Chapter 6 #2
“I don’t know if you remember, but I dated a brewer when I was twenty-one,” I said finally. “He was fourteen years older than me, which should have been my first red flag, but I was young and stupid and thought he was cool and sophisticated.”
Cade’s jaw tightened. “I remember.”
“Suffice it to say, he wasn’t either of those things. He was, however, controlling and condescending, and made me feel pretty fucking horrible about myself most of the time.”
I grabbed the pillow from behind me and set it in my lap, my fingers plucking at the fabric, fluffing and smoothing it.
My gaze dropped for just a second before I forced it back up to meet Cade’s eyes.
This was my story. My history. And I owned it.
Difficult as it was, I wasn’t going to sit here and pretend to be ashamed.
“But he also taught me how to brew. And I was good at it. Really good. Better than him, in fact, which royally pissed him off.”
“Of course it did,” Cade muttered.
“When we finally broke up—or rather, when I finally got the nerve to leave—that’s when I started brewing in my parents’ garage. I know you remember that.”
He smirked. “Hard to forget. Colin and I were underage, but you’d let us drink your test batches as long as we promised not to leave the premises.”
“You two were my best quality control,” I said with a fond smile, recalling all the times I’d gotten them drunk and stolen their keys before they noticed. “Brutally honest and always willing to drink another round.”
“We were dedicated to the craft.”
“You were dedicated to free beer.”
“That too.”
Cade’s smile softened, the teasing falling away. “So when did it stop being a hobby?”
“Like I said, it was just for fun at first, but then people started asking if they could pay me for it. Before I knew it, I had a whole cottage operation going.”
“And Mistletoe Bay Brewing Company was born.”
“Not exactly.” I rubbed my thumb over a frayed spot on the pillowcase.
“I wanted to open my own place, but no one would take me seriously. I was too young, too inexperienced. Too female. The bank wouldn’t give me a loan.
Investors wouldn’t meet with me. It was …
frustrating doesn’t even begin to cover it. ”
I caught myself worrying the same frayed spot, pulling the thread taut between my fingers. Cade’s hand covered mine, gently stopping me before I unraveled the whole seam. His fingers laced through mine and squeezed.
A nervous-sounding laugh slipped out of me, but it faded as the memories kept building.
“Anyway … I apprenticed under Tom Morrison at Seacoast Brewing. He encouraged my talent, even let me develop my own recipes, including a regular ‘Stella’s Special’ for his taproom.
It did well. Well enough that my parents finally believed I could make a go of it. ”
“I remember Colin saying they invested pretty heavily.”
I nodded. “Yeah, they put in the bulk of the money for me to get started. Tom kicked in some, too. By then, I had about fifty grand saved, and Colin gave me ten.” I smiled at the memory of my baby brother handing me a check, his face split into a sweet, goofy grin.
“And then you won that blind taste test against some of the biggest craft breweries in New England.”
“Damn right I did. Beat out breweries that had been operating for twenty years. With a beer I’d been making for less than two. Total validation, by the way.” I lifted my chin slightly, that old defiant fire sparking in my chest. “Proof that I wasn’t crazy. That I could actually do this.”
“You built something amazing,” Cade said, his voice suffused with pride. “All on your own.”
“Nah, I had lots of help.”
“But you did the work. You took all that bullshit and turned it into a well-respected, bad-ass business.” He brought my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. “That’s fucking impressive, Stella.”
My throat went tight. “Yeah, it is.”
His eyes were serious now, intense in a way they weren’t often. “You’re one of the strongest people I know.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I kissed him instead. Soft and slow, pouring everything I couldn’t say into the press of my lips against his.
When I finally pulled back, his eyes were dark and heavy-lidded.
“Your turn,” I whispered. “Tell me something about you. Something I don’t already know.”
“Like what?”
“Something real.”
He was quiet for a long moment, his thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough.
“You already know my mom died when I was five, but I don’t know if you ever heard how.”
I combed through my memories, trying to pull up anything from when I was eight years old. Cade and Colin hadn’t been friends yet—that came later, when I was in middle school. And my parents wouldn’t have talked about something like that in front of me back then.
