as I came, tears prickling the corners of my eyes as a sob tore from my throat. My climax burst on the screen of my eyelids like a supernova, blotting out every star in the galaxy.
Never. Never had I experienced a rush followed by such a pleasant buzz. Cade’s hips sped then slowed as he thrust into me, ending on a low growl of satisfaction that rippled along my entire body.
He collapsed, his weight pressing me into the mattress. My legs that were gripping his hips lost their strength. I lay boneless beneath him. Neither of us spoke as the sweat cooled on our overexerted bodies.
Who knew how long later, he pressed a kiss to my lips and, keeping his eyes on mine, pulled out. I missed him instantly.
He strutted bare-assed to the bathroom and shut the door. I blinked in the darkness as tingles traveled up my front and down my back.
That was…that was… Wow.
Fatigue hit me with the force of a Mack truck. After a day spent in class, confronting my dad and my ex (twice), and making love to Cade for the first time, I could sleep the sleep of the dead.
I smiled as Cade walked back into the room. Making love.
I curled around one of his pillows and let out a deep sigh of satisfaction.
Cade
Tasha’s eyes sank closed as I crossed the room. She had a satisfied little smile on her lips as she cuddled my pillow. Meanwhile, my johnson was already stirring to life. I wanted her again. Already.
I climbed into bed and took the pillow away from her. She let out a sound of protest that died on her lips when I scooted against her. I pulled all her softness flush to my body and kissed the tip of her cute nose.
I liked her in my arms, in my bed. I loved the way she felt against me. I hadn’t made an official declaration, but she belonged with me. I knew it in my bones. I pulled the covers to our waists, squeezing her hip with one palm.
Letting out a sleepy yawn, she tapped my shoulder. “Tell me about your tattoos.”
I wanted to let her sleep, but a bigger part of me wanted to keep her awake by talking to her. I’d just practiced in the bathroom mirror, under my breath. I recited a verse from one of my favorite songs, pleased when there wasn’t a single hesitation or stumble. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe a miracle had occurred, but I definitely felt more in control than I had in a long while. Way before Blue skidded into that fire hydrant.
It was a relief to feel like my old self. Well, not my old self. That would be tragic. I was more a blend of old and new.
“What do you want to know?” I drifted my fingers up her arm. How she could’ve ever believed she was physically less than perfect was beyond me.
“What’s this?” She traced the circle on my bicep.
“Speedometer.” I rotated my arm to show off the contemporary design.
“Ahh. I see it now.” She traced the circle, then the needle pointing at what I liked to think was 120 miles per hour.
“What about the moon?” She drew an outline around the crescent shape and then followed the path of stars winding around my biceps.
“I like the night.”
She smiled, and even in the barest light coming from the bathroom I could make out how happy she was right now. That got me. Right in the center of the chest.
“This one I really like.” She touched my favorite tattoo. An American flag unfurling into a checkered flag.
“Lawyer and street racer,” I said with a sad smile.
“And the wolf?” She smoothed her fingers over the animal’s profile on my shoulder.
“Fox,” I corrected. “Silver-tongued fox.”
Fuck, that rolled off my tongue smoothly.
“I’ll say,” she breathed. “I’m proud of you.”
I kissed her, savoring the gentle way she kissed me back. I was pretty damn pleased with myself. Of course a sated and satisfied Tasha Montgomery in my bed had gone a long way toward helping with that.
I settled in, adjusting the pillow under my head as I pulled the blankets over us. I didn’t want to talk anymore. I wanted to hold her and sleep in and not think about tomorrow.
She wrapped an arm around my waist and sealed her body against mine.
Mine, the word echoed in my head. All mine.
“You’re in a good mood tonight.” Devlin stepped out of his office at Oak & Sage and locked the door behind him. I shrugged as I lined the trash can with a fresh bag.
He grinned. Wide.
“What?” I barked.
“Didn’t peg Tasha for a sex-in-the-park type of girl, but I don’t know her that well.”
The rest of the kitchen crew had gone, which left Devlin and me—and the dishwasher, who was noisily finishing a final load. Which was the only reason I didn’t pummel my half-brother half to death.
“Fuck,” I said. Stupid Baron.
“Well, if you want to be crass about it.” Devlin was still grinning, the bastard.
The dishwasher poked his head around the corner. “Finished, boss.”
“Thanks, Juan. Have a good night.” Once he left, Devlin turned back to me and explained, “Baron told Roy. Roy told Rena’s mom.”
“Rena’s mom knows?” I dragged the letter M out a little, my frustration bleeding through.
“What, you care about your reputation suddenly? That doesn’t sound like you. The only thing Rena’s mom mentioned was that you and Tasha were in the park after-hours. Roy must have spared her the details. I, however, have a good guess that you and Tasha were up to more than therapy out there.” He assessed me with a head tilt that sent his longish black hair over his forehead. “Guess it worked, though. Who knew the way to untangle your tongue was through your dick?”
I muttered a surly, “Fuck off,” but I felt my smile emerge the second I turned my back. I couldn’t help it. Tasha made me happy. Happy was a new emotion for me. I could get used to it.
