by Hanna Peach
He nuzzles my nose with his. “Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch.”
“Shakespeare?”
He grins. Then he carries me from the bathroom to his bed.
“Shouldn’t you be resting?”
“Why do you think I’m taking us to bed?”
I roll my eyes. “Caden, we aren’t going to get any rest in bed.”
“I should hope not.”
“But your wound.”
I can feel his shoulders shrug under my hands. “I’m tough.”
“Not that tough.”
“Then you better be gentle with me.”
He kneels onto the bed, laying me down, then covers me with his body, pressing me into the mattress.
Oh. My. God.
I think I just died and went to heaven. No, this is beyond heaven. His naked body, all muscled and thick, covers me like a blanket, pressing my thighs apart around his hips. It’s the most delirious feeling. Please, let me never leave this wondrous place.
He smiles. “I have dreamt about this moment. Me looking down at you. Your eyes on me.”
I smile back. “Really? Now that you’re here, did it live up to your expectations?”
He frowns. “Not quite.”
“What?” I yelp, like I’ve been slapped.
His hand reaches down between us to position himself at my entrance. Then the same hand runs along my thigh and pulls my knee up so that I am parted wider for him…
There is nothing more perfect than looking in the eyes of the man you love as he enters you. The moment he slides all the way in is so achingly beautiful. It feels like he is touching every single part of me inside – my body, my heart, my soul. I let out a small cry that joins his moan.
He hums. “Now this is perfect.”
I don’t say anything. I can’t. I’m struck dumb by this loving warmth that soaks into my body in a delicious heat and wraps around my bones. I am safe. I am loved.
He captures my mouth with his. His tongue licks along the seam between my lips and I part them to let him in. As the kiss deepens I feel us melting together. Then he begins to make love to me, slowly at first. Every stroke, every touch, every kiss feels so full and perfect. I can hardly stand it. How can a heart that has known pain for so long deal with so much happiness? I have to shut my eyes to stop the tears from giving me away.
He pauses his thrusts and leans on one elbow so he can grab my chin with his other hand. He pulls my face towards his, but I keep my eyes squeezed shut. “What’s wrong?”
“Just something in my eye,” I lie.
He leans down and nuzzles my cheek with his nose. “Do you want to hear one of the things I love most about you?”
Love. He said love. I open my eyes in surprise. He has never said the word love to me in any context. “What do you love?”
“I love that even though you have been hardened on the outside from your experiences – your body, your attitude, your calculating intelligence in staying hidden and alive – you’ve managed to stay soft on the inside. You care deeply for the people you consider family, you accept things about me that even I haven’t come to accept, and just when I think I have found all the soft and beautiful parts of you, you show me another.”
I have no words.
A traitorous tear leaks from the corner of my eye. He leans forward and licks it from my cheek.
There is nothing left to say between us. I pull him to my mouth and crush my lips onto his. His hips start to thrust against me again and I can feel every inch of him sliding in and out. This soul-soaring all-consuming pressure builds. Oh God, it’s building so quickly. “Caden, I’m not going to be able to hold on.”
“Just let go. I’ve got you.”
So I do. My body bursts with emotion. For a moment my world is an explosion of pleasure. White specks of light float across my vision. I hear myself crying out his name. He holds me, my tether to this earth until I float all the way back down into my body.
I realize he has stopped moving. I can feel that he’s still hard inside me. He’s watching me with hooded eyes, dark and intense and they flash with lust. He has my favorite smirk on his thick lips. “You looked like you enjoyed that.”
“It was okay.”
“Okay? Cheeky little−”
I laugh and push him over. He lets me roll him to his back so that I’m straddling him. I marvel at how he looks underneath me. His beautiful trim waist between my legs, fanning out to his glorious muscled torso. He tucks one hand under his head and bites the corner of his lip as his eyes roam across me. God, he is so beautiful.
My eyes come to rest upon his scars. I see the white puckered outline of the Tyrell crest.
Jacob is having me tattooed. I already know what the tattoo is. It’s the crest that Jacob has tattooed on his shoulder blade. His crest, which I have seen on his stationary and the napkins on his nightclub and the sign above the doors of the businesses he owns. Because he owns me.
“You understand, don’t you, baby? Why I have to mark you. So that everybody knows. So that everybody knows that you’re mine and if they fuck with you then they fuck with me.”
For a moment fear runs through my body like a current and I’m frozen, caught in my own invisible amber that encases me in my past.
No, I need to replace these memories. I need to keep going. I look up to Caden’s face. I can see the edge of fear in his eyes. He’s seen my hesitation. I focus on his face, and the scars on his chest blur. I smile as I look down on him, my fingers brushing the line of his jaw. I lift my hips and roll them back down the length of him and the memory starts to fade. Every bad memory, I’m replacing with Caden. Piece by piece I am taking my body back, my heart and my mind and giving them to him.
I run my hands across his chest as I lift and lower myself down on him again, memorizing every inch of his scarring. “You’re beautiful,” I whisper. “All of you.”
