by S. M. Butler
“I did not.”
“No, but Master Chief did.”
“I cannot be responsible for that. I tried to get you to go home.” Yeah, by drugging me and cuffing me to the bed… but I wisely decided not to mention that part.
Instead, I nuzzled my nose against her hair, inhaling the soft citrusy scent of her shampoo. “I’m glad he did though. There’s no place I’d rather be right now… except maybe in a bed, as long as you’re there… and naked.”
She chuckled, and leaned in to give me a soft kiss on the lips. “Thank you. I didn’t say it before, but I’m glad you’re here.” Her words brought a smile to my face, lifting my heart. I pulled her back to me and she snuggled back under my arm, resting her head against my shoulder. We didn’t say anything else the rest of the train ride, but we didn’t really need to. It was nice, just sitting.
~*~*~
Murphy had texted me the address to Charles’s place, which was one of ten servant houses behind the palace. There was enough of them that they got their own road. Must be nice to be the king. Though Valonia had a queen, not a king. But the idea was the same.
So there we were, standing in front of his house, waiting for him to answer.
The door swung open to reveal a much younger man than I’d expected. He was a little older than I was, maybe about ten years. His dark hair was slicked back, pulled into a short ponytail at the base of his head. He had brown eyes that narrowed as they took the two of us in.
“Yes?”
“Hi,” I swallowed. I didn’t know this guy, but Murphy said he did. But still… it was nerve-wracking. “Um, my friend sent me.”
A frown appeared between his eyes. “A friend?”
“Eamon Murphy.”
“Oh.” Recognition flared in his expression. “Please. Come in. Quietly.” He pushed the door open and allowed us entrance.
The place was a bit like I expected. It was a small space, but cozy. The furniture all looked like it was royal antiques, castoffs from the palace when they redecorate. There was a fireplace on the other side of the room, tucked in the corner like a cozy little nook and an armchair with a book turned face down on the arm of it.
“Nice place,” I told him, but he didn’t give me any acknowledgment other than a simple grunt of disapproval.
He motioned to the sofa. “Sit. Would you like some water?”
The pointed look he gave meant he was talking more to Cady than me. She smiled warmly at him. “Yes, please.”
He went to the kitchen, which was separated from the living area by a wall with a square opening. He came back with two glasses and set them both down on the coffee table in front of us. Cadence and I thanked him, but he was obviously not a talkative sort. Minutes passed as we did not speak, the silence growing loud in my ears.
“How is Eamon?” Charles finally asked.
“He’s good. He’s getting married in a couple weeks,” I replied.
“Yes, I heard about the wedding. Unfortunately, my duties here will not allow me to leave.” Was he chitchatting with us? I couldn’t tell. He was so stiff. How did he even know Murphy? “Is she nice? The woman he is marrying?”
“Yeah. She’s real nice,” I said. “They’re kind of perfect for each other.”
“That… is good.” A few more minutes of silence passed. “I assume you are needing a night’s board?”
“Yes,” Cadence said. “Our last place… there’s someone…”
“Please. Don’t explain. You are with Eamon, so I trust him not to send vagabonds or some such to my doorstep. But that doesn’t mean I want to know your business. You may stay the night here. I cannot afford more than tonight..” He didn’t elaborate on what he meant by that, and I didn’t want to ask. Instead, he sighed. “You will stay in my extra bedroom. It’s fully furnished. All I ask is that you strip the sheets in the morning when you leave.”
When we left. He was pretty adamant about us leaving after tonight. I was okay with that. I didn’t want to stay more than one night honestly. We could take tonight, rest, and tomorrow, we’d tackle this Jack Allen problem straight on.
Cadence answered before I did. “Yes, of course. We don’t wish to be an imposition to you. We just need to rest.”
“You need to clean that wound on your arm and re-bandage it.” Charles motioned to her arm. She glanced at it, looking surprised. It had started bleeding again. “Does it require stitches?”
