She smirked and leaned into him. “Don’t tease me, sir. I know how the aristocracy works. I’ve got no shot.”
He turned her away from the group and pulled her against him, his hands cradling her face. His eyes were clear and determined when he looked down at her. “You’ve always got a shot with me, Tess. Always have.”
You could be my princess. He didn’t say it, but the meaning was there. The sentiment made everything inside her ache. She’d had the princess life. It was a farce. “Don’t, Kade. Please don’t say things like that.”
He pressed his forehead against hers with a sigh, but didn’t push the issue. “Come on, I’m not done with you. There’s a table I need to spread you across. I plan on having you as a side with my meal.”
She took his hand and let him lead her into the party. And the night turned out to be sexy and amazing. Magical. A fairy tale coming to life and dancing around her. But she knew when he tucked her back into the car that night, exhausted and sated, that there was no way she could stay at The Ranch for the rest of the weekend. No way she could play his submissive for that long, seeing him look at her with more than lust in his eyes, feeling more than she wanted to feel.
Her body may crave it.
But her heart wouldn’t survive it.
She couldn’t be what he wanted.
TWENTY-FOUR
“Calm your ass down. Falling for someone is a good thing, chickadee.” Sam scanned the bottom shelf of the romance section in their favorite used bookstore.
“No, it’s not. Not for me. Not right now. I’m doing that thing all over again—looking for love in all the wrong places.”
She snorted. “Should I slap a cowboy hat on you and call you Sissy?”
“This isn’t funny.”
Sam ignored her, happily humming the soundtrack of Urban Cowboy.
Tessa adjusted her stack of books before they slid from her arms. She’d gone for all horror and thrillers today. Enough with the romance. No more princes or dukes or anything in between. She needed to break this fairy-tale addiction. “And I don’t know why you’re all for this now. Weren’t you the one who sent him packing when he tracked me down to your place?”
She shrugged. “I sent him away then because I wanted to see how bad he really wanted to find you. If he’d just wanted booty call number two, he would’ve let it go at that point. The fact that he went as far as he did to find you is kind of romantic. Frankly, I’m kind of pulling for Team Kade now.”
Tessa tilted her head back, staring at the water-stained ceiling tiles and trying to talk herself out of shaking her way too optimistic best friend. “You don’t get it. I know the type of guy Kade is, how relationships are for him. It’s the whole reason I let this go beyond that first night. I knew the freaking score, and I’m getting all attached anyway.”
“You know what kind of—” Sam sat back on her heels, peering up at her with a frown. “Oh, honey, you Googled him, didn’t you?”
“Maybe a little. Aren’t those necessary dating steps these days?”
“Not if you want to actually enjoy dating.” She sighed and pushed herself up from the floor, a highlander romance tucked under her arm.
“I needed to know what his life has been like since I knew him. He’s done some amazing things with his company. But his personal life . . . well, the gossip columns call him the Time Share Bachelor. A month or two with him and a girl falls head over heels and is picking out china patterns. Then he dumps her.”
“That’s probably because—”
“It’s because he likes the chase. The challenge is in getting a girl to fall for him. So he lays it on thick, is the perfect guy, irresistible. Remember how Doug could dial up the charm?”
She shook her head. “Doug was never charming. You saw what you wanted there. This isn’t that. From everything you’ve told me about him, Kade wouldn’t be that ruthless.”
“I’m not saying Kade’s doing it with bad intentions. Maybe each time he really does think the girl could be the one. But I told you how things were for him in high school. Girls ignored him at best and teased him at worse. Think how satisfying it must be to get the most beautiful women in the city crawling after him. He can bed them, get them desperate for something real, then leave them in his wake when he gets bored. And I”—she pointed to her chest—“represent the ultimate prize in that game. The girl he wanted in high school who basically told him he wasn’t good enough.”
Sam laid her book on top of Tessa’s stack. “I think you’re taking your Intro to Psych classes too seriously.”
Tessa followed her to the next aisle. “All I’m saying is that his exes don’t go away gracefully. The main suspect in that restaurant fire is one of his former girlfriends. Batshit crazy stuff. Women fall in love with him. And God, believe me, I can see why. But then he’s on to the next. I was okay with that. I figured since I knew what I was getting into, it was fine. I didn’t want anything serious anyway. Then fast-forward a few weeks and here I am, cruising down the same goddamned path. And your head would explode if you knew some of the things we’ve done together. I should be running fast and far. He wants a real submissive, Sam. He hasn’t said that, but I know it’s more than fun for him. We went to this resort this weekend, and I saw how natural he is in that world. I’m not cut out for that. I just left a marriage where I was treated like property. Why the hell would I even want to mess with that role? How could I find that sexy? What is wrong with me?”
Sam tilted her head in sympathy. “Nothing is wrong with you, hon. Maybe you’re just as kinky as he is. Have you considered that? And you’ve been dealt a shitty hand with people in the past. That doesn’t mean that this guy is going to screw you over, too. You said it yourself, he had feelings for you back then. Maybe that never totally went away. Maybe you are different for him.”
“Or maybe as soon as he knows he’s got me, he’ll walk away. It would be kind of poetic justice considering what I did to him.” She bent down and set the teetering stack of books on the floor, then sat down next to them.
Sam sighed and sank down next to Tessa. Hopefully, no one was looking for romances by authors with Q last names because they were now blocking the whole section. “So just break it off with him then.”