Chapter 13 #5
I glanced over at her briefly and smiled a little, needing to shift the weight before I did something inconvenient like tell her that the thing she was trying so hard to keep casual already felt like a problem under my skin.
“You know when I talk about my family like this, it’s off the record, right? ”
I hated how vulnerable my voice sounded saying it. Hated the way it slipped out before I could make it sound less like it mattered. But Pip just squeezed my hand softly in return.
“I would never do that to you,” she said quietly. “That goes without saying.”
Relief hit me harder than it probably should have.
“I’m glad you know the difference between when I’m talking to you and when I’m talking to your project.”
She smiled softly at that. “I think I’m getting better at figuring it out.”
“Good.”
Because I needed her to know the difference.
I needed her to understand that the parts of me I gave her were not for the report.
They weren’t for some massive human-interest project, no matter how much she tried to make school the safe container for whatever was happening between us.
When I talked to her about my family, my head, the way I moved through the world, I wasn’t feeding her material.
I was letting her in.
And if she wanted to pretend that wasn’t intimacy because my mouth had been between her thighs an hour ago and she needed everything between us to stay safely physical, fine. Let her pretend.
I could be patient when I had a target.
I looked back toward the road ahead of us before speaking again. “I think that’s why I’m excited for today in a way that probably says concerning things about me.”
Pip turned slightly toward me. “The barbecue?”
“Yeah.” I smiled faintly. “The whole neighborhood thing is still insane to me. Your brothers. Your dad. Family friends wandering in and out of each other’s houses like everyone just collectively agreed doors are optional.” I shook my head once. “I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”
The look she gave me nearly stole the breath from my lungs. Soft. Warm. Almost unbearably tender. Like she wanted to hand me something fragile.
“It’s really fun,” she promised quietly.
“I’m counting on ribs, and if street hockey is finally happening today, I expect you to admit I’m about to become your family’s favorite.”
She burst out laughing immediately.
“I’m serious,” I said. “I don’t think I’d ever actually been to a backyard barbecue before you started dragging me into Bennett Sundays. I’m hooked now.”
Her jaw physically dropped. “No way.”
“I swear.”
“You’re joking.”
“I would never joke about food.”
She smacked my arm lightly. “Cade, be serious.”
“I am serious.”
“Oh my gosh.” She stared at me like I’d admitted I grew up on the moon. “Barbecues are literally my childhood.”
I smiled watching her talk with her hands, sunlight catching against the rings on her fingers while excitement warmed her whole face.
“Fourth of July parties. Birthday parties. Summer block parties.” She laughed softly. “There’s always somebody grilling too much meat and somebody’s uncle arguing about sports and little kids running through sprinklers.”
The fondness in her voice hit me directly in the chest again.
“I love that for you,” I admitted quietly.
Her gaze slid toward me, and the second our eyes met, something shifted.
Not dramatically. Not enough to break the moment.
Just enough to remind us both that this was different now.
The air in the car had new history in it.
Her hand in mine was no longer some almost-innocent thing.
Her mouth had been under mine. My hands had been on her bare thighs.
I had tasted her and listened to the way she said my name when all that careful control finally snapped.
And she knew I was thinking about it. I saw the moment she realized. Her cheeks flushed, and she looked out the windshield too fast.
I smiled.
“You’re blushing.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are.”
“It’s sunny.”
“Inside the car?”
“UV rays are aggressive.”
“You’re terrible at lying.”
“You’re terrible at not being smug.”
“I’m not smug.”
She gave me a look.
I let my grin widen. “Fine. Maybe a little.”
“A little?”
“I earned some of it.”
Her mouth fell open, and holy fuck, I wanted to bite that lower lip until she forgot whatever insult she was about to throw at me.
“You did not just say that.”
“Oh, I did.”
“You’re lucky I’m in a moving vehicle and legally discouraged from violence.”
“You hit like you’re five-two.”
“I am emotionally six-five, how many times I gotta tell you that.”
I cracked and laughed because she was a lunatic. “A million won’t make it true, Pip.”
Pip cleared her throat and looked back out the window, but her fingers stayed threaded with mine. That was the part that had me. She could deflect all she wanted, could make the jokes, could pretend she was annoyed by me breathing too confidently in her direction, but she didn’t pull away.
