Every Night Without You: Caine & Addison, Book Two of Two (Unfinished Love series, 2)

by Violet Duke

  A perturbed frown furrowed Addison’s brow in response.

  Caine tipped her chin up. “Hey, you’re not feeling remorse or something are you? For hitting her?”

  Her eyes widened like saucers. “Are you crazy? I’m proud as hell I punched out that insane woman. She totally got what she deserved.”

  He grinned at her proudly. “Then what’s with the frown, baby?”

  Her lips pulled down again and screwed over to the right as she gave a resigned sigh. “It was all an accident. I was actually aiming for her stomach…and sort of…missed. Luckily, her chin got in the way and stopped my fist—”

  Caine’s burst of laughter quickly turned to a groan of pain as he clutched his leg.

  “Come here, sweetheart.” He drew her into his arms. “Now that all this is finally over, I have something I’ve been waiting a long time to give you…”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  That Night

  Seven Years Ago

  “I have something to show you,” he said, reaching over to his nightstand before propping himself up against his headboard and gathering her against his chest. “Before you see it, let me remind you that cops don’t exactly bring home the big bucks. So three-months of my salary isn’t all that much.”

  Addison had no clue where this was going, but she just smiled reassuringly at him, not remembering a time she’d ever seen the Caine this nervous before.

  He continued gruffly, “I wasn’t sure if the courts look at things like how much money is in my savings account before they grant foster parent status so I didn’t want to clean it out just in case. But I did want you to have something—like a down payment. I know you may think it’s premature since I’m doing everything backward by asking you to move in with me before we officially start dating, but I also know how much the kids mean to you, how hard it can be to trust anyone given everything you’ve been through. So I wanted you to know how serious I am about this. About you…us.”

  He let out a deep breath and upended a little jeweler’s pouch.

  The most beautiful tiny loose diamond came tumbling out, triggering a sound from her throat that sounded like a cross between a gasp and a coo.

  “This isn’t going to be the actual diamond I want to give you one day. Like I said, I’ll save up and make sure the one I give you when I do ask you to marry me is bigger. Big enough that guys a half mile away will see it and know you’re mine.”

  Oh god, if he kept up with all this possessive sweet talk, she’d be a melted puddle of goo.

  “The jeweler didn’t have a setting for something this small on hand, but I didn’t want to come home without it. It fit my budget exactly, and I don’t know, when I saw it, I knew this was the diamond I wanted to give you tonight.”

  He picked up the tiny stone and held it between his thumb and index finger, dwarfing the shiny gem with his big, calloused hands, and making it all the more daintily beautiful. “Say something, sweetheart.”

  “I love it,” she whispered, emotions overflowing in her voice. “It’s the most perfect diamond I’ve ever seen.”

  “It’s just a down payment,” he reiterated, sounding almost embarrassed. “I promise, I’ll get you a bigger one.”

  “No.” She gave him a fierce frown. “No down payment. No bigger diamond.”

  “Honey, you’re making me crazy. I know I haven’t actually asked you a question to go along with this tiny-ass diamond—” he grinned a little when she glared, “but hearing you say ‘no’ in any context right now is messing with me. You don’t have to make any decisions or ‘accept’ the diamond or anything. Just keep it safe for now. Until I’m able to give you a bigger one, along with that big question to match.”

  She was just about to insist, yet again, that she didn’t want him replacing this perfect stone with anything, ever, he cut her off with a kiss. “Baby, you give me another one of your cute grumbling growls and tell me you don’t need a bigger diamond, and this weak, simple male mind of mine will be taking that as a ‘yes’…and just plain taking you, period.”

  That effectively shut down her ability to speak.

  But not her ability to fantasize.

  He groaned. “Don’t ever play poker for money, sweetheart. I can read every one of your innocently wicked thoughts in your eyes.”

  That so? Her tongue peeked out at the corner as she revved her dirty thoughts up to high gear. Which wasn’t hard seeing as how he was now rolling the tiny diamond across her torso in sexy little patterns. Through her thin tank-top, she could feel each facet of the diamond, along with the brain-rattling contrast between the jewel and the stark heat of his fingers.

  He stopped his ministrations near her belly, however, and simply stared. “Maybe I will turn this diamond into a ring after all,” he uttered in a hushed, reverent tone.

  She peered down to see what he was fixated on.

  The bottom edge of her tank had climbed up a bit, but just a few inches—nothing to inspire his lust-filled gaze.

  “You have a belly button ring.”

  Oh. That.

  She clapped a hand over the silly birthday present she’d bought herself the year prior, when she’d turned nineteen. It had been a couple of months after she and the kids had been living in the van and she’d been feeling…emotional, maybe? Proud, in a way.

  That she hadn’t failed them. That despite not having a parent or four walls not on wheels, the kids had been thriving. Happy.

  So she gifted herself with that particular navel piercing, designed with a tiny rhinestone at the top, with another smaller rhinestone dangling below it, and an even tinier third stone below that, all in a straight line. She got the three-stone navel ring partly to represent her and the kids, but also partly because it was her own feminine, pretty, magnificently frivolous secret that no one would be able to see.

