by Sienna Blake
I could go out and find someone else to soothe this fire, but his words, spoken on the night we met, stick in my mind.
“No more sex with strangers. No other men. Or you’ll never see or hear from me again.”
The thought of never seeing Cade again is too much to bear. Although this hurts in the most exquisite way, to be without him would be worse.
No other man could be enough. He was right. He has ruined me. He hasn’t even kissed me yet and already he has ruined me.
Sometimes the frustration bubbles into anger. When that happens I vent my frustration through my gym workouts. Mick has noticed the increase in my energy. Instead of taking it out on myself, I take all of it out on bags, imagining that they are Caden and I’m beating him with my knees and my thighs and my fists because he makes me feel this way. He makes me feel this way yet refuses to kiss me and fuck me and quell this God damn ache. Bastard.
I don’t know what to do with me.
Until this note arrives.
It comes with the delivery of another dress, wrapped lovingly in scented pink tissue paper within a silver box.
Hotel Astoir lobby, 7pm Saturday.
The Hotel Astoir is set off the glittering main strip. I take a cab there from my place. This is the first time Caden has asked me to meet him at a hotel. A hotel. I know what this means. It’s time. Tonight is the night.
I only realize I’m grinning like an idiot when the cab driver laughs at me and asks me why I’m so happy. I merely grin wider. “I see,” the cab driver says. For a few moments I’m just a girl falling in love with a boy.
We pull up to the hotel, which has a driveway that stretches along a row of manicured bushes and fountains. It curves into a wide front entry where Caden is already standing waiting, dressed in a black suit. He is pressed and suave, but on his face he wears my favorite things: that deadly looking scar above his eyebrow and his rough smile. At once I’m flooded from the ends of my hair to the depths of my soul with a fierce aching. My hands are already stripping him of that dinner jacket and unbuttoning that shirt and unbuckling those…
I pass the cabbie some money. A twenty maybe. “Keep the change.” Or maybe it’s a fifty. I don’t know. I don’t care. I can’t take my eyes off Caden – my Caden. My soon-to-be-naked Caden. He has beaten the concierge to the door of my cab, opening it for me. He reaches a hand in and pulls me out.
The dress that he sent with the note cascades out of the cab after me and spills around my ankles. It is a strapless full-length gown in a brilliant blue satin. I felt like a princess when I put it on, so in honor, I wore my hair up in a French twist and secured it with diamante pins. Above us the gilded hotel entrance, studded with down lights, glitters like diamonds.
He greets me with a kiss on my cheek. He whispers, “For as long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing you.”
I melt into his arms and my heart trills as it clings to his words. For as long as I live… Maybe Caden and I could carve out a future in this version of together?
Behind me I hear a car pull up in the hotel driveway. But I don’t look. I’m staring up at this beautiful man who somehow decided that I was his. A valet interrupts us and hands Cade a set of keys. “Here you go, Mr. Thaine.”
What?
I turn and stare at the black town car as if it has grown legs and feelers and has started wriggling. I keep on staring when Caden opens the passenger door for me.
“But we aren’t…” my voice fades. No. Of course we aren’t going into the hotel. Of course he hasn’t booked us a room. Of course he isn’t taking me upstairs and stripping me naked and fucking me until I am finally sated. Bastard. He tricked me.
I grit my teeth and force a smile to my face. There’s no point in arguing. I clench my jaw and ignore his hand when he offers to help me into the car. I hike my skirts up in my arms and drop into the passenger seat in a puff of blue satin rage.
The inside of the car smells like pine air freshener and the cream leather seat squeaks under me when I shift. I kick my heels into the freshly vacuumed cream carpet like a surly child. It’s a rental. Why? Where are we going? Why couldn’t we have stayed at the hotel in a room, just him and me?
He gets into the driver’s seat and we pull away. The hotel lights fade from the reflection in my window along with my fantasy of where this night is taking us.
