“Everything okay?”
His eyes cut to mine as he knifed off the bed, taking his phone with him. “I’m going to make a quick call and find out. Don’t go anywhere.”
With that, he stalked into the bathroom. I shamelessly studied his naked form until it disappeared behind closed doors. If Flo only knew how right she’d been about the quarter-bouncing properties of that firm ass…
I fell back onto the pillows with a content sigh, a dreamy smile drifting across my face.
Not two minutes later, Cade was back. He didn’t cross to the bed. He walked straight to his closet and started pulling on clothes. I watched him do it, clutching a sheet to my chest as my heart began to pound and the hair on the back of my neck bean to prickle. He didn’t hesitate as he reached for the heavy-duty black lockbox that housed his service weapon.
“I’m guessing everything is not all right.”
His sigh was audible as he slid the gun into its holster at his belt. “I have to go to the station. There’s a situation. I don’t know many of the details yet. Only know it’s all hands on deck.”
I nodded.
Somehow, he’d utilized his superhuman speed again. He was fully dressed, except for his boots. He crossed to me as his fingers worked at the final button of his shirt.
“Stay here with Socks,” he said, swooping down to bring his face to mine. “It’ll be a fuck of a lot easier to get through this night knowing you’re here in my bed, waiting for me.” His lips hit mine — hard, almost bruising. Just the way I liked it. When he pulled back, he added, “Naked.”
I laughed, a throaty sound.
“I’ll call you if I’m going to be long. Keep the doors locked while I’m gone. I should be back in time to take Socks out in the morning but if for some reason I’m not and he’s whining, just bring him into the backyard. There’s a spare house key hanging on his leash in the kitchen.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
He started to pull away, but my hands flew out of their own accord and landed on his shoulders. He stilled in surprise as I launched up at him for a last, lingering lip-brush.
“Stay safe out there, honey,” I whispered when I was done.
His eyes flared with heat and something else. Something I didn’t fully understand, I just knew it was serious. So serious, I felt it down to my bones.
Down to my freaking soul.
Cade pulled away, turned to the door, and stalked through it. He didn’t look back at me. He didn’t pause to say goodbye to Socks in the living room. He’d already shifted into detective mode, his shoulders broadening, his strides even, his focus absolute.
I took a deep breath, feeling a strange amount of sympathy for his ex-wife. If this gut-churning worry I was currently experiencing happened every time he walked out that door in the middle of the night, whoever he ended up with for a lifetime was going to have to be one strong woman.
For a minute, delusional as it was…
I wished that woman could be me.
Chapter Fifteen
I don’t have resting bitch face.
My bitch face does not rest. It is ever vigilant.
- Imogen Warner, trying to look approachable
Cade hadn’t been gone for more than twenty minutes when I wandered into the kitchen wearing the button-down shirt I’d stripped off his body earlier that night. I was too worked up to sleep. I poured myself a glass of water, drained it dry, then fished my phone out of the depths of my backpack to see if he’d called with an update. He hadn’t. But, to my shock, the screen showed more than a dozen other missed calls.
Adrian, I might’ve expected.
Gigi, however…
That was a surprise.
My pulse kicked into high gear as I hopped up on a stool and dialed her number. It was 10:17PM, according to the clock on the microwave. In my experience, calls that came in after dark werenevergood news. I listened to the phone ring, trying to convince myself I was wrong, that the feeling of foreboding gripping my body was misguided.