Chapter 8; Hot

EMMA

I turned on the stool, the room tilting just enough to remind me I had ordered one too many, and found Cade standing behind me.

For a second, only a second I could have sworn something like concern moved through those dark eyes. Then it was gone, replaced by the usual cold assessment, and I decided the whiskey was inventing things.

“Cade!” I heard myself say, too loud and too happy. I slid off the stool, stumbled forward, and wrapped my arms around his middle before my brain could stop me. He went rigid under the hug. He smelled clean, like soap and something sharper underneath. “Hi.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked again voice low and flat.

I pulled back just enough to look up at him and grinned. “I’m here for a drink, silly. What else would I be doing at a bar?” The giggle that followed was entirely the alcohol’s fault.

He stared at me for a long moment, jaw tight, then wrapped one large hand around my wrist and started walking. I had no choice but to follow, feet clumsy on the floor.

“Where are we going?”

“Home.”

“But I wasn’t done..”

“You’re done.”

I stumbled twice on the way to the curb. The second time my ankle turned and I started to go down. Cade stopped, exhaled once through his nose, and simply picked me up. One arm under my knees, the other around my back. I made a small surprised sound and then another helpless giggle against his shoulder.

“You’re very tall,” I informed him.

He didn’t answer. He carried me to a dark car, somehow got the door open without putting me down, and settled me into the passenger seat. The door shut. A moment later he was in the driver’s side and the engine came to life.

The city lights smeared across the window as we pulled away. My head felt floaty. I turned toward him in the seat, cheek pressed against the leather.

“How old are you?”

Silence.

“Okay, fine. What’s your favourite colour?”

Still nothing.

“Do you even have a favourite colour? Is it black? It feels like it would be black. You wear a lot of black.” I squinted at his profile. “Why don’t you smile? I’ve never seen you smile. Not once. Is your face broken?”

The corner of his mouth might have twitched. Or perhaps I imagined it.

I kept talking because the quiet felt too heavy and the whiskey had removed every filter I usually lived with. Random questions. Observations about the estate. A long, rambling complaint about cake and my mother that even I barely followed. I told him the lemon elderflower had tasted like sadness. I told him Richard’s house was too big and too quiet. I told him I still wasn’t sure how I felt about any of it. Somewhere in the middle of the one-sided conversation I heard myself ask the one thing that had been sitting under my ribs since the first time he looked at me like he wanted to ruin me.

“Why do you hate me?”

My eyes were already closing. The last thing I felt was the low rumble of the engine and the strange safety of not being alone.

I floated in and out after that.

There were voices at some point all familiar ones, low and overlapping when the car stopped and cool night air touched my face. Someone asked a question. Cade’s voice answered, short and clipped. Then movement again. Stairs. The scent of my own hallway. Soft mattress under my back.

Hands, careful,and impersonalremoved my shoes. My jeans. The top I had worn to the pastry shop. A cool cloth passed over my face, taking away the sticky feeling of dried tears and makeup. Curtains whispered shut. A blanket settled over me. Footsteps retreated.

I tried to open my eyes once and only managed a slit of darkness before sleep pulled me under completely.

When I woke the light in the room was soft and late-morning grey. My head ached in a polite, insistent way. I was in an old T-shirt I didn’t remember putting on and nothing else. The events of the previous night came back in uneven pieces: the bar, Cade’s cold face, the hug I never should have given, being carried, the car, the question I had asked right before everything went dark.

I showered longer than necessary, dressed in clean clothes, and went downstairs because the alternative was staying in bed thinking about how many people had seen me helpless.

They were already at the table.

Rhys at the head, coffee in hand. Theo to his right. Tristan across from him. The fourth chair, Cade’s chair was empty. I sat, picked up a piece of toast I didn’t really want, and forced myself to speak.

I thanked Rhys for last night, even though I knew it wasn't him. But I just couldn't wrap my head around Cade helping me he hated me. 

“Thank you,” I said to Rhys, eyes on my plate. “For… last night. For tucking me in.”

