Cade pulled back, his brow dug in. “But—”
I reclaimed the space between us and smashed my mouth to his, kissing him fiercely. My palms pressed hard against his face, holding me close to him. Because I couldn’t get close enough to him.
He pulled back to look at me, searching my face for the answers.
“What are you saying?” he asked, rain bouncing off his lips.
“I’m saying you’re right, Cade. You’re right.” I shook my head a little. “I shouldn’t have left you at the airport. We do have something magical, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t outrun it. But that’s the thing—I don’t want to. Not anymore. I don’t want to run away from you or the club, or us.” My voice continued to rise as my emotions did, and I gave a small, disbelieving laugh. “It’s like I’ve been asleep for the last twelve years, and I’ve just woken up.” Tears mingled with rain on my face. “I don’t want this life I have if it’s without you.”
It was true. And it was a relief to finally admit it.
Oh God. It felt so good to finally say it.
“You don’t have to, Indy. Not if you don’t want to.” He pointed to his broad chest. “I’m all yours. All of me. If you want me. And I promise you, on my life, I will never let anything come between us again.”
He kissed me again. Hard and urgent. And I kissed him back
“Tell me you’re mine,” he begged against my mouth.
I kissed him. “Haven’t I always been?”
We barely made it inside my apartment, separating our mouths only long enough to remove our wet clothes. Then Cade lay me down on the plush rug in front of the fireplace and made love to me, exquisitely slow, exquisitely meaningful, every push into my body deliberate and deep. His hands roamed my body and his lips and tongue trailed along my throat, engulfing me in the heat of his kiss, of his lovemaking, of him. And I moved beneath him, slowly, wrapping my legs around his hips and welcoming every deep plunge into my body. Feeling every stroke to my very core, feeling the fierce swell of my orgasm as it moved through me to finally erupt in white light across my brain.
“Cade!” I cried out his name, not once, but over and over as my body and mind were completely and utterly overwhelmed by the potent ecstasy flooding every cell of me.
He drove into me one last time and buried his face into my neck and grasped at the rug beneath us, twisting it in his hands as he came.
Still inside me, he looked down into my face.
“I love you, Indy.” Light from the fire flickered across his handsome face. “Stop running from me.”
I looked up at him. “Don’t give me a reason to run and I won’t.”
The light from the fire reflected in his blue eyes.
“Never again. You have my word.”
And with that, he began to make love to me all over again.
CADE
Now
“So, Indy, are you back for good?” Isaac asked, leaning across the table and digging a handful of peanuts out of the bowl next to a bowl of sugared almonds. My mom was crazy for nuts. Brazil nuts. Peanuts. Chocolate-covered almonds. You name it; there were bowls of the stuff all over the house.
We were sitting at the twelve-seater dining table.
I looked across at Indy who grinned back at my cousin.
“Maybe. Why, you miss me?” She threw a sugared almond at him.
He grinned and nodded at me. “Nah, just sick of his whining is all. I was worried he’d grown a vagina.”
She chuckled. “You know that’s an impossibility, right?”
“I’m serious… the dude was one step away from crying into his fucking Lucky Charms, every day.” He winked at Indy. “If you’re back, then I’m fucking happy. It’s a good thing.”
Indy looked up at me and then turned back to Isaac. “I thought I might hang out for a while… see what happens.”
“What about your job at the hospital? Were they pissed?”
“I applied for a transfer to St Gabriel’s. They have a vacancy coming up in emergency.”
“That’s almost like a sign,” he said with a wink. “It’s good you’re back. ’Bout time you two got your shit together. Don’t think there’s been a finer match made in hell.”
He stood up and stretched, yawning, and then grabbing his cigarettes off the table, put one in his mouth. “I gotta shoot. You bitches play nice.”
When he was gone, I looked at my girl sitting across the table from me.
“You know, we’ve got the house to ourselves for a couple of hours,” I said.
Since returning from Seattle, we alternated living between all three homes: my mom’s, Indy’s mom’s, and the clubhouse.
Indy grinned with a mischievous sparkle in her eye. “Best we make the most of it then.”