I’m silent as he drives, glaring at the buildings and streetlights that pass by the window, cursing this man with every pulse of my wretched and frustrated core. I hate him and love him for how this feels. This aching beautiful. I want him so much it fucking hurts. I want to hurt him back. Or throw myself at him and beg that he put me out of my misery. He is gloriously ignorant of how he has tortured me over these last three months. He just keeps drawing it out in this pointless dance.
Does he even want me? My lip trembles as I consider this possibility. Fucking bastard. I fucking hate Caden Thaine.
These thoughts dissipate when he pulls into a dark driveway. Ahead I can see gates and beyond that, a blackened building. A knot forms in my throat. He cuts the engine, gets out of the car and walks to my side. He opens my door and helps me out.
When he begins to pull me towards the iron gates I resist. “What are we doing here?”
He turns to study me, his eyes giving away nothing. He raises my hand to his lips and runs his soft mouth across the bumps of my knuckles. “Do you trust me?”
I remember what he said to me when he told me why he was taking things slow with me: “I need you to trust me first. And you don’t trust me yet.”
Do I trust him? Do I?
I learned long ago that the true test of a man is how he treats the people to whom he owes nothing. Waiters, bar staff, strangers. Over the last few months I have watched Caden interact with all types of people and he has been nothing less than manners and kindness to everyone.
So do I trust Caden Thaine?
I don’t know him, but at the same time, I know him. Not once in the last three months has he raised his voice to me or been anything but gentle even though one squeeze within his thick arms and large hands could crush me. Not once has he demanded anything of me. Anything he asks for he always leaves as my choice.
Yes, Caden might be hiding things, but I am hiding things, too. Whatever he is hiding, he has a good reason for it – I just know it.
He hasn’t given me any reason not to trust him.
I nod and step forward, an indication for him to continue leading me. The smile that he rewards me with is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. It causes my stomach to roll with pleasure.
“I have a surprise for you,” he says. I can hear the anticipation in his voice and, if I’m not mistaken, nerves. His fingers pull on me to hurry, and I’m caught in the updraft of his excitement like a fluttering leaf. A surprise? For me?
Caden, every day with you is a surprise already.
We slip through the unlocked gates. The building is low-set, only two stories, spray-painted with the uninspired tags of bored and high teenagers. I stumble on some broken glass, but I don’t fall; Caden catches me with his arm around my waist.
“I’m sorry, kitten. I wasn’t thinking.” He pulls my arms around his neck. I feel my legs sweep from under me and his strong arms cradle me to his chest. I’m floating and it feels like heaven.
“Close your eyes,” he says when we reach a dark, partially-open side door.
I do and I push my face into the crook of his neck. In the darkness behind my lids he is everywhere – in my nose with his smoked wood scent, blanketing my body with his warmth, in my ears with the noise of his breath, and he takes up this space in my heart, space I didn’t think anyone could ever fill.
I hear the arthritic creak of the side door we enter. I feel the difference in temperature inside. It’s warmer and still, the air smelling faintly of turpentine and something sweet… vanilla?
It is vanilla. The scent gets stronger as we move further into this building. He keeps
walking and the gentle rocking of his gait and the warmth of his arms lulls me into a haze. Underneath his feet I hear crunching glass.
Finally he stops. “Keep them closed.” He gently lets me down. I find my balance with my heels on the hard ground. He maneuvers me to face a certain direction by my shoulders, his large hands curling over them like plates of armor. “Okay. Open them.”
In front of me the blackness dissolves into two rows of low candles that light up a corridor. At the end I can see an open door. The small flames shine across every peel and bump of the wallpaper and cause long dark fingers to flick at the ceiling.
“Go through the door,” he says.
He lets me take the lead and I walk the last few steps. When I step through the doorway my mouth drops open. The room opens up to the left, spanning both stories of the building, high ceilings draped with pale curtains like ghosts. And candles, hundreds of pillar candles covering the side benches and floor and lighting the room with a warm glow. In the middle of the room is a table covered in a white cloth, dressed with a silver candelabra lit with three thin white tapered candles. Dinner for two.
