Page 239 of Cross Checked
“I missed this,” I whispered. “You. Us. The part where you look at me like I’m the one thing you are starved for.”
For one second, he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the last of the careful Cade was gone.
Not the protective Cade. He would never lose that.
But the soft, distant, worried version?
Gone.
In his place was the man I knew. The one who wanted me so badly it made him angry. The one who had spent four days holding himself back and hated me a little for noticing.
His hand slid lower to my hip, and I sucked in a breath.
“Pain?” he asked, voice rough.
“No.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I’m not.”
His eyes held mine.
Then he bent and kissed me. Not my forehead or the top of my hand. Not some careful, saintly kiss designed to keep me from feeling too much.
This was Cade.
Controlled only because he forced it, mouth hot and demanding against mine, one hand at my hip and the other still braced on the counter like he needed something solid to keep from taking too much too fast. I clutched his shirt and kissed him back with every frustrated, furious, needy part of me, and when his tongue stroked against mine, a sound slipped out of me that made him go completely still for half a second.
Then he tore his mouth away. His breathing was rough and mine was right there with him. “You still think I don’t want you?”
I shook my head.
His eyes dropped to my mouth, then dragged back up. “Use words.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, but can you see why I thought it?”
“I am rectifying that.”
His hands slipped behind my thighs, and he lifted me. I gasped, automatically wrapping my arms around his shoulders as he used that controlled strength that made my entire body remember exactly why I had started this fight in the first place. He set me on the counter carefully, maddeningly mindful of my ribs even while his eyes looked anything but gentle.
The cold surface hit the backs of my thighs, but I didn’t care when Cade stepped between my knees.
The entire kitchen disappeared around him.
His hands settled on either side of me, caging me in, his mouth close enough to ruin my common sense all over again. The bruises still hurt. My ribs still ached. Luke was still out there somewhere. The house was still full of people who loved me enough to hover me into insanity.
But right then, Cade looked at me like none of that had taken me from myself. I was still the girl who made him lose control. I was still wanted. I was still his.
His gaze moved over my face, hot and furious and full of everything he had been holding back.
“I’m trying to keep my cool around you,” he said, voice low enough to scrape over every inch of me, “because the second I really start touching you, Pip, there is no way I will fucking stop.”
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