Chapter 21 #2
“How did you know that?” Tara prods. I want to know, too. Everyone likes Cade but I’ve never seen Cade be a confidant to anyone, the way I am to Tara, and vice-versa. My skin heats at the idea that there’s another layer to Cade that I’ve yet to see.
“He’s a family friend. He knows my uncle, and cousin.
I think they sold him his house, post-divorce.
” He shrugs. “We have a drink here and there sometimes.” He looks nervously up at Tara who is aggressively shaking her ankle, her shiny black pump dizzying me.
“I could, uh, invite you? We could all go?”
Tara gets to her feet and swipes the phone from my hand. “You’re a gem, Cade.” She blows us each a kiss and pulls the door open to leave, but I stop her for a moment.
“Hey–” I look at Cade, who seems to know exactly what I’m asking, and nods. I smile at my friend. “He and I are… dating.”
She smiles. “Good for you two.” Her emerald eyes pinch down on Cade. “If you think of anything else you can tell me about Jesse,” she fans herself, “let me know. Noah has my number, get it from him and text me.” She looks directly at me now. “Stay on him to set up the drinks.” Then she’s gone.
Cade smiles. “We’re dating.”
I bob my head. “We are. So that means I’m sleeping over tonight.”
Cade sighs. “Good. I’ve slept like shit the last few nights without you.”
We picked up our favorite Thai food, and it’s been growing cold in the Styrofoam clamshell for the last hour and a half while we’ve been literally making out and dry humping each other like teenagers.
It all started with Cade paying and tipping the guy at the register.
He’s also the owner, which everyone downtown knows, and he works like a million hours a year practically, with his wife by his side.
They have the best food, but they’re also the best fucking people.
Like, ever. I send them a Christmas gift that’s better than what I send my folks. Seriously.
I went to get some napkins from the condiment bar, because sometimes the sauce leaks and no one wants the responsibility of running a load of dishtowels at nine o’clock at night so the tamarind sauce doesn’t stain.
He didn’t do it because I was there, and in fact, he did it when he thought I wouldn’t see. Which only makes it that much hotter. Generous, humble and private? Better than a good ass—but he’s got that, too.
Cade put two hundred dollars down on a sixty dollar tab.
And if that wasn’t enough, he told Mr. Lek to tell his daughter good luck on her treatment.
I’d watched the whole exchange with a frantically beating heart and when I’d asked him what they talked about, he didn’t even mention the money.
He just said that Mr. Lek’s daughter, Mali, was starting chemo, and that he’d been trying to patronize their establishment more frequently, to help with treatment costs.
That brings us to here. Cade’s house.
We somehow managed to get back upstairs, to his bedroom, but I won’t lie. It’s been a blur of moans, gnashed teeth and twining tongues, grabby hands and broken breaths. It’s been goddamn hot, because Cade is so hot.
I shove his chinos down, and get to work on my own belt, shucking my jeans past my hips. Cade’s glasses lie crooked on his nose, and I hook them with a finger, tugging them off. He grabs my wrist. “Wait.”
I nudge my nose along his, and kiss the apple of his cheek. “We can go slow.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m not scared, Noah.”
I kiss him again, loving the way his bottom lip is flared and pink from me. “It’s okay if you are.”
He slaps my chest. “I’m not scared. It’s more like… I’m a thirteen-year-old boy with my first Playboy and—yeah, we need to go slow still. I’ll get used to this—and you—and I’ll, I’ll be able to last longer. I will. But right now I’m just so–”
“Excited,” I finish, winking at him before pressing my mouth to his, licking at his insecurities and swallowing them down. “And I think that would be a Playgirl, wouldn’t it?”
He shakes his head. “Technically, neither. It probably would’ve been like, a Reader’s Digest with a piece on a young Salman Rushdie or something.”
Now I shake my head. “There is no world in which Salman Rushdie is ever within acceptable age-range for you and honestly, Cade, you need to get past your Rushdie kink.”
We laugh, the spike of ease amidst the heat and desire completely normal for us. It sometimes overwhelms me how easy things are with Cade. It was never like this with Eli, and with Eli, I thought we were locked in… forever. I’m so glad I was wrong then so I can be right now.
I nip his bottom lip and reach down, fisting my cock, then collecting his. My fist can hardly hold us both, but I manage a few ragged strokes up and down. Cade slaps my chest with a strong hand, and I pause. “Noah—”
“Slow, I know.”
He nods but I can see there’s more, the pinch of his lips and draw of his brow—there’s something else. “What?” I ask him.
He summons a deep breath, and I hold him tighter. “I want to go slow, yeah but… can we have sex tonight?”
“It’s too soon,” I tell him, because I believe it could scare him, taking that step. But Cade strokes his fingers over the ink on my wrist, almost like it’s a comfort for him.
“I’m not scared. I’m not gonna run. I’m telling you, I want this.” He swallows, eyes dropping to the curve of my lips. “I want you to fuck me.”
I take his hands, and pin them above him on the bed, grinding my cock against his. I let my lips tease his before I give him my answer. “You’ll fuck me. And when you’re really ready, then you can try it.”
I expect a fight. But Cade merely nods. “Okay. Yes. Now—” He snaps his eyes shut. “Give me a break before I ruin myself.”
Fresh out of the shower, I drag his comb through his hair as we sit naked on the edge of the bed. It’s a tender, slow moment, and something I want Cade to have before we start.
“Did you offer to let me fuck you because you think I’m a top?” I ask him, dragging the comb gently through his hair. It’s going to be mussed, air-dried and sweaty in a matter of minutes, but still, this slow moment allows for more conversation, more comfort.
He pumps white lotion into his palm, and rubs it into one elbow. “You just… you seem like someone who wants to be in control.”
I drop the comb onto the bed with a thunk, and twist him by the shoulders until he completely turns to face me. “I like dominance. I dream of bending you over your desk and fucking you until you spray all over all those papers.”
His eyes flutter closed as I wrap my hand around his balls, and give them a tight, short tug.
“But I dream of being at your disposal, Cade. Seeing the ways in which you want to control me, take from me, whatever it is. Top. Bottom. For you, the right person, my person,” I touch his chest, over his heart.
“I’m anything and everything I need to be. For you.”
He kisses me, his tongue making languid strokes against mine, soft moans effusing with stiff groans. After a moment, I put space between us and tell him one last thing before we start. “I’ll guide you.”
I find myself in the center of his bed, lights out but for the moonlight that rushes in through the open curtains.
We’re both completely naked as he lowers himself over me, our cocks brushing as our mouths come together.
After the kiss, he rocks to his knees, and I take in Cade Mercer and his glasses (which he put back on and fuck if it’s not driving me wild), with his huge hard-on, about to fuck me dry.
I’m kind of speechless.
“Can I— Can I rim you first?” Cade asks, and just the question makes him so red he’s nearly purple. I stroke myself, hard and leaking, and questionably close to the edge now that I know Cade wants to eat me out.