I’d have to find a way to do both because I couldn’t give her up now. I was too selfish. I needed her to keep me from going insane.
Right now, though, while I was thinking rationally, I made myself do the smart thing. “But I need you to go. I know you said your father is preoccupied, but there are other people who could catch us. We have to be more careful than this.”
“I know. You’re right.” She didn’t let go of me when I let go of her.
“Jolie,” I nudged.
“I love you,” she said. “I didn’t say it back.”
I hadn’t had time to wonder about it. I was still processing the fact that I loved her, and without having time to work it all out, I was already sure it was independent of how she felt about me.
But God, it felt good to know she felt the same.
I started to reach for her again and stopped myself before I got lost in another kiss. “Tonight. After your father’s asleep.”
“He locks me in with a key,” she reminded me. “You can’t get in any easier than I can get out.”
Still high from the orgasm and from her loving me, I didn’t feel the intensity of rage I usually felt when I thought about how much I hated that man.
Besides, I had another plan. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll get to you.” I’ll always get to you.
She didn’t know it yet, but that was a promise too.
Fifteen
Jolie
I was concentrating so hard on my bedroom door, listening for any sound on the other side, that the knock on my window made me jump.
Buzzing with excitement, I crawled across my mattress, threw back the curtain, and shoved the window up. It was the same kind we had throughout the second floor, the kind that pushed up with no screen, but unlike Cade’s, the only way to the roof from mine was up.
My stomach was already in knots before I stuck my head out and looked above me to find Cade on his stomach. “Oh my God, you’re going to fall!”
He grinned, half reassuring, half amused. “I won’t. Just move out of the way so I can swing in.”
“Oh no. No freaking way.” I was so emphatic, I’d forgotten to be quiet. I clapped a hand over my mouth and listened for any sounds behind me before whisper-shouting. “Don’t even think about it.”
This time he actually laughed, and I realized I didn’t ever remember hearing him laugh before. It mesmerized me so much that this time when he told me to move away, I did.
A tense thirty seconds later, he’d swung himself around, dropped his toes to the windowsill, then worked his way in, feet first.
After a surprised beat, I knelt on the bed and helped him—or pretended to help him. If he fell, it wasn’t like I had the strength to pull him back up, but having something to do made me feel calmer, and besides, I really liked touching him.
I shut the window as soon as he was in, not wanting to let too much cold air in, then sat back, my legs curled under me, and stared at him.
Holy shit.
Cade was in my room.
The door was locked from the outside, and Cade was in my room, and my father didn’t know, and I’d never been happier.
Until he reached his hand out and cupped the side of my face, which made me even happier.
I was also a nervous wreck. “You could have killed yourself.”
“Doing that? Piece of cake.”
“You should have come in the bathroom window.” It faced the side of the house instead of the back, and the roof was easily accessible. I’d never climbed out that way because I was not too big of a fan of heights, but I was willing to try it when it was warmer.
“Too narrow for my shoulders,” he said with certainty.
Which made me realize… “You’ve thought about this before. About sneaking in my room.”
For half a second, I thought he was going to deny it. “All the fucking time.”
My heart flipped, and I blushed. It could have been meant as a sweet comment or a dirty one, and instead of choosing which he’d meant, my body reacted to both.
Holy shit, Cade was in my room, and he was going to do sweet and dirty things to me real soon. Wildly dirty, maybe even.
Instinctively, I looked to my door. I’d never been granted happiness in my life without my father lurking in the shadows, ready to take it away.
Cade followed my line of vision. “He already came by, didn’t he? I swear I heard him go downstairs before I came over.”
“He did, but we should have a sign in the future. If you had knocked when he was in here…” My stomach tightened, thinking about the possibility of him coming over too soon.
“Next time, open the window a crack as soon as he leaves. I won’t knock unless it’s open.”
I nodded, but I was still staring at the door. It was after midnight, and he’d already done his check-in, but I couldn’t help worrying it would be one of those nights where Dad decided he wanted to say good night to me again. It was rare, but not out of the question. Especially if he’d punished me earlier in the day. He seemed to think an extra visit to my room could make up for whatever cruelty he’d dispensed.
“You think he might come back?” Well, now I was only thinking about my upper arm since his hand was stroking my skin there. “Will you feel better if we move the dresser in front of the door?”
It wasn’t a very heavy dresser and wouldn’t stop anyone for long, but any extra barrier seemed like a good idea.
Either he felt the same or sensed how I felt because he stood up to move it before I’d answered. I jumped up to join him, and together we pushed the dresser until it hit the doorknob and couldn’t go any farther.
Once it was in place, Cade put his hand on the doorknob and turned it, testing it. “He really, really locks you in.”
I nodded. I’d had years to get used to being treated like a possession more than a person. A lifetime trained to be the model daughter, only existing for my father’s needs and nothing else. It had been a long time since I’d tried to remember that most children weren’t treated this way, and though I had a feeling Cade’s life hadn’t been “normal” either, I also knew my father had to be a new kind of devil.
