Damn. Cade really knew how to use his tongue.
He placed a tender kiss on the inside of each of my thighs and gave me a smile. I would never forget what he looked like shadowed by the dim interior light of the car. His messy hair, the dimple punctuating his cheek, and the look of pride in his eyes, all framed by my loose summer skirt.
He climbed off his knees and adjusted himself, and my eyes went to his jeans. He wasn’t kidding. He was ready. I could make out the outline of his erection through the denim. I wanted him so badly I couldn’t think straight. I held out my arms.
“Come here.”
I was ready to accept his luscious weight against me. I was ready to strip him and have him inside me. I was ready for whatever came next, even if our first time was going to be in his car. We were making our own rules.
Cade’s eyes shifted from hooded to wide as a red glow covered his face. His grin wiped away when the red glow changed to blue, then red again.
Shit. Cops.
“Get dressed.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice.
My heart pounded double time, my postorgasmic buzz lost with my next blink. I shoved my skirt down, pulled my shirt on, and tucked my legs into the car as Cade walked around to the driver’s side. He glanced over and I nodded, grateful we hadn’t pulled any alcohol out of the cooler with our dinner. Grateful the cop hadn’t pulled up thirty seconds earlier to find me writhing against Cade’s face. It was amazing I could be grateful about any of it, as scared as I was. I’d never been busted by the cops before.
The sound of heavy boots crunching through grass came closer as a flashlight beam blinded me. I squinted.
“Care to explain what you’re doing here?” the voice of authority asked. When the flashlight moved from me to Cade, I blinked a few times to adjust to the darkness and took a good look at the officer in blue.
Hand on his hip, reddish hair. I knew him. Well, not knew him, but I recognized him. Rena had been set up on a date with him last year by her well-meaning mother. Needless to say, things hadn’t worked out.
“No,” Cade answered, hip resting on the door.
Clearly, he wasn’t going to cooperate. But I wasn’t interested in this escalating into jail time.
“Baron, right?” I blurted. The officer swept the flashlight to me but kept it aimed at my body rather than shining it in my eyes. “You’re Roy’s nephew. I remember you from the hospital.”
I couldn’t see his reaction behind the light.
“I’m Tasha Montgomery. Rena’s best friend.” At the mention of Rena, Baron lowered the flashlight before sweeping it over to Cade. If I kept talking, I might be able to get us out of this. Baron liked Rena. As in liked liked. Or he used to, anyway. I hoped he wasn’t bitter because Rena had chosen Devlin over him.
I hoped I could count on Baron being lovesick enough to let us go.
“This is Cade. I was visiting him in the hospital when you were there.”
No response.
“Anyway,” I continued, “we’re working on his therapy tonight. Speech therapy.” This was not going well, and it sounded like a lie, even though it was the truth. Partially.
“Whatever you’re ‘working on,’ there’s no reason for you to be in a park after hours,” he said. “You’re trespassing.”
“Give me a ticket and we’ll go,” Cade said, folding his arms over his chest.
Baron swept his angry gaze to Cade.
“Or you could let us go? It’s totally my fault. See, he does better when we practice outside of the house. I figured the dark would…help him relax more. Speech is a funny thing…” I prayed this was working.
Cade sent me a dark look and I bit my lip.
“Sounds like he’s speaking okay to me,” Baron said in challenge.
“See, it works!” I chirped, hyperaware that my underpants were wedged behind me in the seat. I hoped Baron didn’t ask me to get out of the car. I hoped I didn’t get arrested. It would be embarrassing to go to jail without anything under my skirt, and more embarrassing to call my dad and confirm his suspicions about Cade Wilson getting me into trouble.
“Just write the damn ticket,” Cade grumbled. I wanted to throttle him at that point. He wasn’t assisting in my efforts to appease Baron.
“Please don’t.” I pushed the door open.
Baron held out a hand. “Stay in the vehicle. And you,” he said to Cade, “get back in it.” For a few seconds I thought Cade was going to argue, but he didn’t. He opened the driver’s-side door, climbed in, and closed the door.
Phew.
“I’m going to let you off with a warning, but only because I’m a nice guy.”
Baron rested a hand on the open window as Cade turned the key. Headlights permeated the darkness. I wondered if Baron was giving us a warning because word would get back to Rena.
“If I catch you out here again, doing therapy”—I could hear the doubt curling around the word—“you’ll both get tickets for trespassing, or worse.”
“Thank you,” I said before I thought about it.
Baron patted the edge of the car and directed us by motioning toward the park exit. He walked back to his vehicle and we rolled out of the grass, into the parking lot, and then onto the road.
I let out a huge breath of relief.
“Did you have to mention therapy?” Cade growled as he drove through the now-open gate.
“What did you expect me to say? You were begging for a ticket.”
He clenched his teeth. I saw a muscle in his cheek tic.
“Cade.”
“Maybe I don’t want everyone to know that I can’t talk.”
“Well, you’re talking now.”
“It comes and goes. You know that,” he shouted over the wind cutting through the car. It was chilly now that the sun had gone down. We should have put the top up, but that hadn’t exactly been the priority.
