Chapter 16 Aspen
SIXTEEN
ASPEN
There hasn’t been a sign of Cade all day, but his note from this morning has shadowed me like an ominous warning of what’s to come. The note…and his friend, Bones, who’s trailed me during my adulting chores on one of my days off. Or is it, co-worker? Crew member?
As we approach my house, Bones falls even farther back. “Cade’s inside. See ya around, Aspen.”
Of course he made himself at home in my place.
Bones turns away once I shut the door. I kick off my boots and coat, immediately going to greet Millie…who isn’t here like she normally is. She’s probably distracted by our visitor.
After dropping my bags, I wander down the hallway, following the scent of something mouth-watering that wraps its smoky tendrils around me and propels me into the kitchen.
There, standing by my small round table is Cade, holding Millie in his arms. The lights are low, and candles are scattered all around the kitchen, giving the room quite the ambience.
The table is covered with food that certainly didn’t come from my fridge, but after his story last night, I’m guessing he’s a man with means. Probably the illegal kind. There are steaks and thinly sliced fries with a dark gravy, glasses of both red and white wine, and fresh buns.
“What’s all this?”
Cade heads to the side to lower Millie to the ground in front of a bowl of soft cat food—also a new addition.
She presses into his legs, thanking him, before he turns to me.
He’s dressed nicer than I’ve ever seen him—dark jeans and a black button-down with the sleeves rolled to the elbows and the top button undone.
It keeps his tattoos visible and still reminds me of my Cade.
My Cade? Oh, good fuck, I’m in danger. I still haven’t made a decision about him. Or have I in the safe confines of my mind?
“If you can’t figure out this is a Valentine’s celebration, it means no one’s cooked for you before. Which makes me thrilled to be your first.”
“You are,” I say without thinking, giving him this much. “This is…a lot.”
“Nothing less than you deserve.” He tugs me closer, wrapping an arm around my waist until dipping to kiss me. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Aspen.”
It’s entirely romantic. Sugary sweet from a man who looks anything but that. But there’s too much between us still.
“You disappeared today. Did you find Victor?”
“Kinda.” He leads me to the nearest chair, tugs it out, and pushes me down into it. “Sit. Eat before your food gets cold. We’ll talk. Now that you know all about me and what I do, I won’t lie to you.”
“That’s not true,” I murmur, watching as he takes the other chair. “There’s a lot I don’t know about you.”
“So ask,” he says around a wine glass. “But eat too.”
The steak is cooked to perfection, and the fries are seasoned so well.
I could devour this plate easily, but I force myself to eat slowly to avoid getting a stomach ache.
“I don’t know where to start. I know nothing about you except that you were in jail, and you run a gang. There’s a lot more to you.”
“Is there?” His lips curl. “Isn’t that all the important stuff?”
My hand stretches to rest over his. “You’re more than an inmate, Cade.”
He flips the hold until his fingers tangle with mine.
It makes slicing into a steak basically impossible.
“My guys are my whole life. Never knew my father; he was an abusive asshole. One member, dead now—called himself Ty—found my mom and I on the street. I was only a few months old at the time. He gave us a place to stay for the night and offered to send her to a women’s shelter for long-term assistance, but he found something within her that he wanted to keep.
” At the word, his hold grows tighter. “They weren’t together for long, and broke up when I was about four, but by then, everyone else accepted us.
We were family. So we gained their protection, and Mom and I spent a few more months with Ty as a roommate situation before she got us our own place.
When I was old enough to join the crew formally, I did. ”
A sad story with a happy ending. “Where’s your mom now?”
“Cancer took her a few years before I went to jail.”
A flash of pain crosses his expression, and I’d hate to ruin all his work tonight with grief, so I move on to ask, “And Bones?”
“Was one of my first friends when we were old enough to actually pay attention to one another. He was Ty’s nephew, so he was around a lot. I’d trust him with my life, which is why I trusted him with yours.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, because it’s polite, and truth be told, the only reason I left to shop today was because Bones was nearby. “What did you do for the first nine years of jail before the pen pal situation?”
“Counted the minutes passing me by. Looked pretty bleak ’til you came along.
” He releases me only for his glass, so I take the freedom to slice as much of my food before he reclaims his hold.
“Tell me about the rest of your degree. I’m a bit out of touch with the education system, so correct me if I’m wrong, but a girl who wrote a novel of an essay shouldn’t be working at a flower shop. ”
“It’s for money. I finished the program last spring and applied for a research assistant job with a psych prof, which I begin this April. It’ll be work experience within the field to help buffer my PhD application.”
He hums. “So you’re headed to be a doctor. I like that. My smart girl.”
The heat rising in my cheeks has nothing to do with the candles, but the way my stomach knots at that. And then, when he looks at me, it’s for an entirely other reason.
“Endgame?”
“Clinical psychologist.”
“Hm, we could probably use one of those in the crew.”
My brow hikes at his insinuation. “I never said I was staying with you.”