“How do we live like this?” he asked, and it was a rhetorical question, but I knew that the answer was that we didn’t.
At least, I hadn’t. I hadn’t lived. I hadn’t felt like I’d lived, anyway. Not until this year. Not until Cade.
And now it was just the two of us, alone in my room, and even after he’d been inside me only hours before, I suddenly felt shy. “Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” he said back.
He stood there and looked at me then, really looked at me, and with the moonlight coming into the room, I could see his eyes move down my body. Could tell when he noticed my nipples budding through my nightgown. Watched as he adjusted the crotch of his jeans.
“Are you cold?” But he was smirking, like he already knew the answer.
“I’m not cold.” Immediately, I regretted my response. If I were better at being flirty or seductive, I’d have said something witty, told him I was freezing and needed him to warm me up.
It must not have mattered that I’d said something so lame because he prowled over to me anyway, like I was exactly as tempting as I wanted to be to him. He cupped my cheeks with his hands and moved his mouth lightly over my face, keeping his lips only a breath away. “There are so many things I want to do to you.”
I closed my eyes, waiting for his kiss. “What kinds of things?” I could barely hear my whisper above my pounding heart.
“So many terrible naughty things that I fantasized about doing all those times I thought about sneaking in your window. It’s going to take a lot of restraint not to do them all to you tonight.”
“But you could do at least some of them.”
“Maybe one.”
My eyes flew open. “Only one?”
He chuckled, then kissed me quickly on the lips. “I’m serious about there being more than fucking between us.�
�� He took my hand and tugged me toward the bed. “Let’s talk.”
“We’ve had months of the ‘more’ between us. I think we deserve some time playing catch-up on the fucking.” It wasn’t that I was particularly into sex. I’d never done it for my own enjoyment. I’d never even had an orgasm.
But I knew what to do with sex. I knew how to use it to be worth noticing. I knew how to exchange it for a favor. I knew how it could make a boy say nice things.
I didn’t know how to make a boy say nice things without it.
I didn’t know how to be with a boy without it.
Yet here I was, climbing onto my bed with a boy who emphatically didn’t want to just fuck.
I didn’t know if I felt like flying or throwing up.
Cade propped himself up against the wall next to the window, then pulled me into him and wrapped an arm around me. “You’re so tense,” he said, his hand caressing my arm again. Goosebumps peppered across my skin in its wake. “Still worried we’ll be caught?”
“I don’t know.”
His lips pressed against my temple. “You said no lying. Are you really that scared of letting me hold you?”
Yes.
But it was getting easier as the seconds passed, especially since I was facing away from him. “I guess it’s not so bad. I just don’t know what to talk about.”
“Anything you want. Or you don’t have to say anything, if you’d rather.”
Both options sounded awkward.
But there was something I wanted to know. “What did Amelia’s note say?”
“You said you already knew.”
I hadn’t read it. I’d wanted to, but I’d stopped myself, hoping that Cade would tell me himself. Even if he didn’t, I’d seen the look in her eyes when she’d handed it to me. She knew whatever they had was over.
“I guess I don’t care so much about what her note said. I care more about your reaction.”
He pulled away so he could look at me. “Now I really need to hear what you thought it said.”
“She broke up with you?” My voice squeaked, and now that I’d said it out loud, I was really afraid that it wasn’t true.
“I guess she did? There wasn’t anything to break up. She knew I wasn’t into her. She just didn’t know why until today.”
“You really weren’t into her?”
“Worse. I was using her. Do you think the worst of me now?”
“Using her to…?”
“To keep everyone from figuring out how I feel about you.” A mountain fell off my shoulders. I’d told myself I didn’t care what he felt for her, but it was a lie. I cared a lot. Especially since I was pretty sure they’d actually been fucking. It was a relief to know it had been the charade I’d thought it had been.
And I really loved hearing him talk about his feelings for me. It was probably going to take some time before I truly believed it, so I was glad he wasn’t keeping it inside like a secret that only had to be admitted once.
“I guess it is more than my father who can’t know,” I said, realizing for the first time what it would look like to others. “People would probably think it’s sick.”
“Or kinky.”
I let out a snort. Then second-guessed his meaning. “Is that what you think—?”
He cut me off with a kiss. “You know what we are. Better than I do, maybe. And I’ve already told you this isn’t about sex for me. Isn’t just about sex.”
I wrapped my arms around him, and his hand grazed my breast as it skated down my ribs, making me very eager to climb on his lap.
Just as I was heating up, he slowed things down. “I think Amelia offered to help be our cover. I’ll let that be your decision. Either way, even if I pretend to be with her, I promise I won’t be with her again. Not like this.”
I loved that he thought about my feelings. Loved that he was sure enough about me to make promises.
But he was still new to the compromises that had to be made on behalf of my father, and I didn’t want to tell him that there were some promises that couldn’t be made, but instead I said thank you and rested back into his arms, pressing my cheek against his chest.
