Chapter 24Olivia #2
I’m falling in love with a man who isn’t mine to claim.
A man who wears scars because of me. For me, so I didn’t have to wear them myself.
But beyond that, he’s witty and intelligent and loyal.
And the fact that he’s the most handsome man I’ve ever laid eyes on is just the first of the beautiful layers that stand before me.
His long fingers wrap farther behind my head, gently tugging on my hair as his free palm glues to the wall. A firestorm stirs within me, crackles of heat bursting along my back when he leans down.
My eyes hood as his pillowy lips graze mine for the very first time. A simple gust of friction. Nothing more.
Hints of mint and wood collide, the intoxicating blend paving a path along my mouth as my skin breaks out in goosebumps.
“I’ve thought about every smile I could wear to erase any grief I’ve ever felt,” he whispers. “To replace all the half-smiles I’ve been dressed in for way too long.”
His mouth is a torch against my skin, lighting that forbidden flame. Threatening to break it free and slip it through our fingers.
Consequences be damned.
“I’ve been entertaining thoughts of these lips.”
An aching pulse ignites between my legs, my strained breath now knotting with his own. “What have you been thinking about?” I pant.
Our lips part in tandem, his mouth petting mine in a teasing fervor as our noses brush. “How perfectly they’d wrap around my own,” he rasps.
A whimper tumbles from my throat, my need for him so dire that my nipples tighten into sharpened points beneath the fabric of my shirt. They tickle the material over his steel chest, the contact surging a shiver along my limbs. “Just your lips?”
His mouth twitches, a quiet laugh vibrating through him as his rough fingers lay on my cheek to cup my chin.
“Naughty girl,” he taunts through a murmur.
“Talking about sucking cock with a man she hasn’t even kissed yet.
” And when his thumb drags my bottom lip down, the fire that encases us is too blistering to ignore any longer.
I close my sleek lips around the tip of his thumb, throwing the gauntlet down once and for all.
Until he accepts.
Cade’s palm snakes back around my cheek, pulling my lips into a smoldering kiss. Our mouths drift open, his velvety tongue slipping inside me as he tilts my head at just the right position.
Crushed mewls and moans hum through the sweltering air, my fingers now tightening around his forearm as he commands my lips. Every stroke inflicting a lethal aggression, only to be massaged to passion by his tongue. Lapping me deeper each time he tilts my chin a little higher.
It’s blinding rapture. Galaxies clashing around us until there’s only a blaring, white light above us.
But just as quickly as the ecstasy crashes into me, Cade rips his mouth away. He nudges the tip of my nose, face gently scrunching in pain before he tears himself off me.
“Fuck,” he mutters through a grunt.
The deafening lights cut out, and the dark beams of the ceiling are the only canopy once again. He walks a couple steps to the side, hands shooting through his hair as my body begs for the brick to absorb it.
“I’m sorry.”
Sorry?
The tingle of his stubble echoes along my chin, a mocking reminder of the way my heart severs and plunges to the floor.
“Olivia, we need to call it a night, okay?”
Rain soaks the flames that burn inside me. His words just as detrimental as the first set. But if there’s one detail he should know by now, it’s that I’ll be the one to set fire to the rain.
“Am I seeing you again?” I ask weakly, slowly stabilizing myself against the wall.
Cade exhaustingly wipes a palm over his mouth. “Olivia, don’t start this.”
My defenses immediately uproot. “Start what?”
He turns to face me. “You’re insulting me. Making it like I’m some prick who’s going to have his cake and eat it too.”
His flushed eyes and wobbly chest are dead giveaways. For a split second, he injects a shot of hope into me.
Yet again.
But the dose isn’t strong enough this time.
Inching a couple steps toward him, I wag my head with intention.
“Now you’re insulting me. I’m not in this for an affair, and I’m certainly not in this for you to keep trampling over my feelings.
So fuck this, and you know what?” My jaw bolts in place, eyes greeting his with a fresh mission. “Fuck you too.”
I march off toward the entrance, but his hand is already molding to my arm. The metal of his ring digs through my sleeve, and my face tenses in defeat as he spins me around.
I can’t let go.
I can’t do it.
“What the fuck do you want me to do here? Huh?” he challenges before shaking his head.
His eyes gape down at me, hands gesturing in front of him through his speech.
“I wanted to kiss you, Olivia. There’s not a single part of me that is sorry for that.
The only thing I’m sorry for is kissing you when I still have a pile of shit to let go of. ”
“Which is when?” I toss back.
“Give me the week.”
My eyes skate across his fueled gaze, a part of me still petrified that I’m just a distraction. “I told you I’m not going to be treated like a whore,” I spit before yanking my arm away.
I head for my bag and jacket I left up front, too furious to shrug on either before I practically skip to the door.
But as quick as I think my legs are, Cade’s are faster.
His hard chest presses against my side as he barricades the glass door with his arm. Hot sparks snap between us, erratic and electric when they stun me still.
“You know, I bet you’re a really nice view when I don’t have any baggage or bullshit to burden you with,” he taunts, his voice breathy.
“I’d be at your beckoning call every minute of the day.
Take you on a real date, bring you flowers or whatever the fuck it is you wanted.
” He pivots his head to speak into my ear.
“Until I decided I wanted to make you my whore for the night. Not a whore. My whore. Get the difference?”
His mouth should offend me in every direction my mind goes, but all it does is return the fire that was stolen from me earlier.
I swallow thickly, my gaze lifting to the wildness swimming behind his blue-gray eyes. “You can stand here all pissed off, Olivia, I really don’t give a shit,” he says. “But you’re not leaving until I walk you to your car.”
Before I can let go of my breath, he brushes past me to close up the brewery.
He’s not asking or requesting.
He’s telling me what I’m going to do.
And it’s the easiest submission I’ve ever had to agree to.