Undeniable (Always Book 3)

by Lexxie Couper

  Why was he here? To make me do that which I’d adamantly sworn to myself I wouldn’t.

  “To be a pain in my ass?” I answered.

  Yes, I was aware he still held my hand. Yes, I was aware I was doing nothing to remove it. Yes, I was very aware I was leaning closer to him, as if taunting him to kiss me again.

  I wasn’t. I don’t think . . .

  He laughed. As always, when he laughed I wanted to join in. As always, I countered that unnerving, unsettling reaction with a surly glare at him.

  “Close,” he said, lips moving carefully around the word. Damn it, how the hell was he so good at making it so easy to understand him? “. . . but no cigar.”

  “I know,” I shot back. “You’re here to make me want to smack you.”

  My stomach was doing more of that weird flip-flopping. I knew what it meant but didn’t want to admit it. Damn it, he was making me enjoy myself with him. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t playing fair. That was—

  “Smacking?” A devious light gleamed in his eyes, detonating a thoroughly filthy want in me I’d never experienced before. “That comes later. After you’ve accepted what I already know.”

  “I am not going to fall in love with you, O’Dae.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  More flip-flopping in the tummy. More prickling in the spot between my thighs, the place my mom referred to as girly bits and that I called Temporarily Out of Business.

  “Says who?” God, was I five?

  And if I was, no five year old should feel so . . . so . . . goddamn it, so horny. The irritating pain in the ass was making me hot and horny and flustered and—

  My phone vibrated to life in my back pocket, Pink’s ‘Walk of Shame’ playing loudly along with it.

  I didn’t need to look at my cell to know who the caller was. I sure as hell wasn’t going to answer it though. Screw him.

  Caden frowned, no doubt waiting for me to do just that though.

  A second later Pink stopped singing. My heart hammered fast in my throat, anticipating what was going to happen next.

  “Is everything . . .” Caden began, his frown deepening.

  Pink started singing again.

  Yanking my hand free of Caden’s, I shoved it into my pocket and pulled out my cell, fixing him with the fiercest glare I could as I raised it to the one ear that could actually receive sound. “What?” I snarled.

  From the beginning of our “relationship”, Donald had this weird habit of calling me immediately after I didn’t answer his first call. When I asked him why he did so, he told me it was in case I hadn’t heard my phone ringing the first time.

  I’d been foolish enough to think it sweet when I was under his sway. Now . . . now it just pissed me off.

  “Dinner?” his voice came from the cell’s small speaker, faint but still there. “Tonight. My place.”

  I would have been able to hear him better if I had my hearing aid in (my cell was compatible with the damn thing after all), but in all honesty, I don’t know if it would have made any difference to the way I reacted. A hot blade seemed to trace a path up the line of my spine. It was a jarring sensation, given that at the same time all the blood from my face seemed to drain down to my sex.

  Before I thought about what I was doing – and when it came to Donald, that was my modus operandi – I pivoted on my heel and hunched my shoulders as I presented Caden the barrier of my back.

  I could feel his eyes drilling into me. It competed with the self-disgust churning in my belly and the contempt twisting in my chest. And the wrong wrong wrong ache Donald always brought out in me.

  “Why?” I asked, doing my version of a murmur (which is probably a little louder than most people’s).

  “Why do we need to eat dinner?” Donald asked. The velvety smooth timbre of his voice did what it always did to me, which only tightened the contempt in my chest more. “Because we need sustenance for what comes after.”

  An image flashed through my head of exactly what Donald was alluding we’d need sustenance for. In that image I was naked. Donald wasn’t. Even when we were together, Donald was rarely naked. It wasn’t until later, as the wounds on my heart and my psyche were finally beginning to heal, that I realized he kept himself semi-dressed for a fast getaway.

  Truth be known, I’d probably realized it before then. People can be masochists sometimes. Or was it just me?

  “I’m not having dinner with you, Don,” I answered. He hated when people called him Don. Almost as much as when they called him Donny. His preferred form of address was Professor Perry. He’d even asked me to call him that once while we were mid—

  Jesus, why was I still talking to him now?

