“Antonio,” I ground out. My using his full name didn’t upset him in the least. He grinned.
“I hear you’ve been hanging around with Cade Wilson.” He was carrying a backpack over one shoulder. He wore a striped Lacoste shirt and khakis. That outfit used to be my favorite of his. The way the yellow stripes complemented his dark eyes. Now, though, I thought he looked dull. I had a new appreciation for cut T-shirts, jeans, and tattoos.
Tony’s wide mouth had nothing on Cade’s dimple. His short, neat haircut, boring compared to Cade’s messy bedhead. Tony’s smug smile filled me with nothing but regret that he’d ever seen me naked, whereas Cade’s smile filled me with intense longing.
Rather than take the bait, I offered, “And who have you been hanging around with lately?”
Tony’s eyes were nothing like the golden brown of Cade’s. Tony’s eyes were flat brown. Ugly brown. Shit brown, I mentally added with no small amount of animosity.
His white grin flashed against beautiful tawny skin. Tony was attractive, or would have been if he were on a magazine page and I wasn’t aware of any of the things he’d done with my friends while we were dating.
Cheating bastard.
He never would have sat me in front of his bedroom mirror, stripped me, and then demanded I watch as I came under his drugging touch. Tony’s touch wasn’t drugging. It was scathing. Like his personality.
“Dianna, you mean,” he answered.
“Just the one this time around?”
Tony shrugged. “Maybe she’s all I need.”
“Ha!” I couldn’t believe I laughed at that, but I had. Because it was funny. And even better, my comment made Tony’s smile disappear from his face like I was a freaking magician.
“What do you and Cade talk about, Tasha?” Meanness flashed in his eyes. I took the opening rather than defend Cade to this asshole.
“We don’t talk much.” I resisted the urge to punch the air when one of Tony’s eyes twitched. Wasn’t that like a cheater? He didn’t want me to have anyone else, even though he’d banged half the girls I knew while we were dating. “I prefer to spend our time on oral therapy.” Immature, but I said those last two words slowly.
On that zinger I strutted away from my ex-boyfriend, knowing that the idea of me with another man bothered him all the way down to his Italian loafers. My strut continued out of the school, across the lawn, and into my final class for the day. Nothing like standing up to the person who’d wronged you in the first place.
Until you run into his current girlfriend.
Dianna lingered by the fountain, taking advantage of a bright, sunshine-filled day by doing her homework outside. I guessed that’s what she was doing. She was bent over papers, the wind blowing them and kicking her dark hair over her face.
I picked up the pace and darted by, not wanting her to see me. I had mentally cut her down as a dwarfish petite girl with giant googly eyes, but the inner, less confident me inventoried her body and compared it to my own and found her inching ahead.
One “session” with Cade in front of his mirror hadn’t been enough to completely vanquish that demon. I shook it off and went to class.
Things went well considering I hated my teacher, there was a pop quiz, and Carrie (former friend) was in class as well. I had no idea why we weren’t friends. She hadn’t slept with Tony and wasn’t close with my other friends who had. But after the breakup, she and I quit speaking. Sort of mutually. Or whatever.
I liked to think I didn’t care, but sometimes I did in spite of myself.
On the way to my car, I received a text. I was halfway down the sidewalk again and foolishly feared that Tony was now texting me instead of merely accosting me on campus.
Instead, the two words on my screen, and the guy they were from, made my heart soar.
I’m here.
I lifted my head to look around when a honk drew my attention to the right. There Cade sat, in his car. The top was off, and his elbow was leaning on the open window, his sunglasses perched on his nose. His arm tattoos and a wicked, delicious grin drew me closer.
He got out of the car and ambled over. I met him halfway, looking over his shoulder to admire his car. “So she runs now?”
“Blue 2,” he introduced, with only the slightest hesitation over the B.
“Well, she suits you.”
He slid his fingers into the front pockets of his jeans in an adorably self-conscious way. My heart fluttered.
“T-take you out?” he asked.
