Chapter 24
C H A P T E R2 4
Punish Me
Ella
The Present
3:03 a.m.
I was reeling after Cade finished recounting his version of that fateful summer night where everything between us went downhill. Then he listened as I filled the gaps and explained to him what I saw, what I thought, what I felt, and what I experienced.
Thunder struck outside like the final haunting note in a melancholic melody. In the soft glow of the candlelight, his features softened but remained an inch brittle, like the pages of a beautifully aged classical book. I longed to caress him, feel the familiar curve of his jaw, the bridge of his straight nose, the length of his long lashes, the plumpness of those full lips, and welcome him back into my arms so my heart, which never stopped yearning for its companion, could finally bask in solace.
Our gazes clashed like the rain crashing against the windows—profoundly, jarringly, and inevitably with no signs of halting. Weapons lowered and armours unfastened, we were now on the same page. There was no more secrecy and no more pain.
All our cards were on the table.
Finally, we could begin the road to healing, though I knew it wouldn’t be an easy one. The past three months were extremely transformative for us. In many ways, we were still the same Ella and Cade. But in other ways, we’d changed past the point of no return.
“I’m so sorry, Cade. So sorry you had to go through that,” I murmured with sincereness. “You didn’t deserve it. But most of all, I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there for you. I should have stopped and listened to you. Not just then but in all the weeks that followed when you tried to talk to me.”
I believed every bit of his story. He’d never been a liar—despite me thinking he was for the last three months given what I witnessed at the party.
The fact that four individuals were responsible for roofying him with the intention of hurting—or worse, killing him—filled me with murderous rage. No one hurt my querido . No one hurt him and lived to speak about it.
After tonight, I’d do everything in my power to find those guys and show them why Montardor’s fixer called me Nemesis. Cade was scary, but I could be scarier when someone put their unwanted hands on my loved ones—especially him.
Cade’s shaky exhale resonated prominently between us. He’d waited so long to hear me say those words—to offer him some form of comfort. Before anything, I was his best friend and his most trusted confidante. Not being able to confide in me because I shut him out due to my own pain did a huge number on his psyche.
He once told me my touch was like a remedy. I wished I could feel the scars on his person—the ones I left knowing and unknowingly—and heal them with my feathering kisses.
“Thank you for saying that,” he said thickly. “I…It means a lot, Ellie.”
“Did you ever find out who those masked men were?”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “No. I spent hours with Josh running through the security footage of that night and they were impossible to identify. None of my friends recall seeing any of them at the party. You and I were the only ones who bumped into those fuckers.”
The picture was still fuzzy, but the puzzle pieces were beginning to connect. “I never texted you to meet me in your room. In fact, I think one of them snatched my phone when he slammed into me…Afterwards, I found it destroyed right next to my car door. He must have done so after sending you that message.”
How they managed to unlock my phone to even send that text was beyond me.
“Do you think they’re Vance’s enemies?”
“At first, I thought it was some lowlives my uncle pissed off, and they were choosing to exact revenge by hurting his family. But I’ve spent weeks thinking about the situation and the only thing I can conclude is that it was personal. Someone clearly has a vendetta against me and I can’t figure out who it might be. All I know is that they were desperate enough to use you and the…other girl…to get to me.”
He said ‘other girl’ carefully to not ruffle any feathers.
I swallowed.
“Ella.” Gauging my reaction, he slowly lifted his hands to cradle my face. When I didn’t push him away, he laid his forehead to mine. It had always been his way of grounding himself. The way I used to touch the heart-shaped aquamarine around my neck. “I never cheated on you. Everything that happened that night was because I’d been drugged. I truly thought it was you in the room with me. And when I realized it wasn’t…Baby, I’m so sorry.”
“I know.” He was so close that I could count every individual lash—the way I used to when we lay in bed together—and knew that the number would be close to two hundred and eight on each. Give or take a few. “I believe you and it’s okay. To be honest, I feel pretty bad for the girl, too.”