  “Yes, you are, babe,” he countered, that smooth arrogance that had been my undoing from the beginning slipping through the phone. “You’ve missed me too much. And I’ve missed you. I’ve missed my Chase, missed my hunt.”

  I closed my eyes. My head was roaring. My heart was thumping in my chest like a goddamn cannon.

  And all the while I could feel Caden’s gaze on my back. Feel him standing there, watching. Waiting.

  Waiting to take my hand again and look into my eyes and make me feel the way I’d promised myself I’d never feel again.

  Fuck this.

  “Let me chase you down, babe,” Donald crooned.

  Once upon a time, when I’d been his star-struck student, in awe of his talent and intelligence and knowledge of art history, that cheesy pun on my name had rendered me weak at the knees and wet at the junction of my thighs. Now it turned the disquieting sensation blooming low in my belly to a churning, conflicted mess of contempt and wretched want.

  Christ, how was I not over him already? After what he’d done to me?

  “My place. Nine pm. Let me show you how much I’ve missed you.”

  Another image flashed through my head. Donald’s head buried between my legs, his hands smoothing up my thighs . . .

  “Let me show you how much I know I hurt you.” His voice dropped an octave, low enough I almost had trouble hearing him. Almost. “Let me show you I know I was wrong.”

  I was wrong.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Damn it, why hadn’t he uttered that last line an octave lower?

  Heat washed over me like a wave of fire ants, biting my skin. “Nine,” I said, hating the word as it scraped at my throat. Hating what it meant. “I’ll see you at nine. But only to talk.”

  “Bring your toothbrush,” he said, smug triumph in his voice.

  “We’re not having—”

  He ended the call before I could tell him it wasn’t a booty call. A classic Donald Perry move: don’t let the person telling you something you didn’t want to hear finish saying that thing. I’d seen him do it to other professors at college, other students. He’d done it to me more than once since our relationship moved from together-in-secret to whatever you’d label the fucked-up mess it was now.

  Opening my eyes, I stared at the neon green Chinese dragon on my car and tried to fathom what the fuck was wrong with me. I’d just agreed to walk back into Professor Douchebag’s house. I’d just agreed to put myself back in his sway. After everything he’d done to me, I’d just . . .

  What. The. Fuck. Was wrong with me?

  “So, the thing you’ve got with Donald the Dude isn’t really over then, eh?”

  I turned at Caden’s calm observation, shoving my cell into my back pocket as I did so. Our eyes clashed for a split second before I looked away. I’d expected him to be angry, but he wasn’t. There was no judgment in his expression, no censure, just regret.

  What he was regretting, I don’t know. The fact he’d come all this way to convince me to fall in love with him and I’d just arranged a dinner date with my ex (huh, ex so doesn’t begin to cover it) right there in his presence? Or the fact even he could see I was being an idiotic imbecilic of epic proportions who seemed to want to be hurt all over again?

  Let me show you I know I was wrong.

&n
bsp; Donald’s words clawed at me and I let out a ragged sigh. “Please don’t try and think you get me, Caden.”

  That sensation of sour guilt lashed at me again, but I shoved it away. At least, I did my best to shove it away. My best wasn’t that good, however, which pissed me off.

  Stomping past Caden without another word, I yanked open the passenger door of the Speeding Dragon. “Well?” I said impatiently, hand shoved to my hip.

  He studied me, his expression enigmatic, and then let out a chuckle I heard despite the distance between us. “I get you, Chase Sinclair,” he said as he made his way toward me and the open door. “When are you going to get you?”

  Before I could tell him to bite me, he tossed his duffle bag into the backseat, dropped himself into the passenger seat, and grinned up at me. “Coming?”

  Sometimes, Caden’s unwavering good humor drove me crazy. Right now was one of those moments.

  Temples throbbing, I slammed the door shut with as much force as I could muster and continued my stomp around to the driver’s side. I refused to look at Caden as we exited the parking lot. In fact, I refused to acknowledge he was even there. I switched on the radio, gripped the steering wheel and pretended I was in the Speeding Dragon alone.

