Chapter 17 #2
The vulnerability in his voice guts me. I pull him into a kiss, slow and deep, tasting the fear and the desire warring inside him.
When I break it, I take his hand and press it firmly against the hard line of my cock straining through my sweatpants.
Cade groans, a little low, a little helpless, fingers flexing instinctively against the ridge of me.
“You feel that?” I murmur against his mouth.
“That’s what you do to me. Every shy glance across the office, every time you push your glasses up, every anxious ramble about the rules and how they apply to everyone.
” I shake my head, and taste my new favorite pair of lips again.
“You couldn’t disappoint me if you tried, Cade. ”
It’s the truth, the biggest truth I have to bear.
“I want you to know, I get tested regularly, and I’m all good.” I lick at his mouth again. He nods against me, a sigh lifting from his lips like it was the perfect time to tell him that. Like he knows we’re on the brink of more.
His hand slips beneath the waistband, finding me hiding in the fabric. He wraps his hand around my bare, hot, length. His grip is tentative at first, then surer as he strokes me from root to tip, thumb brushing over the head where I’m already leaking. I hiss, and force my hips up into his fist.
“Bedroom,” I rasp. “Now.”
We barely make it.
Clothes come off in a trail down the hall and up the wooden stairwell. I sit on the edge of the bed and Cade drops to his knees between my spread legs. His hands rest on my thighs, teasing through the faded dark hair, trembling slightly.
“I want to,” he whispers. “I just… show me if I’m doing it wrong.”
“You won’t.” I thread my fingers through his hair, gently. It’s as soft as I imagined, those days where I get lost in watching him work from my corner of our office, pretending to take a phone call when I was really thinking about this moment, or any moment like it. “Take me, Cade. I’m yours.”
He leans in, breath ghosting over my aching cock.
Then his tongue—Cade’s perfect pink tongue—licks a broad stripe up the underside of me, nervous but starved.
He circles the head, lapping at the precum beading there, and the shy little moan he makes lands between my ribs, deep in my chest. My grip tightens in his hair.
“That’s it,” I breathe. “Just like that.”
Cade gains confidence fast. He continues taking me into his mouth, lips stretching around my girth, sinking down inch by inch until he chokes softly.
Seeing his spit pool on my groin drives me wild.
The wet heat, the imperfect suction, the way his eyes water but he doesn’t pull back—it wrecks me.
He wrecks me. I stay focused on Cade sucking my cock, something I’ve envisioned too many times, my heart hammering.
I fall harder with every bob of his head, I swear I do.
He looks up at me through those lashes, mouth full of my cock, and something cracks open in my chest. This brilliant, shy, rule-following man is on his knees for me, trying so hard, wanting so much.
Love. It hits me like a freight train. I’m falling in love with Cade right here, watching him suck me with eager devotion and raw hunger.
He finds a rhythm, stroking what he can’t take deep, tongue working the underside on every pass upward.
Saliva drips down my shaft, slick and filthy.
He hollows his cheeks and sucks harder, one hand cupping my balls, rolling them gently like he’s memorizing the noises I make, the set of my eyes on him, and every other moment.
I want to tell him he doesn’t have to. That there will be more of this, more of these moments between us, but I don’t want to break the perfect spell we’re under.
“God, Cade—your mouth. So fucking good.” My voice is wrecked when I praise him, but it’s so worth it seeing his cheeks flood with color.
He likes the praise, and that makes me even harder.
I cup his cheek, feeling the bulge of my cock, thumb stroking the corner of his perfect, stretched lips.
He leans into the touch, eyes fluttering half-closed in pleasure.
I’m losing control. The sight of him, those slutty glasses getting knocked crooked by my thighs, the wet slurping sounds I've only ever heard when we went out to eat, the little whimpers vibrating around my cock from his throat, it’s too much. Too perfect.
“I’m close,” I warn, hips twitching. “You don’t have to—” I swallowed him, but I don’t expect that for his first time. I don’t expect him to do a damn thing he isn’t ready to do.
But Cade doubles down, taking me deeper, throat glugging around me in a way that makes my mind spin.
One hand presses on my thigh, urging me on.
I come with a guttural groan, pulsing hard into his mouth.
Cade swallows frantically, some spilling past his lips, using timid fingers to push it back in, and he keeps sucking me, seeing me through it until I’m oversensitive and shaking.
When he finally pulls off, lips swollen and shiny, a thread of saliva and cum connect us for a second.
So. Fucking. Hot. I haul him up, sliding my hands under his arms, and pull him onto me, falling back.
My lips crash against his, and I kiss him filthy.
Tasting myself on his tongue only makes me want him more.
We collapse together, limbs tangled, breathing synced.
I hold him tight, pressing kisses to his hair, his forehead, anywhere I can reach while I thank him, praise him, tell him how good he did, how amazing I feel, how happy I am to be with him.
All of it, I don’t let a single word go unsaid.
A few minutes later, he falls asleep, face buried in my neck like he’s hiding from the world, or like I’m his safe place.
I doze off too, and hope I don’t wake to realize Cade Mercer was just a dream.
I wake to an empty bed, sheets cold where he was, where he should be. Panic flares for half a second before I hear the quiet scratch of a pen from down the hall. His home office.
I pull on pants and pad toward the light spilling under the door. Cade sits at his desk in nothing but those pajama pants, glasses perched on his nose, grading papers like the responsible professor he is. The sight would be adorable if it weren’t so obviously an escape.
I lean against the doorframe. “Hey. Stop.”
He looks up, pen freezing. “Stop what?”
“Whatever this is.” I step inside, arms crossed. “Running away. Avoiding me. Stop.”
Cade sets the pen down carefully. His shoulders tense.
“I wasn’t— I just needed to think. Tonight was…
a lot. I don’t know how to do this, Noah.
I don’t know how to be what you need while navigating this new version of myself,” he admits.
“I haven’t even told my family… anything.
And every time I let go and think I can be the person who has a serious relationship, the panic comes right back. ”
I cross the room and spin his chair to face me, bracing my hands on the armrests so he’s caged in. “I know you’re scared. I know this is new for you. But you don’t get to run every time the feelings get big. Not from me, not anymore.”
He stares at me, eyes wide and vulnerable behind his glasses. I watch the push and pull war across his face—fear versus want, rules versus desire.
Finally, his shoulders slump. He reaches up, fingers brushing my jaw like he did to me earlier tonight when he was in my mouth. “Okay,” he whispers. “No more running. I’m… I’m in this. With you. I’m here.”
Relief rushes through me, followed by a fresh wave of heat. I lean down and kiss him, sealing the promise. His hands slide up my chest, pulling me closer.
“It’s still early. Let’s go out. Let’s have a meal. Let’s talk.” I kiss him. “For real this time.”