by Sienna Blake
He chuckles a little. I fight not to roll my eyes. So glad I could amuse you, you bastard.
His eyes get serious again and his grip on me becomes firm. “I’m saying ‘not yet’ because I know the moment I kiss you I’m not going to be able to stop. I’m not rushing you. I need you to trust me first. And you don’t trust me yet. I can see it in your eyes.”
My body rages with heat and fire and spits angrily at being denied him again. He feeds me just enough to keep me lit when all I want is to explode into a brushfire. I want it, even if it burns me in the process. Even if it sweeps across the world and consumes it, that’s what I want.
I let out an annoyed growl.
“Rule number one?”
I pout. I won’t say the rule. I hate that God damn rule.
“We can be patient. Trust me, kitten. It’s better this way.”
He sets me down onto the bench next to him. It feels like he has taken gravity from me, and I’m left unstable for a moment. Somehow, he has tethered me to him. Somehow, he is becoming my earth, my ground, my gravity. He hasn’t even kissed me yet and already I am being bound.
He takes my hand in his and pulls me to my feet. “Let me take you home.”
“It’s not even late.”
“It isn’t, but I have plans soon.”
“What plans?” But more importantly with whom?
He doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t want to answer. He doesn’t have to. This is us building our version of together. I’m comforted in the knowledge that I can also choose not to answer if he asks a question I don’t like. Still, a curl of curiosity sits in my stomach. What plans?
He pulls me along the boardwalk until he stops at a motorcycle that I recognize as his. As I stare at the bike, the beginning of a plan stirs in my mind. Screw rule number one. When I’m done he won’t even remember he had plans after this.
Caden puts me in front again. He straddles the bike behind me, his long arms easily fitting around me to grasp at the handlebars. His chest fits against my back and his legs press along mine making my skin crackle like wood against wildfire.
Soon we are moving along the streets of Cherry Farm, a quiet residential area with wide streets and little traffic. It’s not far from where I live, so I have limited time. I start rolling my hips and pressing my ass against him. I lean my head back into the crook of his neck and lick under his jaw.
“Kitten,” his voice is stern in my ear, his breath and the closeness of his lips making me shiver. “You’re playing a very dangerous game.”
I can feel his erection growing against me and it spurs me on to rock with even more enthusiasm. He is mine, I can feel it already. I grab his thighs and dig my fingers in, pushing back and forward against him. He growls in my ear. I continue to move, thrusting, rocking, pretending that he’s the one rumbling underneath me, looking up at me, worshipping me. The wind whipping through my hair sends chills across my searing hot skin, and I imagine it’s his fingers pushing back the strands so he can see my face. A white-hot energy builds inside me. Back. Forth. Higher and higher. I hear us both panting over the roar of the bike.
I barely notice him turning onto my street. By the time he pulls the bike into the small lane next to my building he is so hard against my back and his thighs so tense under my hands that they are shaking. I am so wet and blind with desperation that I have become a squirming vessel of melted liquid held up only by his body. Oh God. I need him now.
The bike stops moving, but he doesn’t turn off the engine. He grabs my hip with one hand, slides his other arm around my body and reaches into my open jacket. His thumb brushes across my hardened nipple through my silk top just as he pushes my hip down so that my clit meets the vibrating seat through my jeans. It is too much.
I come. My belly clenches before releasing into a single crescendoing note throughout my body. I can’t help the cry that escapes my open mouth, my head thrown back like I’m singing to the heavens. I pray that this doesn’t have to stop.
The intensity ebbs and I feel a buzzing covering me like a blanket.
I hear his voice in my ear. “I’m going to do that to you again. But next time I’m going to be inside you.”
Yes, please be inside me.
How is it possible that this ache for him is still here even after I just had that amazing orgasm?
I’m limp as he pulls me off his bike. He holds me until the feeling returns to my legs and I can stand on my own. He lets go of me and mounts his bike again. Sitting on it he is closer to my height.
