“So I shouldn’t have called you?”
“Of course you should’ve called me!” The words exploded out of him in a rush. “But you shouldn’t havehadto call me. That’s the point. You shouldn’t be anywhere near this shit. You’ve already dealt with enough of it to last a lifetime.”
I stared at him, pulse slowly picking up speed. “How do you know what I’ve dealt with?”
He just stared at me in the dark, saying nothing.
“Have you been looking into my past?”
Again, he said nothing.
“Cade—”
“You scared me, tonight.”
His admission made all thoughts of him digging into my past fly straight out of my head.
I swallowed hard. “What?”
A muscle was ticking in his jaw. His voice was a rasp, almost inaudible. “In my line of work, shit can go sideways in a heartbeat. You’re trained for that eventuality. You prepare for it every time you step out onto the streets. They teach you how to manage the adrenaline, how to stay in control of your emotions even when they’re starting to fray. After a decade, I thought I was used to it. Thought there was nothing that could rattle me. But, fuck, Imogen—” His head shook sharply. “Tonight, when I heard your voice, when I heard you with Donny... When I couldn’t protect you—Fuck.”
I waited, too stunned to say a word.
“I’m not used to feeling that kind of fear,” he admitted lowly. His eyes were on mine, burning into me again — only, now, the anger was gone. Now, there was nothing but heat simmering in their depths. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
I did.
At least, I thought I did. He was worried about me. Not as a cop, protecting a citizen. Not as a law enforcement officer, responding to an intense situation.
As a man.
I came unstuck from my spot at the center of the bed. He was stone-still as he watched me move toward him on my knees. I reached the edge of the mattress and, before I could talk myself out of it, my hands flew out and hit his waist. His abs were washboard-flat under my fingertips, the fabric of his button-down shirt as crisp as I’d imagined as I slid them on a slow path upward to his chest. My head craned back to keep our eyes locked.
“You scare me, too,” I admitted.
Cade made a sound — half grunt, half growl — and then he was on me. His arm knifed around my midsection and he jerked me up against him, so we were flush together. Eye to eye. His mouth hit mine and I very nearly moaned at the bruising ferocity of it.
This was no lip-brush, no sneak attack. This was a full out assault, a devouring meld of mouths and tongues and teeth. I drank him in with a desperation that dizzied my head, with a need I feared would never be sated. My lips parted for him; his tongue speared inside without pause, tasting me like he was dying for it. I sucked on his tongue, loving the groan that shuddered through him in response.
Desire surged through me in a great flood. It had been gathering strength for a while — for hours, for days — and now, it was unleashed. It commandeered all my senses, swept away any sense of trepidation about getting involved with a man I was planning to walk away from in less than a week.
Even if you are leaving, you owe it to yourself to enjoy a night with that man before you go,Flo had told me only hours ago.
I decided she was right. To hell with the repercussions, to hell with the emotional fallout. I was going to enjoy every moment I could get with Cade. Because somewhere deep down — not quite my gut but somewhere else, slightly to the left, under the ribs — I knew I could travel to a hundred more towns in my lifetime, make a thousand more stops on the Imogen Warner International Tour of Misery, and nevereverfind another man like him.
I might as well enjoy it while it lasted.
The kiss had quickly gone from heated to scalding, then shot straight off-the-charts to searing hot. I couldn’t catch my breath, and didn’t care to. My knees were threatening to buckle as my bones turned to water. It didn’t matter — Cade was holding me up, holding me steady, his strong arms more than capable of taking my weight.
Our mouths never broke apart as he shifted forward to plant one knee on the mattress, then placed me back in the center of the bed. I’d hardly settled when his weight came down on top of me, deliciously heavy, easing some of the hollow ache that was gathering between my legs.
My hands slid up and down the fabric of his shirt as his own shoved their way beneath my baggy sweatshirt. I wasn’t wearing anything under it — no bra, just a flimsy pair of cotton panties. His hands stilled for a second when he felt nothing but skin.
“Fuck.”
I smiled against his mouth when I heard his low oath. I loved that I could do that to him. But all my humor evaporated as his hands slid suddenly upward. His calluses ghosted over my hardened nipples as he palmed my breasts, his fingers kneading in a way that felt so magical, I nearly bowed off the bed.
“Oh my god,” I whispered. “That feels so good.”