  The ruse lasted all of fifteen minutes, when Caden flicked my ear.

  I turned my head, ready to tell him to fuck off, but the words died on my lips. He was holding something up for me to see.

  “I made this for you,” he said, lips twitching. On his hand sat a small bearded dragon lizard, made from wool. A knitted bearded dragon, no bigger than his palm.

  I blinked.

  His grin widened. “I thought I’d branch out from sock puppets.”

  I blinked again, then jerked my eyes back to the busy LA-congested street in front of me. But not before I noticed the knitted lizard seemed to be wearing a Wonder Woman’s costume.

  Jesus. How the hell was I going to survive the next three weeks?

  “Thank you,” I muttered, clenching the wheel. My knuckles ached. A hot, thick lump in my throat was doing everything it could to choke me.

  Silence stretched for a moment before, out of the corner of my eye, the knitted reptile appeared on the Volvo’s dash.

  I tried not to look but I couldn’t help myself. Yep. It was a Wonder Woman costume. A tiny Wonder Woman costume.

  “Did you make the costume?” I asked. Damn it, wasn’t I trying to pretend he wasn’t there?

  “I did.”

  Playful pride danced in the answer. I could see the smile on his face without looking at him.

  “I’ll make an excellent wife someday,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes and grinned, despite myself. Damn him. Seriously, damn him. “God help anyone foolish enough to marry you,” I said, shaking my head and returning my attention to the road. I tried to muster up anger at him but it was frustratingly absent.

  “I’m the full package,” he said loud enough for me to hear him without needing to follow the words on his lips with my eyes. “I can cook, make awesome sock puppets, knit, sew, and I don’t snore. Oh, and I have no issues whatsoever with animal feces, so when we get a dog I’ll pick up all its poop.”

  I arched an eyebrow at him, even as a picture filled my head of him in Mom and Dad’s backyard playing with a puppy that looked suspiciously like the one Amanda had been forced to give away because of Tanner’s leukemia. “What’s this we business? I’ve told you before, you and I aren’t happening.”

  He studied me from behind his black Ray-Bans. “You could do worse,” he replied.

  I rolled my eyes and focused on the upcoming on-ramp to the 105. “Drop it, Caden.”

  He did.

  I don’t know why, but I wished he hadn’t. Was I just fishing for an excuse to pick a fight with him? To make him lose his temper? I could justify being grumpy with him if he’d snarled or snapped at me. What would an angry Caden O’Dae be like?

  I didn’t know. Did anyone? Did the guy ever crack?

  We merged onto the 405 South, the Speeding Dragon eating up the miles, getting closer to San Diego by the minute. When the traffic got bad, I cut across on the 710 to California’s famous Highway 1. It ran along the coast, and I figured we both could both do with the peaceful views to decompress from the airport incidences: Donald’s unexpected appearance, and Caden kissing me in the parking lot. Not exactly the most auspicious beginning to his three-week stay here.

  It was a long while before he said anything to me again.

  Not that he was silent for all those miles.

  Caden sang along with whatever song came on the radio. When he didn’t know the lyrics, he made them up. He turned an Imagine Dragons song about everything being fantastic and turning to gold, into a song about having a cold.

  I did my best not to react to him, but it was damn hard. His relaxed sense of humor was infectious, damn it.

  The upside to his singing was I’d completely forgotten about my insane decision to agree to Donald’s dinner invitation. In fact, I’d completely forgotten about Donald. That fact had just registered as we neared the junction of Highway 1 and Interstate 5, when Caden suddenly lunged forward in his seat.

  “Stop!” he shouted, his head snapping to the right.

  I hit the brakes. I’d never heard such distress in Caden’s voice before. A choir of car horns sounded behind me, although by the time my faulty ears and startled brain registered it, the cars were blurring past me.

  “What the hell?” I damn near shouted, as I pulled up onto the shoulder, pulse wild.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” Caden shouted, before flinging off his seatbelt, shoving open the door and leaping from the passenger seat.