I hear a click. Through the speakers set up across the room a woman starts to hum, breathy and sweet, over a deep undulating note. Something in her voice caresses the little hairs on my skin. The beat kicks in, raw and sensual like a heartbeat.
Caden squeezes my hand. “Do you like it?”
I don’t like it. I love it. It is exactly Caden Thaine. Softness, light and beauty set among the rough, dark and broken. I tell him so and he rewards me with a radiant smile that outshines all these candles.
“What is this place?” I take another step in.
“It used to be an art college before they ran out of funding.”
He leads me to the table and pulls my chair out for me. He moves to the side and I notice a silver bucket of ice on a stand. Within it is a bottle of… sparkling grape juice. This makes me smile. Next to it is a silver serving trolley complete with a small burner underneath to keep the contents warm.
He opens the bottle and pours the liquid into the two champagne flutes. “Madam,” he says as he hands me one.
When he lifts the serving dish lid the smell of roasted chicken and herbed potatoes makes my stomach rumble. He starts to serve the food onto my plate and places it in front of me. I stare at the potatoes when I recognize that smell.
“Rosemary potatoes,” I say. I stab one with my fork. “They’re my favorite. How did you know?”
He grins. “A lucky guess.”
“Did you cook all this?”
“Maybe.”
“I didn’t know you could cook.”
“I can’t give away all my secrets.” He pauses as if he has realized what he just said. The air grows heavy with the things we are both keeping from each other, the pieces of ourselves we keep locked away. The things that made us who we are but which we never ever talk about.
He clears his throat and continues to plate his food. The tension starts to dissipate and I try to ignore the clamminess it leaves on my skin.
The meal is delicious; the chicken is moist and rich and the roasted vegetables coat my tongue with the flavors of garlic and herbs. As I eat I catch him watching me, a slight crease between his thick dark eyebrows.
“Why are you looking at me like that? You look like… you’re looking for something.”
He wipes his mouth with his serviette and stands. “Perhaps I am.” He takes my hand and leads me to a space on the floor. He drapes one of my hands around his neck and pulls me flush against his body. I have to tilt my head to look into his eyes. His other hand curls around mine as he holds our hands out to the side. The music is still slow, but it has become simple and stripped-back and it glides through the room like a naked creature. As we slide together, my body feels like it’s melting against his.
He’s looking at me again with that probing look.
“So,” I tease softly, “did you find what you were looking for?”
He leans in. Close. So close it makes my heart skip. My eyes flick down to his lips for just a second. I know better. I don’t try to kiss him. I don’t lean in. I just look back up at him, watching him, waiting for him.
He doesn’t lean in to give me our first kiss.
I expect to be angry like I was earlier. I expect to be frustrated. But what he has done for me – turning this dark abandoned place into something wonderful – represents what he’s doing for my soul. I’m so grateful. Right now, I don’t need to ask for anything more. I’m content to just be here.
In that moment I see something change in his eyes. “I just did.”
He lowers his lips to mine.
3
At first Caden’s kiss is just a press, tasting of sweet grapes and rosemary. It’s butterflies and falling leaves and it makes my skin tingle like those sparkles of sunlight that dance upon a babbling brook. Then his lips move, achingly slow. They part around my bottom lip drawing it slightly into his mouth.
He’s kissing me. He’s really kissing me. I can barely breathe. I’m afraid to move in case he pulls away.
He draws the tip of his tongue slowly back and forth across my lip trapped between his. I feel that small wet line all the way in my belly. He sucks, starting an energy in me like the distant rumble of earth under hooves.
My bottom lip pops free of his mouth and I whimper at the loss of contact. He rubs the tip of his nose along mine like he’s reassuring me. He licks a line across my lips from one corner to the other. He’s tasting me. He groans. Before he licks me again.