She kept looking back.
“You know,” she said softly after a while, fingers eventually sliding more fully into mine where my hand rested over hers on the center console, “I think that’s what confuses me about you.”
I looked over briefly before focusing back on the road. “Only one thing? Impressive.”
Her lips twitched slightly, but the smile faded slowly after that. “You don’t feel the way I expected.”
Something tightened low in my chest hearing that. “What’d you expect?”
Pip looked down at our joined hands for a second before answering honestly. “Honestly? I expected you to feel dangerous. And you are.” Her eyes cut to me. “Dominant. Commanding.” She gave me a side-eye sharp enough to make my mouth twitch. “Bossy in bed, apparently.”
My grip flexed once around hers.
“Pip, you have no clue how indulgently bossy I get.”
She laughed, and fuck, I felt lighter after this morning.
I had been all nerves earlier because I didn’t know what version of her I was going to get after the call last night.
I didn’t expect the friends-with-benefits line she wanted to feed me, but whatever.
I’d bite if it gave me more access to making her mine.
She didn’t even realize how badly she craved me.
She was too busy trying to keep control over liking me to understand she was playing directly into my hands the minute she agreed sex was on the table.
Because I knew she liked me. I knew our chemistry was off the charts.
And so far, it was no different kissing her.
It sure as hell was no different with my mouth on her.
She might need to feel in control of this thing, but the truth was neither of us had it.
It controlled us.
The difference was I wasn’t interested in pretending otherwise.
Pip was tripping over the idea that she might actually be happy with the thing she feared most, while I was already calculating how much patience it would take to make her admit this was never going to stay casual.
I stayed quiet because I knew her. She couldn’t let anything sit too long without poking at it until it either bled or turned into a joke.
Most people only saw the version of me built for public consumption. The cocky hockey captain. The arrogant athlete. The emotionally detached guy who never took anything seriously unless it involved hockey, competition, or winning.
Pip had started seeing too much.
And I wanted her to.
That was the fucked-up part.
“I guess I thought you would be arrogant and untouchable,” she said quietly, maybe lost in thought like me.
“And?”
“You feel…” She hesitated briefly before finally saying it. “Safe.”
Holy shit.
Something deeply male and possessive expanded violently inside my chest hearing that word leave her mouth.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel to keep from reacting too obviously because there probably wasn’t a compliment on earth that could have hit me harder than that.
Because even when she smothered it, her fear and nerves were clear to me.
Knowing when it was just us, she felt that way… put me down.
Bad.
Especially knowing what it likely cost her emotionally to admit it.
Not sexy. Not hot. Not good with my mouth, even though yeah, I was planning on making her say that again eventually.
Safe coming from her? That word was not small.
“You said something last night,” I said quietly. “About wanting attention if it felt safe.”
Her cheeks pinked immediately. “Yeah.”
I brushed my thumb slowly across the back of her hand. “I want to know that I make you feel that way.”
The silence after that felt enormous. Pip stared out through the windshield for a few seconds while sunlight painted gold across her bare skin before finally nodding once.
“You do.”
This stopped being about flirting and attraction. This was knowing she trusted me. And holy shit did that make something territorial and protective rise violently inside my chest.
“It feels intense sometimes,” she admitted softly after a second. “When I’m with you…” She laughed nervously under her breath. “I don’t know. I feel untouchable.”
My jaw tightened instantly.
Every instinct inside me practically detonated hearing her say that.
I wanted to pull the Range Rover over and kiss her until neither of us remembered our own names.
I wanted to tell her she was untouchable, that if I had anything to say about it, no one got near her without going through me first. I wanted to say Luke Dempsey’s name and watch her face closely enough to finally understand what the hell crawled through her every time he got too close.
I didn’t.
Not yet.
That wasn’t the play.
Pushing made her retreat. I had already seen that. She hid behind jokes, school, sex, benefits, anything she could get her hands on if the truth got too close. So, I kept my voice calm and my hand steady over hers even while something ugly and possessive paced beneath my skin.
“Yeah?” I asked quietly.
She nodded slightly. “I know. Sounds dramatic.”