Country Kisses (3:AM Kisses Book #8)(18)
My knuckles connect with the hard, cold wood before I can think. Every muscle in my body knows what that girl would do.
The door swings open just enough, revealing a hotter than a grease fire Cade James wearing not much more than that dirty little grin from what flesh I can see.
My head tilts left out of habit. “Are you indecent?” I lay it on thick as gravy. Just watching his pupils dilate is worth the price of admission.
“I’m always indecent.” His grin twitches. “Buddy is in his room. The coast is clear, I promise.” He ushers me inside, and my entire body slaps with heat as I drink him down with my gaze.
“Good Lord.” My head cranes so severely to the left I’m forced to take him in with a side-eye. Cade’s well-chiseled body drips wet, with nothing more than a fuzzy white towel wrapped just beneath his six-pack—scratch that. Make that eight. He pushes the door shut and lifts the edge of his towel like a threat.
“I haven’t dried off completely. Would you mind?” There’s a note of sweetness in his tone, but it’s buried under boiling layers of lust and enough sexual frustration to blow the roof off every house in a fifty-state radius.
“Well, I’d hate for you to catch a cold.” I drop my purse and evict the towel from his waist, nothing but his knife-sharp body staring back at me. Holy, holy. I can’t even get another thought out without dropping my gaze to his most prized possession, and I can plainly see why he values his man parts so very much. I clear my throat just enough. “I can see the big trio is happy to see me.” His erection rises like a military salute.
“Every last part of me is happy to see you.” Cade steps in and removes my jacket before gingerly landing it on the sofa. His gaze rides up and down my body, over and over, as if he were starting to malfunction. “You look too beautiful to unwrap.”
“Did you say unwrap? It wouldn’t be your birthday, would it?” I tease, pulling him in by the finger.
“Last month.”
“Happy belated birthday, Cade James. What do you say we take this party into the bedroom, and I can give you something special to open?” My leg rides up and down his thigh as he moans into the proposition. “Me—like a flower.”
“I like the sound of that.” He steals a kiss from behind my ear, and my insides turn to pudding.
I take a step toward the hall, threading his fingers through mine. “You’d better get that party hat ready. It’s time to have some good, clean fun.”
His eyes are still lost somewhere between my cleavage and my boots. “I prefer it a little dirty if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all, big boy. We’re celebrating your big day.” Before I can get another word out, Cade has me down the hall to his bedroom. It’s dark inside, smells cleaner—not that it didn’t before—but this time, there’s a distinct after scent of disinfectant. The comforter is rolled back neatly, and the sheets feel cool and crisp to the touch. They’re either brand spanking new or recently washed, I can’t tell which. “You didn’t have to go all out like this.” I giggle as he takes a gentle bite out of my neck.
“Like what?”
“The shower, the sheets, the lemon oil you used to dust the woodwork, the whatever it is with a hint of a pine eating up my sinuses. Really, I’m not worthy.” I give a soft laugh as I pull him over me in the dark. “Save it for the Queen of England.”
Now, it’s his chest rumbling with a laugh. “Oh, honey, you’re worthy. And trust me, I wouldn’t bother for the queen. I’d much rather have you in this bed.” He helps me to my knees and peels my sweater dress off, plucks my boots off, slow and seductive, landing a butter-soft kiss to each of my knees. His hands glide up and down my body, confirming there’s not a stitch more to remove.
“Like your surprise?” I take his hands and run them over my breasts, straight down to my bare hips, then lower still. A breath gets locked in my throat, and I’m afraid to breathe, to move a muscle, as I let him explore me freely. A part of me is shocked by my own brazenness, but it feels good like this, pretending to be like Caila, the naughty vixen, being in control of a beautiful man like Cade.
“I love my surprise.” His voice drops down to its lower register as his fingers mold to the shape of my hips. “I am a very, very lucky boy. Happy belated birthday to me.” He tucks a kiss behind my left ear, and my entire body seizes. In a swift maneuver, I turn my head before biting down over his rock-hard shoulder.
A dull moan comes from him as he takes in the pain.
“Sorry,” I whisper. Apologizing in the heat of passion is a totally unCaila thing to do, but then, she’s never had to compensate for shredded flesh that healed badly for all the world to see. I’d die if Cade landed his lips to that testament to how much I loved my daddy—past tense. If my father knew how much Caila and I loved him—how much we agonized for him once he was gone, he would have come back. No person could ever put two little girls through that emotional hell and still consider themselves human.
“Hey”—Cade pulls back in the dark, his finger touching softly under my chin—“please don’t ever say you’re sorry.” He runs a heated kiss down the center of my chest, stopping by to visit each of the girls. His hot mouth over that tender part of me, his demanding tongue, the sucking, the pulling—Cade causes me to nearly jump out of my skin, when ironically for the first time in my life, I’m damn glad to be in it.