“Although the night is a bit of a blur in my mind, I remember her saying something like, ‘ You’re not him, ’ with a shocked expression when she turned on the lights. My guess is someone urged her to my room under the guise of hooking up. And instead of it being whoever she was supposed to meet, it was me.”
“And you went back to your room thinking I was going to be there.” My fingers turned to fists on my thighs. “Essentially, like me, she was just another pawn in a game none of us understand.”
“Exactly.”
A thought flitted into my mind and I paled. Cade said the men who attacked him were wearing Guy Fawkes masks. Just like the one who attacked me in Balthazar Building.
“Cade, what are the odds that the four masked men from that night are linked to the one from tonight?”
Surprised, he jerked back, blinking. “You think the one who pushed you down the stairs is one of the guys from that night.”
It wasn’t a question, rather a statement. We both didn’t believe in coincidences.
“Yes, I forgot to tell you earlier, but he also wore a Guy Fawkes mask. I’m not certain if it’s an actual Initiator. Maybe someone who snuck into the school and posed as one.”
Cade ran his tongue over his teeth. “And you said he had the same tattoo and watch as Kian Wilson?”
“Unless the piece of shit was magically resurrected from the dead…” I trailed off and Cade’s gaze rose to mine. “It’s not far-fetched to assume that tonight’s encounter and what happened over the summer are connected, right?”
If Kian Wilson had people who gave two fucks about him, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities that they’d want to avenge him a handful of days after his death. What better opportunity than the night of Josh’s party to get their revenge, when our guards were down and Cade and me least expected it?
“No.” Realization dawned upon Cade. “It’s not. It would actually make a lot of sense.”
“I thought we were discreet the night we, you know, butchered Kian like a pig for slaughter.”
“We were,” Cade said. “It was supposed to be a clean job. Kian had no family, no friends, and no lovers. Obviously, something was amiss. I’ll speak with Josh and Uncle Vance tomorrow. See if we can dig up some more information on him.”
That sounded like a good plan. “Okay, well, we should probably…”
Head out was what I wanted to stay but stopped short. Right now, I wanted nothing more than to stay here, close to him. And based on the way he peered up at me, with softness and a hint expectant, I knew he wanted the same thing too.
“Ella.” He dragged his knuckles down my cheek in reverence. “I’m so sorry for everything that happened to you. I assumed you were angry and resentful because you thought I cheated on you. I had no idea it was because you were also pregnant and miscarried the same night. Fuck, I wish…I wish things were different. I would have wanted nothing more than to be by your side.”
I grabbed his hand and squeezed affectionately. “Let’s not dwell over the past anymore or comparing our sufferings. To be honest, I don’t really like to talk or think about this summer. After losing the baby and you, I turned into a shell of a person. There were many times where I drank and took drugs to numb myself. Until I snapped out of it and realized that wallowing in my misery wasn’t helping. I never told my parents what happened either. They just assumed I was devastated over our breakup. I figured it was better that they didn’t know the whole truth.
“It took time, but I managed to pick up my broken pieces and glue myself back together. And you know what? I like the version I am today. Tougher, unyielding, and matured from the hardships. Please know that I’m not mad—especially after understanding what really happened—and I don’t have any ill will towards you. No more glancing backwards anymore. I just want to move forward, Cade.”
With you.
I didn’t say it out loud, but he heard the request between the lines.
With my words, I finally set us free from the shackles of our wretched past.
“No more glancing backwards.” He kissed my bandaged hand. “You would have made a wonderful mom, Ella.”
“You would have made a wonderful dad, too. The way you are with Livvy, I never had a doubt.”
Cade’s relationship with Olivia—his cousin slash adoptive sister now—was so wholesome. She still saw him as her primary caretaker, asking him to take her out for ice cream, play with her Barbies, read her stories, and braid her hair every night before bed. The latter was crucial. If anyone besides Cade braided Olivia’s hair, her shoulders sagged with sadness and she adopted the sweetest puppy expression.
