Ripped (19 page)

Still…

I shrugged it on, but I felt a little tug at my heart. I didn’t want to be just another one of his women. He was special to me, and I wanted to be special to him.

I sagged against the closet door. I had it bad already. This wasn’t going to turn out well. This was going to end with me getting my heart broken. But since I was already in so deep, I guessed there was no point in trying to stop it.

I headed down the stairs.

He was standing in the kitchen, wearing a tank top and sweat pants. The tank top was plastered to his body with sweat, and there was a towel around his neck. “Hey,” he said. “I just got back from a run. There’s fruit.” He gestured to a bowl on the counter. “I usually don’t eat very heavy in the mornings, but if you’re hungry...”

“Fruit’s fine,” I said, grabbing a banana.

He grinned at me. “You look…”

My hand went to my hair, and I felt myself flush. I hadn’t even looked in the mirror. I probably looked terrible.

“Adorable,” he finished. He kissed me on the forehead.

I looked up at him, feeling shy.

He caressed my cheek. Then he pulled away, abruptly. “Sorry. I’m disgusting and sweaty. You probably don’t want me near you.”

“No,” I said, reaching for him. “It’s fine. I don’t mind your sweat.” I
liked
the smell of him, if I was honest. It was musty and primal.

He grinned again. “Okay.”

I grinned too.

He shifted on his feet. “I was going to get in the shower.”

“Shower, yeah,” I said. A shower sounded amazing.

His grin turned wicked. “You want to join me, love? Finish your banana.”

* * *

Shell

Cade’s shower was made of sleek black stone. It had one of those huge circular shower heads that cascaded straight down overhead. The first thing he did once he got under the water was to brush his teeth. He said he always brushed his teeth in the shower, because it saved time.

“I have guest toothbrushes,” he said.

There were four of them in the cabinet just outside the shower. They were in their packages, never opened. I selected a blue one, and then I brushed my teeth and watched him from behind, checking out his ass, which was about as perfect an ass as they come, if you asked me. But I was starting to become biased when it came to Cade, I had to admit it.

After we brushed our teeth, he put down his toothbrush and came for me.

He pressed me into the wall and put his lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth.

I clung to him. Our bodies were wet and slippery, and I felt myself begin to wake up.

His fingers explored me, cupping my breasts, darting between my legs.

I touched him too, finding him hard and thick in my hand, and I rubbed his erection.

He pushed me into the wall face first, told me to spread my legs in a rough voice.

I was already wet for him, or maybe I was still just so slick from all the times he’d come in me already. Thinking of that, though, froze me.

He must have felt me stiffen. “What?” he whispered.

I turned to look at him. “Were you going to…”

He raised his eyebrows.

I gulped. “Were you going to fuck me?” Why was it so hard to say that out loud if we weren’t already in the throes of passion?

“The thought had crossed my mind. I guess you don’t want that?”

“No, I do, it’s only that we keep… without protection, and last night you said… And I said… And we…” I turned back to the wall. I was blushing again. I really didn’t know how to talk about that.

I felt him settle against me with a sigh. He nuzzled my neck. “We weren’t thinking clearly,” he muttered.

“No,” I said.

“It’s hard to think clearly when you’re naked.” There was a touch of amusement in his voice. “You make me crazy.”

I turned in his arms. I liked hearing that. I liked that he was affected by me as well.

He kissed me.

I wrapped my arms around him. I ran my hands over his slippery, firm back, down to cup his backside.

He gazed at me with half-lidded eyes. “I thought you wanted us to stop.”

“I never said that,” I said. “I just thought… but I guess it doesn’t matter.”

“No?”

“I mean, you’ve already come inside me so many times that the damage is probably done.”

He groaned. His hands smoothed over my hips.

I kissed his chin. “I like it when you come inside me,” I said in a throaty voice. “I like being filled with you, feeling what you leave behind.”

His fingers dug into my skin. He lifted me, bracing me against the wall, wrapping my legs around his body. And he guided me down onto his erection.

I moaned. I was still sensitive there from what we’d done the night before. I began to clench against his cock right away.

“Uh uh, love,” he whispered. “Wait until I tell you.”

I sighed, seeking his lips.

He kissed me and began to thrust.

Damn, he splintered into me in the sweetest of ways. I tightened my thighs around him.

He touched my nipples with one hand, made them stiff even in the steamy shower.

And every time his cock drove into me, it teased the very center of me, waking up my pleasure.

He stroked into me over and over while I heaved and moaned against him.

I clutched his ass, urging him deeper inside me.

He pressed his palm against my stomach and wedged his fingers between our bodies until he found my clit.

I cried out.

“Ready to come for me, love?” he murmured in my ear.

“Yes, yes,” I said, tensing for it, wanting it.

“Ask me nicely.” He rubbed my clit with one finger, sending thrills through me.

“Please,” I whispered. “Please, let me come, Cade.”

“Call me Ripper.” He was fierce.

“Ripper,” I agreed, breathless. “Make me come, Ripper, please.”

His fingers were frenzied against my sex, and he pounded into me, out of control. “Come,” he ordered, his voice harsh and dark. “Come
now
.”

I obeyed, the orgasm flowing through me as he came as well, exploding inside me, filling me up. Oh, God, I really was going to get pregnant, wasn’t I?

And the thought made my pleasure multiply, my climax going for another level of pleasure, and I twitched and bucked and flailed in his arms, lost in delight.

* * *

Cade

I was surprised at how much I liked having her there.