Realization snaps me out of my fog. “You’re not coming in?”
“I have things to do.”
“But you…” I wave wildly at the direction of his jeans, which are still straining against his bulk.
He laughs and reaches around my neck to pull my cheek to his lips. “Be good, kitten.”
He backs out of my driveway and rides away.
There are things that stay the same every time with Caden.
I never know when the next note is coming and he won’t give me a way to reach him. When a note arrives I never know where it came from.
We never meet at my place or his.
He always instructs me to meet somewhere different – sometimes in a bar or restaurant, sometimes at a museum or gallery. Often he surprises me with someplace I would never expect.
Like the planetarium after it closes; he helps me scale the wall. With his hands on my legs pushing me up and over, I forget about the night sky and see stars of my own.
Or when we ride out to the national park and he leads me to a cave thick with glowworms.
Or the toy store.
He hasn’t once asked me to meet him when I have to work, so I’ve never had to ask to swap my shifts. I wonder whether my schedule is another thing he somehow knows about me. Or just good luck.
I’m struck dumb with a rush of heat every time I see him. He always smiles at me as if knows exactly what he’s doing to me. We talk or sometimes we just walk in silence. There are questions that he just won’t answer. Like what he does for a living. He won’t talk about his family.
After three months of seeing Caden this way, the ache in my gut is like my shadow, a constant, ever-present shade. It’s an exquisite kind of torture.
When we sit next to each other he always tucks me into his side and under his arm, our thighs touching, his body curling around me as if he is my shield. My shield. My shelter. My safety.
He still hasn’t kissed my mouth. But his lips know the curve of my neck, the line of my jaw, the arc of my ear. He knows the smell of my hair and my skin.
He still hasn’t kissed me. I know he wants to. I can feel the strain against his jeans, hear the hitch in his breath, see his irises darken. Every time, he leaves me only with a, “Be good, kitten.”
I have to scream around my fist with frustration. What the hell is he waiting for? I find myself locking myself in my apartment and medicating myself with masturbation again and again until I fall sleep, exhausted and delirious and calling his name.
But it’s not enough. This ache and this pressure just gets worse and worse. Soon, pulling on a shirt over my breasts or the fall of my hair across my bare back or rubbing moisturizer into my legs has become an erotic experience that has me moaning for Caden as I touch myself again. My skin is so sensitive it almost hurts to be clothed. I’m going to go crazy. Mad. Or perhaps I already have.
I could go out and find someone else to soothe this fire, but his words, spoken on the night we met, stick in my mind.
“No more sex with strangers. No other men. Or you’ll never see or hear from me again.”
The thought of never seeing Cade again is too much to bear. Although this hurts in the most exquisite way, to be without him would be worse.
No other man could be enough. He was right. He has ruined me. He hasn’t even kissed me yet and already he has ruined me.
Sometimes the frustration bubbles into anger. When that happens I vent my frustration
through my gym workouts. Mick has noticed the increase in my energy. Instead of taking it out on myself, I take all of it out on bags, imagining that they are Caden and I’m beating him with my knees and my thighs and my fists because he makes me feel this way. He makes me feel this way yet refuses to kiss me and fuck me and quell this God damn ache. Bastard.
I don’t know what to do with me.
Until this note arrives.
It comes with the delivery of another dress, wrapped lovingly in scented pink tissue paper within a silver box.
Hotel Astoir lobby, 7pm Saturday.
The Hotel Astoir is set off the glittering main strip. I take a cab there from my place. This is the first time Caden has asked me to meet him at a hotel. A hotel. I know what this means. It’s time. Tonight is the night.
I only realize I’m grinning like an idiot when the cab driver laughs at me and asks me why I’m so happy. I merely grin wider. “I see,” the cab driver says. For a few moments I’m just a girl falling in love with a boy.