A short silence.

Theo was the one who answered. “That was Cade. He brought you home.”

So it was Cade. I looked up.

Tristan leaned back in his chair, expression somewhere between amused and warning.

“You really need to stop getting yourself into trouble, little girl.”

The nickname landed warmer than it should have. Heat climbed my neck. I finished the toast in three bites, mumbled an excuse, and left the table before any of them could say anything else.

I found Cade’s room on the same floor as Rhys’s after only two wrong doors. My heart was beating too fast when I knocked.

He opened it almost immediately.

He was shirtless, a dark towel low around his hips, hair still wet from a shower. Water beaded along his collarbones and the hard lines of his chest and stomach. For a second I forgot every word I had practiced.

“I...” I started, then stopped. My hands twisted together in front of me. “I just wanted to say thank you. For last night. For finding me. And for not leaving me there. And for carrying me when I kept tripping. And for God, I’m bad at this.” The words kept tumbling out, tripping over each other. I still couldn’t look higher than his collarbone. “I was drunk and I hugged you and asked you all those stupid questions and I’m sorry if I made anything weird. I didn’t mean to. I just… thank you. Really. I know you don’t like me much, but you still got me home and I—”

I never finished the sentence.

His hand came up fast, fingers wrapping around the front of my throat the same way they had in the hallway the night Rhys carried me past him. The pressure was firm, possessive, not quite cutting off air but close enough that my pulse jumped hard against his palm. He used the hold to pull me forward and his mouth landed on mine.

There was nothing careful about the first second. It was hunger and frustration and something that felt almost angry, like he had been holding it back too long. Then the angle changed and the kiss deepened, slowed, became deliberate. His other hand settled at my waist, fingers spreading over the fabric of my shirt, gripping just tight enough to keep me in place. I made a small sound against his mouth, pressing my body to his and he answered it with a low, rough noise of his own that vibrated through my entire body.

He kissed me like he was trying to learn the shape of the problem I had become. Like he hated how much he wanted the answer. My hands, still twisted together a moment before, came up and flattened against the warm, damp skin of his chest. I could feel his heart slamming under my palms, just as unsteady as mine. The towel at his hips did very little to hide how affected he was. When his tongue slid against mine I whimpered into the kiss and felt his fingers flex harder around my throat in response.

He pulled back only far enough for us to breathe. His forehead rested against mine for a fraction of a second, eyes closed, like he needed the pause. When he opened them again the cold mask was gone. What replaced it was raw and dark and honest enough to make my stomach flip.

“You’re welcome,” he said, voice rougher than I had ever heard it.

His thumb stroked once along the side of my neck where my pulse still raced. The corner of his mouth lifted into something that wasn’t quite a smile and wasn’t quite safe.

“That was a kiss,” he continued, quiet enough that it felt like a secret. “Next time you show up at my door rambling like that, I won’t be as polite about shutting you up. I’ll use something a lot more effective than my mouth.”

The words sent a bolt of heat straight between my legs. Before I could find a single reply he stepped back, the hand leaving my throat, and closed the door in my face with a soft, final click.

I stood there for a long moment, fingers lifted to my lips, the phantom heat of his mouth and the promise in his voice still burning. I couldn’t even find the energy to be angry or embarrassed. My body was still catching up to what had just happened the way he had kissed me like it cost him something, the way his heart had raced under my hands, the dark edge in his voice when he told me what the next time would look like.

I walked back to my room in a daze, closed the door, and sat on the edge of the bed. The same fingers kept tracing my bottom lip like they could hold the feeling in place. Every time I closed my eyes I felt the pressure of his hand at my throat and the exact moment the kiss had stopped being angry and started being hungry.

That night sleep took a long time to come. When it finally did, the dreams were all heat and dark eyes and large hands that started at my throat and refused to stay there. I woke once in the early hours with the sheets twisted around my legs and Cade’s voice still echoing in my head something a lot more effective than my mouth my pulse was racing all over again at the thought of what he might mean by - I’ll use something a lot more effective than my mouth.