  It was a small secret in comparison to her life living in the van with the kids. But like the frugal home she’d built for her siblings, it was still beautiful and precious.

  She barely felt Caine lift her fingers off her belly. But she did feel his lips.

  Then his tongue.

  Then his voice rumbling against her skin when he graveled, “This is the sexiest damn thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  Peeking down at her stomach again when his attention once again became fixed there, she saw the diamond he’d bought, lined up with the other three.

  A tidal wave of emotions quickly overtook all the oxygen in her lungs.

  Yes. That’s where that diamond belonged.

  A low, intense growl vibrated out of his chest.

  Startled, she glanced up to find his eyes now staring deep into hers.

  “You just said yes,” he rasped.

  Had she said that aloud?

  Gently, he put the tiny diamond back in the little velvet pouch it had come in.

  …Then he all but ravaged her mouth in a kiss that appeared to be on a mission to eclipse the earlier tidal wave of emotions, and steal every last bit of oxygen from her lungs.

  By the time he lifted his lips from hers, with what few working brain cells she still had left, she determined his mission an outstanding success.

  “I’m taking that ‘yes’ as a down payment, sweetheart.”

  Present Day

  Gazing at the stunning four-stone belly button ring Caine slipped out of a slim steel canister hanging from his keychain, which she’d always assumed held pills of some sort, Addison whispered softly, “It’s beautiful, Caine.”

  Addison couldn’t bring herself to take her eyes off of the gift, not even when Gabe’s drone chose that moment to hover close and click open a bottom hatch to drop something down into Caine’s waiting hands.

  “Told you I had your back, man,” said Gabe cryptically in his Oz-like drone voice before zipping back outside.

  Addison hardly noticed the exchange. All she could focus on was the dainty, sparkling navel ring between her fingers, and all the memories of that one perfect night.
<
br />   “Put it on.”

  Would these gruff non-requests ever stop being sexy?

  Probably not.

  Smiling, she lifted the edge of her shirt up and slid the piercing into place.

  It looked exactly like it had in all her memories of that night when Caine had lined up his single loose diamond, which had been slightly bigger than the three rhinestones in her navel ring setting, below the littlest one.

  The unique design couldn’t have been all that easy to find. “Where did you—”

  “I had it custom made.”

  Of course he did.

  “I started with that first diamond I showed you that night.” He traced a calloused finger over the four stones slowly. “Then I added another diamond each year for the next three years.”

  She gasped. “You mean these are— And this is actually the—”

  Emotions swamped her brain and her heart, preventing her from completing a single coherent thought that wasn’t overflooded with feelings.

  “While you’re processing and finding the words that come at the end of those sentences, let me see your hand.”

  Still staring at the beautiful gift, she automatically put her injured hand in his, belatedly remembering to shake her wrist for his benefit so he could see that the pain was tolerable, and very likely just a sprain.

  He bussed his lips over her slightly swelling wrist, and then proceeded to take her other hand in his. Without a word, he slipped a ring onto her finger.

  Already running short on air from his other gift, she couldn’t even manage another gasp.

  “After I made the navel ring, I moved on to building you your engagement ring next. Another new diamond for each year. I’d say those two side stones match that center stone I bought this year pretty perfectly, don’t you?”

  Did the man honestly expect her to be able to formulate a response right now?

  “The ring has been burning a hole in his pocket for weeks,” announced Gabe. “He looks at it about a hundred times a day.”

  Caine shrugged. “I liked imagining it on your finger—seemed to be the only thing that could ground me the crazier things got.”

  God, this man.

  “Do you like it?” he asked, sounding a shade vulnerable.

  Her voice went soft, her eyes liquid. “Of course I do. It’s absolutely gorgeous.”

  His eyes flared with fierce pleasure. “I know you didn’t want a bigger diamond, but, as I’d mentioned that night, I want to make damn sure every man with functioning eyes know without a doubt that you’re spoken for. By me.”

  Despite swooning at the intensity of his words and his possessive gaze, at the reminder of that night, Addison felt a sharp arrow of pain shoot right through her chest.

  “Caine, I need you to know that when I’d left the beautiful diamond you’d given me on your pillow the next morning, I swear, that wasn’t me returning your down payment.” Even saying the words stabbed her in the heart. “I-I just didn’t want to hold you to it if—”

  “I know, baby.” He slid his thumbs over her cheeks to wipe away her tears. “Like I already told you, what you decided to do after that night, and what you put yourself through for the next seven years as a result, all to protect my oath, my future… That was the single most romantic thing any woman has ever done for me. And I promise you, as far as my bleeding heart was concerned after that night, it was you or no one else. Still is.”

  Suddenly, his bloodied leg gave out and he hit the ground hard.

  “Caine!”

  When he looked up at her, he was grinning.

  Down on one knee.

  Crazy romantic man.

  “We could get married this weekend,” he said gruffly, by way of proposal.

  “Caine Harrison Spencer!” cried out an outraged voice from the drone’s speakers. “Don’t you dare run off and elope this weekend. I will hunt you down myself if you do.”

  Addison bit her lip to hold back the laugh threatening to get out.