His phone chimed behind me as he was shutting off the lights. “Rena’s here. Will you pop that door open for her?”
I pushed open the back door. Then my heart stopped.
Rena was there, but so was Tash. I hadn’t seen her since yesterday morning. We waited for Paul to leave for work before we came out of the bedroom (her request), and then I drove her to her apartment. I didn’t realize how much I missed her until I saw her standing there. Until warmth spread over my chest.
She’d spent the day at class and at work, and I’d been here for a double shift. Rena must have caught my gobsmacked expression. She grinned knowingly at me.
“I know that you know,” I grumbled.
“Oh, but I know so much more than you think I know.” She patted my cheek sweetly before going to Devlin. In the darkened distance of the kitchen, I heard telltale slurping sounds as they kissed each other hello.
“Hi.” Tasha shuffled on her feet. “How was your—”
I kissed her, gentle but deep. I didn’t care if Devlin walked in on us and gave me hell about it for weeks to come. I only cared about reacquainting myself with Tasha’s flavor.
“Mm,” I hummed when I pulled away. As delicious as I remembered.
Her lips pulled into a smile. I liked being the one who made
her smile. I liked her, period.
“How was your day?” she asked, her hands resting over my heart.
“Good and getting better,” I answered. I’d even spoken a few times to the kitchen staff. I’d turned to the salad guy and said, “Hand me that bus tub, Slick.”
The look on Hamilton’s face had been priceless.
“Who wants a drink?” Devlin interrupted. “Bar’s open for a private party of four.”
Chapter Seventeen
Tasha
Since the rehab center had called to tell me I had the evening off, I texted my best friend and asked if she wanted to hang out. As luck would have it, she hadn’t had to work tonight either. And, okay, you guessed it. I told her absolutely everything. And I don’t mean almost everything. I mean I told her everything.
Who better to ask for relationship advice than my head-over-heels best friend? I trusted Rena. She was my ultimate safe space.
When she’d finally stopped rejoicing over how happy she was for me, she dedicated a few minutes to badmouthing Tony, which was nice to hear. Then we went shopping. Well, I went shopping. Rena endured it. She was a jeans-and-T-shirt kind of girl. Me, I couldn’t leave without the black-and-white striped dress I wore now. Cade’s eyes had sparkled when he saw me, so I considered it worth every dollar.
At Oak & Sage’s swanky bar, Devlin served drinks like a pro. Rena and I chose wine while our guys drank draft beers. There was something decadent about being in an empty, dimly lit restaurant. It felt naughty, and like everything else I’d done lately that felt naughty, it also felt really good.
Cade drank down a few inches of his pint and licked the foam off his top lip. He noticed me staring and winked. Was I exorcising my bad-girl demons with him, or were my feelings for him deeper than that? Too soon to tell.
“You look incredible,” he told me.
“Thank you.” I fingered the hem of the dress, which stopped way, way above my knees. He watched hungrily as I flashed a bit of thigh.
“If you two can manage to stop gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes,” Devlin interjected, “Cade promised me a round of quarters.”
“He likes losing,” Cade said, the idea of a challenge straightening his back.
Sexy.
“We’ll see.” Dev flipped a quarter in the direction of a beer glass a few feet away. It landed in the bottom with a plink.
“Go.” I nudged Cade. “Kick his ass.” He grinned before leaning in and kissing me long and slow.
While Cade and Devlin set up their game at a corner booth, Rena picked up her wineglass and moved to the seat next to me.
“Has it graduated to the boyfriend stage yet?” She stole a glance across the room.
“I’m not sure. We’re friends. And the sex is…” I motioned with my wineglass. “Well, I told you about it.”
“If memory serves, you used the words ‘mind-blowing,’ ‘tooth-tingling,’ and ‘knee-numbing.’”
“I never said ‘knee-numbing.’” Though that was another good descriptor for it. But that wasn’t all that sex with Cade was. I felt indescribably safe with him. I’d never been as close to anyone as I was the night I’d spent in his bed.
The sound of a quarter pinging off glass and hitting the floor was followed by Devlin’s shout of defeat. I smiled when a smug grin lit Cade’s face.
“He’s different from before,” Rena said, her tone thoughtful. “I think you had a lot to do with that.”
I hoped so. Was that selfish?
She was right, though. Cade had changed. He’d gone from a cocky, smart-mouthed jerk to a cocky, silver-tongued hunk. Almost silver-tongued. He wasn’t totally out of the woods, yet.
“Devlin told me about the girlfriend Cade had during freshman year.” Rena kept her voice low. “It makes sense why he was so bitter after she left. I can’t imagine what it was like to…” She trailed off, probably noticing my crestfallen expression. “You didn’t know.”
I shook my head, embarrassed. We didn’t talk much when we were together. Even though that was the original reason I had started hanging around with him.
“I’m sorry I brought it up.” She grimaced.