“Thank you,” Cade mumbled. “For everything.”
I gulped when he traced his thumb to the divot at the base of my throat, silently reminding me where his necklace belonged. “The competition is probably over.”
“Fuck the competition,” he replied huskily, watching with stark hunger as I bit my bottom lip. “I only came for you.”
I mock-gasped. “You don’t say.”
His lips twitched in the barest smirk, soused in a cocktail of arrogance and cockiness. “Since we’re being honest, I should tell you that Shaun switched my team number with Jamie Callahan so we could get paired together.”
“Oh, Shaun,” I deadpanned. “Our lord and saviour. What would we do without him?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
We shared a small laugh that was overshadowed by the sound of the downpour battering against the walls of the motherhouse.
Cade raised our hands and slowly trickled his fingers down the length of mine like water rivulets over the slope of a leaf after a rainstorm. His strokes over my palm lines were a reminder that he was branded there, too. In my history. Past, present, and future.
“From the moment I first saw you standing in the alleyway to the moment where you first touched me, you’ve been in my blood,” he murmured. “And from the second you called me beautiful and said you loved me even after I showed you my monstrous scars, you’ve owned me, Ella. I’m ruled by you and I wouldn’t have it any other way, baby.”
Arrows dipped in gold struck my heart and unfurled ribbons of emotions that made it difficult to speak around the lump in my throat.
When our eyes connected, I noticed how lighter his blues appeared now that his demons were expunged. This was him at peace after battling for so long. Our expressions mirrored one another.
“I never stopped loving you, Ella. Not for a single second.” He pressed a tender kiss to my left wrist, over my fluttering pulse. “You’re the only girl I’ve ever wanted. The only one I’ll ever want and love. You’re it for me, mo chuisle .”
God, this man. He was as beautiful as ever with his vulnerability and poetic words. With his protectiveness and prophetic devotion. With his lowered defences and incessant love for me.
I was unable to resist him any longer.
“I’ve always dreamed of you, too, Cade. Ever since the first moment I saw you,” I confessed. “And in the time we were apart, I still dreamed of you every night.”
“You dreamt about me even when you hated me?”
“I tried to hate you. For a while, I think I convinced myself I did…But it never really worked.”
One of his hands stole to the back of my neck and he tugged me closer, erasing the fictional distance between us. “How many men have you been with since me?” he asked raggedly, his breath mingling with mine. “How many do I have to kill?”
Such an unhinged mob prince. I smiled and swept my finger over his mouth, snagging his bottom lip and pulling until the inked ELLA was visible. I wanted to experience the feel of it as he sucked my clit. “Zero. I haven’t been with anyone since you, querido . I only lied to toy with you.”
His grip around my nape tightened. “You little brat.”
I sank my orange claws into his jaw with intention. After hearing Cade’s side of the story, I knew I was the only one for him. But the green-eyed envy monster residing inside of me needed to hear it aloud. “What about you?”
He arched a dark eyebrow, mirth swirling in his expression. “I’ve spent the last three months chasing you around the city. You think I have time for other women, sweetheart?”
“Good answer.” I dragged my fingers down his throat, inciting a full-body shiver to tumble through him. His kryptonite was me running my nails lightly over his skin. It tamed him like nothing else. “Otherwise, I’d be forced to do some damage. You don’t want to play with my bad side, Cade.”
“Pretty girl,” he whispered. “I love your bad side.”
“It’s sick how obsessed you are with me.” And I loved it.
“If being obsessed with you is a sickness,” he rasped with a raw, undone quality. “Then I never want to be cured. Continue to own me, to live inside of me, to never stop being mine, Ella.”
A flash of coruscation illuminated our space, highlighting our hungry expressions and the fierce want rippling in the air.
With desperation, we lunged for one another.
A clap of thunder followed just as our mouths crashed together with needy sounds, two long lost lovers finally reunited after wandering forever in search of their halves.
The first kiss was titillating and my tipped world finally recentered on its orbit.