Death would be kinder than the look he throws at me. “Pretending you don’t want me, or this, is exhausting. Give up and tell me about your childhood.”
I do as we finish the delicious meal he made, and I attempt to keep all the hearts and flowers he’s blooming within me inside my body.
When we finish eating, Cade clears the plates before I get a chance to stand. He carries the candles to join the others on the counter. He cleans off the entire table before reclaiming his chair, which he shoves backwards a couple feet.
“Come here.”
It’s strangely effortless to obey this man’s commands, but I do, positioning myself between him and the table. My hands remain loose by my sides, but in no way am I not nervous. With Cade, he’s so hard to predict.
He tilts his head upwards, caching my gaze.
“It might sound sappy an’ shit, but when you walked into the visitation room the first time, you took my breath away.
I knew immediately what I wanted in life.
And as much as I’ve already claimed you, I’m no rapist, Aspen.
If you want nothing to do with me, I’ll walk out of your life right now, but just know, I’ll always be around.
I’ll always be watching and protecting you from afar.
Not even one hair on your pretty little head will be touched without me knowing.
I also want you to know that everything I wrote in my letters was the truth.
No matter what you learned last night and how much it changed things, you’re whom I’ve trusted from the beginning. ”
He's giving me an out. After days of drama since his return, it’s all I’ve claimed to want, but did I really? Or was it more of wanting to pretend I did? Like when I wrote my goodbye letter—it felt like distance was wise, not because I truly wanted it.
“I believe you. I want you with me, not from afar. As insane as it is, I want to give us a shot. We might not even work out, but don’t walk away from me.
Maybe this makes me as crazy as you so obviously are.
” Because he’s a man of action, I step between his legs, take his face in mine, and press my lips to his, granting him permission.
Though he hardly waits for permission as he hooks his arm beneath my ass and lifts me onto the table. He steps between my legs and practically bends me backwards in his rush to rip my clothes off.
First my shirt, then my jeans. He unhooks my bra and tosses it to the side before my breasts are in his hands, thumb and index fingers pinching my nipples until I cry out, breathless from how he’s going zero to sixty in a matter of seconds.
“The prettiest noises from the prettiest girl.”
God, this man…
He nips from my mouth to my neck, spending extra time at my breasts, before lifting me off the table to peel my jeans down my legs. He rips my panties, leaving me bare and seated on the edge of the table.
Then he reclaims his seat, pulls it closer to the table, grasps my thighs to yank them apart…and eats.
His tongue slips inside, as claiming as his fingertips that bruise my thighs. He drags me until my ass is barely on the edge of the table, and I’m suspended by his hands, left to his mercy.
Probably exactly how he planned for me to be.
“Ca-de.” His name is broken into two syllables and dragged through the fire he’s building inside me. A fire that’s burned through all doubt and hesitation.
He tilts my hips to gain a better angle, and his tongue slides out of me to circle my clit instead as fingers replace where his tongue was.
Two, which he curls into the most sensitive part of my interior walls.
His ministrations cause my head to drop back, my body arching into him, artfully playing until I’m nothing but…
Nothing but his.
He growls something against my pussy. Something possessive that sounds like “mine,” and something else complimentary—words my body understands but the blood pounding in my ears and rushing through the rest of me doesn’t make out.
The building orgasm feels like more after his speech.
Like it’s the official agreement to accept him—us—as insane as all that may be.
When I should be running from this man, my fingers slide between his hair and grip his head into place.
He rewards me with teeth scraping over me as his fingers pound faster and harder, my body stretched and tense to the point of no return, to the point that when he lashes his tongue against me one instance more, my thighs clamp his head and hand to keep him in place while I ride the wave of his version of insanity.
He lifts his head—lips coated in me—and he spends a considerable time licking them clean. A sensation felt as if he was licking me directly again and I’m enthralled by it, unable to look away.
Slowly, as if scared I’ll bolt, he stands, cups my cheek, and brings my face to his for a kiss different than anything he’s given before.
Rather than possession or starvation, it’s almost gentle—though gentle and Cade don’t go together.
A slow build that stokes the flame within my heart, ensuring it can’t be blown out—that it’ll be ignited all for him.
He kisses me with an unnamed emotion. With a desperation and a plea to not leave him. A breathless kind as his mouth parts beneath mine and his tongue finds me, claiming every part of me.
The kind of kiss that does inexplicable things to my own feelings. Until denying the fact that I’ll speak those three little words in a matter of a few months would be a lie.
He ends the kiss as slowly and gently as he began it, tilting his head until our lips break apart but his forehead rests on mine. A warm exhale that tastes like wine blows over my face as his thumbs trace my cheekbones around my eyes and to the edge of my chin.
“You once brought me a box of chocolates. They were delicious, but fuck, if I wanted to throw you right there on the table and taste you instead. Chocolate has nothing on you. But it wasn’t only dreams of licking your pussy that got me through the nights.
It was feeling you tight around my cock.
” He releases my face to reach for his belt.
“Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”