Unattainable (Undeniable, #3)(54)

My heart began to pound, my stomach fluttered, and tears pricked the back of my eyes. He pulled his hips back slightly.

“I don’t want to be like my mother,” I whispered.

“I’m not Jase,” he whispered back. “I’m not Hawk, I’m not my father, I’m not any of them.”

Staring up at his big brown eyes, I choked back a sob. He already was like his father, in so many, many ways. But at the same time, he wasn’t.

“Take it, Teacup,” he said hoarsely. “Be my girl.”

My breath left me. Be. His. Girl.

Be Cage’s girl.

My eight-year-old self, my nine-year-old self, my twelve-year-old self, my brokenhearted sixteen-year-old self, and my bitter, broken-down adult self, they all converged together…and…

I took it.

I grabbed hold of him and took as much of him into my mouth as I could. Both his hands were in my hair, gripping tightly, pulling painfully hard, and jerking his hips forward, gagging me, forcing me to take more, but I didn’t care.

I didn’t care because I wanted more. I wanted all of him. I always had; I’d never stopped.

My hands flew to his hips in an attempt to hold on to him. My nails dug down deep and deeper still until he was grunting in pain yet thrusting faster, and I couldn’t breathe and his grip on my hair had reached scalding levels and…

“Tegen,” he said, groaning, breathing in and out in hard, erratic bursts. “It’s never been like this for me, babe, never. Nobody’s ever been this good…felt this good.”

Oh God, I knew; I had always known. How f*cking long had I prayed for this moment? For as long as I could remember, forever even.

It had always been him. It would only ever be him.

My tears spilled over. My longtime broken heart was breaking again, shattering, falling to pieces and disintegrating. And in its place was a brand new heart. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

When it was over—after Cage had taken everything, every part of me he could take, making me take him inside my body everywhere I could take him, after falling away from one another—we lay side by side on the floor of his room, sharing a cigarette.

“Now what?” I whispered.

Cage’s head lolled to his right and his half-lidded eyes found mine. “Now, nothin’,” he said.

“Nothing?” Panic flooded me. Had he just f*cked me over? Again?

“It’s me and you, Teacup,” he said, rolling to his side and sliding his hand over my bare stomach. “And nothin’. ’Cause nothin’ else f*ckin’ matters right now.”

? ? ?

Cage lifted Tegen off the floor and set her down on his bed. He stared at her for a while, running his gaze up and down her naked body, just watching her sleep.

He’d lied. When he’d said he’d never loved a single woman he’d f*cked. He’d lied.

He’d loved before. He’d loved exactly one of them. He just hadn’t realized it until right now.

He loved Tegen. He’d loved her most of her life, actually, but just hadn’t known the feeling for what it truly was until now.

Love wasn’t something he’d measured by how many days you spent around a person, or how long you’d known someone, and it sure as f*ck wasn’t measured by whether you f*cked them or not or how many times.

Cage only measured love by what he would do for someone, the lengths he was willing to go. How much he cared about their well-being and their survival. And he’d always cared about Tegen; he’d never stopped. She was family, she was his best friend, and just like he’d take a bullet for his sisters, for his brothers, even for his old man, he knew, in that moment, staring down at her, he’d take one for Tegen too.

No way was she going back to California. Not a chance in hell.

He’d tie her to the f*cking bed if he had to.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


Dressed more comfortably now in a pair of black leggings and an oversized, slouchy pink tee that hung off one shoulder and had a pair of silver angel’s wings printed on the back, Ellie followed Danny out of her room.

The club looked exactly as it always had. The back hall of bedrooms had the brothers’ names on the doors, pictures of the boys with their families or on their bikes lined the walls, and it smelled of cigarette smoke, spilled booze, and men who preferred smoking and drinking over bathing on a regular basis.

Every visit to the club before she’d left for college had been barely tolerable and had always left her with a bad taste in her mouth. But instead of feeling any sort of negativity, she felt more at home than ever before. Safe, too.

The telltale sounds of sex, from both a male and female, flooded the hallway and Ellie flushed with embarrassment as she recognized Cage’s deep voice, and heard Tegen crying out in response to his quite frankly mouth-watering sexual demands of her.

Thinking back to high school, to her own experience with Cage, she smiled to herself. If there was anything Cage excelled at, it was women. Or rather, sex with women. And from the sounds of it, Tegen was being thoroughly excelled.

Danny, with Harley in her arms, shook her head in disgust and picked up her pace.

“Guess crazy #1 and crazy #2 made up,” she muttered. “Give them five minutes and they’ll be at each other’s throats again. I swear, it’s like Kami and Cox all over again.”