“Why didn’t you?”
Ever rested her head against my shoulder, pillowing her face between my bicep and my pectoral muscle, and my hands were on her waist, one near her hip and the other on the small of her back. So familiar. Like holding her was my whole eternity, like we’d always held each other this way. But we hadn’t, and it was exhilarating. It was Ever, actually Ever, and her body was so soft against mine, warm, her weight a perfect pressure, her breasts crushed against me, and I wanted so much, but there was more to say.
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“That you’d…stopped caring about me. That way, I mean. This way. You said you’d had a crush on me, and that it was a literary love, but did that mean more? I didn’t dare ask, because I was with Billy at that point and I—I don’t even know why I didn’t ask, why I didn’t—” She stopped abruptly, curled her fingers into fists in my shirt, raw emotion consuming her. “Why did we waste so much time, Cade? Why?”
“I don’t know, Ever.” I ran my hands up her spine and back down, stopping at her waist. “I wish I knew. I wish I’d been with you all this time. I’ve—I’ve never stopped feeling this way about you.”
She lifted up and our eyes met. We were still lying on the couch, her on top of me. Her partially unbuttoned shirt hung free, and I could see she wasn’t wearing a bra, wasn’t wearing anything, was bare beneath the thin scrap of cotton. My body was on fire. “What way? Tell me, Cade. Tell me how you feel. We’ve never shied away from the truth with each other. Let’s not start now.”
“But…we haven’t—we haven’t seen each other since we were fourteen. Fifteen? We’re basically meeting each other for the first time. How can I…put all that out there so soon? How can I even be feeling all this so soon? It’s crazy. It’s…so much. My head is spinning. My heart, all of me is spinning.”
“Me too.” She was completely on top of me, her arms beneath her, propping her upper torso on my chest. Her arms were barred on either side of her breasts, which bulged out of the shirt. I was mesmerized, torn between her hypnotic eyes and her tantalizing breasts. “But…all that time, all those years we’ve known each other. I know you, Caden Monroe. I know who you are. This is right, and I’m not afraid of it. I’m afraid of losing it. That’s all I’m afraid of now. Losing you. So what is this, for you? What am I to you?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. I hadn’t said those words in so long. Never to anyone but Mom and Dad.
Ever’s eyes speared into me, drilled, dug, devoured. Denied me the ability to lie, to hesitate, to withdraw or to shy away or to do anything but admit it all, bare it all, risk it all.
“This is love, Ever.” The words tumbled out, and I was rocked to my core by the admission. “I love you. Since I met you at Interlochen, I’ve loved you.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Ever
The smell of oil paint hung thick in the air. Cade was a muscled hulk of man beneath me, hard, huge, and rugged. My insides were coiled tight, had been since I opened the door to see him standing there, backlit by the late afternoon sun. He was wearing a faded pair of Levis, the kind of worn, faded look that only comes from actually being worn hard, not the expensive, pre-faded look of Billy’s $150 jeans. A tight black T-shirt hugged Cade’s torso, which was thick with cords of muscle. He was work-hardened, life-toughened. His hands on my cheeks were rough and callused, just like in my dream, but so gentle. His eyes, pure amber, were liquid heat, searing me, demanding all I had, all I was, and giving the same back to me.
He wanted me.
He loved me.
He loved me? How? How could he? How could he know that? I’d demanded he tell me how he felt. And how did I feel?
“I love you, Cade.” I didn’t tack on the “too.” It wasn’t that I loved him as well; I loved him. I’d always loved him, but for some reason I couldn’t understand I’d ignored that fact for five years.
He seemed to shudder as he absorbed what I’d said. “For real?”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the raw wonder in his voice, the sheer shock. “Yes. I do.”
“Why?”
“Because our souls belong together. Because…because after everything you’ve been through, everything you’ve endured in your life, you’re still here. You’re strong. You’re…you’re all man. You’re talented, but humble. You know me. You know my secrets. Things I could never tell anyone else. You’ve been there since I was a kid, a girl figuring out who she was, and now I know who I am, and you are part of that. Our letters have been a part of me, a part of my maturing, part of who I am as I’ve grown up. Which means you’re a part of all that, part of me. That’s why I love you.” It was so easy to say that phrase somehow. I’d thought it would be hard.