She pressed her fingers over it. “It’ll be fine.”
“Nonsense. I am trained as a medic. I served fifteen years in Her Majesty’s Marines.” He sighed again. “Come to the kitchen. I have a medical kit there. Let’s look at it.”
He turned on his heels and walked right out. She glanced at me, uncertainly. I nodded. “Go ahead. You do need to get that taken care of.”
She started to say something but stopped. She stood up and held her hand out. “Come with me?” I smiled and nodded, slipping my hand around hers and let her pull me to my feet. Together we walked to the kitchen.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Cadence
The kitchen was like something out of an American fifties sitcom, except with newer appliances. It was adorable and so not like what I expected a guy like Charles to have. He seemed to pick up on what I was thinking because he said, “The kitchen came pre-decorated.” He motioned to the counter. “Sit up there, please.” He looked at Dylan. “Since you’re here, you can help her up there.”
Dylan didn’t say a word, but he did put his hands on my hips and lift me onto the counter top. I wasn’t wearing my gun, since Jack took it, but I could see the butt of his gun beneath his jacket and that made me feel better. I didn’t like being without my gun.
Charles peeled off the bandage on my arm. “At least it’s clean.” He examined my wound closely, frowning then turned back to his box of medical supplies.
Charles came back with fresh bandages, antiseptic and what looked like needle and thread. I stared at him, wary. He met my eyes evenly. “You need stitches.”
I swallowed and glanced at Dylan, who gripped my uninjured hand in clear support.
“I’ll be fine.”
“No, you won’t. It will keep on bleeding if you don’t get stitches to keep it closed.”
I stared at the needles in the kit, thinking about how they’d each pierce the skin. One was bigger, for stronger thread, likely for bigger wounds. There was no way that wouldn’t hurt going in. Mine wasn’t that bad, so likely I needed that smaller one, which looked a lot sharper to me.
“It’ll be okay,” Dylan said. “I’m right here.”
I nodded at Charles. “Fine. Let’s do it.”
“This is a numbing agent,” he explained. “It will deaden the area around where I’m going to sew.” I didn’t look, because looking at someone sew up skin was weird. I’d never been able to do it, and that was why I didn’t become a doctor. But I did stay still, holding through the not-quite-deadened procedure. I squeezed Dylan’s hand a few times when the pain increased too much—the numbing agent wasn’t totally effective—and clenched my teeth together.
Once it was done, I glanced over as Charles set the bandage over his work and taped the edges down against my arm. When his eyes met mine, the man finally cracked a smile. “No swimming for a few days, yes?”
I grinned back. “Right. No swimming.”
“Well, then, I’m just going to clean up this mess, and then I will go to bed. I suggest you two do the same.” He scooped up the bloodied bandages and gauze he’d used and vanished within minutes. We could hear his steps recede and then the soft click of a door as it shut behind him.
Dylan put his hands on the counter, one on either side of me. “How are you doing?” His eyes cased mine, looking for something. His concern warmed my insides. I’d never had anyone be that concerned for me since my parents, the last Christmas I’d been home.
“Tired. That’s all.” I said, sliding off the counter top. But Dylan didn’t move away, so in effect, I was slidi
ng down his body. It was almost too much, his body crowding mine. The sensations and the warmth of him pressed against me made me want to crumble to the floor and let him fuck me senseless right then.
Dylan was too close and he wasn’t moving. His eyes focused on mine, searching for something within them. “Are you sure?”
The thing was… He was in this mess because of me. He could have been hurt just as well as I was. At the restaurant, with the gunshots going off, I’d only thought of getting him out of there. I needed to protect him, because I’d fallen hard for him in the worst sort of way. And if Jack figured that out at all, he’d use Dylan to get at me. I couldn’t let that happen.
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m good.”
He leaned in and dropped a chaste kiss on my cheek. “Okay. Let’s check out the accommodations then.” He put a hand on the small of my back and gently pushed me toward the door that Charles had shown us.
