37. HOPE
CHAPTER 37
HOPE
“ W —What?” The simply question comes out breathless, full of yearning but disbelief.
Cade tilts his head back, eyelids half mast and about to give me a heart attack. His voice grows even deeper as he repeats, “Let me kiss you.” It must be so obvious that I’m still not computing because he adds, “Let me show you that you’re worth being fully kissed. Until there’s no doubt of how freaking hot you are.”
My jaw drops.
My ears start buzzing.
My vision brightens, narrowing on his face and the fact that there’s no teasing there. The cowboy is as serious as when he steps on the mound. As if this was a game where he’s facing a big slugger with full bases and a full count.
I guess I’ve been frozen for so long that he takes a step back and says, “Of course, if you don’t want to?—”
Oh, no. There’s no way I’m letting him takebacksies.
Grabbing a handful of his T-shirt and the open flap of his over shirt, I pull him down until his lips crash on mine.
I figure that maybe this wasn’t the best approach when both of our eyes stay wide as saucers.
“Sorry,” I say against his lips and pull away. “I don’t know what I was?—”
But then the corner of his lips rises, and next thing I know one of his hands circles my waist slowly, making sure I feel the firm touch, until it finds the small of my back and pulls me against him. Air rushes out of my lungs and I balance myself with my hands against his chest.
The index finger of his free hand curls under my chin and lifts it. There is something so hot about that little move that I melt against him, and that’s even before meeting his molten blue eyes. My heart trips because they’re focused on the lower half of my face, and then the pad of his thumb touches my lower lip.
I can’t believe it but that’s enough to completely disconnect my logical brain. I’m all feeling after that, all emotion, my entire being focused on the friction of his finger as it caresses my lower lip slowly, carefully, feather-like. I’m sure he can feel my heart violently punching his ribs through my chest, and I’m not even sure I’m breathing right now.
“Not like that, darlin’,” Cade whispers, his deep voice wrapping around my skin like velvet. “I was thinking more like this.”
This time my eyes flutter closed. I feel his breathing fan my face, his heat closer until we touch.
My soul sighs a little oh as his lips find mine, like a little eureka moment when you first figure something out. And what he’s teaching me right now is that I’ve never been kissed properly before. It’s not just about lips touching, tongues brushing. A proper kiss is so much more—it’s two souls coming together for the first time.
His hand shifts to hold my jaw, getting out of the way as his lips close around my upper one. Cade savors it without a rush, his moist and hot branding my skin. My legs turn to jelly as he shifts his head, our noses brushing just like they accidentally did earlier, after he caught me from the step ladder. Maybe the same memory dances in his mind because he holds me tighter, and I appreciate the excuse to slide my hands up, palming the hard muscles of his chest and shoulders until I find his neck. The feel of his warm skin tears a little sound out of my throat that changes everything.
Cade’s tongue runs over my lower lip, the shock of it making me open my mouth. His jaw works under my hand as his lips press against mine, opening to deepen the kiss. This time he’s the one groaning.
I cinch my arms around his neck, bending him lower to remove the space left between us. Even though the kiss is deeper, our tongues brushing without shame, Cade doesn’t let me hurry the pace. His hand tangles in my hair, fingers closing around the strands to hold me in place. The soft scrape of his fingers against my scalp almost makes me see stars.
Wow, so this is what kissing Cade Starr feels like. Life changing.
Sensing my need to oxygenate my brain, Cade slows way down to release my lips with a little pop that echoes in the silence. He doesn’t move an inch though, keeping an arm around me like he knows I wouldn’t be able to stay upright if he lets go.
Slowly, I open my eyes and almost die, because he’s watching me intently through half mast eyes. “Do you get it now?” he asks, voice husky and thick and so, so damn hot that I moan.
“Get what? I don’t even know what my name is right now,” I admit, my voice completely alien to me.
His hold around my hair shifts, and that’s when I realize that he messed my ponytail and I probably look like I have a bird’s nest on my hair. But I don’t think he cares. I don’t think I do either.
“That’s how you deserve to be kissed. Slow, thorough, and on purpose.”
“On purpose?” I parrot, my brain not quite revving up yet.
“Isn’t it obvious?” His nose brushes with mine again, and my heart hammers even harder as he speaks against my lips. “Can’t you see you’re making me wild, Hope?”
I gasp.
And then we’re kissing again, and this time it’s different. I grab fistfuls of his hair for dear life because I can feel myself falling, and this is the only way I can stop myself from crashing down. Except my feet are firm on the floor, and his hands still hold me safe.
Or as safe as I can be while they roam, while his mouth devours mine. A shiver racks my body when one of his hands travels down my spine, lower to my waist. I wait to see if he’ll find the hem of my shirt and sneak past it, craving the touch of his skin on mine—but no. It keeps going. Thrill raises goosebumps on my skin as his hand finds my butt.
And he squeezes.
