Cade’s voice was husky and deep. It pierced her stomach, and beyond, making the ache all the more sweeter. His hands caressed her back slowly, his fingers running over the thin gold at her waistline. His hands were hot, setting fires along her body wherever he touched her. She needed. God help her, how much longer could she live with this aching need?
* * * * *
Marly was soft and warm in his arms, her hands clenched at his back, her breathing rough as he tried to calm her. Slowly, he stroked her back with one hand, then both. His palms smoothed easily over the soft material of her sweater. He could feel the chain at her waist, and the sight of it flashed before his eyes. The glitter of gold against pale skin, the waist of her jeans riding low, the little gold ring drawing his gaze as surely as a bolt of lightning would have.
Cade had become so enraged, so furious that she would have bared her stomach for a stranger, endured having such a sensitive area pierced, that he had barely been able to contain the violence already flowing through his system.
Her soft, husky voice inviting that little turd of a boy into her room, where she was naked and ready, had already brought red to the forefront of his vision. He had wanted to kill that boy. Slowly, surely. And Marly’s confusion, the hot flare of excitement in her eyes as she saw him, had been nearly more than he could bear. Why had she been looking for a fight with him? And there was no doubt she had been. Her eyes had glittered with her own battle-ready senses as she stood up to him, where she never had before. She was pushing him, and he didn’t think he could take the pressure.
His own needs, fury and fears would destroy him. Cade admitted that silently as he enjoyed the feel of her smooth flesh as her sweater rose a scant inch over her waist. He was drowning in the scent of her, wild and sweet. His blood was still coursing through his veins, and he wanted nothing more than to pull her tighter into his arms. He had missed her. He had missed her too damned much.
He missed holding her, watching her laughter and feeling the warmth it brought to him. He hadn’t known how much she filled him until she had gone away. How much her presence alone soothed the ragged, wounded edges of his soul.
His fingers played with the chain that ran around her back, strumming against her skin, feeling soft satin flesh beneath the thin, cool band of gold. Warm satin, so damned soft his fingers relished the touch of it. Over and over again, he stroked it, until his hands were running beneath the sweater by a hands width as he soothed her. Her breath was still hitching, her breathing harsh. He hadn’t meant to upset her so deeply. He had gone crazy. Driven past any limit he could handle at the thought of her naked, inviting, smiling up at him as he moved over her. Wedging between her thighs. Her hips arching to him. Her voice a husky murmur as she pleaded—
Marly moved against him, and Cade felt the erection growing stiffly behind the fly of his jeans. She moved against him slowly, feeling the hard length pressing into her soft belly. Cade knew she felt it when he heard the low, needy whimper that came from her throat.
“No, Marly,” his protesting whisper was a breath of sound as he felt her lips at his chest, her hot little tongue stroking his skin. “Son of a bitch…” His head fell back as his hands pulled her closer, his knees bending as he lifted her nearer, driving the cloth-covered erection against the vee of her thighs helplessly.
He couldn’t believe she was doing this. That she was reacting this way, reaching for him, needing him. He couldn’t let her. His control was already shaky at best, and he had to protect her. He had to protect himself from the hatred she would surely feel for him later. But right now, he had to fight for breath. Her lips were warm, her little tongue moist and hot against his skin.
Cade gritted his teeth, fighting the compulsion to take over. To pull her against his body tight and hard, and show her what she was asking for. His cock was pulsing, so tight and hot beneath his jeans he was in agony. The need coursed and rose inside him, drawing his body so taut he felt as though he would shatter at any moment.
Marly rubbed against him, a little sigh of desire, of want whispering over his skin as he gripped her hips, pulled her closer and bent to press his erection between her thighs.
“Cade.” Her hoarse, lust-filled cry made his brain explode with the furious need to fuck. To slam his cock inside her, to feel the ripple of soft wet velvet encasing, gripping him.
“Is this what you want, damn you?” he growled down at her fiercely, watching her eyes glaze with shock as he rocked against her. “Is this what you want Marly, because I swear to God, I’m within an inch of driving it into you.”
He was angry. Angrier than he had ever been. She was teasing him, tempting him, pushing him past reason. Or was she? Lust, hot and carnal clouded his brain as he watched her nipples peak beneath her sweater. He pulled her against him harshly once again, grinding his flesh into her as her eyes closed on a ragged whimper. Need or fear?
Shock, hot and remorseful seared his very soul. His hands dropped from her and he turned away quickly, going instantly for the bottle of liquor at his desk. His hands shook as he poured the drink, his chest heaved. He felt like screaming in frustration.
“Cade?” He closed his eyes as her voice speared through his body.
Hot, husky, needing. God, he was so far over the edge that he was lending to her his own unnatural desires. He had raised her for God’s sake; he had no business acting this way. He had no business stealing her innocence and drawing her into his nightmares.
“I’m sorry I—” Cade lowered his head, watching desperately as the liquid filled the glass. “I promise, I’ll not jump so quickly to conclusions from now on. You’re right, you’re a woman…” he couldn’t go on.
He downed the whisky, welcoming the burning that tore into his gut and almost replaced the other heat searing him from the inside out.
“So I can sleep with whoever I want?” Cade knew he was imagining the bitterness in her voice. A bitterness seeping into his soul.
“I can’t stop you.” He shook his head, taking another drink desperately, praying to God that something, anything would wipe the sight of her welcoming some bastard to her bed, out of his head.
“What if I want you, Cade?” Her whispered question seared his skin.
His hand shook. Cade had to take precious moments to control the instinctive reaction in his body to her soft question.
“No, Marly.” He shook his head tightly. “You don’t want me. Not really. You just think you do.”
There was silence behind him now. Tension flowed around him, choking him, making his stomach rebel at the amount of liquor he was consuming. Surely to God he would drink enough soon to drown this awful ache.
He needed a woman, Cade told himself desperately. That’s all it is. A woman. He wondered how long it had been since he had taken one to his bed? Years, he knew. He couldn’t remember the last time he had tested the wet heat of a woman’s desire. He had been busy; he excused the lack of desire in the past years. The ranch, Joe’s illness. There were a million details to go over every day and he just hadn’t had time. And once again, in his mind’s eye he saw Marly, inviting, open. But it wasn’t the pale little puke of a boy upstairs moving between those slender thighs that he saw. It was him, covering, moving over her—God help him, it was time to get laid before he did something stupid.
“I have work to do, Marly.” His voice was harsher than he meant it to be as he sat down at his desk and began riffling through the drawers for his address book.
Surely it hadn’t been so long that he couldn’t find a willing woman.