A dusting of black stubble coated his cheeks, offsetting his amber eyes. His skin was tanned from endless hours in the sun, and his gaze on me was unwavering. I could dive into his eyes and stay submerged there, drown in his expression.
His mouth worked, as if he was trying to speak but simply couldn’t find the words. All I could see, though, was the way his mouth moved, the way his lips were slightly chapped and swollen from kissing me, the way his five o’clock shadow shifted with the movement of his facial muscles. He had high cheekbones and thick, full eyelashes, fluttering dark against his skin. I wanted to kiss him there, kiss the tender place just beneath his eyes.
I could, couldn’t I? I didn’t have to wonder, to dream, to imagine. I let my face descend and my lips touch his eyebrows, the ridge at the corner of his eyes, delighting in the sharp intake of breath he made as my mouth caressed his skin, the way his hands tightened on my waist.
He’d been so careful to keep his hands on my back, on my waist, and his eyes on mine, constantly tearing his gaze away from my tits and my flesh. I wanted more. I wanted it all. I needed it all. All of him. I needed to unwrap myself and let him delve into me, I needed to fly free into the high heaven of his body, his touch, his caress and his love.
I’d never felt that, the true caress of love. I’d felt the grip of lust, of lascivious ardor.
He tilted his face and caught my lips, and his kiss was a tide, a rolling wave overwhelming my breath and my thoughts in crashing fervor. I arched my spine and pressed my breasts against his hard chest, lifting my ass, seeking his touch there. I opened my eyes and pulled away from his lips, seeing need in his eyes to mirror my own, and I wished I knew how to get him to unleash himself, to quit holding back.
“Ever…” His voice was so deep, smooth and dark and rich. “God, you’re so…much. So beautiful. I feel drunk from kissing you. Like touching you makes me high. I’m dizzy from your skin.”
The poetry of his words made me quiver and shudder and made me clutch him and kiss him compulsively. I nuzzled his throat, felt his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, kissed the hollow of his throat and the side of his neck and up to the crevice behind his ear and then the hard ridge of his jaw. “You’re all there is, all I know. All I need.” I whispered the words with my lips brushing the shell of his ear. “And I need more of you. All of you. Now. I need it…all, now. Please, Cade. I’ve needed you for so long. Don’t make me wait anymore.”
“I’m…I’m broken, Ever.” His words cracked as he spoke them. It was admission torn from the bottom of his soul.
“Me, too. Let’s heal each other. Put each other back together again.”
“Here?”
I moaned in frustration. I didn’t want to be reminded of reality. Of the fact that my private studio space was unlocked and that there were windows cracked open so sound could escape, even if the blinds were drawn closed. “No. God. Goddamn it.” I slid off him, and as I stood up, I relished the way his eyes raked down my body and back up, and then his gaze locked on mine, as if embarrassed to be caught looking at me.
I held out my hand to him, and he took it in his, his palm engulfing my fingers. I drew him to me, pressed my boobs against his chest. “You can look, Cade,” I told him
. “Look at me.” I freed a button, and felt myself spill out, the edges of the shirt just barely covering my nipples.
He let his eyes leave mine, slide down, and his breath halted as he saw my nearly bared breasts.
“Touch me,” I whispered. My heart hammered, my pulse sent haywire by my daring, my need for him.
He touched the pad of his index finger to my collarbone, dragged it across the bone, sliding the edge of my shirt aside. Down, then, his finger moved, and his eyes were on mine as he moved the shirt away, and then my left breast was bare to the air and to his gaze and to his touch, and I was breathless. His hand cupped underneath my boob, and then he lifted its weight and the heel of his palm brushed my erect nipple, sending sparks through me. He flattened his hand over my breastbone, and then slid the other side of my shirt away and caressed my right breast, and then he was on his knees in front of me, kneeling before me, and his fingers were freeing the last few buttons and his lips were on my skin, his mouth grazing my navel.