Caden groans underneath me as I move up and down onto him. Feeling myself slide up and down on him, my body starts to heat with waves of pleasure again. My fingers trace his scars, careful not to touch his bandage, then down his sculpted stomach, all hard and tensed as he raises his hips up to meet mine. His hands span my hips and his grip tightens as his groans get louder. He is so beautiful. My broken survivor. My golden warrior. And he’s mine. All mine.
We rock hard and faster, our hips crashing together in a song as old as time. One of his thumbs moves across to my lower belly and starts to rub circles on my clit, and I jolt with the added pleasure. My head falls back as another orgasm rushes through me. I clench down around him and I hear him roar as he throbs inside me.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Caden and I stay in bed for the next few days. It feels like we are making up for lost time for every last second of our relationship where we couldn’t be this free around each other. And for these moments, Jacob Tyrell and our pasts and the rest of the world fall away like they never existed.
Now that I’m allowed to, I thought that the desire to touch him would lessen. It hasn’t. Just the opposite. Every time I take my hands off him, it’s like they forget what he feels like and they need to touch him again.
I can’t stop touching him. Even in my sleep I find myself reaching out for him. In the morning before I’m even fully awake, I find myself crawling over his warm body and waking him up with wet kisses across his once-forbidden skin before I lower myself down onto him.
We even shower together. I make excuses to clean his body and his wound too often. At night he stands behind me, one arm around me as we brush our teeth together. I lean my head back onto his right shoulder. He’s so tall that his chin hovers just above my head. I have wondered about this, trying to imagine what it would feel like to have Caden this way. Now here we are, standing here, brushing our teeth together, eating together, sharing a bed together. There are moments when I can’t really believe this is real.
One afternoon I push back the sheets to slip out of bed. A thick muscular arm wraps around my wai
st and tugs me back into the depths of the bed, warm and dark like a cave. Caden’s voice tickles my ear. “Where are you going?”
“To my room. I’ve run out of clothes.”
“Excellent. You don’t need clothes.”
“Cade, we haven't left the bed in three days.”
“I’m still recovering. You’re helping me. I’m sure I read somewhere that sex is great for recovery.”
I let out a snort. “You didn’t read that anywhere.” I shift around to face him. “We can’t stay here forever.”
“Why, where else would you go?”
“Go?”
“You know… just you and me, where would you want to go? A beach, the snow, the mountains, a village in France? Where?”
I purse my lips. Is he serious? Is he really considering leaving everything behind? Leaving his vendetta behind? “I’ve always wanted to live on an island. Far from here. Easy life. Sunshine. The water. Where have you always wanted to go?”
He rolls me to my back and shifts so he is lying on top of me, his legs on either side of mine, trapping me. I don’t mind being trapped this way.
He traces my chin. “I’m home anywhere that you are.”
He leans down to kiss me. Deep and slow turns to hard and hungry, as his tongue explores first my mouth, then down my body and then to that aching spot between my legs. Soon his familiar hardness is slipping inside me. And I feel like I’ve come home.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“I think you’ve worn it away.”
I snort. “It has not worn away.”
“It has. You’re an animal.” Caden lies on his back and tucks me into his nook. “A greedy little pussy.”
I grin at him and trace the scars on his chest. “Stop being so hot then.”
He grabs my hand and stills it. He is almost completely comfortable with me touching his scars. Almost. “Even with a butchered chest.”
“Even with your past engraved on your body,” I correct him.
I lean up to kiss him and I feel myself getting wet again. I squirm against him and I know he’s getting harder.
He growls and pulls away. “Dammit. I’m like a teenager again.”
“Why do we have to stop?” I whine.
He laughs and places a kiss on my forehead as he pulls away. “Come on, you said yourself we can’t stay here forever.”
I scramble after him. “I lied. I think we could be perfectly happy in bed. It’s warm and safe and did I mention, warm?”
“I should catch up on things today.” He stands up from the bed and his glorious body stands naked on display. I notice that’s not the only think standing on display.
I lick my lips as I stare at him. “But you’re hard.”
He snorts. “Kitten, that is a constant around you.”
Finally, we drag ourselves out of the room. Okay, so maybe we have sex again in the shower first. But then afterwards we disengage.
He goes to his office and I head to the library with the intention of reading but remember that I haven’t rung Dixie again. I hope she’s not too worried. I settle into an armchair and pull out my burn phone to call Dixie at home. I hear the dial tone in my ear. Then an odd click. I sit up as a robotic voice tells me, “There is no more room on this tape to record a message.”
My skin suddenly goes cold like a chill has washed through the air. There’s no more room on her message tape? Which means that Dixie hasn’t checked her messages in several days.
Dixie always checks her messages.
Something’s wrong.
I dial Dixie’s mobile phone. She has one but she never takes it anywhere, so I know never to call it. Dixie always claimed that people were too glued to their mobile phones and that she didn’t like succumbing to the “tool of the Devil” as she called it. It always ends up forgotten between couch cushions or at the back of a drawer, where it’s probably sitting now. But I’m desperate.
The phone doesn’t even ring. “Your call could not be connected,” a recorded message tells me. The phone is dead.