The second kiss was a dominant, reclaiming one. The kind that said you’re-mine-and-mine-alone-and-there’s-no-changing-that.
The third kiss was filled with absolution and hot lust. Every cell in my body vibrated with sheer bliss. My mind was spinning with a flurry of sensations, from his masculine cologne wrapping around me like a warm cocoon, to his bold hands chasing the curves of my body like recommitting them to memory, and to his taste melting on my tongue like sugared sin.
“ Ella .” The sound of my name in that gravelly tone had me weak in the knees. He hoisted me up his body and I wrapped my legs around his waist. “I’ve missed you so much, baby.”
We stumbled and landed against a wall, causing the picture frames to shake with the force. I raked my fingers through his hair and sucked his bottom lip with a moan, running my tongue over the inked ELLA tattoo. “I’ve missed you, too. So much, Cade.”
We exchanged wet, greedy kisses, the salacious kind that set my entirety ablaze. It was animalistic the way our tongues met and hips ground together. We never lost the ability to drive each other wild.
His lips roamed down to my jaw and neck, leaving open-mouth kisses and love bites that made my toes curl and my eyes close as I panted. Every roll of his hips against mine was divine. My thong dampened and my clit throbbed. I wanted to surrender and let him do unholy things to my body. I wanted him to resuscitate me, make me come alive with his touch. I wanted him to leave his marks all over me so everyone knew we never stopped belonging to one another.
Cade’s mouth kissed up a path up to my ear, breathing in my scent like it was his oxygen, his hands travelling from my thighs to my breasts, shaping them over my knit bralette with rough squeezes. I moaned under my breath and clenched my legs around his waist, wanting more .
“Do you know what it was like living without you for three months?” He licked the shell of my ear and bit my lobe. “It was torture, Ella.” He wrapped his hand around my neck and squeezed, turning me breathless. “You tormented me, made me live without my heart, and now I want to fucking punish you for it.”
I watched him through a pleasure-curtained gaze. “So punish me.”
His nostrils flared. “What did you say?”
“Punish me for keeping myself away from you. Give me your pain and wrath. I can handle it.” I licked my lips for the taste of him. “I want it, mi corazón.”
Cade released a strangled noise and kissed me voraciously, my plea springing him into motion. He ripped my cropped leather jacket off my body and pushed up my bralette, taking a moment to slap my tits. I used to be self-conscious of my smaller breasts, but the way he groaned while worshipping them, like I was truly perfection, bled that insecurity out. Now he was showing his appreciation by licking, sucking, and tugging them between his teeth. “Fucking hell, I’ve missed these little tits. Missed the taste and the feel of them so much.”
“Don’t stop,” I begged, redirecting his face to my lips so I could kiss him senseless. “Please don’t stop.”
“I want to put you on your knees and shove my cock deep inside your mouth until you cry pretty tears and moan like a bad girl,” he rasped, smoldering blue eyes hooded with desire. “You love having your face fucked, don’t you? I know it gets your pussy wet when I treat you like my personal fuckdoll.” His frantic fingers unbuttoned my high-waisted jeans as he pressed more dark promises against my swollen lips. “I’m going to do it all while praising and degrading you. And you’ll only beg for more, hm?” He pinched my nipples and slapped my ass. I moaned and nodded. “Yeah, I know you will, baby. If you promise to behave, I’ll even lick your pussy and have you screaming loud enough for every soul in here to know how gone you are for your princepin. You with me, Ella?”
I swayed at the imagery he spun like gold. I loved his dominance and ruthlessness in bed, and the way he always put me back together after shattering me into tiny little pieces.
It occurred to me that no matter how much time I spent fixing my broken insides, I was only ever whole in his presence.
Cade Killian Remington never stopped being the other half of me.
“ Yes .” I trembled when his hand snuck into my thong. He found my clit and circled until I whimpered. “I’m with you, Cade.”
“You can’t unlove me, can you? Just like I can’t unlove you, Ella.”
