At the edge of my bra, he moved his mouth from mine and tracked those firm lips down the column of my neck, then behind my ear. I wiggled in his lap, encountering that same rigid length against my hip. He grunted when I moved against him and brushed his hand over my bra. My breath caught, loving the teasing heat that built between us.
He rolled my shirt over my stomach, but I moved it back down and grasped his hand. He clamped onto the back of my neck and leveled a questioning glare at me, his brow furrowing.
He was intense tonight. I wondered why.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He continued glaring.
“Are you mad because I won’t let you take my bra off?”
His eyebrows drew further down. He snaked his hand beneath my shirt, shaking off my grip. I fought him. He narrowed his eyes.
“You’re going to have to tell me what happened,” I told him as I raised an eyebrow. “I can’t read your caveman facial expressions.”
He swallowed, then darted a glance to his left.
“Talk to me, Cade,” I said. Using his tactics against him, I pushed his head to the side and kissed his neck. His hands wound into fists, pawing at my T-shirt almost desperately. He liked this. Which made me feel in control. I dragged my tongue along his throat, tasting his salty, pine-scented, warm skin. I skated up to his ear and nipped his earlobe. “Tell me.”
I pulled my head back to meet his darker, lust-filled eyes.
“Tell me and I’ll let you take my shirt off. And trust me when I say that is a very big deal for me.” It was. I had…issues. Tony issues. Issues I needed to get over. Issues I will get over, I decided.
“I…” He hesitated, but I didn’t think it was because he needed to. He was choosing his words. Carefully. “Saw old friends,” he said, his tone flat.
“Friends…who aren’t friends any longer?” I guessed.
“Yeah.” He pushed a hand through his hair, the word chasing some of the heat from his eyes.
“I have friends who are no longer friends. It’s hard.”
His fingers went to my shirt, but I wasn’t done.
“What else?” I asked, clasping his hands in mine.
“The law firm we were going to start,” he said, slowly and concisely. “They’re buying the building.”
“Without you,” I finished, my heart lurching. They’d moved on. Left Cade behind. It was even shittier than what my friends had done to me. “Do you regret dropping out?”
“No.” His face pinched, then he shrugged. “I don’t nuh-know.”
I understood the feeling.
“It falls under the ‘Be careful what you wish for’ column,” I said. “Like when Tony and I would talk about moving in together and getting married after graduation. I was going through the motions. Just doing the next thing on the checklist, you know?”
Cade’s hands wandered up my bare back beneath my shirt, but not in a sexual way, just touching me while I talked. I liked this. His attention. Sharing with him.
“Sometimes I think I go with the flow too much,” I admitted.
He rolled my shirt up another few inches.
“Uh”—I stopped his hand again—“turn off the light.”
His expression went from casual to confused. “Why?”
Because Tony, in addition to being a jerk, was also a perfectionist. There was never a time I took my clothes off in his presence when he didn’t point out one flaw or another. And then he would suggest how I might improve it. He used the sports medicine thing as his reasoning, which at the time I’d understood. Athletic bodies were his thing. Now that I thought about it, it just seemed petty.
I chewed on my lip as I frowned. I couldn’t tell Cade any of that.