I pushed it open and glanced around the room. It was a simple room, not like the rest of the house. The furniture in here was more modern. This house was fun, between the fifties-style kitchen and the opulent living area.
“One bed.” Dylan mused, jumping on the edge of the mattress. He groaned and fell backward. “Oh, my god. I could die on this bed and be happy.”
I giggled and stepped over between his legs, which were still hanging off the side. I gazed down at him, but before I could say a word, he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me down on top of him. I put out my arms to keep from falling directly on him, but winced when my injured one complained.
“Hi there,” he said, smiling.
“Hi,” I returned.
“You’re so gorgeous, you know that?” he asked, brushing my hair back behind my ears. He cupped my face in his warm hands and kissed me. Warmth coursed through me, filling me with a permanent blush from head to toe. It was like being just drunk enough to get that flush of heat.
His tongue slid into my mouth, his fingers tangling in my hair and gripping tightly. The slight pull send shards of desire straight to my core. He flipped us over, and hovered over me, never breaking the kiss. Finally, I had to breathe, so I pushed him up. “What are you doing, you crazy boy?”
“What does it look like? I’m kissing you here.” He sucked in my earlobe and then continued kissing down my neck. “And then I’m going to take your shirt off, and kiss you here.” He palmed a breast, his thumb brushing over my nipple. “And then I’m going to keep kissing you until I get here.” His hand slid down and cupped me between my legs, pressing against the seam in such a way that electricity shot up my spine, causing me to arch my back in anticipation.
He brought his hand up and rested his elbows on either side of my shoulders. His hands cupped my face, his thumbs gently brushing my cheeks. “I want to make you feel so good that you’ll forget everything else in the world.”
“You already do that,” I whispered, my voice a soft croak. My world was spinning out of control, not my sight but my emotions, and my sense. The fact that we were guests in someone’s house didn’t matter. The fact that Dylan was right there, lying next to me did matter. It was all that mattered. My whole world comprised of him in that moment, and I didn’t care about anything else.
“I haven’t even begun,” came the answer.
~*~*~
He licked up the side of my neck, just the tip of his tongue. I moaned and clung to him, digging my fingers into his shoulders. I pulled his shirt up and over his head at the same time he did the same for me. I hissed a little as I pulled my blouse over my head, upsetting my injured arm in the process.
His lips and hands were all over me as soon as my blouse was out of the way, smoothing over my skin, sending sparks through every nerve in my body as he touched me. The boots I wore were next, then jeans were after that, slid right off, along with my underwear and my bra.
As he stripped down, I took a moment to admire the athletic physique Dylan had. The broad shoulders. The sculpted biceps. Washboard abs. He was a walking trope, straight out of a book… or an action flick. I wasn’t picky. The hot, bad-ass white knight, come to save me from myself. Except I was no virgin princess who needed to be saved from the bad guy. I was the one hunting the bad guy, and my white knight was the one saving me from myself.
His cock was a thing of beauty. Thick and long, I was already imagining how he’d feel buried inside me, remembering how he’d felt in the past. I licked my lips, and then noticed his smirk as he caught me.
“Shut up,” I told him when his mouth opened. No doubt, he’d have some kind of crazy joke to say, and I didn’t want to hear it. He dropped to the bed again, crawling up my body, chuckling at me, but wisely, he did not say whatever it was that he was going to say.
His hands slid up my inner thighs and over my hips to around my ass. And then he dropped between my legs and I saw stars at the first lick. With the second one, my back arched involuntarily, trying to get more personal contact with his tongue. Over and over again, he alternated licking and sucking on my private areas, every once in a while, his teeth would scrape over my clit and send fireworks through my body. But he held me up there, close enough to the edge to see over, but not close enough to fall over. He teased, he sucked, and he tormented me with pleasure until I couldn’t take it anymore.
Then he slid up my body, brushed my hair from my face and met my eyes. I could see straight into his soul, so incredibly deep. He wasn’t hiding anything from me. He was laid bare before me. Then he said something that shattered me before he entered my body.
