by Laurie Roma
“What the fuck am I, blind? Don’t look so happy. You’re not in the clear yet. I might be okay with it, but you still have to talk to Griffin and Zane. You also have to convince her to keep you. It’s hard busting out of the friendzone once you’re in there. She might not want to cross that line.”
Fuck, he was right.
That deflated Kade’s mood a little. He also felt a twinge of guilt that he hadn’t talked to Griffin first, but there was nothing he could do about that now.
“Now, you’re just winding him up,” Brooks accused.
“Just overwhelm her with sweetness and love,” Hammer suggested. “What? That’s how I won Kali over. She loves me for my soft and gooey center.”
Noah barked out a laugh. “Punch me if I ever sound that lovesick.”
“Who’s lovesick?” Kali asked as she wrapped her arms around Hammer’s neck.
“Me,” he admitted, turning his head to kiss her. She giggled when he pulled her onto his lap. “Did you have fun dancing, sweetheart?” When she smiled and nodded, he opened a bottle of water for her. “Good. Now hydrate.”
Elle skipped around the table, but instead of using one of the empty chairs, she surprised them all by plopping her ass down on Kade’s lap. Her eyes were bright with fun and a little glazed as she grinned at him.
“Hi! My feet hurt.”
Since she seemed to be waiting for a response, Kade said, “Okay.”
“It’s these stupid shoes. I’d hate them if they weren’t so pretty. See?”
When she glanced down at her shoes, he had to wrap his arm around her waist to make sure she didn’t tumble down to the floor. Fuck, he felt himself getting hard as she wiggled against him. The power of speech completely deserted him, and he barely held back a groan of need as he hauled her back onto his lap, trying to keep her still.
Ever the big brother, Brennan scowled. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Lots.” She nodded for emphasis. “Whole lots.”
Opening a bottle of water for Elle, Kade handed it to her. “Drink.”
“I think it was that last round of shots that did her in, but she’s fine. Happy drunk, not sick drunk,” Kali explained. “I think all of the ladies are about done for the night.”
Elle rolled her eyes and drank some water at Kade’s insistence. “Since Kali has a bun in the oven, we had to drink her share.”
Kali laughed. “Oh, so it’s my fault?”
“No, I think this part is my fault,” Hammer announced proudly, placing one of his big hands on her stomach.
They all laughed as Kali blushed.
From her perch on Kade’s lap, Elle drank more water as she playfully swung her legs back and forth. She gasped as one of her shoes flew off her foot, smacking Noah in the chest.
“Oops! Sorry!” Staring at the blond giant who looked like a Viking of old, she slapped her hand over her mouth, then gave up trying to contain her peals of laughter. “I guess I don’t need a hammer. I took Thor down with a shoe!”
“Hey, the Hammer is mine!” Kali declared, making them all laugh again.
Amused, Hammer kissed her forehead. “You about ready to head home, little fairy?”
“Yes, but we have to wait until she asks him.”
“Asks who what?”
“Never mind. I’ll tell you later,” Kali promised, kissing his cheek.
On the other side of the table, Noah grinned as he slid the shoe back on Elle’s foot. “Someone has obviously been having a good time.”
“Thanks, Noah. I seem to have a problem keeping my clothes on tonight.” Elle glanced back at Kade and blurted out, “Are you mad at me for flashing you again?”
“What? Did she just say—?”
Elle rolled right over Brennan’s question as she continued to speak. “I thought you were avoiding me, so I avoided you. But then I realized, I don’t want to avoid you. So, now that you’ve seen my breasts twice in one week I was—”
“What the fuck?” Brennan started to rise out of his seat, but Brooks and Noah slapped their hands down on his shoulders to keep him in place.
“Nope, this is too good to miss,” Brooks said.
“Same page,” Noah agreed with a grin. “I am totally here for this.”
As if finally noticing the others, Elle turned and wagged a finger at them. “This is a private conversation.”
“For fuck’s sake, Elle,” Brennan shouted. “You just announced it to the entire bar!”
“It wasn’t like I was naked. Well, not completely. But I guess I do tend to lose clothes around him. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking. Like I think it, then poof, there they go. My clothes disappear.” Her brow furrowed in concentration. “But that would only make sense if his clothes disappeared, too, right?”
Hammer, Brooks, and Noah coughed to cover their laughter, while Kade and Brennan both groaned…for very different reasons.
“Sure, sweetie,” Kali agreed cheerfully. When everyone looked at her like she was crazy, she glared at them. “What? I’m being a supportive friend.”
“I have no fucking idea what is going on right now,” Brennan muttered before draining his beer.
“Don’t be judgy. Kade was just helping when he tore my dress off. Kind of like when he punched that asshole earlier. That was really hot, by the way.”
Drunk Elle was utterly adorable, even if she was going to get him killed.
Kade wanted to tell her that she wasn’t helping, but she’d already lost interest in the conversation. She yawned and leaned against him, rubbing her nose against the side of his neck. When her lips pressed against his throat, his entire body jerked with need. He caught the bottle of water before she spilled it and set it on the table.
“You smell so good,” she murmured.