“It’s okay.” I forced a smile I hoped conveyed I didn’t care about Cade’s ex-girlfriends. “We just started…”
I didn’t finish my thought since I wasn’t sure what else to say. What had we “just started” anyway? Sleeping together? Communicating like civilized human beings? Exercising independence from our parents? I didn’t know how to fill in that blank, and I wasn’t sure if it was too soon or too late to have that conversation with Cade.
“Anyway. It doesn’t matter!” she concluded. “You two are happy together. Enjoy it.”
“Well, whatever he did freshman year is none of my business,” I couldn’t help saying in my defense. “It’s not like I’ve told him everything about my past boyfriends.”
Only I kind of had. Tony was the totality of my past boyfriends. I might play the part of the flirt, but Tony was my first. And then there was Cade.
I definitely didn’t want to have that conversation with Cade. I didn’t want my lack of experience to be a big deal. And I didn’t want what I guessed was his plethora of experience to be a big deal either. Only now it sort of felt like it was. I guzzled some wine.
After the boys played quarters, Devlin poured everyone another round. Some of us drank more than others.
“All right. Time to take you home.” Devlin, stone sober, wrapped an adorably sloppy Rena in his arms. Her eyes were at half-mast, her smile loose and wonky, a match for her askance ponytail. “Cade. Give Tasha your keys.”
“Forget it,” Cade said, but he smiled. He’d lost quarters after all, which meant he’d bottomed out more beers than Devlin.
“I don’t mind driving you home,” I told Cade. “If you don’t mind turning over your precious Camaro.”
“I trust you with her,” he said.
“Wow, it’s worse than I thought,” I heard Devlin mutter under his breath.
“Thanks for the beverages.” I reached into my purse for money.
“Don’t you dare leave a single dollar on this bar!” Rena admonished.
“Yeah,” Devlin said. “Make Cade do it.”
“You either,” she told Cade after sending Devlin a headshake.
Despite the lack of a wedding ring, or any official future plans, Devlin and Rena were a unit. Their relationship challenged everything I thought I knew about tradition. Challenged what I thought I wanted. That long white runner and church wedding, and the vision of a perfect pair of children scampering in a square backyard surrounded by a privacy fence didn’t appeal as much as it used to.
Or maybe it was the idea of having that with Tony that didn’t appeal. I wondered if Cade and his ex-girlfriend had made plans for the future. If she’d broken his heart.
Cade placed his palm on my knee, and I jerked out of my thoughts.
“More therapy tonight?” Devlin came out from behind the bar, his arm around Rena. “Interesting services you offer, Tash.”
“Watch it.” Cade’s voice, low and dangerous, sent a trail of goosebumps cropping up my arms.
“I cannot get used to you like this.” Devlin shook his head at Cade before he lifted his eyebrows at me. “Either of you.”
Cade flipped him off and Devlin was almost comically sincere when he said, “You’re welcome.”
We left Dev and Rena to lock up and turn on the alarm for the restaurant. In front of Cade’s car, he pressed me against the passenger door, his arms caging me in.
“Keys,” I prompted.
“In my pocket.” He kissed me and I melted into him, obliging him by reaching into his front pocket and pulling out his keychain. Not gonna lie, it wasn’t easy not to go further. He was turning me into a sex maniac.
“Can I see your bedroom?” he asked against my throat, sending a tantalizing lick along my neck.
“How much have you had to drink?” I breathed, my eyes shutting of the
ir own volition.
“Enough that I don’t want to risk a run-in with Baron, but not so much that I’m worried you’ll take advantage of me.”
I burst into laughter.
He grinned, his lips hovering over mine. “Invite me over.”
“Come over.”
“Ohk-kay.” He flinched, but when I would have worried he was beating himself up, he turned golden eyes on me. “Sounds like I n-need therapy.”
“Lucky you.” I draped my arms over his neck. “I’m your girl.”
Because we were so close, I didn’t miss the possessive spark swimming in his eyes. If I wasn’t mistaken, he liked me saying I was his. And, I realized, I liked it too.
Cade
At my request, Tasha stopped at a Rite Aid on the way home where I bought a stick of deodorant, a toothbrush, and condoms. I wasn’t sure she had any, and that was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.
As she unlocked her apartment door, she sent a foxy smile over her shoulder and I followed her heart-shaped ass inside. In the kitchen she poured herself a glass of wine. I could tell by the way her slender throat worked as she swallowed that she was nervous.
I didn’t see how she could be nervous after we’d already been body-to-body for an entire night. After we’d had hot-and-sweaty, moaning-panting sex that’d rendered us both incoherent.
Thick, black lashes closed over sultry bedroom eyes. That short striped dress was killing me in the best way. Sexy and simple, and those legs… She was becoming an addiction.
One I wasn’t sure I could afford. Between running the trash to the dumpster and sliding over the grease-covered floors at work, I wasn’t shaping up to be a guy that could give her the kind of life she deserved. The kind of life her father had given her, but without the knotted strings of guilt and condescension. There was one thing I could give her that no other guy could.
Me.
“I could use a quick shower.” I’d changed into a clean T-shirt and jeans before we bellied up to the bar, but I would have liked to wash my hair.
Craving Caden (Lost Boys Book 2) Page 13
