“Cade—”
“Ten seconds are up,” he announced. He reached for his door handle.
“Wait!” I cried.
He stilled and looked back at me.
“I’ll go pack,” I grumbled unhappily. I shoved open my door and, just before I slammed it, yelled, “But I’mnotchecking out!”
I stomped up the front porch steps, jerked open the creaky screen, then shoved my way through the door to the reception area. Rhonda was sitting at the front desk, looking bored out of her skull. She barely made eye contact with me as I thundered inside — not that I blamed her. I doubted my expression was one of warmth and openness, at the moment.
It didn’t take me long to shove my belongings into my duffle bag. I didn’t have all that much stuff and, after years of travel, I’d gotten quick-packing down to a science. Unfortunately, this meant I didn’t have enough time to cool down. I was still steaming mad as I stomped back down the stairs to the reception room, blasted my way out the door to the porch, and tramped to the idling SUV. When I threw my duffle on the floor and hopped up into the passenger seat, Cade looked like he was fighting a grin.
“You break that door slamming it off its hinges, the chief is going to bust my balls.”
I rolled my eyes. I hadn’t slammed itthathard.
He chuckled. Apparently, he was over his anger.
That made one of us. I, for one, didn’t see anything amusing about this scenario.
At all.
We drove to his place in total silence. The silence continued as we parked — this time, he pulled all the way up the driveway and, after hitting a button on the visor to trigger his garage door, steered the SUV into the bay beside a sleek black motorcycle.
A tiny crack formed in my icy resolve as I stared at the bike through my window.
Cade would look seriously hot straddling that bike.
He grabbed my duffle bag — annoyingly considerate, even when we were in a fight — and carried it from the car to an inner door which led into his kitchen. Socks greeted us the second we stepped over the welcome mat. Another crack in my icy resolve formed as Cade dropped down into a crouch and performed a full doggie rub-down, ears to rump.
“Good boy,” he murmured, his deep voice back to its normal calm tones. “You chew anything you weren’t supposed to, today? Huh?”
Socks’ answer was a wet tongue-swipe across Cade’s cheek.
Cade chuckled.
He dropped my duffle by the hallway entrance, grabbed Socks’ leash, and snapped it on.
“I’m taking him for a walk,” he informed me, striding across the kitchen to the French doors that led out into the backyard. “He’s been cooped up all day.”
I watched them go, feeling suddenly unsure. Out of place. The past two nights I’d stayed here, I hadn’t thought about what it meant. I was so caught up in all the fantastic sex, I didn’t really contemplate that I was, for all intents and purposes, shacking up with a guy. Not just any guy, either. An amazing guy (when he wasn’t being majorly bossy) who had, in the span of a week, effectively flipped my entire world on its head.
After Adrian, I’d sworn never to get involved with anyone else. My heart was going into retirement. Sex was one thing. But actually caring about someone? Letting them know me? Getting to know them?
That scared the breath out of me.
Far more than bar fights with the O’Banion brothers.
My buzz from the margaritas had officially worn off. I wandered to the fridge and pulled out a beer, taking a long sip to settle my nerves as I waited for Cade to return. This took quite a while. So long, my beer was halfway gone by the time he stepped back into the kitchen.
Socks bounded my way the second he was free of his leash, running circles around my feet. I wanted to hop down from my stool and greet him, but Cade’s eyes were on me, holding me in place as effectively as shackles. He set the leash down on the counter and came at me, not stopping until he was standing less than a foot away. His hip hit the counter. He reached out and closed his long fingers around the beer bottle, brought it up to his lips, and took a long, deep pull.
I felt my mouth go dry as I watched him swallow.
“Cade—”
“No.”