by Leanne Banks
Cade devoured her mouth and slid between her legs. His hardness meshed against her, making her wish the clothes between them would dissolve. She wanted him inside her. There was no such thing as close enough.
He rubbed and she arched. His tongue tangled with hers. Give me more, she thought. Give me all of you.
Cade swore under his breath, but continued to kiss her. He kissed her as if she was the most important thing in the world. Abby was hot with want and need. She’d wanted him so long, so very long.
His hand slid to her breast and she stopped breathing. He rubbed her nipple. Abby arched toward him. He groaned into her mouth. The sound was so sexy she couldn’t stand it.
“I want you so much,” she whispered desperately.
“I want you,” he muttered and thrust against her.
Abby heard, felt something in the room, but Cade overpowered her senses.
The sound of a gasp took her slightly away from Cade’s spell. “What?” she murmured.
“Oh, my God. How perfect is this.”
Abby blinked, hearing her sister’s voice. She tugged her mouth from Cade’s and felt him look in the same direction.
Laila smirked. “This really is perfect. Why didn’t I see it before?”
Mere breaths later, he rose from Abby and stood. He glanced from Laila to Abby, but his gaze lingered on Abby. “Crazy,” he said. “This was crazy. I can’t explain it. I’m sorry. I should go,” he said and left.
Abby stared after him, trying to compute everything that had happened. Why had he kissed her? She wondered what would have happened if Laila hadn’t interrupted them. Abby felt a rush of frustration and met her sister’s gaze.
“Oops,” Laila said. “It could have been worse. Everyone else is on their way back from the Brunswick-stew dinner.”
Abby rose from the couch. “Why don’t I feel better?”
“It’s not my fault I walked in on the two of you. It’s not like you sent up a warning flare,” Laila said.
Abby could have screamed. “Do you have any idea what it’s like being your sister?”
Laila blinked. She winced. “That bad?”
“Beauty queen a gajillion times over, super successful. Worse, there’s Cade.”
Laila bit her lip. “How long…”
Abby shook her head. “Longer than you want to know.”
Laila gave a slow nod. “Sorry,” she said.
“Yeah,” Abby said and rose from the couch.
“I gotta ask. What’s with the outfit?” Laila asked, waving her hand toward Abby’s leather skirt and tight top.
“It was an experiment,” Abby said, not wanting to linger on her so-called makeover.
Laila laughed. “Bet you knocked Cade on his ass.”
Abby bit her lip because she wasn’t sure what Cade would do tomorrow. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t broadcast what you interrupted tonight,” Abby said. “G’night.”
Cade drove his SUV to his place outside of town. He was torn between arousal and the overwhelming feeling of insanity. What had he been thinking?
He had not been thinking. That was the point.
He’d seen Abby dressed like sex on a stick, felt protective and chased after her, then gave in to some insane urges. He was still hard from kissing and holding her. He had definitely gone insane and he needed to bring himself back to sanity, no matter how painful it was.
Pulling into his long driveway, he sucked in a deep breath and pulled to a stop. He cut the lights of his SUV and felt a sense of loneliness at the thought of nothing going on inside his house with no one waiting for him.
A sliver of Dominique slid through his mind like a ghost. He remembered her black hair and her laughing black eyes. He’d hoped she could heal him, but he hadn’t been sure. When he’d finally gotten around to deciding to ask her to marry him, she’d died in an automobile accident. That seemed as if it had been a lifetime ago. Years earlier, his mother had died and his family was trying to dig their way out of their grief.
After Dominique he’d just closed the door on his emotions. It had been the easiest route. Then, Laila had seemed just like him. Emotionally closed off. After dating her off and on for years, it had made sense to Cade for them to marry. In many ways, they were the same. They were getting to the place where they should go ahead and do the baby thing, so perhaps he and Laila should get married.
In retrospect, it had been a crazy idea, and he deeply regretted pursuing the possibility. Cade wanted a family of his own, and he hated that he wanted it. Life would be so much easier without that strong desire. He could work at his family’s furniture shop, build his motorcycles, contribute to the community, take a woman friend every now and then and his life would be fine.