I threaded my fingers through his hair and tried to remember to keep breathing. He kissed upward, dragging his lips across my flesh, which pebbled with goosebumps. His hands curled around my waist and slid up the bare skin of my spine, pulled me closer and then his mouth was touching too-gentle kisses to the round underside of my breast, and now my lungs filled with an abrupt whoosh, which turned into an eager moan as his lips closed on my nipple. He sucked it into his mouth and I was gone, gone, aching all throughout my body, fire blazing a trail from my tits down to my core, and as he tugged on my nipple with his nimble lips the line of heat grew hotter and the pulling within my core loosed a torrent of damp, slick need between my thighs.
“Cade, Jesus, Cade….” I breathed, “don’t stop, please, don’t ever stop…”
He moved his mouth to the other breast and I was dizzy, my knees weak, and his palms were skating up and down my back, holding my shoulder blades and curling under the shirt fabric over my shoulders and down again, to the upper swell of my ass.
“Hot,” he murmured when he realized I wasn’t wearing panties. His mouth touched an electric kiss between my breasts and then moved down, and my entire body was…what was beyond fire? What was hotter than flame?
He pulled his gaze away and his mouth away, and I whimpered at the loss of the hot wet slide of his lips against my skin, but I was rewarded by the raw heat in his gaze as he stared at my privates. He licked his lips, and his hands on my hips tightened their grip, dimpling the flesh with some sort of control he was trying to exercise over himself..
“Talk to me, Cade.” I needed affirmation from him. I needed to know his thoughts, to know how he felt. I needed, simply, to hear his voice.
“I want you, Ever.” His voice shook. “So bad. You were beautiful when you were fifteen. You’re…Jesus fuck, Ever, you’re a goddess now. Let me worship you.”
“Please?” I could barely speak.
My button-down painting shirt was hanging from the crooks of my elbows. His mouth devoured my navel, the inward curve where my hip and my thigh met. I shivered and shook, curled my fingers in his hair and panted, heard tiny mewling moans emit from my throat as his kisses slid down my thigh and back up, across my belly, low. I trembled in his grip. His hands rested on my hips, held me still. I needed his touch; I placed my hand on his, moved his palm with my finger twined in his to cup my ass, my head tilted back, my eyes closed, my breath coming in shallow gasps of ragged passion.
He took the hint and took the taut round weight of my ass in both his hands, caressed the flesh, cupped, tested the firmness with his fingers, ran his palms underneath and lifted each cheek, traced the crease with sliding fingers, dipped in through the keyhole gap and ignited trembling need into an inferno.
I let my feet slide apart, opening for him. “Cade? More. Touch me. Please.”
I had no problem begging him. I’d beg him until he sated the ravenous hunger within me for his touch, for his kisses, for his caresses and his love. I needed this, more than I’d ever needed anything, and he was being so slow, so careful, exploring me with thoroughness that left me shivering with impatience.
He held onto my ass and kissed my pubis, down over the close-cropped hair, and I was limp in his touch, quivering all over, barely able to stand, yet I found the strength to grasp his shoulders and widen my stance. “Yes…” I whispered, “please. Kiss me. Right there, please, Cade.” I loved saying his name, loved whispering his name with such sexual heat.
And then he pulled his mouth away. “I thought we were moving somewhere more private?”
I could have screamed. “I don’t care…not now. I just need you.”
He let his forehead rest against my belly. “I don’t want to share the sounds you’re making for me with anyone else. I don’t…I don’t want to be interrupted. I don’t want you to be embarrassed later.”
He was thinking of me, protecting me from my own impatience. I did indeed feel a rush of embarrassment as I realized anyone could walk in. I’d unlocked the door to let him and hadn’t relocked it. Eden had a tendency to visit me without warning, and so did Ms. Meier, my mentor.
I pulled him to his feet. “Come on. My room.”
“But your roommate…” He buttoned my shirt from the bottom up, missing a button, so it was crooked.
“She’ll leave. Or we’ll have to close my door and be quiet.” I tugged my yoga pants on, grabbed my shirt, bra, and shoes off the floor, and led Cade by the hand across the road to my dorm room.