Maybe it was only that she took such delight in all the aspects of my house that I never bothered to use much. I had a big entertainment center in the living room, complete with an enormous screen and booming speakers and chairs that tilted back so that you had a perfect view. But I tended to just watch TV in my bedroom, sprawled out on my bed, so I never came in here.

However, once she saw it, she was just so intrigued by it that we had to watch movies in there, and that was how we spent the afternoon.

For dinner, I made pizza—the whole nine yards, crust from scratch and everything. I cooked for myself all the time, but it was usually just easy stuff. Maybe I steamed some veggies and sauteed a little chicken and had it with rice. It never seemed worth it to go to such effort.

But it was fun to cook for Shell. She even tried to help, but she was essentially hopeless in the kitchen, I was realizing.

I teased her about it, and she admitted that she didn’t do much cooking at home. Mostly, she heated up frozen meals. She said she could make spaghetti.

“Who can’t make spaghetti?” I said. “Besides, the carbs.”

“Oh, whatever,” she said. “In Italy, people aren’t fat. It’s all about portion size.”

I grinned at her. “You seem to have it figured out.”

She blushed. “Me? I’m not anywhere near as fit as you are.”

“You’re perfect.” I kissed her on the nose.

After dinner, we ended up in my hot tub, because I never used it, and I’d had it specially made when I designed the house. We sipped wine out of these fluted glasses that I bought but never used and relaxed naked, the jets of hot water hugging our bodies.

“Your house is awesome,” she said, resting her head back, submerged in the water up to her chin. “I don’t understand how you ever leave.”

“Well, I don’t use this stuff that much.” I took a drink of wine, peering out into the dark woods, the night sky overhead, full of stars. It was beautiful out here. “I mean, usually I just crash here. I exercise. Sometimes I play games online.”

“Why don’t you use it?”

“Because…” I laughed a little. “I guess it’s only fun to share this stuff with someone. When I designed this house, I didn’t think about how much less exciting a hot tub is when you’re alone.”

She was quiet.

Had I said something wrong? Maybe I shouldn’t have admitted that I enjoyed her company so much. I didn’t know what the hell was going on with us. I mean, we were having really hot sex, and I was glad about that, but… I didn’t even know if I wanted anything more. I didn’t allow myself to think about things like that. It wasn’t something that I could really have.

“But you do bring people here,” she said. “You bring women here. You have the robe and the toothbrushes and the lady at Nordstrom said you had a woman you bought dresses for like ten times.”

I turned to her, grinning from ear to ear. “You’re jealous,” I said, really happy about that for some reason.

She splashed me. “I am not. I’m just pointing out that it’s not as if you’re here all alone all the time.”

My smile faded. Actually, I was alone most of the time. “I don’t really bring people here that often.”

“But you do bring people here. Women.”

“You don’t need to be jealous.” I gulped at my wine.

“I’m not jealous.” And now, her voice was sharp. “Someone like you doesn’t have any problem getting women to fall into bed with him. I bet you just walk into a bar and buy girls drinks and order them to have orgasms, and they just fall to pieces for you, practically ripping their clothes off. I know, because I know what you do to me. Don’t act as if it’s so sad for you. I see through you. You don’t need to garner my sympathy or whatever. It’s unnecessary. I’m already totally at your mercy. You can do whatever you want with me.”

I sat up straight. “Whatever I want?”

She sighed. “Never mind.”

I refilled my wine glass and sipped it thoughtfully. “Look, sometimes I do go out and pick up women. I’m not going to lie. It’s not as if I was sitting around saving myself for you.”

“I never said
anything
to make—”

“But I almost never bring them here,” I said. “And I don’t have sex with them more than once, and I certainly don’t…” I shook my head. “I don’t know what it is about you, but I haven’t been in control of myself since the minute I touched you.”

She swallowed.

“As for the girl that I bought dresses for, she was… Her name was Angie. We dated for maybe six months. But she didn’t know about me. Didn’t know how I made my money. I was vague. Said things about an office. She made assumptions. Anyway, I liked her. She seemed to like me. And, utterly accidentally, she got pregnant. Before you ask, we were careful. It was nothing like what keeps happening between you and me. I swear to you that I’m generally more responsible than that. Anyway, I thought that if she and I were going to have a child together, she should know the truth, and so I told her how I made my money. She couldn’t handle it.”

“Oh my God,” Shell breathed. “You killed her, didn’t you? And now you’re going to kill me.”

“No!” I glared at her. “Do you really think I would do something like that?”

“Well, she knew you were a contract killer, and she knew where you lived. She could have gone to the police, turned you in—”

“She didn’t know anything,” I said. “She didn’t know who I killed or where, and there’s no evidence at any crime scene linking me to it, so even if she did turn me in… Besides, half the time, I work for the U.S. government, and there’s a layer of protection in that.”

“Oh, right, you did say that.”

“I would never hurt you.” It was important that she know that. “Never. It’s not like that. What I do.”

“What’s it like then?” Her voice was soft. “You like doing it.”

“It’s like…” I sighed. “The way I figure it, there’s got to be a reason that I was born this way. That I was given this desire, this skill. I think that back in prehistoric times, when we traveled in tribes, having someone bloodthirsty like me was helpful to the survival of the group. But we don’t have tribes anymore. We don’t have those kinds of threats. I guess I figured that I could give in to my selfish desires, kill for myself, or I could try to use what I’ve been given to take out threats to society. Even if I don’t have a specific tribe, I try to stop bad people from killing anyone else.”

She was quiet.