One Funeral (No Weddings #2)(3)
He nodded but didn’t elaborate. Instead, he continued to watch me. His gaze held no sexual heat but had a curious intensity, like he was trying to read me.
I took a sip of my coffee, my gaze drifting down to a row of ivory-frosted red velvet cupcakes as I fought all the worries pinging around in my head that had kept me up through the night. When I glanced back up, Cade had moved.
I gasped when he embraced me from the side, pulling me close. The heat he gave off rolled through me like a crashing wave of fire, stealing my breath away. I closed my eyes, turning into him. Bracing myself for fear I’d melt right into him, I pushed my palms onto his chest and looked up into his eyes.
They were a bright electric blue in this light, mesmerizing. He tightened his grip around my body, which was good, because my knees began to shake.
“I can’t think when you do this.” A whisper was all I could manage.
“Good. Stop thinking.”
We stared at each other for long seconds.
He lifted his hand, brushing a stray lock of hair off of my face. “You sure you’re ready for tonight?”
I frowned. “I don’t know. I came to my kitchen for therapy. Well, besides needing merchandise for customers. But baking seemed to help me until you showed up.”
He slid his arms down to my lower back, caging me in his hold. “And then what happened?”
Through a deep breath, I tried to crystallize the thoughts and fears rampant in my mind. “Chaos,” I admitted. “Me wanting you, feeling like the luckiest girl in the world—you know how broken I am, and still, you want me. Then, worried my level of brokenness might break us too. Then I go back to wanting you again.”
His lips curved into a smirk. “Well, I like the ‘me wanting you’ part.”
I slapped his chest and scowled as I lowered my gaze to the floor. “Be serious, Cade. I’m f*cked up.”
“You are not f*cked up.” He dropped his head and leaned sideways until I looked at him. “Look, we’re together in this, you and me. It’s okay to feel scared and confused—I feel the same.”
With a furrowed brow, I dropped my forehead onto his chest, angry that I couldn’t be better than the wreck I constantly felt like.
He tucked a finger under my chin and forced my gaze to meet his. “Think you can take a leap of faith with me?”
We stood on the precipice of a cliff higher than I’d ever imagined being on. The water was so far down I couldn’t see the bottom. But we’d never find completion, never soar through the air, unless we took the leap and faced the plunge. We had to trust each other. Trust in ourselves.
I was ready to dive off the cliff—as long as Cade held my hand. I needed to stop all the self-deprecating second-guessing. I swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes.”
“Good.” He tapped his finger on the end of my nose. “Now have I told you lately that I love your method of therapy?” He swiped up a red velvet cupcake, ripped the wrapper clean off, and shoved it into his mouth, whole. As his jaw worked, he closed his eyes and moaned.
I laughed and broke out of his arms, both hating and needing the distance between us. “Enjoying therapy much?”
Laughter rumbled in his chest as amusement danced in his eyes. Like a spoiled kid, he nodded, crimson-colored crumbs tumbling out of his mouth.
The gleam in his eyes shifted hotter when he swallowed down the last of the cupcake. “I’m going to need a lot more therapy.” His head bent forward, and he stalked toward me. “Hands-on therapy, Maestro.”
I turned and darted out of his reach. When he grabbed my apron as I rounded the back corner of the counter, I squealed. The moment I whirled around, he pushed me back and pinned me against the wall. I braced an arm onto the counter for balance but knocked a stack of metal bowls off the edge, and they clattered onto the floor.
His gaze devoured me, ravenous. He glanced at my lips, then up into my eyes as we huffed from the energy burst and sudden excitement.
A huge smile curved onto my face, hands-on therapy doing wonders already. “How about lip-to-lip therapy?”
His answer was a crushing kiss that took my breath away.
Nervous didn’t begin to describe my state of mind. Midday, Chloe sent me home. She’d claimed my vapid stare and zombie shuffle scared off the few customers brave enough to speak to me that morning. Exhausted from my sleepless night, I fell onto the bed facedown and didn’t move a muscle until well past six.
“Oh my God!” I burst up off the bed. I had just over an hour to get ready for my date. Minutes later, still groggy from dead-to-the-world sleep, I rested my forehead on the cold shower tile while I tried to wake up. Hot water pulsed down my back as I reflected on how far I’d come in almost two years: from shunning every man who’d dared glance in my direction to tonight—my first date in years.
But tonight wasn’t just a first date.
First dates were when you met a person to decide if you had compatibility. Cade and I already had that with our laughter and easy banter. Both of us were intelligent and driven when it came to business. Family was important to him, like mine had been to me.
A potential couple also used the initial meeting to assess whether or not they had chemistry. I snorted as I turned and began to soap my body down. The air between us sizzled with so much sensual heat, I risked spontaneous combustion every time he stepped into the room.