I shook my head slowly. “I don’t think anyone ever told me.”
“Car accident.” He glanced toward the window, his expression going distant. “She was coming home from a double shift at that old diner out by the highway that closed down a couple of years ago. She fell asleep at the wheel and flipped. She was dead by the time the car stopped rolling.”
My hand flew to my mouth. “Cade.”
“I barely remember her,” he admitted. “Just flashes of stuff like the way she always smelled like vanilla and cigarettes. How she’d sing off-key in the kitchen. The way she’d ruffle my hair and call me her ‘little captain.’”
His mouth twisted, and he looked down at our joined hands, his thumb rubbing absently across my knuckles. He sniffled once, quick and quiet. “After she died, my old man just … checked out. Started drinking more. Stopped giving a shit about anything, including me.”
I squeezed his hand, my heart breaking for the little boy who’d lost his mother and then, in a way, his father, too.
“You guys saved me,” Cade continued. “Your family gave me a place to go when home was unbearable. Your mom always made sure I ate. Your dad taught me how to fix things. And Colin …” He smiled faintly.
“Colin just treated me like I was anyone else at school. Like I wasn’t this fucked-up kid with a dead mom and a drunk dad. ”
“You’re not fucked up.”
“For a long time, I was.” He looked at me then, his eyes searching mine. “But you guys—your family—you made me believe I could be something other than my old man’s disappointment.”
“You are,” I said fiercely. “You’re good and kind and funny and—”
He crushed his mouth to mine, silencing my words.
“No more talking.” His voice was raw and laced with sadness.
I hadn’t meant to take us there, to make him feel those things. I just wanted to know more about the man I was falling for. See a part of him that no one else got to see.
Which, in a way, I guess I’d accomplished because I’d never seen him like this. I wasn’t sure anyone ever had.
“No more words,” I agreed, and his mouth found mine again, hungry and insistent.
His tongue slid against mine, and I clawed at his shoulders.
“Slow,” he rasped against my lips, his hands sliding under my t-shirt, his fingers tracing the curve of my breasts.
“I want to savor every inch of you.” He trailed hot, wet kisses down my jaw, my neck, lingering on the pulse point that betrayed my racing heart.
“Let me worship you. Show you what you mean to me.”
He tore the t-shirt off me, leaving me completely naked. His eyes roamed over my body, taking in every curve and hollow like a starving man presented with a feast. His hands followed the same path, touching, teasing, igniting my skin.
“You’re fucking perfect,” he breathed, his palm cupping my breast, thumb circling my hardened nipple.
I arched into his touch, a gasp escaping my lips. “Cade, please.”
“Let me make you feel good, Stella.” He lowered his head, sucking my nipple into his mouth and biting gently down before releasing it with a pop that sent waves of pleasure straight to my pussy.
My hips bucked upward, seeking friction, seeking anything to ease the throbbing ache between my thighs.
“More,” I demanded, my fingers tightening in his hair.
“I need more.” I felt too raw, too exposed after baring our souls to each other.
I needed him to take me somewhere I didn’t have to think. Somewhere I could just feel.
He chuckled against my heated skin. “Relax, Stella. We’ve got all day.”
Relax? Impossible, when his tongue was doing that.
He moved to my other breast, giving it the same slow, torturous attention. The slick throb between my thighs was nearly unbearable.
“Please just fuck me already,” I begged.
“I’m getting there.” His hand slid down my stomach and then lower, his fingers sliding through the wetness there. “Fuck, Stella. I love how wet you get for me.”
“Only ever for you.”
He grinned, circling my clit with his thumb, the motion slow and deliberate. I bit back a moan, my body trembling with need.
“Inside,” I panted. “I need you inside me.”
“Not yet.” He slid one finger into me, then another, pumping in and out with maddening slowness.
I arched my back, my thighs trembling around his hand. The room spun as his fingers curled inside me, hitting that spot that made my vision blur at the edges. When he pressed his palm against me, grinding in slow circles, my body went rigid.