Right?
Or not.
Cade swore under his breath and raked his hand through his hair. He’d just made out with Laila’s little sister. How screwed up could this situation be? Shaking his head at himself, he stepped out of his truck and walked into his lonely-ass house. The dog greeted him at the door. Thank goodness for man’s best friend.
Strolling to the refrigerator, he grabbed a beer. The sound of his footsteps echoed on the wood floor of his foyer and kitchen. Is that what he was going to hear for the rest of his life? The sound of his boot heels on his own kitchen floor?
What was wrong with that?
He took a long swig of his beer and headed for the den, his dog, Stella, trailing after him all the way. Cade found the remote and turned on his giant flat-screen TV. He flicked through a few channels. Thank goodness there was a college football game. He didn’t care who was playing.
Sinking down on his leather couch, he took another long swig of beer then sucked in a deep breath. He stared at the big-screen TV and waited for the game to anesthetize him. The thought of Abby’s lips against his slid through is mind. The sensation of her lips, soft, silky, swollen, slick.
Her breasts had felt so good against his chest. Her nipples against his chest, his palm. Lower, lower, he’d rubbed against her. She’d arched against him.
He’d given in to the urge to slide his hands lower, to seek out her secrets. He’d felt her damp arousal.
Then Laila had walked in.
Cade swore under his breath. He didn’t want to think about this anymore. He should focus on the game and his beer instead.
An hour and a half later, he woke himself up with a snort. He blinked, staring at the screen. The game was over. An infomercial about an exercise machine was playing.
Cade stared at it for a few minutes then flicked off the TV. A soft lamp kept the darkness from completely enveloping him. In the past, the darkness had been comforting. But now…
Now he wanted more and now he wanted Abby. And that was insane. Super insane.
His body grew hard too quickly and he swore again. Rising from the couch, he headed for the shower. Cade turned the water on cool, stripped off his clothes and stepped inside. A hot shower would have felt a lot better, but he needed to get away from his need for Abby. A cold shower should cure him. That was all he needed to knock some sense into himself and Abby out of his mind.
Chapter Four
Cade did what he’d always done when he was bothered about something. He threw himself into his work. It was good timing because between the approach of the holidays and some new high-dollar custom orders, Pritchett & Sons were slammed.
He sanded a bed head in preparation for stain. A man had commissioned this piece for his wife for their tenth anniversary. It would be a nice piece when he finished it, Cade thought, feeling a nip of envy over the customer’s good luck of having a woman and children in his life.
Narrowing his eyes, he refocused on the work at hand. A family just wasn’t in the cards for him. At least, not now. Cade heard his brother using the electric screwdriver on a table he was making and glanced over at him. Dean was good company because he didn’t talk all that much. Cade couldn’t have abided much chattiness at the moment. He was too busy trying to
quiet his own mind.
Dean met his gaze and nodded in the direction of the bed head. “That’s looking good.”
“Yeah, I think Mr. Winston will be pleased with it. Hopefully Mrs. Winson will, too,” he said wryly. He’d learned through the years that women often didn’t see things the same way men did.
Dean nodded and gave a low chuckle then got back to work.
Cade continued sanding. He found the rhythm of woodworking both soothing and absorbing. From an early age, when his father had taught him the basics, Cade had envisioned little touches he’d wanted to add in the pieces on which he’d worked. His father hadn’t discouraged him, and although Hank was more focused on producing solid, basic furniture, Cade had taken an artistic bent.
Within the past few years, people had sought him out for his one-of-a-kind pieces, even asking for his signature on the finished furniture. At first, it had seemed silly to Cade, but the request for his signature had become so frequent, it was now almost a routine.
Nearly finished with the sanding, Cade heard the shop door open and glanced up to see their regular courier, Mike Jones, loaded down with boxes. “Hey, Mike, let me give you a hand with that,” Cade said, rising from his bench.
