Chapter Ten #2
While Jordan carried our drinks back to the table, Caden and I calmly made our way out of the tavern.
The air was misty and wet, cold on my cheeks.
But I didn’t feel the cool bite. My body was heating up with annoyance and contrasting feelings I couldn’t even name, let alone sort through.
“I told you already, I don’t care who you screw.
” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I knew if I was even telling the truth.
I’d spoken as the door of the tavern shut behind us.
We slowed down a few paces to one side of the bar and Caden crossed his arms, shooting me a skeptical look.
“You think I’m stupid,” I accused him. “That I can’t see you’re doing this to provoke me.
I bet you want to see me throw a tantrum about your sexuality.
You want me to out myself as a bigot, huh?
Tough fucking luck, Jones. I just don’t care. ”
“Hold on,” he said. “This doesn’t qualify as a tantrum?”
“It fucking doesn’t,” I snapped. I sounded more deranged with each word I said.
Goddammit. He’d placed this trap so nicely for me to fall into.
“I just don’t want to be dragged into more conflict.
Go, have all the guys you want. It doesn’t bother me.
” My heart drummed faster. Irritation at the mental images of Caden with all these faceless guys ran wild.
A few people stumbled out of the tavern, so I grabbed Caden’s upper arm and dragged him further away from them. We moved around the corner between the Thirsty Thinker and a fast-food joint and hid in the shadows.
“You sound like it bothers you,” Caden accused. “And you’re acting like a maniac.”
“Christ, Jones, you shoved your tongue down that guy’s throat and looked at me.
What’s that supposed to mean? You’re not even trying to conceal all the eye-fucking at the gym.
Are you seriously trying to tell me you’re not doing this intentionally?
” I wagged my finger at him like a teacher who’d had enough.
“Oh, but you want me to cross your line. I fucking knew it. You want me to break the one rule you have so that the others don’t feel guilty when they kick me out.
You’ll have enough fucking pity points to stay on. ” I barked out a bitter laugh.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Partridge. Are you insane? What the fuck’s your problem?” he demanded, stepping toward me. It was a dangerous place to be near me when I struggled to remain sane.
His eyes flashed with hatred, his breath steaming when he grunted. A shudder passed through him and I realized I was cold, too. “Insane, huh? I’m fucking insane? Nah. You’re driving me crazy, Caden.”
I heard the words I’d said at the same time as Caden. My mouth remained partly open, but Caden’s eyes widened and a frown creased the space between his eyebrows. “Do you ever think you’re just obsessed?” he asked, his voice husky. It trembled at the end when the evening coolness made him shiver.
“Me? Obsessed? You’re relentless, Jones,” I squeezed through my teeth.
Caden pushed me away. It wasn’t particularly rough. It was a simple statement. I was in the space he claimed for himself. He moved away from me as I stepped back as if to return to the tavern. “You ruined my evening, Captain. How’s that gonna work for our morale?”
“Don’t start me on that shit, Jones,” I threatened, angrier now that he was walking away on his own terms. “But go on. Act like none of this was intentional. Just know that I know. Every ounce of morale we lose, I blame you for it.”
He turned completely away from me. I watched his back, shoulders rising and falling, as he stood.
His head slumped and he shook it. “Tell that to yourself if it helps you sleep at night. But I know the truth. You’re an asshole and a bigot.
Sure, you’re cool if it’s your friends. But someone you’ve hated for no reason for years?
Oh no. That guy can’t have nice things. You just have to barge in and ruin everything for me. ”
Ruin? The fucker was deliberately tickling all my worst impulses and he knew it.
In an instant, I was almost unaware of my own actions.
Hell, I was frightened of them. Rather, I was scared of something in me but couldn’t put a finger on it.
I merely saw myself reaching for Caden’s shoulder.
My brain wouldn’t catch up with my actions.
I feared we were about to fight it out once and for all when my hand slapped his shoulder and spun him around.
Caden balked, eyes wide and muscles tense. He was already leaning in to charge at me when a pit opened in my stomach and my heart plunged. With all my strength, I grabbed Caden’s shirt as if I would lift him off his feet, then pressed him against the tavern wall.
As Caden’s back bumped against the wall, a grunt burst out of him as I pinned him in place. My body pressed against his, leaving no room for escape. He was mine now. He was mine to show him where his place was.
But my heart stumbled as our hate-filled gazes clashed. “Ruined everything?” I sneered. “You were kissing, not getting fucking married.”
Caden huffed out a breath, his brow creased in anger and surprise.
Steam left his mouth as he exhaled in the heartbeat that followed.
A shiver passed through me, although heat rose to my face.
My body was still pressed against his and my hands held his shirt.
Caden’s hands were wrapped around my wrists.
We stood in a deadlock for what felt like an eternity, but I’d only blinked once in all that time.
Anger suddenly seemed to explode in me. But it wasn’t anger at all.
What filled me was so uniquely hot and bright that I had mistaken it for fury.
Certainly, anger lay beneath this. It trembled somewhere deep within me.
And I had plenty to be mad about: that he had been teasing me all this time, that I had allowed him to get to me, that he made me see something that changed everything.
But that wasn’t the feeling that drove my actions.
This…this was pure lust.
I rammed into Caden, nearly kicking air out of his lungs and smashed my lips against his. Was this what he was missing out on? Because of me? Let him have it, then. Let him have all the filthy, sloppy, careless kisses.
In a single moment that stretched indefinitely, I felt more than I saw the surprise in Caden.
His muscles tensed harder and his mouth remained open.
The heat of his body warmed me as much as all these conflicting emotions.
But I pressed my mouth against his nonetheless and it was like I’d pierced us both with a knife.
Dripping with frustration, the kiss was like a hot iron rod.
It branded us both. And for all the damage I inflicted on Caden, twice as much rebounded at me.
His grip on my wrists was bone-breaking. The stunned state he was in melted away for long enough that he applied all his strength and broke the contact. He pushed me back a couple of feet. “What the fuck?” he spat.
I realized how loudly my heart thundered when I could barely hear his words. We stood, measuring each other in silence, chests rising and falling with deep, fatigued breaths.
Caden blinked. The offended expression morphed into confusion.
And when I offered no reply — and most certainly no apology — he opened his mouth and then closed it.
When he opened it again, it wasn’t to attack me with profanities.
Instead, he shook his head jerkily like one would just before he made a horrible mistake he was absolutely aware of.
As though I felt it somewhere deep within myself, I stepped toward him. He had made his decision and mine was already out in the open. This bizarre thing I had done, this thing I had never wanted in my life but which made my fingertips tingle with excitement, had rocked the very ground we stood on.
Caden’s hands slapped against both sides of my face carelessly, as if he used the opportunity to humble me, but I didn’t care.
I could play rough. My hands reached for his hips, thumping his body against the tavern’s wall again, harder, as he pressed his hot, wet lips against mine.
He kissed me with far more confidence and no confusion.
He kissed me like he was getting back at me.
The impact was fierce and fiery. It touched every desire I’d never known I had.
When Caden moved his right hand to the back of my head, fingers running through my thick, floppy locks, I anticipated his next move. And he was as predictable as I guessed. He closed his fist, pulling a fistful of my hair back until I broke the contact and looked into his eyes.
“What the fuck are we doing?” he asked.
“Shut up, Jones, or I swear to God…” I didn’t need to finish that.
His hold on my hair relaxed and I leaned into him again.
Wherever my body touched him, it seared me.
And his lips on mine were the softest thing I had ever felt.
No matter how rough the moves of his head and mouth were, it still felt like he feathered me with those kisses.