“Ca—” The rest of his name dissolved into a gasp as my pussy clenched around his fingers in rhythmic pulses, my orgasm rocking through me.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe, couldn't think, couldn’t do anything but feel.
And he hadn’t even fucked me yet. Not really.
I blinked up at him through damp lashes, my chest still heaving.
His pupils had swallowed his irises as he watched me, the muscle in his jaw twitching.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, pulling his hand away and bringing his fingers to his mouth. He sucked them clean, his eyes never leaving mine. “And you taste even better than you look.”
He kissed me again, and I tasted myself on his tongue.
My hands slid down his sides, fingers hooking into the waistband of his boxer briefs. I started to push them down, impatient and desperate, but my arms were too short to do much good.
“Need help?” He laughed, low and rough, and stripped them off in one smooth motion, his cock springing free, thick and hard and leaking at the tip.
I reached for him, but he caught my wrist.
“No,” he said with a shake of his head, his voice strained. “If you touch me, I’m going to come, and I want to be inside you when that happens.”
“Then get inside me already.”
He positioned himself between my thighs, rubbing the head of his cock teasingly through my folds.
“Cade, if you don't fuck me right now—”
He pushed inside in one deep, hard thrust, and we both groaned.
“God,” he murmured, his forehead dropping to mine. “You feel so good.”
I wrapped my legs around his waist in an attempt to pull him deeper. “Please, Cade. Fuck me.”
He did, but not the way I expected.
Instead of going hard and fast like we usually did, he kept it slow, rolling his hips in a way that hit every sensitive spot inside me.
My eyes fluttered closed.
“No. Look at me,” he said, his hand cupping my jaw.
I did, and the intensity in his gaze stole my breath.
“I love you, Stella. I need you to know that.”
Cade was inside me—actually inside me—and he’d just said he loved me. For a second, all I could do was hold onto those words and feel them.
“You don’t have to say it back. I just needed you to know.”
He’d gone still, his body trembling with the effort of holding back. His forehead rested against mine, our breath mingling in the small space between us. One hand cupped my face while the other braced beside my head, holding his weight off me. Waiting.
The crazy thing was, I wanted to say it, too.
Because Cade made me feel safe in a way no one else ever had.
He kept showing up, even when he didn’t have to—even when most people wouldn’t.
Because he looked at me like I was the most fascinating person in the world, even when I was being difficult.
Because he’d told me about his mother—a wound so old and deep that it had shaped everything he was—and trusted me to hold his pain gently.
Because when I pictured my future, he was in it.
The words were right there, burning in my chest, but I was too scared to let them out.
Instead, I pulled him down into a kiss, pouring everything I felt into the slide of my mouth against his.
He moved inside me, slow and deep, and I felt tears prick at the corners of my eyes. Not from sadness, but from the way everything suddenly made sense.
“Stella,” he whispered, his rhythm faltering. “I’m close.”
“Me too.”
He reached between us, his fingers finding my clit, and that was all it took. I came with a shout, my body clenching around him, and he followed a heartbeat later, spilling inside me with a groan.
For a long moment afterward, we lay there tangled together, our breathing slowly returning to normal.
Finally, he shifted, pulling out and rolling onto his back.
I felt the warm rush of his cum leaking out of me, sliding down my inner thigh, and I wanted to reach down and push it—push him—back inside of me.
He immediately pulled me against his side, his arm wrapped securely around me.
“I meant it,” I whispered against his chest. “About you being good and kind and way more than I thought I’d ever be allowed to have.”
“I know.” His fingers traced lazy patterns over the rose tattoo shoulder. “And I meant what I said, too.”
I closed my eyes, letting his words wash over me.
“Cade?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Tell me again in a couple of days, okay?”
He pressed a kiss to the top of my head, and I could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke. “I’ll tell you every damn day until you’re ready to say it back.”
“That might be a while. Rumor has it, I’m pretty stubborn.”
“I’ve waited more than half my life for you, Stella. I can wait a little longer.”
He really wasn’t going to have to.