Chapter 25 #2
“Now it might be one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen.”
Her eyes filled again, and she immediately looked furious about it. “That was rude.”
“Truth usually is.”
“You don’t get to insult my art and then compliment it like some kind of emotionally confusing hockey vampire.”
“Hockey vampire? Now you’re just being lazy.”
“You drain my will to argue.”
“No, I don’t.”
“No, you don’t,” she admitted, then narrowed her eyes. “But I’m tired and vulnerable, so let me have the metaphor.”
I kissed her again because I couldn’t not. Just my lips to hers, unrushed but dangerous because she said she only wanted benefits and I just wanted her.
I pulled back when she placed her hand on my cheek. “You think it’s incredible or I’m incredible?” she whispered, like she hated needing to ask but needed the answer more.
I looked at her, really looked at her, and felt something inside me settle into place with a finality that should have scared the hell out of me.
It didn’t though.
“I think you’re impossible,” I said. “Annoyingly cheerful. Loud as hell for someone so tiny. Sinfully sexy in a way that makes me want to bite my own knuckles. You collect Nevers, a thing that is only a thing because you needed it to be. You throw insults that should be offensive, but somehow they come out intimate. I hate you is your favorite term of endearment. You call everything emotionally devastating and still rarely use emotionally in the right context. You talk the most shit when you’re one second away from crying, and somehow every single part of that makes sense to me now. ”
Her lips parted.
“And all of it,” I said, brushing my thumb along her jaw, “all the loud, impossible, chaotic, beautiful things that make you—you. They are incredible because you’re incredible.”
Her eyes moved over my face like she was trying to decide whether to believe me. I let her look. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Finally, she whispered, “I hate you.”
My chest eased for the first time in hours.
“See what—”
She stopped me before I could finish, her eyes narrowing immediately.
“Don’t you dare.”
I laughed.
“Wow,” she said. “Growth.”
“I’m evolving.”
“Into what?”
I lowered myself enough that my mouth brushed her ear. “Something that’s about five seconds away from making you forget how tired you are.”
Her breath caught, and for one second, the room shifted.
Heat moved through the dark between us, familiar and sharp, but I didn’t push it. Not yet. I kissed her temple instead.
She made a tiny sound that might have been protest or approval.
“You’re confusing,” she muttered.
“I know.”
“Very emotionally expensive.”
“You can afford me.”
“Debatable.”
She grabbed my face then, taking the kiss I withheld only because I wanted her to want me just as much.
The kiss started slow, her mouth dragging over mine like she had nowhere else to be and no intention of pretending she wanted to be anywhere but here.
Her fingers slid into my hair and tightened, pulling me down the rest of the way with a quiet little sound that hit every violent, possessive, ruined part of me at once.
I kissed her deeper.
Her body softened beneath mine, but her mouth didn’t.
Her mouth never did. Pip kissed like she argued, like she had a point to prove and a pathological need to win, and holy fuck if that wasn’t one of the most addictive things about her.
I shifted my weight carefully, pressing between her thighs while keeping most of my body braced above hers, but when she lifted her knee against my hip, I used mine to part her legs wider and thrust up against her.
She inhaled sharply against my mouth, and I was learning quickly that Pip liked a dry fuck.
Her eyes opened, heavy and dark and locked on mine.
“Cade,” she whispered.
I slid my hand along her cheek, thumb brushing the corner of her mouth while I watched her face because I couldn’t stop watching her face.
Not after everything she’d told me. Not after the marble.
Not after realizing the girl underneath me had spent years choosing light while the world kept handing her reasons to stay in the dark.
“I’ve never felt what you make me feel,” I said, and the truth of it came out rougher than I meant it to.
Her fingers flexed in my hair. “I feel it too.”
That was all I needed.
I kissed her again, and this time she met me with everything. Her back arched beneath me, her legs tightening at my sides while my hand slid down to her ass and gripped hard enough to pull her closer against my now hard dick.
Nothing drove me crazy like Bliss Bennett. She snuck in when I wasn’t looking and changed vital parts of my life. She was mine in a way I didn’t have a name for yet but could feel burning itself into every part of me that had ever known how to want.
And I wanted to be hers. For her to see me as hers and stop this friends-with-benefits bullshit and just be us.
Her hands moved over my shoulders, down my back, then up again like she couldn’t figure out where to touch first. The kiss kept deepening, slowing, breaking apart only long enough for breath before dragging us back in again.
Her mouth was swollen now, her breaths turning uneven, and every sound she made went straight through me like a blade.
I pulled back barely enough to speak. “I hate friends with benefits.”
She paused under me, eyes blinking open slowly. “That’s rude. Benefits are currently carrying this arrangement.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “I like the benefits part.”
“Shocking.”
“It’s the friends part that makes me want to file a complaint.”
Her mouth twitched. “What, you don’t want to braid hair and talk about our feelings?”
“I’m about to fuck you and you’re still trying to friend-zone me.”
“I’m multi-talented.”
“You’re a menace.”
“Friends with benefits keeps me emotionally affordable.”
“Not even close.” I kissed her again before she could argue, slow and thorough enough that her fingers curled against my back and her next breath came out shaky. “You’re the most expensive thing I’ve ever touched.”
Her eyes softened for half a second before she tried to ruin it. “You’re rich, so I—”
“Emotionally, Pip.”
She smiled, desperate to ignore my meaning. “Disgusting.”
I kissed her. “Accurate.”
“I hate you.”
No, she didn’t.
“No, you don’t.”