We pull up to the hotel, which has a driveway that stretches along a row of manicured bushes and fountains. It curves into a wide front entry where Caden is already standing waiting, dressed in a black suit. He is pressed and suave, but on his face he wears my favorite things: that deadly looking scar above his eyebrow and his rough smile. At once I’m flooded from the ends of my hair to the depths of my soul with a fierce aching. My hands are already stripping him of that dinner jacket and unbuttoning that shirt and unbuckling those…
I pass the cabbie some money. A twenty maybe. “Keep the change.” Or maybe it’s a fifty. I don’t know. I don’t care. I can’t take my eyes off Caden – my Caden. My soon-to-be-naked Caden. He has beaten the concierge to the door of my cab, opening it for me. He reaches a hand in and pulls me out.
The dress that he sent with the note cascades out of the cab after me and spills around my ankles. It is a strapless full-length gown in a brilliant blue satin. I felt like a princess when I put it on, so in honor, I wore my hair up in a French twist and secured it with diamante pins. Above us the gilded hotel entrance, studded with down lights, glitters like diamonds.
He greets me with a kiss on my cheek. He whispers, “For as long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing you.”
I melt into his arms and my heart trills as it clings to his words. For as long as I live… Maybe Caden and I could carve out a future in this version of together?
Behind me I hear a car pull up in the hotel driveway. But I don’t look. I’m staring up at this beautiful man who somehow decided that I was his. A valet interrupts us and hands Cade a set of keys. “Here you go, Mr. Thaine.”
What?
I turn and stare at the black town car as if it has grown legs and feelers and has started wriggling. I keep on staring when Caden opens the passenger door for me.
“But we aren’t…” my voice fades. No. Of course we aren’t going into the hotel. Of course he hasn’t booked us a room. Of course he isn’t taking me upstairs and stripping me naked and fucking me until I am finally sated. Bastard. He tricked me.
I grit my teeth and force a smile to my face. There’s no point in arguing. I clench my jaw and ignore his hand when he offers to help me into the car. I hike my skirts up in my arms and drop into the passenger seat in a puff of blue satin rage.
The inside of the car smells like pine air freshener and the cream leather seat squeaks under me when I shift. I kick my heels into the freshly vacuumed cream carpet like a surly child. It’s a rental. Why? Where are we going? Why couldn’t we have stayed at the hotel in a room, just him and me?
He gets into the driver’s seat and we pull away. The hotel lights fade from the reflection in my window along with my fantasy of where this night is taking us.
I’m silent as he drives, glaring at the buildings and streetlights that pass by the window, cursing this man with every pulse of my wretched and frustrated core. I hate him and love him for how this feels. This aching beautiful. I want him so much it fucking hurts. I want to hurt him back. Or throw myself at him and beg that he put me out of my misery. He is gloriously ignorant of how he has tortured me over these last three months. He just keeps drawing it out in this pointless dance.
Does he even want me? My lip trembles as I consider this possibility. Fucking bastard. I fucking hate Caden Thaine.
These thoughts dissipate when he pulls into a dark driveway. Ahead I can see gates and beyond that, a blackened building. A knot forms in my throat. He cuts the engine, gets out of the car and walks to my side. He opens my door and helps me out.
When he begins to pull me towards the iron gates I resist. “What are we doing here?”
He turns to study me, his eyes giving away nothing. He raises my hand to his lips and runs his soft mouth across the bumps of my knuckles. “Do you trust me?”
I remember what he said to me when he told me why he was taking things slow with me: “I need you to trust me first. And you don’t trust me yet.”
Do I trust him? Do I?
I learned long ago that the true test of a man is how he treats the people to whom he owes nothing. Waiters, bar staff, strangers. Over the last few months I have watched Caden interact with all types of people and he has been nothing less than manners and kindness to everyone.
So do I trust Caden Thaine?
I don’t know him, but at the same time, I know him. Not once in the last three months has he raised his voice to me or been anything but gentle even though one squeeze within his thick arms and large hands could crush me. Not once has he demanded anything of me. Anything he asks for he always leaves as my choice.
