Charlotte
“Inever took it off.” I glared at him as he reached out, touching the gold band dangling between my breasts with a fingertip. It slipped over his index finger and he smiled faintly but there was no light in his eyes, only hurt.
“You kept a piece of me with you,” he whispered, letting that trace of a smile drift away as his eyes darted from mine.
“Like I said, I never took it off. I like it where it is.” My voice shook. The anger that had kept me going during the drive home had blended with nostalgia and doubt, leaving me vulnerable. I didn’t want to feel this way. I wanted to go inside and hide from the pain in his eyes.
His chest heaved. He was angry again, but I was too. This entire situation pissed me off. I added stubborn and demanding and bossy to the list of his qualities that I had forgotten about over the years.
I slipped my fingers between the buttons of his Henley, popped them open, and tugged it down. “What did you tell your girlfriends about this?” I let my other hand slap against his tattoo—my tattoo. My name, in script, right over his heart.
His jaw ticked in frustration. “I didn’t have to tell them anything. I stayed in Sweetbriar, remember? Everyone in town knows what it did to me when you left.”
“Don’t be a jerk. Everyone also knows it was way more complicated than that.”
He stepped back and the chain broke, the ring still caught on his finger.
“Give me back my ring.” I reached out to swipe it, but he held it away from me.
“I bought it. I gave it to you. I was the one who put it on your finger. Maybe I should keep it.”
“Give it to me, Cade.”
He stuffed the chain in his pocket then pressed the ring against my lips, using it to draw it a line down my chin and neck and stopping between my breasts. “Tell me what you told him Charlotte. He had to see it, hanging right here. Were there others?”
“No. It wasn’t like that, we—"
“Shh. I changed my mind.” His head shook side to side as his eyes bored into mine. “I don’t want to know. It’s none of my business what you did while we were apart.” He drew the ring back up, pressing it against my lips again and bowing forward until his mouth was inches from mine. “Tell me to leave you alone.” The pained growl in his voice made me shiver.
“No. I won’t tell you that.” My breath caught in my throat. Leaving me alone was the last thing I wanted him to do.
He moved in closer, pressing a hard kiss to my mouth before burying his face in my neck and wrapping me up in his arms. “Tell me to stop.” His words were a deep groan against my skin.
“I don’t want you to stop.” I gripped his jacket at the collar, holding on so he couldn’t move away from me.
“Charli baby, are we doing this?” He nipped my neck with a soft bite. It tickled. “Please, tell me I can stay with you tonight. I would die to be inside you again.”
“Oh yeah, we’re doing this. I want you, Cade. I’ve never stopped wanting you, and the most important thing I’ve learned through all these years apart is to take what I want when I can get it. We can figure the rest out later, complications be damned.”
He stood straight and brushed the hair from my face. “I’ve missed you, Charlotte. More than I knew, more than I was willing to admit.”
“Come inside, Cade.” I tugged him in, kicking the door shut and locking it behind us. “Take off your clothes,” I demanded as I let my purse fall to my feet, threw my coat and scarf to the floor, and toed my boots off.
His jacket joined mine, then the Henley and his boots. “Hurry,” he demanded. But I froze instead, caught up in watching his forearms flex as he unbuckled his belt, slid it out of the loops, and undid the top button of his jeans.
With a dark smile, he stepped close to me and seized my face between his palms, kissing me rough and thorough. His tongue demanded entrance, which I happily gave him as he walked me backward to the staircase. “Get these off.” Warm hands traveled to my waist, and slid into my panties, lowering them along with my pants.
With a wiggle, I stepped backward up the stairs and out of my pants. “My bedroom is up here,” I murmured. I turned around and held my hand behind my back to reach for his. Cool air hit my bared lower half and I shivered with anticipation.
I only made it a few steps up before he turned me to face him with his hands at my hips and kissed me breathless. “I can’t wait that long. I need you right now.”
“God, yes.” I sat and he knelt between my legs on the step below me.
I splayed my hands over his bare chest, fascinated by the changes in him, by the hard planes and angles of his body, the ripple of his abs, the strength in his arms . . .
With a reach down, I tugged at his jeans and underwear then watched as he stood to finish removing them. “Cade, please,” I whimpered as his cock sprang free. I wrapped my hand around his hard length, opening my mouth and leaning in to taste him but he pulled back.
“We have time for that later.” A wicked gleam hit his eyes as he knelt again and pressed his middle finger, with my ring resting at the knuckle, against my lips. His other hand lifted my sweater, and I raised my arms so he could slide it over my head and toss it behind him.
I whimpered as his big hand traveled down my body, between my breasts and down, trailing that ring on a path that led straight between my legs. His bent finger stopped on my clit, and I could feel the cool press of the ring resting against it. “Please,” I begged him. “I need you too.”
“I don’t have a condom with me. Do you have one?” I shook my head no. “Okay, I get tested, I’m safe. Are you on birth control?”
I sucked in a sharp breath when he tapped the ring against my clitoris, then stroked me gently with it as he waited for me to answer.
Normally, I would demand a condom. But I trusted Cade. “Yes, I am, and I’m safe too. I want you, Cade. Right now. Please. I’m saying yes."
Not even a second later and he was inside of me. We both gasped when our hips met and he was fully seated, stretching me open with the wide girth of his cock.
No one else had ever made me feel like this, not ever. With Cade, I was always ready for it. He gripped my hands above my head and pumped into me, giving us both what we had been missing for way too long.
My head lolled back on my neck, touching the stair above and he bent down, tracing his tongue in the hollow of my throat as he interlocked our fingers and I held on tight.
“I remember this. You’re perfect, Charli. So fucking gorgeous. Soft and wet and slick, like heaven wrapped up in hot silk.” His words, growled against my skin, drove me insane.
It was out of body, other-worldly, like nothing I would ever have again except with him. Only with him.
My toes curled as he bent and licked his way to a nipple, sucking it into his mouth with one hard pull. I could come like this, and he knew it; he remembered. He sucked harder and I moaned against the top of his head as he released one of my hands to pinch the other nipple between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it firmly and twisting it exactly how I liked.
“Cade, oh god, you remember . . .”
“How could I ever forget anything about you?” he grunted.
He moved harder inside me, faster. My bare skin against the edge of the stair burned but I didn’t care, I was about to explode into a million little pieces.
He raised his head and braced his hands on the step above me. His eyes blazed into mine with intent and I nodded, lifting my knees, so my feet rested near my hips as he took me, spreading myself wide, taking every hard inch he gave as he thrust wildly into me.
I clutched his shoulders for balance. Our foreheads pressed together, and our eyes locked as we spiraled out of control, losing ourselves in each other like we had done time and time again back when we were married. Every muscle in my body tensed in a wave, my clit pulsed, and my skin tingled. I could feel him growing impossibly harder as he surged inside then ground himself into me, like he couldn’t get deep enough, like he wanted to crawl inside my skin and stay there forever.
“Just like this, Cade, don’t stop.” He moved in and out with that same brutal press against my clit at the end until I was gasping his name and begging him to make me come.
“Fuck, Charlotte. You feel so good. So fucking good. No one has ever made me feel like you do. No one. Only you.”