She huffed, but her body gave her away. It always did. Her hips shifted under mine, subtle but not subtle enough, and I ground against her just enough for her to feel me through the layers between us. Her breath stuttered, and my grip on her ass tightened.
“I’ve never had this,” I said.
Her lashes lifted. “Had what?”
“A girlfriend. Friends with benefits. Whatever this is.”
Her brows pinched. “You’ve never had friends with benefits?”
“No.”
“Let me guess.” Her tone turned too casual too fast. Interesting. “You had benefits.”
“Yes.”
“A lot of them?”
I watched her stiffen immediately, and there it was. That flash of jealousy she probably wanted to stab before I noticed it, but I noticed everything.
My mouth curved before I could stop it. “Careful, Pip.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Careful with what?”
“Getting possessive.”
“I’m not getting possessive.”
“You just turned into a tiny blonde ball of pissiness.”
“I did not.”
“You asked if there were a lot of them like you were about to request names and addresses.”
“I was gathering data for academic purposes.”
“You were getting jealous.”
Her cheeks flushed. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” I kissed her harder, not because I wanted to shut her up, but because I wanted to feel what that jealousy did to her.
Wanted to feel her pissed and wanting and refusing to admit either thing.
When I pulled back, her mouth followed mine for half a second before she caught herself, and the sight of it nearly wrecked me. “Yeah,” I murmured. “That’s dangerous.”
“What is?”
“You wanting me enough to hate who had me before you.”
Her expression shifted before she could hide it.
I let my mouth brush her jaw, then the spot beneath it, careful around the bruise because even now, even with heat clawing at my ribs, that mark kept me from losing my mind completely.
“I’ve been with a lot of women,” I said against her skin. “I’m not going to lie to you about that.”
She swallowed.
“A lot of puck-bunny bullshit. Parties. Road trips. Girls who knew exactly what they wanted and didn’t want anything afterward.” I lifted my head so she could see my face when I said the rest. “But I’ve never had this.”
Her eyes searched mine. “What’s this?”
I knew that tone. Fishing. Wanting the compliment and terrified of needing it.
So, I didn’t give it to her right away and I kissed her instead.
Slow enough to make her impatient. Deep enough to make her forget she was supposed to be protecting herself. My hand slid beneath the hem of her shirt to her waist, gripping warm skin as I pulled it over her head. She made the softest sound into my mouth, and my whole body went tight with it.
I lifted my head just enough to look down at her.
“That,” I said.
Her chest rose hard beneath mine.
“Never had that, Pip. Just kissing you, and you get affected like this.”
Her lips parted, but no words came out.
“That’s not benefits,” I said, voice rough. “That’s chemistry. That’s you and me. That’s whatever the hell this is deciding it doesn’t care what we call it.”
Her hand slid to the side of my neck, her thumb brushing my jaw. “What if I started telling you about all the guys I kissed?”
My body went still.
Her eyes sharpened because she felt it instantly.
“What if I told you about who touched me?” she asked, quieter now, testing the edge, like she knew exactly how dangerous it was and wanted to see if I’d bleed.
I lowered my mouth to her ear, letting my body press just enough into hers to make her breath catch again. “I’d rip your clothes off and fuck you until you remembered who your man is.”
Her fingers dug into my shoulders.
I nuzzled against her neck, my mouth dragging along her jaw before I looked at her again. “The thought makes me feel crazy.”
Her eyes were wide now, her breathing uneven. “That’s how I feel,” she whispered. “Except yours is real. I don’t have a sexual history. It’s all hypothetical.”
Something low and possessive twisted through me so hard I almost kissed her teeth. “You don’t need one. There isn’t enough room between us for you to have a past.”
Her mouth opened, probably to deflect, but I didn’t let her.
“You’re different,” I said. “There isn’t a girl from my past that I ever gave this side of myself to.
No one has ever come close to this.” My hand framed her face again, forcing her to stay with me, to hear me.
“This feeling is uniquely us. I don’t have a clean name for it, and I’m done trying to shove it into one that fits other people.
It’s addictive as hell, and I’m not pretending it isn’t. ”
For once, Bliss didn’t joke.
That scared me more than the jokes ever did.
Her eyes filled slowly, not in the broken way they did earlier, but in a way that told me I had finally gotten past the armor and the smart mouth to the thing underneath she never let anyone touch.
“You scare me, Cade,” she whispered.
I didn’t move.
“If this is real, if you’re real, there won’t be a rebound from this.
” Her voice shook, but she kept going, and I swear to fuck it felt like watching someone hand me a loaded weapon and trust me not to aim it at her.
“I’m so scared, Cade. Because if I give you what you want—if I give in to this and I trust you to protect my heart, then in the same breath, I give you the power to hurt me. ”
My chest went tight enough to hurt.
“Nothing will ever scare me the way you do,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t survive that level of emotional destruction.”
I stared at her for one long second.
Then I kissed her. Not because I had the right answer. Because there wasn’t one.
There was only her beneath me, telling me I scared her more than the dark because I was the light she wanted badly enough to burn for.
I kissed her like I understood. Like I had every intention of making myself worth the risk. Like I would rather take a stick to the throat in every game for the rest of my life than be one more reason this girl added a marble to that sculpture.
When I pulled back, her eyes were wet and furious.
I brushed my thumb beneath one of them before it could fall. “You just used emotional correctly.”
Her face went completely blank.
Then outrage sparked through all that vulnerability, bright and immediate and so fucking her that my chest almost cracked open.
“I hate you.”
I smiled despite myself, lowering my forehead to hers while she glared up at me like she wasn’t still holding onto my shirt with both fists.
And holy fuck, I was in so much trouble.