“On a…um…On a date?” My chest tightened at the sweet offer.
He nodded.
“Oh, um…” Somehow the idea of hanging out at his house seemed safer. The idea of not dating seemed safer.
His eyebrows lowered to the edge of his sunglasses. I took that to mean he was frustrated. And really, what did I care if we went on a date? Soon I’d be graduating and helping Cade speak would be behind me. I assumed…Well. I didn’t assume anything, to be totally honest. I was trying not to think beyond our next therapy session.
Or our next kiss.
“All right,” I said. “I have to swing by my dad’s house first. Where can I meet you?”
I’d received a check to refund an overage my father had paid, and since he had written that check, I needed to get it to him. I might as well make a quick stop. Especially since I knew he wouldn’t be home. He’d mentioned his meeting ended after a dinner tonight, so stopping by without him there held extra incentive.
Hands stuffed in his pockets, Cade continued giving me an impish smile.
“What?” I asked through a laugh.
He licked his lips, and I found myself wanting his kiss. I didn’t get one, though, and I wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that we were on campus.
“Aren’t you going to tell me where to meet you?” I asked.
He shook his head, a definite no.
“F-follow you,” he said, and climbed behind the wheel.
Chapter 12
Cade
The wind blew through my hair and over my bare arms as the bright sun warmed my skin. I pushed the sunglasses up on my nose and enjoyed the rarity of a cloudless day. A set of top-of-the-line Bose speakers inside my yet-to-be-renamed ride pumped sweet bass through the seat and rattled my balls.
Today was a good day.
Blue 2 wasn’t perfect, but she was drivable, and much like my favorite kind of girl, she was also topless. The thought made me think of Tasha and the way she’d let me strip her. The way she’d trusted herself in my hands and came apart under my touch.
I tried not to use my imaginary X-ray vision on her when I saw her stepping out onto the sidewalk, but my only thought when I saw that short plaid dress and tall shoes had been getting her out of them.
This morning I woke with a single, penetrating thought. I was tired of being alone. At home or at work, I itched to interact with someone, anyone. I’d always been an extrovert until the accident, and now I felt the old me returning. Whenever Tasha was around, my mood improved. I wanted to talk.
With the day off from Oak & Sage, I was at loose ends. I knew Tasha had a long day of classes, and I’d found myself actually counting down to when I could see her next.
It felt good to look forward to something.
Blue 2 rattled and I mentally noted to tighten her axle. By winter she’d need a new soft top, and the heater was busted, so that would require a repair as well. I let those issues fall away and refocused on the gorgeous spring day. I couldn’t wait to show Tash what Blue 2 could do.
At the gate in front of Tasha’s father’s house, my mouth dropped. Two stone pillars guarded the entrance, a black iron gate with a touch pad outside. She keyed in a code, taking a brief moment to look back at me, slide her sunglasses down her nose, and wink.
My heart kicked my ribs.
The second I had an opening, I was kissing her senseless.
I followed her through the gate and up to a house, which was, no shit, three times the size
of my dad’s house. And my dad’s house wasn’t small. I swung Blue 2 in behind her gleaming Beamer, considering how out of place both my car and I looked in this setting. Money virtually emanated from every inch of Tasha’s family home. The pale brick driveway was empty save for a very shiny, red Lexus F-sport.
Nice ride, Morton Montgomery.
I stepped out and shut my car door and noticed Tasha transfixed on the Lexus, her mouth pulled into a frown.
“Not a Lexus girl?” I joked, wondering what she found so offensive about the car.
“Changed my mind. Let’s go.” She turned for her car and I wrapped a hand around her elbow to stop her. Her eyes trailed up to mine, sadness in their depths.
“That’s Tony’s car,” she told me.
My fist curled. Punching Fry’s lights out would be an honor. I started for the front door but Tasha’s hand caught mine.
“What are you doing? Don’t go in there. If he’s in there, then my father’s in there, and if my father’s in there…”
I turned and caught her jaw in my palm, lowering my face to hers and watching as her blue eyes darkened. I brushed my lips along hers for a soft and over-way-too-soon kiss. “Let’s find out.”
