Sometimes It Lasts(Sea Breeze #5)(2)
“Oh, Cage! I’m so happy for you. This was everything you wanted! You did it!” I slipped my hands in her hair and cradled her head.
“No, Eva. You’re everything I wanted. This is just the insurance that I can provide for you the way you deserve.”
She slid her arms up my chest and locked her hands behind my neck. “As sweet as that is, I want you to do this for you, too. Not just for me. This is what you wanted. You’ve wanted it since before I met you. Don’t forget that you’ve been working for this long before I came into your life.”
There were still times that it surprised me that she didn’t get it. The moment she walked into my life, nothing remained the same. My reasons for doing things changed. My life had a much bigger meaning. “You’re the center of my world, girl. Don’t forget that.”
She ran a finger down my chest and stopped at my pierced nipple, playing with it through my shirt. “Hmm, if you were trying to talk me out of my panties with that line, then congratulations, because you just did.”
I chuckled as she grabbed my shirt and pulled it up. I lifted my arms to help her out. She threw my shirt down on the ground and then flashed a wicked smile up at me. “This will never ever get old. You know that right? Seeing this perfectly sculpted body decorated with piercings is hot, Cage York.”
When I’d gotten my first nipple pierced, it had been strictly for pleasure. Never had I imagined that proper little Eva would be so turned on by it. I’d gladly gotten the other one pierced for her. Whatever made her hot, I was willing to do it.
“You talking naughty while you undress me never gets old either,” I growled, picking her up and carrying her back to our bedroom while she giggled. Her tongue flicked at my nipple and I groaned. I needed to get her naked.
“I liked it on the bar the other night,” she said, looking back toward the kitchen.
I stopped walking toward the room and turned and headed for the bar instead. If she wanted it on the bar, then the bar was where she would get it. “What’d you like best about the bar, hmm? Me licking that hot little pu**y or me putting your legs over my shoulders when I slid inside you?”
Eva shivered in my arms and squirmed. “Both. Always both.”
“Good. Me too,” I replied, standing her on the kitchen floor before pulling her shorts down to pool at her feet then jerking her T-shirt off. She wasn’t wearing a bra. It was a rule: When we were home, no bra or panties. Smiling, I pressed a kiss to one of her hard ni**les before slipping my hand behind her neck and claiming her mouth again.
This was going to work. I was going to be worthy of Eva’s love. Her dad had been wrong. I wasn’t going to be Eva’s biggest mistake.
EVA
I lay wrapped up in Cage’s arms, watching him sleep. After we’d had naughty fun sex on the bar, we had moved it to the bedroom, where he’d gotten sweet and gentle. He’d been so excited. I was proud of him. This was what he’d been working for. I had known he’d do it, but he hadn’t been so sure.
Without his steady gaze watching me, I could let the worry seep in. I wasn’t sure my dad was going to pay for me to transfer all the way to Tennessee with Cage. Even if I got a job, I wouldn’t be able to go too unless my dad helped me financially. Dad had grudgingly accepted my choice to be with Cage, but that was it. He hadn’t approved. He was sure that Cage was going to break my heart.
I needed to go talk to him without Cage. Telling Cage about my concern before I’d talked to my dad was pointless. I didn’t want Cage worrying about how he could get me there while he was so high on his achievement. He had made this scholarship happen. He didn’t need the pressure of getting me there too. That was my problem.
I pressed a kiss to his shoulder before easing out of his arms. I needed to go call my dad and see if he wanted to have lunch with me tomorrow. I’d talk to him then. He wanted me in college. Maybe he’d like this idea.
I closed the bedroom door quietly behind me and headed outside before calling my dad. I wanted to be far enough away from Cage that he couldn’t wake up and hear me. I was nervous as I stood under the raised apartments we lived in that sat directly on the beach. I tried to focus on the waves and the beauty of the gulf in front of me.
“About time you called your daddy” was my dad’s gruff greeting. I had called him two days ago and talked to him. It wasn’t like I didn’t call often. He just liked to fuss about it.
“Hello, Daddy. How are things?” I asked first, always. I felt disconnected to life on the farm now that I lived in Sea Breeze with Cage. I worried about Daddy without Jeremy or I there to watch him. He wasn’t exactly old, but he wasn’t young, either. I hated thinking of him all alone.
“Good. Big Boy finally died. Had to deal with that yesterday. Now that I’m done nursing him, I need to make a trip back to the cattle auction and restock. Time to sell this lot.” Big Boy was a bull. A very old bull. He’d been sick for a few months now. It had been a bull that Josh and I had chosen years ago when we used to go with daddy to the auction. Dad had known I was attached to all things that connected me to Josh, so he hadn’t sold the bull. After Josh was killed, the bull was even more important. I felt a twinge of regret at not being there when Big Boy passed away.
“He lived a long time,” I told Dad, but it felt more like I was telling myself. Reassuring myself that he’d had a full life. The subject of death was still one I struggled with. The fear of losing someone else I loved haunted me.