2. Cade
CADE
I knew she'd come.
Heard the footsteps slow outside my door. Stop. Start again. Then stop. The kind of hesitation that means someone's arguing with themselves—and losing.
The shower ran cold minutes ago. I toweled off.
Wrapped the towel around my waist and left it there because getting dressed felt like admitting defeat, and I don't do that.
The glass doors to the balcony stand open.
Ocean breeze moves through the room, cool against my skin.
Moonlight spills across the marble floor in silver streaks.
I waited.
The footsteps started again. Slower this time. Passed my door.
Then came back.
She stepped inside.
Red hair catches the moonlight first—loose, messy, longer than I realized.
Falls past her shoulders in waves that shift when she moves.
The nightgown is cotton. Thin cotton. Clings where it shouldn't, pulls across her breasts when she breathes.
I see the outline of her nipples through the fabric.
My cock responds immediately, pushing against the towel.
Her feet are bare. Freckles dust across her nose, her cheeks, disappear under the neckline of that nightgown. I want to know where they stop. Want to map every single one with my mouth.
She's staring at the empty bed like she expected to find me there. Her shoulders are tense. Arms held tight against her sides. Hair still damp at the ends—she showered too. The thought does something to my pulse. Nora. Wet. Naked. Twenty feet away from where I'm standing.
I step out of the shadows near the bathroom door.
"I knew you couldn't resist, sweet stepsister."
She whirls. Eyes wide. Mouth open. The nightgown shifts with the movement and I track the way it slides across her hips, catches on her thighs. Her gaze lands on my chest. Drops to the towel. Snaps back up to my face so fast I almost laugh.
Almost.
My pulse is hammering. Blood rushing south. The towel does nothing to hide what she does to me and I don't bother trying. Let her look. Let her see exactly what walking into my room does.
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. Nothing comes out.
Two days of watching her talk fast and sharp—deflecting with jokes, hiding behind sarcasm, filling every silence like she's afraid of what might live there—and now she's speechless. Standing in my bedroom in a nightgown that shows everything and hides nothing, and she can't find a single word.
The wanting sharpens. Gets teeth.
I take a step toward her. Then another. The space between us shrinks. Ten feet. Eight. Six. Her eyes track the movement. Pupils blown wide, black swallowing blue. Her throat moves when she swallows.
"The door is wide open, baby." I nod toward the hallway behind her. "You can leave if you want to."
She doesn't move.
"Do you want to?"
Her hands twist in the fabric of her nightgown. Knuckles white. Breathing shallow. She looks at the door. Looks back at me.
"I don't know what I want."
No sarcasm. No deflection. Just raw honesty stripped of every defense she's been using since she got here. The rawness gets past something in my chest. Cracks through.
My jaw tightens. Hands flex at my sides. The towel is the only thing between us and I'm done with it.
I reach down. Untuck the edge. Let it drop.
Her gaze falls. Stays. Her lips part.
My cock is hard. Has been since I heard her footsteps. Seeing her look—seeing exactly where her eyes go and how long they stay there—makes it worse. Makes everything tighter, hotter, harder to hold still.
"And now?"
She drags her gaze back up. Face flushed. Breathing faster. "I've never?—"
"I know. I heard you downstairs."
Blurted it out in front of all three of us like the words surprised her as much as they surprised us. I don't have a boyfriend. I'm still a virgin. The memory sits in my chest. Lives there. My stepsister. Twenty-one years old. Never been touched.
And she walked into my room.
"I don't know what I want," she says again. Quieter this time. Almost a whisper.
I close the distance. Two steps. She tips her head back to look at me and the angle stretches her throat. Pale skin. Freckles scattered across her collarbone. I want my mouth there. Want to feel her pulse against my tongue.
"Touch me." My voice comes out lower than I mean it to. "Let's see where it goes."
Her hands lift. Hover. Fingers tremble in the air between us. She's staring at my chest like she's memorizing it—the tattoo on my left pec, the muscle, the breadth. Her palms flatten. Press. Land against my skin.
Heat.
Every point of contact registers through my entire body. Her hands are small. Cold. Shaking. She spreads her fingers wide, slides them up toward my shoulders, then back down. Testing. Learning. Her thumb brushes my nipple and I feel my jaw lock.
She gets braver. Traces the lines of the tattoo. Follows the curve of muscle down to my ribs. Her touch is tentative, curious, unpracticed—and every imperfect second of it makes the wanting worse. Makes my pulse pound. Makes my cock ache.