“Thanks. I’ve got more in the truck.”
“I can help,” Dean said.
Cade took the boxes into the back room to sort them out later. Seconds later, Dean and Mike brought in more. “You can tell it’s the holiday season just by the number of packages,” Cade said.
“For darn sure,” Mike said, pulling out his electronic gizmo for Cade’s signature. “Unfortunately, holidays can bring out the wackiness in people.” He shook his head. “I just made a delivery to the Tattered Saddle and Jasper demanded that I wait while he opened the packages. He tore through them and apparently didn’t find what he was looking for. I was waiting for his signature, and he called somebody on the phone yelling about some missing package. And then, I must not have heard correctly, but the old man said something about how the Rib Shack may not be as easy to take down as expected.”
Clearly rattled, Mike shook his head again. “Gotta run. More deliveries. See you guys later and thanks for being sane.”
The courier ran out the door, leaving a rush of cold air in his wake. Cade looked at Dean and saw the same mixture of alarm and confusion written on his brother’s face that he felt. “What the—”
Dean lifted his shoulders in confusion. “I’ve always thought Jasper was odd, but I can’t believe he’s behind the problems at the Rib Shack. What would he have to gain?”
“You got me,” Cade said. “Maybe it’s like Mike said and he didn’t hear the old man right. Jasper’s been known to mutter and mumble.”
“Hmm,” Dean said, the sound short and full of suspicion.
Cade shrugged it off. “We need to get back to work.”
“Yeah. Same for me if I want to make that poker game tonight,” Dean said, heading back to the table.
“Just be careful who you’re playing with,” Cade said.
“I know better than getting in a game with a bad crowd,” Dean said with a scowl.
“Just a reminder from someone who’s bailed you out a couple of times,” Cade said.
“Three years ago,” Dean said.
“Some things you don’t forget. Like being woken up at 3:00 a.m. because your younger brother has been left in the snow wearing only a pair of underwear and his socks because he bet more than he had.”
“Three years ago,” Dean repeated with a sigh. “Thanks for coming.”
“There was never a doubt I would do anything else.”
Dean nodded and they returned to work, but Cade felt his mind turning to thoughts of Abby. He didn’t like surprises and he was damn surprised that he’d acted like he had with her. He’d always viewed her almost as a little sister or cousin. She was his little buddy, he’d thought. Not a woman with whom he wanted to share a bed. Now she was someone who made him feel so worked up and hot.
Irritated with his distracting thoughts, he tossed his brush aside and stomped to the back room to get a cup of coffee. It may as well have been tar since he’d made it this morning. Sipping it, Cade grimaced and walked out the back door of the shop, hoping the cold air would clear his head and cool his body. A couple minutes later, he walked back inside and returned to his bench.
“You okay?” Dean asked.
“Yeah,” Cade said, taking another sip of terrible coffee.
“There’s a lot of talk about Laila and Jackson getting married. It’s enough to get on anyone’s nerves, let alone—”
Cade swore under his breath. “I’m okay with Laila marrying Jackson. I wish them well. Laila isn’t who’s bothering me.”
Dean’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Then who is?”
Reluctant to discuss the subject with anyone, Cade shrugged. “Nobody is. It’s just work. I have a lot of work to do. So do you.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Dean said. “You aren’t usually this much of a pain in the butt to deal with just because you’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Cade sighed at his brother’s words. He’d been trying so hard not to think about Abby that he hadn’t realized he’d been hard on everyone else. “It’s not Laila. It’s Abby.”
“Abby?” Dean echoed. “Abby who? The only Abby I know of is Laila’s little sister.” Dean must have seen the conflicted expression on Cade’s face. “Really? Abby Cates?”
“I’m not sure how it happened. I saw her crying a few weeks ago and offered to buy her a hot chocolate. Somehow we ended up at the Hitching Post instead. I drove her home, and she kissed me.”