  I sat and blinked at the empty seat, before the unmistakable sound of tires screeching and car horns blaring sank into my discombobulated brain.

  I looked up. “Jesus!” Caden was hurrying across the road, arms held up and palms out toward the oncoming cars, his head swinging from them to something I couldn’t see and back again.

  I scrambled from behind the wheel out into the dry Southern Californian heat. More car horns blasted the air. More tires screeched. Someone in one of the cars yelled something at Caden I’m glad my bad hearing didn’t allow me to make out.

  “Yeah yeah,” he shouted back, not looking at them. He was slowing down, arms still held out in an attempt to divert cars traveling in excess of fifty miles an hour, his attention now completely focused on . . . what?

  I fidgeted beside the Speeding Dragon’s tailgate, squinting into the sunlight. Caden was now almost squatting in the middle of one lane, one arm still up to ward off traffic, the other drawing closer to . . .

  My heart smashed up into my throat. A dog. A big black dog lay on its side in the middle of the lane, its head raised toward Caden, its long tail thumping weakly onto the asphalt. Caden half squatted in the middle of the highway, one hand held up to divert cars, the other resting on the side of the dog, that had obviously been hit by a car, given the blood seeping onto the road.

  Jesus.

  For a second I didn’t know what to do. I was struck frozen. And then Caden swung his face to me and I sprang into action.

  Fast.

  Caden

  No, I didn’t want Chase to come to me. The second she moved, terror gripped me. What if a car hit her? Fuck, I hadn’t been thinking. I’d seen the injured dog and I’d just reacted. I was such a fucking idiot. How the fuck could I protect her if she was running through speeding cars?

  Keeping my palm gently on the dog’s side to track his shallow breaths, I couldn’t tear my eyes from the girl I was deeply and irretrievably in love with, as she risked her life to get to me. I wanted to yell at her to stop, to go back to the safety of the side of the freeway, but I knew she wouldn’t be able to hear me. All I could do was stand and make myself as visible as possible to the oncoming traffic and hope to fuck they saw me and hit the brakes. But if they swerved into the other lanes, Chase could be right in the way—


  Fuck.

  At my feet, the dog whined. The heat from the bitumen radiated up through the soles of my thongs, hot enough for the vet part of my brain to know the dog would not only be getting overheated, but that the blood flow to its skin would be increasing, putting a strain on its already stressed heart.

  All those things passed through my brain as I frantically watched Chase run to where I stood.

  All those thing vanished as a bright red car sped into my line of sight, its tires screeching as Chase ran directly into its path.

  “No!” I screamed, throwing myself toward her.

  I still don’t know how the car missed her. She ran straight past me, grabbing at my wrist and dragging me back to the dog.

  “Quick,” she yelled, not looking at me but behind me, as she waved at the oncoming cars. “Pick him up.”

  I did as she ordered, fighting to contain the anger boiling up in me. As quickly as I was prepared to risk, without knowing how extensive the injuries were, I slid my arms under the dog and lifted him off the road. My brain registered the fact that he only had three legs; his left back leg was a deformed stump.

  He yelped as I straightened completely, writhing in my arms as he tried to bite me. The word rabies slashed through my mind, a heartbeat before Chase’s hand found my forearm and her worried gaze found my eyes through my sunglasses.

  “It’s okay,” she said, her hand moving from my arm to stroke the dog’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Caden’s got you.”

  The dog whined again, and I felt its tail thump weakly against my hip.

  “Let’s go,” I said, raising my voice so Chase could hear me more clearly over the sound of the car horns and tires.

  She nodded, and then moved between me and the traffic, arms out, palms up. I followed, hurrying for the car, the dog whimpering in my arms. I wanted Chase off this maniacal stretch of road ASAP. I needed her safe so my heart and brain could actually start functioning properly again. If I didn’t love her so much I would have killed her. Didn’t she have any clue how dangerous her actions had been?

  What had felt like a mere couple of yards when I’d been running to the dog, had now somehow stretched into miles and miles of never ending bitumen and speeding cars. Chase crooned to the dog, stroking its shoulder with one hand as she held up the other at the oncoming traffic.