Chapter 12
Bliss
“Good,” he said, and the way his voice dropped around that one word made my entire body go still beneath his hoodie.
I hated how quickly he could do that to me.
One second I was trying to act like I had any control over this situation, and the next Cade was looking at me through a phone screen with damp hair, bright eyes, and that rough, restrained voice that made every smart thought I had scatter like smoke.
The room around me felt too quiet now, wrapped in rain tapping softly against the window and the faint hum of my ceiling fan above me, while he filled the screen like something I had wanted too badly and too long to keep pretending I didn’t.
“You’re nervous,” he said.
I let out a shaky breath and pulled the sleeve of his hoodie over my hand. “I’m not nervous.”
His mouth barely moved, but I saw the smile anyway. “Pip.”
I swallowed hard. “Okay. Maybe a little.”
“That’s fine.” His voice softened for half a second, not losing the heat, just wrapping control around it better. “Nervous isn’t bad. Scared is different.”
My chest tightened because of course he understood that distinction. Cade, with all his intensity and focus and quiet restraint, somehow knew exactly where the line sat without me having to draw it for him. Nervous meant anticipation. Nervous meant I wanted this enough for my body to panic over it.
“I’m not scared,” I said quietly.
His eyes held mine through the screen. “Good.”
The word hit differently than good girl had. Softer. Heavier. Like he believed me and still wanted me to know he was listening for the truth underneath every breath I took. That should have settled me down. Instead, it made me ache worse.
Cade shifted against his headboard, the phone angle changing just enough for me to see the black T-shirt stretched across his chest and one arm braced behind his head.
He looked too calm for what we were doing, but I could see the lie in the tightness of his jaw and the way his breathing wasn’t quite even.
He was affected. He was trying to control it, but he was affected, and the knowledge made something warm and reckless bloom low in my stomach.
“You said fair,” I reminded him, because apparently my mouth had decided self-preservation was no longer invited into the conversation.
“I did.”
“And now you’re just staring at me.”
“I like looking at you.”
The simplicity of it made my breath catch. Not a line. Not some polished hockey-boy flirtation meant to get me to lower my guard. Just truth, rough around the edges and devastating because he said it like looking at me was not passive. Like it cost him something to keep doing it from a distance.
I shifted beneath the blankets, suddenly too aware of the hoodie against my bare thighs and the heat trapped under the fabric. “You’re doing that thing again.”
“I know… tell me about it.”
“That thing where you say something simple and somehow make it sound filthy.”
His eyes darkened. “Maybe it is filthy.”
My lips parted, but I did not have a comeback ready fast enough.
Cade noticed. Of course he noticed. His expression sharpened slightly, that focused look sliding into place, and my pulse kicked hard because I knew what it felt like to have all of his attention aimed directly at me.
I had felt it in the gym when his hands were on my hips.
I had felt it in his closet when he told me to watch.
I felt it now through a screen, which was unfair and honestly medically concerning.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“My bed.”
“I can see that.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Because I wanted to hear you say it.”
Heat rushed across my skin so fast I had to look away. “You’re impossible.”
“No.” His voice dropped lower. “I’m trying very hard to be careful.”
That dragged my eyes back to him.
His expression had changed. Still intense, still hot enough to make my entire body feel overheated beneath his hoodie, but there was something else there too.
Restraint. The same restraint that had made him step back in the gym when I said we should stop.
The same restraint that had kept him across the room after the closet, asking me to text when I got home instead of using what had happened to pull me closer before I was ready.
That was why this felt different.
That was why I had answered the call.
Because Cade wanted me. There was no pretending he didn’t. But he also kept making sure I was still standing on my own side of the choice.
I drew in a breath and forced myself to say the truth before I turned it into another joke. “I want this, I’m so tired of being careful.”
His gaze locked tighter on mine. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what this is.”
My stomach flipped. “Cade.”
“I need to know we’re talking about the same thing, Pip.”
The command in his voice should have made me defensive.
Instead, it made me feel anchored, like he was not letting me drift into the moment without naming it first. I could hear rain against the glass, feel the softness of his hoodie against my skin, see the way his eyes stayed fixed on my face instead of wandering lower even though I knew he wanted to look.