“Whoa, that must have caught you off guard,” Dean said. “It’s always awkward when you have to tell a woman you’re not interested.” Silence followed. “You did let her know you weren’t interested, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but then I saw her out with some guy, and she was dressed for trouble. I was worried about her, so I followed her home and we stopped talking and started—” He broke off. “Anyway, it’s crazy. Abby’s not my type. I can’t see myself in a long-term relationship with her.”
“Hmm,” Dean said. “You don’t think she’s some kind of rebound fling for you, do you?”
“No,” he snapped. “I wouldn’t do that kind of thing to Abby. She’s too good to be treated that way. And besides, I’m over Laila. I was never in love with her.”
Dean lifted his hands. “Okay, okay. I’m on your side. Remember?”
Cade frowned. “Yeah, I know. I’m gonna take a walk. I’ll be back in awhile.”
In a town as small as Thunder Canyon, Abby was sure she’d run into Cade sooner or later, but it was as if he’d vanished. She knew he was putting in long hours at the shop, but still, she would have expected to see him out and about at one time or another. During the past week, she’d completed two papers, babysat for one of her ROOTS girls and endured hours of wedding-planning discussions from her mother and Laila. The good news was that her mother had started to set out snowmen and Santa figures inside the house. Abby could only hope the holidays would provide at least a slight reprieve from wedding talk.
Since she had walked in on Abby and Cade, Laila had tried to overcompensate by constantly remarking on how pretty and smart Abby was. Although Abby appreciated the sentiment, she wasn’t interested in the extra attention. She really didn’t want the rest of her family knowing about her unanswered quest for Cade. It was bad enough that Laila knew.
One of Abby’s friends, Rachel, invited Abby to join her at the Hitching Post for a girls’ night out. Ready for a break, she accepted. Although she didn’t tease her hair like the girls at ROOTS had done, she realized she wanted to look more like a woman than a high-school girl, so she put on some mascara and lip gloss, changed into a sexy shirt and wore some high-heeled boots with her jeans. She looked in the mirror and shrugged at her reflection. No one would accuse her of being a beauty queen, but she supposed she looked a little better than usual.
&nbs
p; “Abby,” her mother called from the kitchen. “Rachel’s here.”
Grabbing her jacket, she headed for the front door where Rachel stood. Her father was sitting on the couch reading his paper. “Don’t get into any trouble,” he said.
Abby planted a kiss on his cheek and laughed. “Now, when have I ever caused you any trouble?”
“Hmmph,” he said. “It’s not too late. You be careful.”
“You, too, Daddy. Too much bad news is bad for your health,” she shot back with a cheeky grin. “Let’s go,” she said to Rachel and the two of them ran down the front steps to Rachel’s six-year-old Ford Explorer. “Thanks for inviting me out,” Abby said. “I need a break from everything,” she said.
Rachel nodded. “Me, too. I turned in a ten-page paper this week.”
“Multiply that times two,” Abby said.
“At least you’re getting near the end,” Rachel said. “I’ll have to take some courses in summer school to wrap everything up.”
Abby knew Rachel and her boyfriend had recently decided to take a break and Rachel was very upset about it. “Heard anything from Rob lately?”
Rachel frowned. “Just some texts and Facebook messages.”
“You could ‘unfriend’ him,” Abby said.
“I’m not ready yet, but we’re not going to think about Rob tonight. We’re going to have fun. Jules and Char are meeting us there. How’s the wedding planning going?” Rachel asked.
Abby groaned. “Can we put that in the same category as Rob tonight?”
Rachel laughed. “Fine with me.”
The Hitching Post was hopping with business. With a football game playing on several of the flat-screen TVs, the bar area was crowded with guys rooting for their teams. Abby skimmed the bar/restaurant for Cade, and felt a pinch of disappointment when she didn’t see him. Get over it, she told herself.
Jules and Char waved them over from a table on the far side of the room. “Woo-hoo,” Char said, lifting her beer. “The chicks are out of the coop tonight.” She lowered her voice. “Plus we’ve got a hot server. I think I should order a round for everyone, don’t you?”