I held my whipping hair with one hand and watched the headlights passing us on the other side of the street. Cade was right; his ability to speak could come or go at any moment. But we had been successful at widening the gap between coming and going. With a combination of exercises and his own returning confidence, which had come from him believing in himself, I had no doubt his speech would make a full return.
“Are you taking me home?” I asked when he stopped at a red light. One more block and he’d have to choose left—toward my apartment—or right—to his place.
“No.” He turned to me, and under the overhead streetlamps, I saw warmth flash in his eyes. “You’re coming home with me.”
Chapter 14
Tasha
I remained quiet on the rest of the drive to his house. Until Cade parked in the garage, lifted the cooler and my backpack out of the backseat, and gestured for me to go ahead of him to his room.
“Your dad’s here,” I whispered, my eyes on Paul’s car.
Cade shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Your dad could tell my dad that I spent the night.”
Cade was unruffled by this information. “And?”
I tipped my head and put my hand on my hip. “And he will tell my dad that I spent the night here,” I repeated, hoping my wide eyes gave him insight into how much deeper the shit pile could get if I continued to defy my father.
“We should go to my place.” I hadn’t been thinking before when he told me I was coming home with him. I’d been too busy giving thanks that we weren’t in the back of a police cruiser.
“I’ll talk to him.”
“My dad?” I asked, my voice climbing an alarmed octave.
Cade smiled. “Mine. Go in.”
I stepped into the darkness of the staircase, finding the switch for the light and flicking it. Cade abandoned the cooler by the kitchenette’s sink, and then he kissed me and told me he’d be right back.
I watched as he disappeared down the stairs once again, my heart hammering a warning. Another activity good girls didn’t participate in was defying parents, and I could
n’t help worrying staying here with Cade tonight would be too bold of a step, even after I’d stood up to my dad.
I spent the next few minutes digging through my pack, pleased to find a change of clothes in the bottom for the gym at work. Even a change of panties and a sports bra. Score. As long as Paul didn’t march up here and demand I go home lest he call my father, I could stay here and not have to do the walk of shame in the same clothes I’d arrived in.
The win was a small one, but a win nonetheless.
Cade returned as I was checking my phone for messages—none, text or otherwise.
“Done,” he said.
“What’d he say?” I asked. But I didn’t give him time to answer. “What did you say?”
“I said don’t tell Morton, and he said okay.”
I blinked. I think I was in shock. I didn’t move for a few seconds.
“I told him Morton told you to stay away from me but you couldn’t.” His smile turned cocky and my mouth compressed as I gave him a good-natured eye roll. Yes, I enjoyed seeing his confidence return full force, but he didn’t need to know that.
Cade took my hand and tugged me from his love seat, then walked with me to his bed.
In a rush, everything we’d done at the park came to mind. Cade’s head must have taken the same route. A second later his mouth hit mine, and he was working my shirt over my head.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked, the lusty quality of my voice letting him know I had no complaints about what he was doing.
He grinned. “Trust me.”
He kissed me again. I let him remove my bra, then my skirt, and when I noticed there were no panties to remove, I realized it was because I’d left them in his car.
Alarm shot through me.
“Cade,” I whispered harshly as he backed me toward his bed. “My panties are in your front seat.”
“Lucky me,” he said before closing his lips over mine.
I was in Cade Wilson’s bedroom, his father on the other side of the house, and my underpants were in the front seat of Cade’s car.
“I am not this girl,” I said when he cupped my breasts.
“You’re my girl.” He ran his tongue over my bottom lip and then nipped me lightly before kissing his way down my throat. I’ll be damned if that statement didn’t shut down my worries as well as my defenses. By the time his lips closed over my breast, my mind took a vacation.
Cade lifted me and laid me on the bed. Leaning on my elbows, I watched as he undressed. He grabbed his T-shirt from one side and peeled it over his head, revealing his hard-muscled torso and the tattoos tracking up one arm. He kicked off his shoes and socks, then stripped off his jeans. Him getting naked might’ve been the sexiest sight of my life.
Him exposing inch after inch of his body. The dark shadows of the ink on his arm that I couldn’t make out in the dim light peeking through the blinds.
He climbed into bed, his hot skin on mine, our hearts pounding the same hectic beat. He kissed his way down my collarbone and to my breasts, flicking the tip of each nipple with his tongue.
I moaned his name, or thought I did. Maybe it just echoed in my mind. He moved to my thighs, slicking his tongue between my legs. I gasped, a high-pitched, surprised sound. I was still sensitive from his earlier assault, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if I came on contact.
He didn’t linger. Instead, he climbed my body and pressed a kiss to my lips.
“You have to be quiet, Tasha. I’ve heard you come, and even though we’re on the other side of the house, I know you’re loud enough to wake my dad.”
He smirked and I blushed, having no idea if he was teasing me or if I was really that loud. I hadn’t thought about it in the park.
“Can you do that?” he asked, a glimmer in his eyes.
This was his game. I was a willing participant.
“I’ll be quiet,” I promised, biting down on my lip and batting my eyelashes for show.