Instead of waiting for Brennan to flip the table over and come at him, Kade tried to calm the situation with a simple explanation. He didn’t want to embarrass her, but he also didn’t want to have to fight his friend. “She forgot the zipper.”
Some of Brennan’s anger faded into reluctant amusement. “Again?”
Before anyone could answer him, Nia, Aria, and Bliss joined them at the table. All three women started talking at the same time, which made it difficult to understand them. Nash and Cooper stood behind them wearing matching exasperated expressions.
“It’s like herding cats,” Nash muttered.
Nia laughed as she punched him in the arm. “Aww, come on. You love us.”
He rubbed his arm and scowled at her. “You’re a menace, Harper.”
“That’s what you get for scaring all the men away from us on the dance floor.”
“You didn’t want to dance with those guys anyway,” Cooper claimed.
“How do you know that?” Aria rested her arm on Brennan’s shoulder for balance. When she stumbled, Cooper wrapped an arm around her, steadying her. Turning in his hold, she smiled up at him and poked a finger at one of his dimples. “Thanks, cowboy. These should be illegal. Hey, where did my sister go?”
“She left right after we got here, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. She said this place would make a good pitstop in hell.”
Noah raised a brow at that. “Not her kind of place?”
“It’s not that. Being here gave her an idea for the video game she’s working on,” Cooper explained. “It has something to do with one of the levels of hell she created.”
“That’s…weird.”
“I like this place. We’ll have to come back for line dancing. But first, I have to get a pair of cowboy boots. And I want to ride that next time.” Bliss pointed toward the mechanical bull in the back of the bar.
“We’ll definitely come back,” Nia promised. “You really don’t want to try to ride that thing after you’ve been drinking. Trust me, I know from experience.”
“She’s right. And you don’t want to be wearing a dress unless you want to give all the boys a show,” Kali added with a laugh.
“I’m sleepy,” Aria
announced, resting her head on Cooper’s shoulder.
He glanced down at her, then grinned at the group. “I guess we should probably call it a night. A few more minutes, and she’s going to be out.”
“She’s not the only one,” Kade murmured as he glanced down at Elle. She had fallen asleep curled up in his lap like a cute little kitten, trusting him to keep her safe.
Noah leaned over and spoke softly. “I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about convincing her.”
He hoped that was true, but even if it wasn’t, he had no problem dedicating himself to convincing her to be his. She was worth it. He was done holding back but confessing his feelings would have to wait until she could hear what he had to say.
The party might be over, but something else was just beginning.
CHAPTER NINE
The loud knock on the door interrupted Elle’s first life-affirming sip of coffee, and she let out a hiss of pain as the hot liquid spilled down onto the shirt she had slept in.
“Fuck my life,” she groaned, setting the mug down.
Since she was operating on less than three hours of sleep, she desperately needed to ingest the caffeine, not wear it. Fanning the material away from her helped a little, but there was still a throbbing ache where the hot liquid had made contact with her skin.
Not bothering with a refill, she lifted the half full mug to her lips and gulped down some of the dark brew. She hummed at the pleasure of the much-needed caffeine fix, then drank a little more as she made her way over to the front door.
She wasn’t sure why Zane had decided to come over so early, but he now owed her breakfast. Then again, her brother was doing her a favor by driving her to school, so maybe she owed him. No, forget that. She was perfectly capable of driving to Houston by herself, but her brothers freaked out whenever she left the safety of Ever After.
Because of that, she had agreed to take someone with her instead of dealing with the bodyguards they would have hired to drive her around. With that said, she knew they still had a few guards following her around whenever she was on campus, but she didn’t give them any grief about it. It was just part of their reality now.
“Why are you so—?” She blinked in surprise when she opened the door to find Kade standing there instead of her brother. “Hi.”
He leaned against the doorframe holding a bag filled with something that smelled absolutely delicious. “So, what?”
“Ah…”
Elle’s brain completely froze. Maybe it was the lack of caffeine or perhaps it was the memory flash she had of crawling onto his lap and literally throwing herself at him at the bar. Adding to the awkwardness was the fact he had slept on her couch to make sure she’d survived through the night. She’d woken up with a massive hangover, but she had sent him home with the promise that she was feeling okay and the insistence that she had to study.
Mostly, she had just wanted to deal with her mortification alone.
Remembering what had happened on Saturday night had made her want to bury her face in her hands…or smother herself with her pillow. Instead, Nia had come over to nurse her own hangover. They had shared a greasy meal and drowned their embarrassment in ice cream while they had watched bad reality TV.
After going to bed early, she’d thrown herself back into work mode. She’d spent all of Monday and Tuesday studying for her last final and reviewing the paper she had to turn in. To help her focus, she had been sequestered from friends and family, and she wasn’t allowed to help with any of the wedding preparations. The only people she had seen in the last few days were Nia and Heath, and that was only when they had dropped food off.
Kade had texted her a few times to make sure she was eating and sleeping but seeing him in the flesh was different. His dark hair was slicked back into a bun and was still wet from his shower. She longed to run her fingers through the thick strands and use them to pull him down so she could kiss him.
