Corrupted Chaos (Tarnished Empire)(98)

“Is ‘fun’ me claiming you around the world?”

I poked his shoulder. “You can un-claim me.”

“Is it fun that you have half my savings in your bank account?”

My stomach dropped. I wasn’t sure if he’d been moving numbers around on accounts because he could or what. I didn’t think that was half of anything. “Half?” I squeaked. There were more than eight zeros behind my normal balance.

“Sure, baby. I’ll make more if you want, though.” He leaned in to lick my neck, and I shivered. I couldn’t deny him. My heart was beating too fast, my world suddenly stood still with him at the center of it, and the inkling of hope was bleeding out to become a huge puddle I couldn’t overlook.

“So what? I’m supposed to just forgive you?” I didn’t know how I would say no to him though and the way my hands had crept up to smooth his shirt, to feel his warmth under me, to feel the love of my life there when I thought I lost him. It wasn’t something I would let go of. I might have been emotional before, tried to hide who and what I was, but I couldn’t hide from this.

“Of course. I can tie you up if you want to fight about it. It’ll be more fun for me that way anyway, but we’re doing this, dollface.”

“I think I want to kill you,” I admitted. For the whiplash he’d given me at the very least. “The pain you’ve caused me . . . It’s either I die or you do.”

He laughed. The beautiful, cruel man who I loved cackled at my turmoil. “Baby, look how mad you got at me this month. But didn’t you feel alive?”

I hated that I did, that Cade made me feel every damn thing. He dragged his finger across my rib cage where he knew my tattoo was and then rubbed back and forth. “You need to change this Addict tattoo of yours and put under it, ‘Of life and Of Cade.’ I deserve it.”

“You don’t deserve anything,” I grumbled.

“Fine. Should I grovel more?” He smirked like he had a fucking sense of humor all of a sudden.

“More?”

“Well, you have half my savings, a new penthouse, roses every day that you throw away, and the title of an Untouchable. I didn’t stop caring for you even if I was gone, dollface. Even if I let you go, I was still going to feed you every day—”

I rolled my eyes but did have to tell him, “The office team thanks you for the subs, by the way.”

He chuckled. “But do you thank me?”

“No,” I sneered, trying not to laugh with him. “You’re a dick.”

“I know. You wrote it on my computer screens at work.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you should get that tattooed on you to match the one I got after what you called me.”

He glanced up as if he was considering it. “Would that count as part of my groveling?”

“Oh my God.” I shoved him to try to hide how having any of my words tattooed on him would turn me on.

He didn’t move at all. He leaned in and whispered, “I see that blush on your cheeks, pretty girl. Means me getting tattoos for you makes you wet, huh?”

“There’s something wrong with us. I shouldn’t even want to be near you right now.”

“We’re fucking volatile. And spontaneous and chaotic. It doesn’t make us bad or wrong, dollface.”

“It makes us hard to deal with, Cade.”

“Life without chaos would be boring, Izzy. Life without glitches and your bursts of anger and me seeing you go off . . . it’s unbearable.”

“Everyone’s working out the glitches for a smooth life!”

“Are you?” He cocked his head. “Or do you come to work every day looking for them, wanting to conquer them, wanting to wrangle them, and then you enjoy when they get out of control again and challenge you?”

“We’re not stable.”

“Of course we aren’t.” He shrugged and dragged a finger across my neck. “You want your stability with Gerald?”

“I don’t know.” I crossed my arms, just to piss him off. “Maybe he could give me that.”

“Yeah.” Then he bent at the knee and kneeled before me. “He’d wipe out your emotion, your beauty, your you.”

“What I feel isn’t always pretty, Cade. It had me wasted for a long time.”

He nodded as he said, softly and almost like he was mourning the thought, “Would you be happy if you could feel them?”

I took in a breath, and it was shaky, so damn shaky that I knew he saw my chest quivering. The fact that I didn’t hide it from him spoke volumes. “I’d try to be, and everyone would be happy for me.”

“When you fight those feelings the way you do, your body explodes into doing dumb shit, because a fireball isn’t meant to be contained. Let the real you breathe so everyone else can witness it.”

“I can’t lose you and experience that pain, Cade. Not again,” I whispered.

“You won’t,” he promised. “You never did. I was always watching. I may have thought I let you go but I couldn’t. I won’t. Never, Ms. Hardy. You’re my future wife.”

I laughed with tears in my eyes. “Not until you propose.”

He hummed low, and then he slid his hands under my shirt to slip my shorts and panties off. “I can’t do that for a while. I need to grovel some more first.”