“Good girl, kitten.”
Lord help me. I nearly came then.
Cade left me briefly to pull a box of condoms from his nightstand. This was really happening. We were really doing this. I know, we’d done almost everything else, but this—sex—was a big deal. A huge deal. Even knowing the way things might change, I couldn’t argue. I wanted him.
He gave his erection a couple of strokes, and I stared openly. Anticipation was a wriggling beast in my belly as he rolled the condom over his length. This is it, this is it, this is it, I silently cheered.
He planted his fists on either side of the pillow where my head rested, positioned over me like some dark, hungry predator.
“Remember your promise,” he murmured, then kissed me.
I grasped his shoulders, loving the hard, hot feel of him under my hands. Sliding my hands down his biceps, over his forearms, I tried to slow my racing heart. It was no use. By the time the tip of his cock glided along my slick entrance, I worried I could have a heart attack before it ever happened.
He pushed his hips forward and slipped inside, filling me. My mouth dropped open, and the sharp sound that would have split the air between us died when Cade covered my mouth with his. Then he lifted his face and winked. I pressed my lips together and willed my vocal cords to be still.
He moved slowly, his deep, intentional thrusts stretching me. I held on to him as he glided in and out, tracing the lines of his strong back with my fingertips and cradling his hips with my crossed legs.
His eyes were closed, his lashes brushing his cheeks. I leaned up and kissed his full mouth, savoring his flavor. Watching him, feeling him, being here with him. Totally with him. My mind was only on us, on every subtle shift and sound and movement. Cade was everything I never knew I wanted.
There was only him. There was only me. Only our rapidly approaching releases.
“Tasha,” he said, his voice broken, desperate.
“I’m ready.” I knew what he wanted. It was what I wanted.
He slid one hand down my body, cupped my bottom, and tilted my hips. Then he drove down to meet me, deeper and harder than before. I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming his name. He did it again, and I scrunched my eyes closed, my body buzzing. Cade was grunting in my ear, and the bed was creaking, and I was making desperate, needy noises despite my effort to remain quiet.
“Let go, Tash. Say my name.”
“Cade,” I whispered, hurtling toward my release.
“Louder,” he grunted, slamming into me again.
“Cade!” I came, tears pricking the corners of my eyes as a sob tore from my throat.
Cade followed, his thrusts matching the pounding of my heart as my cries of release wound into murmurs of wordless appreciation.
His body came to rest between my legs, his lips against my neck. We lay there in the silence, the sweat cooling our bodies as labored breaths sawed from our lungs.
He pressed a kiss to my lips and, eyes on mine, pulled out.
I missed him instantly.
He strutted, bare-assed, to the bathroom across the room and shut the door.
I threw an arm over my forehead and blew out a breath, tingles traveling the length of my body and back.
Wow.
Cade returned, and fatigue hit me like 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.
I smiled to myself. Making love to Cade. For the first time.
Cade knew exactly what to do to turn me on. Even that game of “keep it down” was an excuse to let me cry out when he decided. He was unlike anyone I’d ever known. I liked him way too much.
I curled around one of his pillows and let out a deep sigh of satisfaction.
Whatever happened next between us, I hoped it included more of this.
Cade
No way could my father hear us from the other side of the house. But I liked challenging Tasha, and I liked the way she’d accepted my challenge. Letting me determine when
she could call my name.
My command of “Louder” and her screaming my name in ecstasy had me coming harder than I ever had in my life. It was amazing.
I wanted her loose and wild. I wanted her again. I didn’t want this to end.
She was lying on my bed, cuddling a pillow. I could only see the tip of her cute nose and open eyes, her blond hair rippling over her shoulder. The line of her body was like looking at a work of art. The curve of her shoulder to the indentations of her ribs to the swell of her hips. She was gorgeous. And in my bed.
I climbed in and took the pillow’s place. I loved touching her. I loved the way she felt against me. We hadn’t made any declarations, but I felt like she belonged with me.
I squeezed her hip, imagining what that might look like—us together.
She grasped my left shoulder. “Tell me about your tattoos.”
I couldn’t wait to blow her away when I spoke without a stutter. I’d practiced just now in the bathroom mirror, under my breath, reciting a verse from one of my favorite songs. Not a single hesitation from brain to mouth. I didn’t dare think a miracle had occurred, but there had been a noticeable shift. I felt more in control than I had in a long while, like before I skidded Blue into that fire hydrant.
It was nice to feel like my old self…well, not my old self but a merger of old and new. The man I was when I was with Tasha.
“What do you want to know?” I asked, casually running my fingers over her hip. How she could’ve ever thought she was less than physically perfect was beyond me.
“What’s this?” Her hand moved to trace the tattoo of a circle on my bicep.
“Speedometer,” I said of 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 does the moon mean?” A crescent with stars wound around my biceps.
“I like the night.”
“This one I really like.” She stroked the tattoo on my forearm—an American flag unfurling into a checkered flag.
“Lawyer and racer,” I said with a smile. It was my favorite too.
Shut Up and Kiss Me: A Lost Boys Novel Page 14