His lips stretch into a smile against mine. “I’ve been dying to feel you against my hand.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask all breathy. “Is my butt living up to the hype?”
“It’s even better.” Something like a growl comes out of his throat as he squeezes.
“Cade!”
“You can grab my ass any time you want, darlin’.”
That makes me chuckle, but then that sneaky hand of his keeps moving. I tense in a weird mix of anticipation and embarrassment as he finds the edge between my butt and my thigh, his hand closing tighter when it slides to my thigh and lifts it, forcing my leg to wrap around him.
Cade groans, hiding his face in the crook of my neck. “Shit. Don’t let me keep going.”
“Why not?” I ask, morbidly curious even though I can feel the self-restraint tightening his muscles.
He opens his mouth and scrapes his teeth softly against the skin at the crook of my neck and shoulder. A violent shudder reveals just how much I liked that.
“Hope, if you don’t stop me I’ll lift you up onto that bed and have my way with you in your childhood bedroom, while your dad could arrive any time. You deserve much better than that.”
I gasp in his ear. The words your dad are a necessary bucket of cold water.
“Okay, good point.” I loosen the hold on his hair, wondering if it hurt him. I pet his head all sweet in comparison, trying to soothe him. “Maybe we should put some distance.”
“You first,” he says against my neck. “I don’t think I can move.”
Snorting, I lower my leg. The issue is that the friction tears a little sound from him, and I’m not sure if it’s a complaint or the opposite. For a moment he holds me tighter, one hand back on my butt, the other at the back of my neck, until I wedge my hands between us against his chest.
But then I can’t move either.
“You feel amazing,” I admit in a little whisper.
Sighing, he says, “Trust me, you feel even better.”
“Good to know.” My voice trembles, every cell complaining as we slowly take a step back.
Glad to see that his chest rises and falls with the same difficulty as mine, and that his face is just as flaming red. He runs his tongue across his swollen lips, and I almost complain that it’s unfair. He shouldn’t make me want to jump him again.
That’s when it hits me. I just kissed Cade Starr. Me .
I cover my mouth with my hands, absolutely shocked at my own behavior.
“Don’t do that.” Cade runs his hand through his hair, reminding me of the state of mine. “Don’t hide what we just did.”
If anything, that makes my embarrassment grow until I can barely stand. I swivel away from him, busying my hands by redoing my ponytail. “It’s not that I’m trying to hide it. I just don’t know how to face you right now.”
“Why?”
“Cade. We just kissed,” I hiss, glancing over my shoulder as I work the hair tie around my hair. “Scratch that, I just jumped at you after you’ve had a pretty crappy night.”
“Did you forget that I’m the one who pitched the idea at you?”
“Well, no but?—”
“No buts, we both definitely wanted that.”
“Well yes, but?—”
His eyes sparkle. “I said no buts.”
Mierda, qué bello es. This man is completely unreal. I can’t believe he just made out with me and in my childhood bedroom.
“Fine, no buts.” I sigh in almost dreamy way. “I’m just struggling right now.”
He tucks his tongue against his cheek. “With what?”
“With the fact that I don’t know how I’ll stop myself from wanting to kiss you every time I see you now, and I’m not sure that’s what you had in mind with this.” I bite my lip.
We both know exactly what I’m asking. Was this just a one off, a consequence of being alone after a night of adrenaline? If so, then I’m really gonna have a shit time seeing him at work from now on, because that’s not how I feel. Not for a second. This kiss fed the crush I have for him to turn it into a monster that’s oppressing my chest and making it hard to breathe.
Cade’s lips make a little smacking sound as they part to speak, but that’s when the sound of jingling keys at the front door reach us.
Our eyes widen. If my dad had arrived some five minutes ago he would’ve caught his baby daughter all but wrapped around a random guy, eating his face in her room. I’d have been in need of moving to a different continent after that.
“Um, your shirt,” Cade whispers.
I look down at myself. The fabric’s twisted around my torso and risen over one hip. As I fix it, I tell him, “Yours too.”
He straightens out his clothes. “Is my hair okay?”
“One second.” I reach for him, and Cade bends lower without any prompting. I ignore how his eyes pin on my face, using my fingers as a comb through his soft hair to fix it. “There.”
Swallowing hard, I move back to inspect him. The blush has gone down on his face, and if Dad doesn’t pay any attention to Cade’s mouth he’ll never guess what we were up to.
Good timing, because Dad calls, “Hope? Is the baseball player here already?”
“Yes, Dad! We’re coming,” I respond loudly.
“After you.” Cade tips his head at the door.
I turn to lead the way but right before I’m out of the door, I pause and glance back. The sneaky little jerk is watching my ass like he has a permit to do so. His eyes rise to mine and rather than looking chagrinned, he smirks.
I almost trip. I have to hold myself against the door frame so I don’t waste all the money my dad invested in my orthodontics as a kid. Casting one last glare at the man behind me, I finally step out into the hallway.