“I love you, Cadence.” His cock slid right in, its passage eased by the edge of sensual surrender he’d brought me to, and all of it together—his cock, his teasing, his words—all of it sent me into a spiral of ecstasy I couldn’t control. I dragged my nails down his back, trying desperately to get him deeper into my body as he pumped his hips.
I hooked my legs behind him, just above his ass so he could push deeper into me. Before I could come down from that climax, he was already stroking me toward another, his thumb pressed against my clit, making the slow lazy circles while his cock pushed deep inside me. Faster and faster, the spiral coil inside me wound tighter and tighter.
Dylan groaned and grabbed my hips, his moving between my legs more urgently than he had before. “Oh, fuck, Cadence… I need to—”
I loved the way he growled my name, grunted it through clenched teeth as he got closer to coming. That spiral coil inside me wound tighter, until finally, Dylan pinched my clit between two fingers and rolled it. The coil snapped, all the pent up energy and arousal exploding from my body. “Dylan!” The name slipped my lips like it belonged there, like it was the most natural thing for me to cry out during sex. It felt like it went on forever, especially when his hard body tensed over me and a loud groan of rapture left his lips as he came.
When it was over, Dylan collapsed next to me on his back. Both of us sat there panting for several long minutes in silence. Finally, he chuckled. “I win.”
I turned my head toward him. “What do you mean you win?”
“I told you I’d get you to scream my name.”
I snorted and smacked him in the stomach.
“Ow!”
“Jerk.”
I flipped to my side and propped my head up on my palm. “Dylan… did you mean what you said?”
“About loving you?” he asked, not looking at me. He stared up at the ceiling.
“Yeah.”
“I did. You know I’d never lie to you.”
Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Not from terror, which was what I’d expected to feel, but from happiness. I did love that he felt that way. I just wasn’t sure that I could feel that way, too.
“Um… this is kind of a bad time to bring it up… but… are you on birth control?” he asked.
I blinked, frowning and then realization slapped me in the face. He hadn’t used a condom. We hadn’t even considered it. Neither of us had even thought about it. We had just been a couple of horn
y teenagers going at it in a strange house. I swallowed. What was wrong with me? I was never that impulsive.
“Yes. I’m on birth control. We’ve had a lot of sex over the last year, Bambi. Obviously, I needed to be on something.” I sat up and grabbed his boxers, pulling them on, followed by my fallen shirt.
He sat up on his elbows. “What are you doing?”
“Just going to use the bathroom,” I told him, smiling.
I stepped quietly out of the room and headed over to the bathroom, which was between our bedroom and our host’s. And thank goodness for that. What if Charles had heard us? How mortifying. I shut the bathroom door and took care of business. Afterward, I sat down on the floor, and leaned back against the wall. Pulling my knees up to my chest, I wrapped my arms around my legs.
What had I done? I’d had meaningful sex with a guy I worked with. It wasn’t supposed to be meaningful. He wasn’t supposed to love me. It was just supposed to be a nice regular friends with benefits deal. And now… It wasn’t just sex anymore. There were emotions tied to us, between us. I couldn’t let this keep on. I couldn’t let that tie get stronger between us.
What was worse was I wanted to change. I wanted to be that girl that Dylan needed. I wanted it so bad it made my chest hurt. But in the end, I was damaged too much. I could never be someone’s girlfriend or a wife. I’d be forever looking behind me to see if he’d thrust a knife between my ribs or something. The thought of bringing children in the world gave me hives. Who had time for that?
I sat there in the bathroom floor for a long while, what seemed like hours, but was probably only minutes. I thought about me. I thought about Dylan. I thought about Jack and why we were in a servant house outside of the Valonian palace. I thought about the sex I’d just had and how I really did love Dylan, but hadn’t told him so.
In the end, it was about protecting him, keeping him safe from being hurt, even if it was me from whom he had to be protected.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dylan