Yes, Caden might be hiding things, but I am hiding things, too. Whatever he is hiding, he has a good reason for it – I just know it.
He hasn’t given me any reason not to trust him.
I nod and step forward, an indication for him to continue leading me. The smile that he rewards me with is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. It causes my stomach to roll with pleasure.
“I have a surprise for you,” he says. I can hear the anticipation in his voice and, if I’m not mistaken, nerves. His fingers pull on me to hurry, and I’m caught in the updraft of his excitement like a fluttering leaf. A surprise? For me?
Caden, every day with you is a surprise already.
We slip through the unlocked gates. The building is low-set, only two stories, spray-painted with the uninspired tags of bored and high teenagers. I stumble on some broken glass, but I don’t fall; Caden catches me with his arm around my waist.
“I’m sorry, kitten. I wasn’t thinking.” He pulls my arms around his neck. I feel my legs sweep from under me and his strong arms cradle me to his chest. I’m floating and it feels like heaven.
“Close your eyes,” he says when we reach a dark, partially-open side door.
I do and I push my face into the crook of his neck. In the darkness behind my lids he is everywhere – in my nose with his smoked wood scent, blanketing my body with his warmth, in my ears with the noise of his breath, and he takes up this space in my heart, space I didn’t think anyone could ever fill.
I hear the arthritic creak of the side door we enter. I feel the difference in temperature inside. It’s warmer and still, the air smelling faintly of turpentine and something sweet… vanilla?
It is vanilla. The scent gets stronger as we move further into this building. He keeps walking and the gentle rocking of his gait and the warmth of his arms lulls me into a haze. Underneath his feet I hear crunching glass.
Finally he stops. “Keep them closed.” He gently lets me down. I find my balance with my heels on the hard ground. He maneuvers me to face a certain direction by my shoulders, his large hands curling over them like plates of armor. “Okay. Open them.”
In front of me the blackness dissolves into two rows of low candles that light up a corridor. At the end I can see an open door. The small flames shine across every peel and bump of the wallpaper and cause long dark fingers
to flick at the ceiling.
“Go through the door,” he says.
He lets me take the lead and I walk the last few steps. When I step through the doorway my mouth drops open. The room opens up to the left, spanning both stories of the building, high ceilings draped with pale curtains like ghosts. And candles, hundreds of pillar candles covering the side benches and floor and lighting the room with a warm glow. In the middle of the room is a table covered in a white cloth, dressed with a silver candelabra lit with three thin white tapered candles. Dinner for two.
I hear a click. Through the speakers set up across the room a woman starts to hum, breathy and sweet, over a deep undulating note. Something in her voice caresses the little hairs on my skin. The beat kicks in, raw and sensual like a heartbeat.
Caden squeezes my hand. “Do you like it?”
I don’t like it. I love it. It is exactly Caden Thaine. Softness, light and beauty set among the rough, dark and broken. I tell him so and he rewards me with a radiant smile that outshines all these candles.
“What is this place?” I take another step in.
“It used to be an art college before they ran out of funding.”
He leads me to the table and pulls my chair out for me. He moves to the side and I notice a silver bucket of ice on a stand. Within it is a bottle of… sparkling grape juice. This makes me smile. Next to it is a silver serving trolley complete with a small burner underneath to keep the contents warm.
He opens the bottle and pours the liquid into the two champagne flutes. “Madam,” he says as he hands me one.
When he lifts the serving dish lid the smell of roasted chicken and herbed potatoes makes my stomach rumble. He starts to serve the food onto my plate and places it in front of me. I stare at the potatoes when I recognize that smell.
“Rosemary potatoes,” I say. I stab one with my fork. “They’re my favorite. How did you know?”
He grins. “A lucky guess.”
“Did you cook all this?”
“Maybe.”
“I didn’t know you could cook.”