“I want you to watch me,” I said, the words barely above a whisper. “Like I watched you.”
His jaw flexed.
There it was. The crack in him. The one I was starting to crave seeing because Cade controlled himself so tightly that every slip felt like a confession.
“Fuck,” he said, and my name sounded wrecked enough to make my thighs press together beneath the blanket.
“You want me to watch you play with your pussy?”
I breathed out slowly, trying to keep my hand steady around the phone. “You said fair was fair.”
“I know what I said.”
“You also said if I stayed, you’d know I wanted to watch.”
“And you stayed.”
“I did.”
His eyes dropped then, just briefly, to where his hoodie bunched high on my thighs. When they came back to my face, his expression had gone so dark and intent I forgot what breathing was supposed to feel like.
“Are you wearing anything under my hoodie?” he asked.
My pulse tripped over itself. “That is a very invasive question for a school project.”
His mouth curved. “This stopped being about school the second you told me you not to step back.”
I should have argued.
I should have defended the sacred academic integrity of my human-interest project and my major and the notes I had absolutely abandoned twenty minutes ago.
Instead, I looked at him through the screen, felt the truth settle under my ribs, and let myself stop fighting for one second.
“No,” I said. “I have your hoodie and my panties on.”
The sound that left him was quiet, rough, and almost not there, but I heard it anyway. More importantly, I saw what it did to him. His hand moved over his jaw, his eyes closing for half a second like he needed that much time to survive the answer before he opened them again.
“Show me your face,” he said.
I blinked. “You can see my face.”
“When I talk to you,” he clarified, voice rougher now. “I want to see what I do to you.”
My breath shook.
That was worse somehow. Hotter. More intimate than him asking for anything else because he wanted my reaction. Not just the act or the fantasy. He wanted the truth in my face before I could hide it.
I propped the phone carefully against the lamp on my nightstand, adjusting until I sat facing him and leaned against my pillows, swallowed by his hoodie and the soft golden glow of my twinkle lights we were now head on and he could see all of me.
“There,” I said, my voice unsteady. “How’s that?”
His eyes moved over the screen slowly, and even through FaceTime I felt the path of that look like touch.
“Perfect,” he said. “Take my hoodie off, Pip.”
Holy fuck.
My fingers curled in the hem of his hoodie. Cade watched the movement, and his voice softened into something controlled and devastating. “Slow.”
The word slid through me.
I pulled the hem up a little, not enough to expose everything, just enough that the cold air moved over the tops of my thighs and made me shiver. His gaze tracked it, jaw tight, breathing heavier now. He was not smiling anymore.
“Fuck,” he murmured.
I nearly lost my nerve right there.
That was the problem and the truth and the thing I was finally too tired to keep shoving into places I wouldn’t touch.
I wanted Cade Mercer. I wanted his eyes on me.
I wanted the sound of his voice in my dark room.
I wanted to know what it felt like to choose something because it made me feel alive instead of because fear had trained me to survive without wanting too much.
My hand trembled at the edge of the hoodie and Cade saw it instantly.
“You can stop,” he said.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to. In all transparency, I haven’t done this before.”
“I got you, Pip.”
That was all I needed as I lifted the hoodie over my head and tossed it to the side of my bed and looked at him.
“Your nipples are hard already so pink and delicate. Play with them for me.”
My whole body reacted to the command before I even moved.
Heat rushed through me, shame flickering for half a second out of habit before want burned through it.
There was nothing shameful in the way Cade watched me.
Nothing mocking. Nothing careless. His attention felt heavy and reverent and hungry in a way that made my chest ache.
I followed his command with my eyes locked on his face because I needed to see him seeing me. I cupped my breasts and pinched my nipples between my fingers.
Cade’s expression changed the second he realized I was actually doing it. The last of his calm cracked, his lips parting around a rough breath while his eyes stayed fixed on mine like he was afraid to blink and miss something.
“There you go,” he said, voice low enough to make my spine arch before I could stop it. “That’s it. Imagine I’m there and it’s my mouth on your pretty tits. I would lick them and bite them until you begged me to touch you.”