Her hands move lower. Skim my abdomen. Hesitate at my hip bones.
Then drop.
My hand catches her wrist.
She looks up. Eyes wide. "Did I?—"
"You didn't do anything wrong."
"Then why?—"
"Because if you touch me there, this ends a lot faster than either of us wants."
Her flush deepens. Spreads down her neck, bleeding into the hollow of her throat, painting the skin above her collarbones.
I can trace its path even through the thin cotton.
The fabric does nothing to hide it. She pulls her hand back—jerks it away like I burned her—and fists it against her stomach, knuckles white.
Silence stretches between us. Thick. Heavy. The kind that presses on your lungs. Outside, the ocean moves beyond the glass walls—waves hitting sand, dragging back, hitting again. Endless. Relentless. My heartbeat matches the rhythm.
"This is wrong." Her voice shakes. Cracks on the last word. "It's wrong, right?"
I hold her gaze. Don't blink. Don't look away.
"We're not related by blood, Nora."
Her name. Not baby. Not sweet stepsister. Just her name. Flat and serious and true. I need her to hear it without the games. Without the provocation. This matters.
She stares at me. Eyes wide, pupils blown. Searching my face for something—doubt, maybe. Hesitation. Guilt. Regret. She won't find it. I've got none of those things. Haven't had them since I saw her standing in the villa foyer two days ago with sand on her dress and panic in her eyes.
Her hand lifts again. Rises slow, trembling. Lands on my chest. Heavier this time. Palm flat. Fingers spread. Decided.
I move.
Wrap my hand around the back of her neck—skin warm, pulse hammering against my thumb—and pull her in.
My mouth crashes against hers. Hard. Hungry.
Forty-eight hours of watching her across tables and dance floors and ceremony aisles, of keeping my distance, of letting her come to me—all of it comes out at once.
No build-up. No soft first kiss. No gentle introduction. Just want. Just need. Just her.
She kisses me back.
Clumsy. Wrong angle. Inexperienced and it shows—her teeth catch my bottom lip and she pulls back with a startled sound, eyes flying open.
I don't let her go far. My hand tightens on her neck.
I tilt her head, adjust the angle, and try again.
She opens for me this time. Lets me in. Her lips part and the taste of her—sweet, warm, real—floods my senses.
Her hands fist in my hair. Nails scrape my scalp, sharp enough to sting, good enough to make me groan into her mouth. A sound rises from her throat—small, shocked, helpless—and it gets past every wall I wasn't guarding. Cracks through. Lodges somewhere deep in my chest and stays there.
I walk her backward. Three steps. Four. Her shoulders hit the wall beside the bed with a soft thump and I bracket her in.
Hands planted on either side of her head, fingers spread wide against cool plaster.
Body pressed against hers—chest to chest, thigh to thigh.
I can feel her heart hammering. Feel it against my ribs through the thin cotton.
Feel the softness of her breasts, the give of her stomach, the heat of her skin bleeding through the fabric. Every curve. Every breath.
My hands drop. Find the hem of her nightgown. Fist in the cotton. Pull up.
She lifts her arms. The fabric slides over her head. I toss it somewhere—don't care where. Don't care about anything except the woman in front of me wearing nothing but white cotton underwear that should be illegal.
Freckles. Everywhere. Scattered across her shoulders, down her arms, across the swell of her breasts. Her waist curves in. Hips flare. Thighs soft and pale and I want my hands on every inch.
She's staring at the floor. Arms twitching. Rising.
"Don't."
She freezes.
"You're fucking beautiful."
Her gaze snaps to mine. Eyes wide. Disbelieving.
"You are."
I hook my fingers in the waistband of her underwear. Slide them down. She steps out of them. Stands there completely bare, freckles and curves and red hair and I've never seen anything?—
My stepsister.
The thought lands hot. Adds charge. She walked into my room. Touched me first. Chose me.
I catch her hand, my fingers wrapping completely around her smaller one, and guide her backward across the room. The marble floor is cool under my bare feet, but her palm burns against mine, damp with nerves.
She sits on the edge of the mattress first, the sheets whispering under her weight, then scoots back until she's centered.
Moonlight slices through the open glass doors, painting her in sharp silver streaks that highlight every freckle on her shoulders, the soft dip of her waist, the way her breasts rise and fall with each shallow breath.
I commit it to memory—Nora, naked in my bed, blue eyes wide and fixed on me like I'm both salvation and ruin. She trusts me. She wants me. And she has no fucking clue what I'm about to do to her.
I know exactly.