He wanted to hear the three words. They tumbled around in my mouth. I wasn’t able to echo them. Something halted me, but I felt them irrevocably. “I…”
Cade read my face and it must have been enough for him. Next second, he was grabbing my jaw with one hand and my throat with the other, applying gentle pressure. I loved when he choked me lightly. “Undress me, my dirty little princess. Come get what only I can give you.”
He moved back enough for me to slide down to my feet but still be pinned between him and the wall. I made quick work of his leather jacket—the fact that it was painted with Property of Ximena and he still wore it like a statement was swoon-worthy—and dropped it to the floor. A trinkling sound caught my attention. When I glanced down, I saw that two wrapped orange lollipops fell out of his pocket.
The same lollipops he gifted me every month in the form of a bouquet.
“How come you have these with you?” I frowned.
Cade didn’t meet my eyes. “I…I keep them with me because I miss you and in case we run into each other and…”
You take me back.
My heart twisted painfully. Why was that so incredibly sweet? And why did I feel like weeping? All our encounters from the past three months flooded my mind. I recalled how I continuously avoided and brushed him off, meanwhile he’d been carrying my favourite candy in his pockets on the off-chance that things changed between us.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” That soft edge returned to his deep voice and I almost wailed.
“You were right.” I inched my fingers under his black hoodie, slowly pushing it up his muscular torso. “Although I was never with anyone else, I did search for you in every single man I met. They were never you. No one can be you. You’re irreplaceable, querido .”
The masculine moan he released when I stroked his nipples caused another pulse of wetness to coat my thong. “Did you also feel lost…without me?”
“Of course I was lost without you.” I dragged off his hoodie and my knit bralette, throwing them over his leather jacket. “You’re my sanctuary, Cade.”
When I drank in his nakedness, I paused. Years of playing hockey and fighting in the ring roped his body with thick muscles. But now he seemed even more robust than when I last saw him. Furthermore, black and colourful ink swirled all over his skin, new tattoos that weren’t there before. Wanting a better look, I grabbed the candle from the table and brought it close to him.
The warm glow melted away the shadows and allowed me to clearly see the tattoo of a realistic wolf, menacing with black fur and amber eyes, inked on his right pectoral. I tentatively drew my palm over his right arm, where he boasted a sleeve. Phases of the moon at his shoulders bled into a combination of a lion, goddess-looking twins, and justice scales on his upper arm. My breath hitched in my throat when I understood it was in honour of my zodiac signs. My sun, my moon, and my rising. His forearm was covered in orange begonias and the depiction of Nemesis, who looked eerily like myself. His right knuckles were inked with roman numerals that stated my birthdate.
And on his ribs, a pair of familiar eyes stared back at me. It took me a second too long to realize they were mine. The same long lashes, the same sharp eyeliner, and the same blue and brown swirling in my right eye.
If it weren’t for the arm banded around my waist keeping me steady, I would have fallen to the ground in a puddle. “W-When did you get these?”
“During the summer.” He watched me intensely, soaking in my reaction with satisfaction.
“Because you missed me?”
He nodded, pressing a kiss to my forehead when my face crumpled upon seeing the X on his hip bone. Exactly like the K on mine, in his honour. “And because I belong to you. Always.”
“Cade…” This man did everything in his power to show his dedication and never give up on winning me back. He knew in this lifetime, we were meant to be. “ Eres tan hermoso . Inside and out.”
The most beautiful thing about my dark prince was his soul. It shone like the brightest star and guided me home like my very own Polaris.
“ Mi vida .” He clutched my face, wracked with emotions. “You have no idea how much I’ve yearned for you.”
Oh, Cade, I think I’m beginning to see just how much.
I started kissing my way down his inked body while he groaned, grazing his nipples with my teeth, nipping the hard valleys of his six-pack, and licking the X tattoo until I landed on my knees in front of him.
Peering up at him, I undid his belt buckle. “Are you ready to punish me, Cade?”