I took a breath at his admission, and jealousy cut so deep into me I felt it in my bones. Cade was becoming mine even though I tried to avoid it.
“Dollface, are you jealous of a little bracelet?” He tilted his head like he was confused.
“It’s a very expensive, beautiful bracelet!” I blurted out. I bit my lip. “I think this is where we end. I’m . . .” I glanced away from him. “There’s something wrong with me when I’m around you. I feel a little bit of everything too much.”
“And how do you feel with Rodney?” Cade wasn’t letting go of the fact that he’d seen another man touch me. I saw it in his eyes.
“Okay, that’s none of your business,” I told him. “It’s beyond what this relationship is capable of.”
He hummed and then took the marshmallow from the knife and set it on a piece of chocolate. “You know . . . I think people sometimes forget who I am.”
“If you say so.” I shrugged, confused by him pondering such a thing right now.
“Does it feel like sometimes people forget who you are? That they forget you’re not just an addict or an IT specialist or a hot piece of ass?”
He studied the marshmallow on his blade. Then he set it on a stone on the ground and cut it in half before he attached one half back to the tip. The blade was long, one that could do real damage. I wondered if he always carried it on him, just in case.
“With me, I think you forget that I’m not just your boss, Izzy. And they forget that I’m not just this tech genius.” He met my eyes and walked up, his blade held in front of him, pointing at me with the marshmallow on the end. “I’m not just the guy who stops nuclear warfare from touching this nation.”
He took my chin in his other hand and held my jaw. I stood taller, staring up at him. Even if the man held a knife to me now, I wouldn’t cower.
“I’m also Cade Armanelli, a man who can cause nuclear warfare, a member of the most powerful mafia family in the world. A man who’s more than happy to shed blood when someone tampers with what’s his. Do you get that?”
My heart pounded, and I knew he felt it—his finger was right on my pulse point. “If I say I don’t?”
His stare pierced my soul, and the fire cackled in time with his jaw popping. “Open your mouth, Izzy.”
“I don’t want it. It’s a lot of sugar for someone who’s—”
“Open. Your. Mouth.”
That adrenaline flowed through me again, my body responding like it knew the man I got wet for was near me, demanding that I listen to him. Defying him was a craving I couldn’t deny myself as I ignored his command for a second time.
He grabbed my neck and yanked me to him. “The fact that I enjoy dealing with your shit is going to cause me a lot of problems in the future. I already know it. Don’t make me pry it open, woman. Because I will.”
This time I did. The knife was on my lips already, and his eyes looked so wild that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he shoved the sharp blade into my mouth if I didn’t comply. He took his time dragging the blade full of marshmallow across my tongue. “Suck it clean.”
Daring. Dangerous. Him. It was all I wanted now. It was what my body was ready to beg for.
I licked it carefully, then closed my lips around it, avoiding the sharp edge while holding eye contact with him. I wanted him to know that even here, he didn’t scare me, that he never would.
When I pulled back, he let me go and I murmured, “You could be all those things, Cade, but it doesn’t really matter because you are who you are to me.”
“Is who I am better than Rodney?”
“Are you concerned about him?”
“You sat on his lap for damn near an hour.”
“And? It’s not like I was screwing him in the chair or anything.”
His jaw flexed up and down, up and down. Then he spun away from me and went to sit back in that Adirondack chair. He let the fire fill the silence, and I didn’t move an inch.
Cade in sweats and a hoodie at the fire was enough to hold me captive for the night, even if it was in silence. He was probably the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. I knew how his hands felt on me, how his lips commanded a kiss, how his cock got me to submit even if I didn’t want to.
“Well, I can guarantee you that’s all he was thinking about with your ass on his dick.”
“Probably. Considering I thought about it too.”
He growled low and his eyes changed. I saw how his neck tensed, how he seemed to grow in size. “You want to fuck Rodney, Ms. Hardy?”
“Maybe.” I shrugged because that was the honest truth. “He’s fun, no strings, single, and so am I. He’s open to a lot and doesn’t come with much baggage.”
“Compared to who?”
“Well, compared to most people.”
“Including me?” He didn’t glance away. He just tapped his knee with that blade still out, glinting in the night.
“Yeah, I think our baggage is about full.”
He hummed. “Why don’t you come sit on my lap like you did his and see how much baggage I have. Then you can get a good comparison.”
I couldn’t stop my immediate reaction of biting my lip and glancing down at his lap. But then I eyed the caterers still taking care of the food and drinks.
“Thank you for the services tonight,” Cade called out over his shoulder to them. “You’re dismissed. Leave. Now.”
I’d never seen grown men scurry away so fast.
“Better?” He quirked a brow. “Come sit now.” I saw the indent of his hard cock and how it flexed under my attention as my eyes traveled down. “Come on, Izzy. If it’s about fun, no strings, and being single, we might as well take advantage of it.”
“You can bother Heather for that.” I chewed on my lip, trying to put up a fight even though I wanted to give in.
Instead of him giving me a chance to make the decision, his hand shot out and grabbed my elbow to yank me down onto his lap.
“Jesus, Cade,” I chastised him, but he was busy rearranging me so my ass fit right against his cock, so my back was against his chest, so that my hair was being pulled away by his hand to expose my neck.
“This hoodie his?”
It was a simple question, but then I felt the metal of that blade. It’d cooled in the fall air and sent goose bumps along my neck where it lay, right at the V of the material. When I didn’t answer fast enough, Cade swiftly pulled one side of the fabric up and brought his blade down the middle of it. It cut fast, almost effortlessly.
He’d sliced it all the way down so it hung on me like a cardigan. “Cade! What the hell?” I grabbed both sides of it and wrapped it around myself.
“Do you enjoy messing with my head?”
“I’m not messing with your head,” I practically stuttered, confused.
“I’m not going to stare at a woman I fuck on another man’s lap.”
“You fucked me. Past tense.”
“Wanna bet, dollface?” he growled in my ear. “Lose the skirt.”
“I only have a bikini on under this.”
“You’ll be losing that too.”