“I’m sorry about your mom-”
“I need to focus, Ethan.” The comment stung, but I knew where it was coming from. He was in shock at the turn of events. He might have hated what his mother had done, but he hadn’t hated her.
I remained silent for the rest of the drive and only half-listened as he called Ronan and told him what had happened. I couldn’t hear Ronan’s side of the conversation, but based on Cain’s clipped one-word answers, I doubted anything the other man had said got through. Cain hung up after telling Ronan to have Daisy monitor things to make sure the cops were notified, but he still refused to talk to me or even look at me. It took a couple of hours to get back to the hotel in West Virginia. Even though we ended up in a different room, the layout was the same as the one we’d been in.
Cain disappeared into the bathroom as soon as we got inside. I heard the water in the shower come on. Disappointment flared that he hadn’t wanted me to join him, even just to be with him to provide comfort, but I pushed the useless emotion away. I cleaned up the little bit of blood that had sprayed on me using the sink outside the bathroom and then changed into a clean shirt and a pair of sweats. It was close to dinner time, but I wasn’t hungry and I doubted Cain was either so I didn’t order any room service. I sat down on the edge of the bed and waited, but it was a good twenty minutes before I finally heard the bathroom door open.
If I’d thought Cain would be calmer, I was both right and wrong. To someone who didn’t know him, he appeared outwardly calm. But I’d been around him enough to see the telltale signs that he was agitated. The way his hands fisted, the tiny tick in his jaw, the way he swallowed hard over and over. He ignored me as he started to rifle through his bag.
“Cain, talk to me,” I said softly, but he didn’t respond.
When I went to stand next to him, he jerked away as soon as I touched his hand to stop him from yanking stuff out of his bag.
“Don’t,” he snapped. “I’m not…I’m not a good person to be around right now,” he said angrily.
Ignoring his statement, I said, “It wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?”
“No, I don’t know that!” he shouted. “What I know is that my mother is dead. She wouldn’t be if I hadn’t gone there!”
“Yes, she would,” I countered. “You and I both know he would have killed her the second she refused to give him what he wanted – when she finally stood up to him. Today, tomorrow, six months from now! You said it yourself, he was sick! What they had wasn’t love. It was obsession. It was ownership. It was him needing her to make him feel powerful and in control.”
Cain let out a hoarse shout just before he swiped his hand at the bag on the table, knocking it and its contents to the floor. His anger should have frightened me, but it didn’t. I knew it wasn’t directed at me and even if it had been, he wouldn’t have hurt me.
“God, she was such a fucking fool!” he snarled. His anger was like a living thing, but I heard the subtle crack in his voice.
“She couldn’t see him the way the rest of the world did,” I said softly as I reached out to stroke his back. I was glad when he didn’t lash out at me for the touch. I knew he was okay with physical contact between us when he was calm and relaxed, but I hadn’t tested the theory when he was agitated.
Until now.
“I kept telling myself I didn’t care what happened to her…”
“I know you did,” I murmured as I urged him forward into my arms. “She knew it too. She cared about you too or she wouldn’t have tried to protect you back there.”
Cain’s arms wrapped around me. His body was still shaking and I had no doubt it was a mix of the adrenaline wearing off and the emotion that came with realizing his mother was really gone.
“I need you,” he murmured against my neck.
“I know,” I said softly and then I was searching out his lips.
The first touch of our mouths coming together set him off. He tore at my clothes as his mouth fiercely consumed mine. My shirt was yanked unceremoniously from my body and then his hands were shoving my sweats down so he could grip my ass.
He was already shirtless so the only thing keeping me from feeling all of him was the athletic shorts he’d put on after his shower. But I quickly changed that by shoving the shorts down. He moaned in my mouth as my fingers closed around his cock. As I massaged his dick, he played with my hole. He pulled his mouth free of mine long enough to get his finger wet and then he was swallowing down my moan of approval as his finger sank deep inside of me. Within a minute, I was grinding back against his finger. “Fuck me now, Cain,” I demanded.