His tongue teases my mouth and at my heart, coaxing it to open for him like a flower. I part my lips for him and he enters me with his tongue. Like a jolt of electricity, I awake. My body lights with fire, aching, consuming fire. I begin to move with him, searching for his taste, exploring his lips and his mouth, tilting my head so our breaths can fuse even more.
More. I need more. My right hand clutches the back of his neck, still terrified that he might take this away. I pull my other hand from his. Like a desperate animal, it skitters across the thickness of his arm towards his chest. He grabs my wrist and wraps it around his neck to join my other hand.
He pulls away for one moment, and I catch a glimpse of his eyes. They are now dark grey-green like a sea in a storm. That dangerous scowl is back on his face as he glares at me with the hunger of someone who needs to consume. “I told you that I wouldn’t be able to taste you without taking more.” His voice is low and threatening, but I’m not scared.
His lips crush back onto mine and he squeezes me against him with so much pressure so that I can barely breathe. There’s so much glorious heated pressure from inside out and outside in. I feel his wide hands spread across the small of my back. God, they are so big they almost fit around me completely. I’m so small and vulnerable under his hands, but somehow I feel strong and powerful. The music becomes deeper, rougher, and it shudders through the air as if it’s making love to it.
I pull away. I need to know, “How much more?” My voice is breathy and shaky, but I stare at him, a challenge in my eyes. How much more will he give me? How much of him will he let me have?
He draws in a deep breath as if to calm himself. His hands come up to hold my face. He holds my gaze and it feels like he is making a promise, “I will only take whatever you’re prepared to give me.”
You can have it all. My body, my heart, my soul. It’s yours, Caden. It’s already yours. But I don’t say this.
I try to grab for him, but he holds me out by my shoulders. I whimper and reach for him again, but he won’t let me touch him. So I run my fingers along his thick forearms, the only part of him my shorter limbs can reach. Oh my God. I have never felt anything so masculine and brutal and it just makes me feel so much more desperate to touch the rest of him.
His eyes flutter closed and he sighs – a sigh that I can feel through the limited contact we have. I wait for him to move, but he doesn’t. He opens his eyes again and I see�
� fear. Oh God, what’s wrong? My heart skips a beat when I see a frown start to play on his face. “I want to make love to you.”
“Yes,” I cry. The aching need under my skin crackles like electricity.
But the pain doesn’t leave his face. I hold my breath. Something isn’t right. My heart sinks when I realize that it isn’t going to happen. He made me wait three months to kiss him, he is going to keep making me wait to have sex. He keeps me close yet so far away. From both his body and his heart.
I should stop this whole nonsense now. I should walk away from this man who I’m already falling for, who I know will eventually hurt me with how he keeps me at a distance, who hurts me now by literally holding me away from him.
But… I can’t. I am already bound. So I accept whatever is coming.
“I want to make love to you, but…”
“But?” At once I am struck by fear. But what? “Say something, Cade. What’s wrong?”
He shakes his head like he’s trying to shake off this demon who torments him.
“Tell me.” I want to know. I need to know.
“Please don’t think this is about you…” On his face I see an inner tragedy play out. “I just… I’m not sure you’ll really want me…”
He isn’t sure that I want him? My head spins with the absurdity of this statement. How can he say that? He can’t really mean it. He can’t.
But here he is, standing before me, chewing on his lip and watching me with forlorn eyes.
“How could you ever think that?” I whisper and I reach out to stroke his face. He lets me. “I want you so badly. I need you. I need you like I need to breathe.” I press myself back up against him like I am trying to merge us together. “Maybe it’s you who doesn’t want me.”
He hisses through his teeth as I push my hips against his erection. “I haven’t wanted any woman as much as I want you in a long, long time.”
“Then, please, why are we waiting?”
“There’s something I have to tell you but… I’m not sure you’ll still want me anymore.”