“Do you want to? If she’s your ex…”
Ignoring me, he relaxes completely. “I miss her,” he mumbles. “But we have no chance of getting back what we had.”
I fight the burn in my eyes. “I know.”
“She was pregnant. A girl. We lost her.”
My heart shatters. “I’m sorry.”
“It sucks.”
Kade’s temperature has lowered, and a light sweat has broken out on his skin. The room is hot, so I pull off my bottoms.
I miss her, he’d said .
I miss him too.
But Kade is right – we would never work now. Too much has happened. Chris would intervene again and ruin it, and Kade isn’t stable enough to hold down a relationship with all the skeletons locked away in his closet. He needs help, and he needs it fast.
The pillow shifts, and I gasp as Kade pulls me to him tighter; I fit against him like the perfect puzzle piece. I feel at home in his arms and almost burst into tears from the intensity of the moment.
Turning in his hold, I bury my head into his chest, inhaling his scent as he breathes steadily. My eyes finally fall shut when the sunrise splits through the window, and for the first time in a long time, I’m in Kade’s arms, feeling safer than ever.
32
KADE
FLASHBACK 7
Stacey has always been the girl out of reach for me. The girl I wanted but could never have. My sister’s best friend who hated me with every fibre of her being.
I was the deranged kid. The mentally fucked-up kid. A boy who struggled with basic emotions.
But whenever I’m around her, I want to learn everything there is to feel. I want to be good enough for her. I want to be able to feel this way and not worry about it turning into something dark and sinister, the way it did with my parents.
Hurting Stacey would kill me.
I doodle while I wait for her to get out of the shower. We’re in a hotel in London, just after seeing The Greatest Showman live in theatre. Stacey cried the entire fucking show, and it triggered something protective inside me I never knew existed.
Without realising, I’ve drawn a rough design of both our initials interlacing with each other – unrecognisable, unless you know what to look for. I want to add vines and some roses to make it pretty for her, maybe a scripture of something meaningful, but I have no idea what it should say.
I leave it blank and work more on the details.
When the door unlocks, I quickly shove the paper into my pocket and get to my feet.
Holding a towel to her wet body, she stops in the middle of the room. “Hi.”
I smirk. “Hi.”
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” she says. “When I woke and you were gone, I thought…” She pulls her lip between her teeth.
I approach her, eating up the distance slowly. I’m still hard from devouring her pussy. She fell asleep right after.
“You thought what?”
She shivers as I drag my knuckles down her arm. “I…” She trails off, her head tilting to the side as I come closer and press chaste kisses against her fluttering pulse. My fingers tease across her towel, testing her reaction, and I pause when she hesitates. “I’m very inexperienced, Kade.”
“I nearly passed out when you sucked my dick in the studio before we came down here.”
The room was spinning, and I’m not ashamed to admit I slid to the floor and had to take a second. She did it again while I drove us down here, and I have no idea how I didn’t crash.
She blushes. “I’m still inexperienced in other stuff.”
I cup her cheek gently, lowering my voice. “So am I.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that I don’t know what I’m doing?”
I let out a disbelieving laugh. “Stacey, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing either.” I caress her cheek with my thumb. “We’re the same. When we’re ready, we’ll learn from each other. No rushing. Okay?”
She stares at me, and I swear I see a shield behind her eyes lowering.
“Do you want to wait?” she asks softly, her eyes dropping to my mouth. Her towel stays on her as she wraps her arms around my neck, rising to her tiptoes. “For more?”
“Only if you need me to.”
“I think I need you now,” she says as her nose nudges mine. “I want to experience it all.” Her voice drops to a whisper against my mouth. “With you. Now.”
The kiss comes first, then her body is crushed to mine as I lift her into my arms, the towel dropping to the ground. With a hum of satisfaction, her back hits the mattress, and I’m on her.
She’s unbuttoning my shirt as my hands explore her body. I dig my fingers into her hips and press my hardening cock between her legs.
Then I pull away and unbuckle my belt, yanking the leather out and tossing it across the room. She reaches inside my boxers and palms my cock, gliding her nails up the underside.
I kick the rest of my clothes off the bed and settle between her legs again, kissing up the column of her throat.
Her nipples are hard, and they rub against my chest as I slide the head of my cock against her inner thigh, swallowing her whimpers when my fingers push inside her.
She feels so wet, warm and ready.
She feels like mine.
Stacey Rhodes is mine.
While I fuck her with my fingers, I suck a nipple into my mouth, and her body starts shaking. With my free hand, I palm the other breast, rolling her nipple between my finger and thumb.
I groan as my name falls from her lips, kissing along her collarbone, her throat, then coming back to her mouth.
“Is this okay?” I ask her as my fingers speed up, curling to find that sweet spot that has her eyes rolling. “Answer me, Stacey.”
“Yes!” She gasps into my mouth, and I taste each moan with my tongue. “Can I” – she reaches between us and takes my dick in a fist – “do this?”
“Yes,” I hiss, pushing my hips forward as I slide another finger inside her.
The room grows hot as we kiss and fuck with our hands, whimpering and moaning into each other’s mouth. She bites my lip and sucks, and I kiss a trail up her throat while all the blood in my body goes to my cock.
It throbs in her hand; the kisses grow hungrier – and messier.
“I want you,” she says against my lips, releasing my cock and hooking her ankles at my calves to pull me to her. “All of you.”
I stare at her, feel her beneath me, feel my heart pounding in my chest as I take in her beauty. Dark hair surrounds her on the pillow, and with her freckles and the flush in her cheeks, her long lashes and pouty lips, I honestly couldn’t think of a more perfect person to be experiencing all of this with .
She’s the definition of beautiful, and she wants me.
She belongs to me.
I’m whipped, and she isn’t even my girlfriend.
But I might hurt her. I will hurt her. I’ll do it wrong and make this a nightmare for her.
“What if I hurt you?”
Stacey takes my face in her hands. “I heard it can be uncomfortable the first time. But I’m ready, Kade.”
My brows narrow. “But I don’t want to hurt you.”
“We’ll go slow. It doesn’t hurt when you use your… If I’m uncomfortable, I’ll tell you, okay?”