She was completely distracted by the tribal tattoos on his arms, and the way his muscles flexed and strained against the material of his black shirt as he moved. It really was unfair for him to look so damn good this early in the morning, especially when she looked like a coffee-soaked hot mess.
Blinking, she realized that he had asked her something. “I’m sorry, what?”
Humor lit his dark gaze. “You going to let me in?”
She shuffled to the side, then closed the door after he had entered. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m driving you to Houston today.”
“I thought Zane was coming with me.” Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I get it. You’re escaping town so you won’t be drafted into doing more wedding prep.”
“That’s just a bonus.”
She followed him back to her kitchen, then drank more coffee as he set the bag down and filled his own mug. There was something soothing about sharing her space with him, and she liked that he was as comfortable in her apartment as he was in his own. It made her daydream about what it would be like to wake up to him every morning.
Kade and coffee…yum.
When she noticed him staring at her expectantly again, she felt the blush heating her cheeks. “Sorry, I’m still not awake yet. What did you say?”
“You need to eat something. I got us those breakfast sandwiches you like from the diner on Main. Your final exam starts at nine, right?”
“Nine thirty. I lied to Zane to make sure he got here on time.”
“Smart.”
Glancing down at herself, she winced and said, “I still need to take a shower and change since I’m wearing most of my first cup of coffee. I was surprised when you knocked and—”
“Fuck, are you okay? Were you burned?”
Her breath caught in her throat when he hurried over to her, and her pulse quickened when he rubbed his big hands up and down her arm as if he were trying to soothe her. It always amazed her to see how scared other people were of Kade. While he might be a big, intimidating, tattooed beast of a man, she saw a different side of him that he didn’t show the rest of the world.
He was her gentle giant, and there was nowhere she felt safer than by his side.
God, she loved feeling his hands on her, but she didn’t have time to melt into a puddle of lust at the moment. She needed to get her ass moving before she did something insane like jump him right there in her living room. Not that she was in any condition to try to seduce him. She was wearing a stained shirt, and she probably had a wicked case of bed head.
To top it all off, she was pretty sure she had a pillow crease embedded in her cheek.
“I’m fine, really. I’m just going to go jump in the shower.” Suddenly desperate to get away from him, she backed up a few steps. She jumped in surprise when she ran into the back of her couch. Laughing nervously, she waved a hand at him. “You should go ahead and eat. I won’t be long.”
With that, she hurried out of the room.
True to her word, a half an hour later, they were in his truck heading toward Houston. Kade had eaten when she’d been in the shower, while Elle had waited until they were on their way to eat her breakfast sandwich in order to cut down on time. Normally, he didn’t like people eating in his truck, but she was the exception to his every rule.
Classical music played over the radio, low enough so it wouldn’t distract Elle from her last-minute cramming session. He’d found the station and preprogrammed it during her first semester at the university since it was what she liked to listen to whenever she was studying.
He knew she was nervous about this last final, but he was confident she would do well. She always did. Her eyes were closed, and her lips moved as she silently recited an answer to the questions she had written on the colorful pack of notecards in her hand.
Kade didn’t mind driving in the relative silence. While she was one of the only people he liked to talk to, he could also be comfortable around her without the expectation of conversation. She’d never minded that he didn’t talk much, and even after sh
e had discovered why, she had never treated him any different.
Actually, Elle made an effort to make things easier on him. Whenever they were around other people, she effortlessly filled the uncomfortable silences, and drew the attention away from him with easy, cheerful conversation.
She made his life better in so many ways, and he wanted to do the same for her. That was one of the reasons he had insisted on being the one to accompany her today. He wanted to give her the world, and he’d get started on that right after she was done taking her last exam.
“What’s wrong?”
He glanced over and found her watching him. “Nothing. Why?”
She shrugged. “You had a look.”
“What look?”
“The look that tells me you were thinking about something very intensely.”
That made him smile. If she only knew. Not wanting her to delve any deeper into that line of questioning, he changed the subject.
“Are you done reviewing?”
“Yep. I can’t put any more of this crap in my head. If I don’t know it by now, it’s too late. And since we’re almost there, I need a few minutes of completely unrelated conversation to settle me down a bit.”
“Okay.” Fuck, now he had to think of something clever to say. “If you could take a vacation right now, where would you go?”
“That’s easy. It would have to be Hawaii. Do you remember the trip we took right after Griffin won the lottery? From the moment we got off the plane and saw the palm trees in the airport, I was blissfully relaxed and happy. And when we got to the resort, I totally fell in love. It became the epitome of what every vacation should be.”
“That trip was fun. I was only able to join you guys for a few days, but they were memorable.”
“Since Zane already spilled the beans and told me my brothers are sending me somewhere for my graduation gift, I am looking forward to the sun, sand, and island breezes. You must miss living in paradise.” She paused before asking, “Do you ever regret moving here?”
The apprehension in her question surprised him.
After losing his parents, it had been too painful for him to stay in their home in Hawaii, so he had joined the Marines to escape his grief. Staying active had kept him from dwelling on his pain, but he would have never gotten through all of it without the guys he served with. He still loved his aunties, uncles, and cousins, and he would always honor his heritage and culture, but his life was no longer back on Oahu with them.