We sat quietly for several minutes, his hand tracing up and down my arm, and soon I felt my body relaxing, the rock in my stomach lightening, and I could no longer hear my heartbeat racing in my ears.
I could hear his heartbeat, though, steady under my ear. It was so steady, I almost thought he’d fallen asleep.
Then he asked, “What happened after dinner?”
The bowling ball in my stomach returned. As I’d suspected I would be, I’d been called to my father’s office. In all honesty, it had been a pretty typical punishment. Nothing I couldn’t handle.
I really hated bringing that into this room though. I wanted Cade all to myself. “Do we have to talk about my father?”
I could feel him sigh underneath me. “No. Not if you don’t want to. But I think you’ve never been able to talk to anyone about him, and I don’t want you to have to carry that alone anymore.”
But I’d carried it alone so long. I didn’t know how to share it. I couldn’t imagine letting someone else have to burden it with me, even though I was well aware that Cade already did share it with me, whether we talked about it or not.
I took a deep breath and tested what it felt to tell him...something. “He said he didn’t believe Birch did anything that I didn’t ask for, and if I got myself pregnant, I was out of here.”
“In that case, maybe I should get you pregnant.”
I ignored him because I didn’t think he meant it and because I knew my father didn’t mean it. He would never willingly take his hooks off me. “He also said if I hadn’t asked for it, well, um. I shouldn’t be surprised.” I cleared my throat. “Shouldn’t be surprised that boys like Birch treat me that way. Because that’s what whores were for.”
He went stiff. “He called you that?”
I was glad I didn’t have to look at him when I nodded. It only felt hard to share because my abuse was different than his. It seemed my father’s favorite weapon with Cade was pain. With me, it was humiliation.
He swore under his breath, then turned me so he could look at me.
“It’s okay,” I said, before he could give me his pity. “I’m used to it.” Calling me a whore wasn’t anything new. It was the first time I’d heard cum bucket, however.
“It’s not okay, Jolie. And I’m never going to accept your ‘it’s okay’ because you believe it.”
Something cracked inside me. Some deep part of my foundation. No, I wanted to insist. Of course, I don’t believe anything my father says. He lies, and he’s horrible and says things just because he knows they’ll hurt.
But of course I believed him. Why else did I do the things I did with boys? I didn’t want to jerk them off. I didn’t want their sweaty dicks in my mouth. I didn’t want their cum down my throat.
I didn’t know the tears were falling until Cade was kissing them off my cheeks, whispering reassurances. “It’s not true. Even if you slept with every guy in the school, it doesn’t make you a whore.”
“Then why do you regret having sex with me?”
He looked at me like I was insane. “Why do you think I regret it?”
“Why do you just want to sit and talk?” I was being ridiculous, but I was upset and confused, and I didn’t know what I wanted.
He kept calm despite my theatrics. “I want to sit and talk because I love you. And I want you to feel loved. It doesn’t mean I don’t want you, and it for damn sure doesn’t mean I regret it.”
“I don’t know how to feel loved.” I was kissing him now too, but my kisses were not soothing. They were hungry and needy and desperate.
Suddenly, I was on my back, my hands stretched over my head and held down, Cade’s eyes dark. “Okay, I get it,” he said, hovering over me. “Talking isn’t enough, but I’m not about to stick my dick in you just so you can confirm that your father’s right. How about we meet each
other halfway?”
I’d been so surprised by being flipped that I’d stopped crying, but my eyes were still watery. “What do you mean?”
“You let me love you. The way you need to be loved.” I was already tugging his sweatshirt off when he stopped me. “There’s one rule: it’s all about you.”
I must have looked confused because he went on. “Trust me. Can you trust me?”
I’d never trusted anyone like I trusted him. He knew most of my secrets. I’d let him into my room. Why would he need to ask?
His smile appeared, startling when he’d been so somber only a minute before. “Well, then trust me all the way. Trust me to love you, okay?”
“Uh. Okay.”
“Good. Second rule—”
“I thought there was only one.”
“It’s a subrule related to the first one.” Now he had me smiling. “I get to touch you, but you don’t get to touch me.”
“Oh.” I was beginning to understand. “Ohhh.”
And now I was feeling terrified.
I started to sit up. “I don’t think I can—”
He pushed me back down. “Can you let me help you try? I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to. I’ll ask first. Can I take off your nightgown?”
It was light and practically see-through, and right now it felt as heavy as a winter coat on my skin.
But taking it off meant being naked, and naked felt very unbalanced if it was only going to be me. “Will you take off your clothes too?”
He shook his head. “You already got me naked. It’s my turn to see you.” He bent down to tug at my nipple through the flimsy material with his lips. “I’m dying to see all of you, Jolie. You have me going crazy imagining what you look like with nothing on.”
He moved his mouth to my other breast, and I moaned, “Yes.” Then, just in case I wasn’t clear, “Yes, you can take off my nightgown.”
“If at any time you want me to stop, you just say stop, and I will.” He made sure I nodded consent. Slowly, gently, he pulled the gown up my body, over my head, then pinned my arms on the bed before really looking at me.
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