It’s too early for the bar to be open, but I call it anyway. The phone rings out. I snap the phone shut in frustration. There has to be a good explanation for her absence. Surely. There has to be. Maybe she went on holiday. Except Dixie doesn’t really do holidays; she says that working at the bar is like a holiday every day. She loves that place.
Okay, so maybe not a holiday. Maybe she had to go somewhere. A family emergency or something. But then why wouldn’t Jeff answer? Why wouldn’t Jeff check their messages?
Maybe he went with her? Or maybe he’s just really busy with school.
This sounds so ridiculous to my own ears. I’m grasping at straws. But I have to believe there is some sort of good explanation for their absence. I force myself to calm the hell down. But deep in my gut I can feel the unease. Something is definitely wrong.
“Caden.” I burst into his office, where he’s standing staring at a map. He spins to me and looks like he’s about to tell me off for disturbing him until he sees my face.
“What’s wrong?”
I run into his arms. “Dixie isn’t answering her home phone. And her answering machine is full, so I know she hasn’t checked any of her messages in days. I tried her mobile and it’s dead. I tried the bar but no one is answering. Something’s wrong. I need to go back. I need to make sure she’s okay.”
Caden shushes at me as he walks me backwards out of the office. I glance back at the map he was looking at. It’s of Freemont, the city we left behind only days ago, and the area surrounding it. Freemont. The city where Dixie lives. And where Jacob’s men last spotted me.
Caden pushes me outside his office and closes the door. “You have to calm down. Getting worried when you don’t have all the information is pointless.”
“I have to go and make sure she’s okay.”
“You’re not going anywhere, let alone back to that city.”
“But−”
“I’ll go. You stay put.”
“I want to come with you.”
Caden palms my cheeks as he frowns down at me. “Please, kitten. Jacob will be scouring that city looking for you. You’d be walking right into his hands if you came. I’m trying to keep you safe. I need to do this my way.”
I want to argue. I want to fight against him and demand that he take me. I want to threaten that I’ll come anyway. But I don’t. I’m not stupid. I know he’s right. I know it would be suicide for me to return. It doesn’t mean I don’t still want to go with him.
I sigh and I nod. “Okay. You go. I’ll stay. But you better call me the second you find her.”
“I will.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Caden plans to drive out as soon as possible. He has gone to his room to sort things out and I’m left wandering the mansion like a ghost. I feel helpless and useless.
I palm my mobile. Occasionally I stop and ring Dixie’s numbers again, all of them, just in case. But she doesn’t pick up. No one does. I don’t have Jeff’s mobile. Nor do I have Robert’s. I never needed them. I was never a big fan of exchanging numbers unless I had to.
My stomach feels like it has been hit by a wrecking ball. It’s all tied up in knots and making me feel sick. What if something happened to her?
What if… Jacob happened to her?
Because of me.
The guilt that floods me threatens to drown me.
No, I shake my head. Caden’s right. I can’t think like this. I can’t worry until I have all the information. For all I know, he’ll make the drive to Freemont, reaching Dixie’s by tonight, and I’ll get a call from him with some reasonable explanation and saying she’s okay. I’ll feel silly about all this worry¸ won’t I?
I laugh nervously to myself. But I can’t shake this bad feeling.
I know Caden said he needed an hour alone to sort his things, but I can’t wander this place alone. I’ll go crazy.
I head to his room.
The door is slightly ajar when
I reach it. I lift my hand to knock but a voice stops me. It’s Caden speaking to Wylie.
“Something's wrong, Wylie. I can feel it.”
“Sir, I’m sure that there’s a reasonable explanation for her absence.”
“One of my sources tells me that one of the Tyrell drivers was instructed to meet a private airplane that came into the country a few days ago. It landed in an abandoned airfield not twenty miles from Freemont. It’s Jacob. He’s back in the country for the first time in three years. This is my chance. This may be my only chance. He’s too protected in Colombia.”
“You’re going to try to take him out? Alone?”
“I won’t be alone.”
I hear a discontented grumble from Wylie. “The men who work for The Church are not men you want to get involved with again, sir.”
“Sevastian is fine to deal with. I trust him.”
I hear a sigh. “If you say so.”
“Look, if anything happens to me…”
“Nothing will happen to you. You’re careful.”
“I know. I am. But just in case, keep her here. Keep her from coming after me. Keep her safe.”
“Of course.”
I can’t stand to hear any more. I shove the door open and it slams against the wall. I glare at Caden, ignoring Wylie’s surprise at my entrance. Caden doesn’t even have the decency to look shocked. His cool unaffected mask is on. This is business Caden.
“Were you going to tell me you were going after him?” I demand.
Caden glances at Wylie. Wylie seems to understand what that look means. “Excuse me, sir, madam. I believe I left something in the oven that needs checking.” He leaves swiftly, only pausing to whisper to me, “Go easy on him. He’s only doing what he thinks is right.”
Wylie closes the door behind me when he leaves.
The silence hangs heavy and thick between us. I’m teetering equally on the verge of rage and tears. At the moment I’m not sure what’s going to happen next.
“I didn’t want you to worry,” he says finally.
“So, what? You were just going to leave me with the pretense of going to check on Dixie, then go after Jacob without telling me?”