She nodded. Once.
I wove her fingers with mine and pulled her to my side, but when I started for the door again, she tugged me.
“Before you go in there, there’s something you should know.” She was whispering. I didn’t like seeing her timid. She licked her lips before continuing. “He won’t like that you’re with me.”
“Tony?” I couldn’t help laughing. “G-good.”
Subtly, she shook her head. “My father.”
I frowned.
“He asked me to stop seeing you…for treatment. He thought we were fooling around.” At my skeptical raised eyebrow, she added, “We weren’t…at the time.”
But she’d kept seeing me anyway. I couldn’t help the smile that overtook my face. Even in the midst of her father, who hated me, and her ex-boyfriend, who I hated, I felt flattered and damn lucky that she hadn’t let her father scare her off.
The next kiss I gave her was longer, wetter, and hotter.
“I could leave the check in the mailbox,” she breathed. Over her shoulder I saw a shadow pass the window in a front room.
“C-company,” I said, stroking my fingers down her neck and along her shoulder. Her father or Tony had seen us, and I liked that one of them knew and was telling the other.
A look over her shoulder, then she huffed. “May as well go in now. But you don’t have to. You shouldn’t.”
I tightened my grip on her hand, letting my touch say what I didn’t. I’m not going anywhere. Not for a while.
Her small smile of acceptance was enough for me.
“Tony used to come to my dad for investing advice when we were together,” she said, voice low as she checked out the window. Whoever had been standing there wasn’t any longer. “Maybe that’s why he’s here.” Worry bisected her brow as she chewed on the corner of her lip.
She didn’t have to worry with me around. I pulled her close, wrapping her in my arms. She felt good there. I felt better with her there. Her eyes turned up to mine, making her look innocent and sweet. Like a girl who wouldn’t dream of letting a tatted street racer in her pants.
“What are you smiling about?” she asked.
No way was I telling her. I gave her a quick kiss.
“I missed you,” she said when I backed away.
My heart thudded. I’d missed her too. Our next kiss went on longer than I’d planned when she clutched my shirt and held me to her. Time stopped as we made out for long minutes, our tongues stroking, hands gripping the PG parts of each other’s bodies.
“We shouldn’t do this here,” she said, breathless. I liked that I’d taken her breath. She’d taken mine.
“Later, then,” I said with a grin, moving my hands away from her body and wanting her with an intensity I hadn’t felt in…maybe ever.
Hand in hand again, we walked inside, Tasha tensing as we crossed the threshold.
“I saw Tony earlier today,” she said, her voice low once we were inside. “I wasn’t very nice.”
I chuffed a dry laugh, amused by her concern that she “wasn’t very nice” to a guy who was the epitome of “not very nice.”
After a false start on the word “nice,” I gave up and nodded. Maybe I’d keep my mouth shut and try to look intimidating instead. The real reason I wanted to see Tony wasn’t to confront him but to show him Tasha had moved on. She was with me, and a guy like me didn’t adhere to frat-boy laws. Hell, I hadn’t adhered to a few actual laws in the past.
We crossed the foyer, and that’s when I spotted Morton Montgomery stepping from his office. A glass of liquor in hand, he frowned at me. I liked that I’d pissed him off. He didn’t like that I was with Tasha—that she’d chosen me. I liked that as well. I hadn’t been chosen in a long, long, long time.
Her hand squeezed mine and my chest eased as I took a deep breath. Though it sounded sappy in my head, I thought that together, Tasha and I could do anything.
Tony rose from a guest chair in the office and stood behind Morton. I returned Tony’s glare, then fixed my focus on Tasha’s father. I refused to be intimidated.
I wrapped my arm around Tasha’s waist, pulling her flush against my side, sending a silent message. Mine. But Tony was a rich, privileged kid. I should’ve known he wouldn’t have the sense to back down. He leaned in the doorway next to Mort and crossed his arms over his dorky shirt.