  Leave it to the Spencer matriarch to make big, bad alpha Caine look just a wee bit terrified.

  “You’re the first of my boys to get engaged,” the voice continued sternly. “And very likely my best chance for a mother-son wedding waltz this decade.”

  “HEY!” called out Gabe and Max in unified offense.

  Now Caine was joining in on the smothered amusement.

  As was Drew, from the sounds of it.

  Gabe and Max proceeded to insist that they were just as ready as Caine was to man up and get married. Probably. Maybe.

  To which, their mother simply gave them a delicate little snort.

  “Lordy, I love your family,” Addison sighed. “Especially your mom.”

  “I’m actually pretty fond of your mom, too—despite all her faults, of course,” Caine admitted, shocking the absolute heck out of her. “Sonny left Lara in a motel and skipped town, probably thinking folks would think she was a druggie who’d overdosed. He didn’t get far, by the by. He’s sitting in a county lock-up awaiting trial as we speak. With the amount of drugs he’d pumped into your mother, along with all the other assault and kidnapping charges from today, Sonny isn’t going to see the light of day for the rest of his natural life. Just like David.”

  Addison exhaled a ragged breath. “I-is my mother okay?”

  He slid an arm around her and gently stroked her back. “Drew hacked into the E.R. records and found she’s doing fine. Slated to make a full recovery. As soon as the anesthesia wears off after my surgery tonight, I’ll go check on her. Bring her some flowers.”

  The man was just ridiculously sweet sometimes.

  “Just thought you’d want to know,” he finished gently. “Your mom came through for you when it counted. Your wanting to help her, and your faith in her, wasn’t ill-placed. Even barely conscious, she still managed to call me. To save you. And I’ll forever be grateful to her for that.”

  How was it that he always knew just what she needed to hear?

  Crouching down to help him up off his knee, she was caught off guard when the stubborn man stayed put. “Not without an answer to my proposal, honey.”

  She blinked in surprise. “You mean you’re actually asking me to marry you?”

  He gave her a look that said he thought she was out of her mind. “Of course I’m not asking. I told you seven years ago, your yes is already mine. This one is just for the video Gabe’s drone is recording.”

  She turned her head and sure enough, found the drone hovering just a few yards from them.

  “Speak up clearly now. I plan on playing the video at least a thousand times on loop while I’m recovering in the hospital,” he informed her. “So smile for the camera, baby. Give me something beautiful to watch post-surgery.”

  He was incorrigible. And she absolutely didn’t want to encourage this kind of behavior for the rest of their lives.

  So instead of doing as he requested, she brought her face down to his again and whispered yes between a dozen different kisses…the last few of which, had him growling.

  “And…cut,” called out Gabe from the drone. “Beautiful scene up until the slightly porny part at the end. But I can edit that out to keep it PG-rated. So that’s a wrap, folks. Paramedics, thanks for waiting.”

  Caine was immediately strapped into the awaiting stretcher by the fully entertained emergency response team who had in fact been waiting patiently through all this.

  As they loaded him up into the ambulance, Gabe hollered out, “No worries, buddy. I’ll see if Drew can hack this audio clip into the speakers in your room before your anesthesia takes.”

  “No prob,” confirmed Drew, clacking away on his computer like usual.

  Addison just shook her head at the drone. “Why do I have the feeling that you’ve all been lulling me into a false sense of security by holding back on the really crazy behavior up until now? I mean I’ve heard stories from Lia on what it’s like having you all as brothers. If even half of them are true, maybe I should think
this whole thing through a bit…” she teased.

  “You already said yes,” called out four male voices in stereo. Three just a tiny bit worried, one not at all.

  Caine slid her hand in his as his brothers each began demanding that the others stop scaring her off. “I’m going to close my eyes for a bit, sweetheart,” he murmured drowsily as he brought her hand up to his lips to brush a kiss over her ring-clad finger. “Just so you know, I approve of you messing with my brothers. They—”

  And then he was out.

  The alarmed medics quickly started checking his stats on the monitor they’d just hooked him up to…only to simultaneously gape in surprise when he heard Caine quietly snoring away.

  “I-I can’t believe this,” said the stupefied main paramedic after running a few more frantic tests to confirm. “He’s fine. Strong vitals. He just…fell asleep.”

  Finally.

  Smiling, Addison hopped into the ambulance and curled up against his chest to join him.

  Epilogue

  Three Years Later

  Caine took a swig of coffee and jotted a few surveillance notes in his notebook.

  It’d been a while since he’d been on a stakeout. After leaving the force and joining his brothers at Spencer Securities, he never got to do them anymore. He kind of missed it, actually.

  “Any updates?” crackled in Alec over the com line.

  “Nothing to warrant us going in,” Caine admitted, disgruntledly.

  “Guys, I’m telling you, he’s clean,” repeated Drew for the third time.

  He was quickly shushed in stereo when Gabe called out, “I got some movement on the secondary tracker. He ditched the one we put on his jacket, but according to the one on his shoe, he’s headed around the building away from the crowd. Oh shit, they both are.”

  Oh hell no. Not on his watch. “Which way are they headed? Who’s in a better position? Me or Alec?”