Steph was on the couch, a thick textbook on her knees, glasses on top of her head, a Doctor Who episode playing on TV. She glanced up as we entered, took one look at Cade’s mussed hair, my misbuttoned shirt and clothes tucked under my arm and the fevered expression on my face, and shot to her feet. “I’ll just…go to Mark’s,” she stammered, ducking her head as she vanished into her room, packed a bag in record time, and stuffed her feet into a pair of clogs. “Text me when it’s…safe.” And with that, she was gone.
I locked the door behind her, flattened my palms against the door and leaned back against it. “Now we’re alone.” I’d been in such a hurry, but now I wanted to delay the moment, revel in the heat in his eyes, the obvious bulge at his zipper, the pounding excitement racing in my veins.
“Very much alone,” Cade said, taking a step closer to me.
I reached for him, but instead of pulling him against me and kissing him, I grasped the hem of his T-shirt and lifted it up, over his head and off, memorizing his unique scent as I tossed it aside. My eyes devoured him. I’d seen the evidence of his build through the shirt, but nothing could prepare me for the dizzying splendor of his bare torso. I let my head thunk against the door, my gaze raking over him. Broad shoulders, thick, heavy arms and bulging pectoral muscles, rippling abs, a hint of a wicked V-cut peeking above the waistband of his boxers. Every muscle was hard and huge and defined, but not from hours in the gym, rather from hard work, the natural muscle of a strong man who knew how to use his body, and did. He looked like he could wrestle a bull to the ground, carry a foal on his shoulders, lift a bale of hay with ease.
After his shirt was gone, he unbuttoned three buttons on mine, then stopped. “I buttoned it crooked,” he said with a laugh.
“I know,” I said. “You were kind of distracted.”
I ran my hands over his shoulders, down his biceps and back up, over his pecs, down his abs, splaying my fingers and tracing the lines of his abs. His gaze was locked on me, his hands resting on my hips, waiting to see what I would do. I looked up to meet his eyes. His mouth fell open and his chest expanded with a huge inbreath as I crooked an index finger inside the elastic of his underwear, following the curve of his waistline from hip to hip, and then back to center. I undid the button of his jeans, drew the zipper down. He wasn’t breathing now, holding the breath he’d taken, his hands bunching the cotton of my shirt in tight fists. I ran my hands between his jeans and boxers, caressing his tight ass and pushing the denim down in the same motion. He was wea
ring skin-hugging gray boxer-briefs; he was hard for me, and he was huge. A dot of moisture darkened the stretchy fabric where the tip of him touched it, leaking.
I swallowed hard, able to see every glorious inch of him outlined by the gray material, and I wanted it all. I reached for the elastic band, but he pinioned my wrist in his massive hand. With the other hand, he deftly unbuttoned the last three buttons of my shirt. He let go of my wrist, brought both of his palms to my face and slowly closed the distance between us, pressed his hungry lips to mine, kissed me till I swooned. His palms slid down the arch of my neck, over my shoulders, brushing the shirt away. I straightened my arms and let it fall free.
I was naked before him.
He continued to kiss me while his hands explored me, searching my curves in earnest. Sliding down my arms, around my neck and down my spine, following the curve of my ass, the backs of my thighs and around to my quads, squeezing gently the generous flesh and muscle there, and up, tracing in a teasing, tantalizing slide up the crease of my pussy, making my knees quake.
My own hands were not idle; I dragged my finger down his straining length, over the stretched cotton, and then was unable to pretend any longer and impatiently drew his underwear down, down, and he stepped out of them, and we were both bare for each other. I took his lower lip in my teeth and grasped his thick cock in my fist, eating his groan with my kiss and sliding my palm down his length.
“I wasn’t thinking about…this…when I knocked on your door,” Cade murmured, “so I’m not…I don’t have anything. Protection, I mean.”
I squeezed gently, caressed his hardness, learning the length of him, the girth of him, the way he lay straight up against his belly and the bulbous mushroom head, springy under my touch. “It’s fine,” I said, “I’ve got an IUD.”
Forever & Always: The Ever Trilogy (Book 1) Page 19