“What the hell is he doing here?” her father asked.
Here we go.
She didn’t balk. “I brought your check.” She walked the envelope over to her dad and he took it. I watched Tony, who watched her, eyes narrowed. I worked my jaw, but there was no reason to act out. Especially when Tasha returned to my side and tucked her arm through mine.
I gave Tony a smug smile. It was involuntary.
“So. You two are a thing,” Tony snarled. “She’s quite the talker. How’s that work for you? Do you endure her chattering or occupy her mouth in other ways?”
Both Tasha and I looked to her dad, who should have been yanking Tony by his stupid collar and throwing him out on his ass. When he didn’t, I took a big step forward, because someone should stand up for her. Tony ducked behind Tasha’s dad at the same time she wrapped her hands around my arm.
“Caden, behave,” Morton told me. “Don’t get yourself into trouble.”
“Really?” I said, anger shaking my arms. “T-taking his side?”
“Get out of my house,” Morton said, his calm making me angrier. “And you, young lady, seem to have made a decision to deliberately defy me.” He held out a hand. “Car keys.”
“What?” Tasha dropped my hand. “Daddy, wait. I’ll buy a different car, but for now, I need it.”
“Caden’s presence here shows you didn’t think your predicament through, and that’s not my problem.”
“How will I get to school? To work?” she asked, real worry entering her tone.
“M-me.” I had a car. I could take her wherever she needed to go.
“Cade,” she said, and I knew her worry wasn’t over losing her rich-girl mobile. Her worry was finishing school, getting to the job that had just promised her full-time employment upon graduation. She couldn’t be in the situation of not showing up and risk getting fired. Not after how hard she’d worked.
“You have m-m-me,” I said, my voice low, my mouth still wrestling with that pesky M.
She watched me for the space of three heartbeats, then twisted the car key off her key chain and pressed it into my palm. I was proud of her. Eyes on her father’s, I tossed the key and heard it plink on the marble floor at his feet. His lip curled but my cool smile remained.
Then Tasha and I walked to the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” her father asked, his voice echoing off the high ceiling.
“On a date,” she ca
lled, slamming the front door behind her.
I couldn’t get her out of there fast enough.
When I’d first met Tasha at that party, I’d assumed that, like Brooke, she was a daddy’s girl who would do anything to please him because she was weak. Now I saw the truth. She had been trying to win the approval of a man who showed her no support. Morton had bought her loyalty with school, with her apartment, with a BMW, but he failed to see that her loyalty could be won if he simply treated her with respect. I knew because it was a lesson I’d recently learned.
I opened Blue 2’s passenger door while mentally mapping my journey back into the house to knock Tony’s head off his skinny neck. She must have noticed the tension stringing my arms, because before she sat in the seat, she rested a hand on my chest.
“Breathe.”
I took one deep breath.
“One more.” Her fingers on my chest did a lot to calm me.
“That’s better,” she said after I took another breath, which admittedly took me down several notches. “Where are you taking me?”
“Surprise,” I said, not trusting myself with a complete sentence.
“Let me grab one thing.” She ducked into the Z4 and came out with her ever-present pack containing straws and books and the therapy she’d risked doing with me, knowing her father would take away everything he’d given her.
I took it from her, not minding for a change that she carried it everywhere. It was because she cared. About me. About my voice. And she cared above herself. Only one woman in my past had ever cared about me more than herself, and that was Joyce.
I winced as I thought of the way I’d been ignoring her and promised myself I’d remedy that soon. But for now, only Tasha mattered. I’d won this round—because I was getting her out of this hellhole disguised as luxury.
She was coming with me.
Tasha
As the miles sped by, my hair whipping in the wind, I considered what Cade had done for me. He’d walked right into my father’s house and backed me up. He’d shown no regard for his own embarrassment when he spoke in front of both Tony and my dad. I was so proud of him.
Shut Up and Kiss Me: A Lost Boys Novel Page 12
