“Better?” He quirked a brow. “Come sit now.” I saw the indent of his hard cock and how it flexed under my attention as my eyes traveled down. “Come on, Izzy. If it’s about fun, no strings, and being single, we might as well take advantage of it.”
“You can bother Heather for that.” I chewed on my lip, trying to put up a fight even though I wanted to give in.
Instead of him giving me a chance to make the decision, his hand shot out and grabbed my elbow to yank me down onto his lap.
“Jesus, Cade,” I chastised him, but he was busy rearranging me so my ass fit right against his cock, so my back was against his chest, so that my hair was being pulled away by his hand to expose my neck.
“This hoodie his?”
It was a simple question, but then I felt the metal of that blade. It’d cooled in the fall air and sent goose bumps along my neck where it lay, right at the V of the material. When I didn’t answer fast enough, Cade swiftly pulled one side of the fabric up and brought his blade down the middle of it. It cut fast, almost effortlessly.
He’d sliced it all the way down so it hung on me like a cardigan. “Cade! What the hell?” I grabbed both sides of it and wrapped it around myself.
“Do you enjoy messing with my head?”
“I’m not messing with your head,” I practically stuttered, confused.
“I’m not going to stare at a woman I fuck on another man’s lap.”
“You fucked me. Past tense.”
“Wanna bet, dollface?” he growled in my ear. “Lose the skirt.”
“I only have a bikini on under this.”
“You’ll be losing that too.”
14
Cade
I’d started to believe there would never be a last time with Izzy.
I’d watched her all day instead of working. I’d tried to call my brother so he could talk me off the ledge and get me back to work. Instead, he’d told me to go mingle with the damn employees. No one understood I was trying to remain the last single Armanelli. I was trying to do us a favor.
Because I wasn’t a good man unleashed.
Rodney had looked her way more than once that afternoon. I’d peeked out of the window to see her sucking on candy canes with her best friend, whom I also envied, even though I could tell their relationship was only friendly. I didn’t want any man around her now.
Especially not one who’d put his sweatshirt on her. Fuck me.
She’d sat there in another man’s dark hoodie, and I knew right then and there I’d destroy it. I ripped it from her body and threw it into the dirt.
“I want to see that green on you while I fuck you next to this fire,” I murmured, trying to cover up that I hated his clothes on her. It was more than obvious, though. She knew that. It was fucking personal and sexual and territorial when you slipped your clothing on someone else. I was also aware that another woman wearing jewelry around her that I’d bought was unacceptable if she felt for me how I felt for her. It’d be something I’d have to remedy later.
“Cade, if someone comes out here—”
“They’ll know you belong to me on this retreat. They need to know that anyway.” I wiggled her ass so that my cock was between her cheeks and took my time dragging my knife over her bikini. “As a matter of fact, maybe we lose the bikini, huh?”
Her skin was damp, and so close to the fire, she glowed with a sheen of sweat. I watched goose bumps form on her skin as I trailed my knife to the edge of her green bottoms.
“You lose my bikini, I walk back to the cabin nude,” she pointed out.
“Good point,” I murmured before I slid the tip of the knife along her bikini line before pushing the fabric to the side, letting the metal come to rest right next to her clit. My blade was sharp, the point dangerous. I made sure to sharpen it every year, not because I ever thought I would need it, but because I liked it.
It was even more rewarding seeing the use I had for it here and now. The metal glinted in the moonlight as I moved it inch by inch back up her stomach to her bikini top and then I moved those little triangles to the sides too, letting her nipples pop out, erect, ready to be pinched and sucked by only me.
“Perfect,” I murmured before dragging the knife to her neck. Her hazel eyes held fire as she glanced up at me. “Now, you’re at my complete mercy.”
She smiled, and it reached all the way to her eyes, like this was where she belonged, and she’d never say otherwise. “Do you like what you see, Cade? Feel free to enjoy the view. If someone comes out here, though, everyone’s going to enjoy the view of my pussy too.”
She thought I cared about my job, about our reputations, as I growled and stuck my knife in the dirt next to us. I only cared that people would get to see her vulnerable, see what I was starting to think was mine.
I ran my hands up to her breasts. Then I pulled her back into my chest so she could rest her body over me while I took in the woman who was on the cusp of bringing me to my knees. “Why did you share that story with everyone tonight?”
“My tattoo story?” She shrugged like she didn’t want to talk about it, a nonverbal indicator that she wanted to indulge in an easy fuck with me again. Then her hands were over mine, kneading her tits through them. “I don’t know, Cade. Who cares?”
This one wouldn’t be as easy.
I’d listened to her honest answer as I walked toward the fire, and it stopped me cold in my tracks. God himself couldn’t have made me move as I listened, as I heard she’d tattooed my callous words on her ribs. Didn’t she know I’d said them to protect her? And now, she must have realized I respected her work ethic and who she was more than I did most. Right?
Getting lost in the trance of my words on her skin, I sought out the writing. My hand dragged to her side to find the ink, and I rubbed back and forth over the lettering. “I didn’t say it to hurt you, Izzy.”
She sighed. “Yes you did. You wanted me off the team. And it’s fine—”
“It was true I wanted you off the team because I wanted you safe. You were young. And you were getting involved with people who didn’t value a fucking life.” I tried to explain it.
“Right. Well.” She sighed. “What you said is true. I’m an addict. I’d just never heard it before, and I’d dealt with so much . . .” She stopped like she had more to share but didn’t want to.
“Tell me.”
Instead, she rolled her hips. “There’s nothing to tell. I fucked up when I was a kid, and I’ll pay for the consequences the rest of my life. I’ve tried to keep it together since then, and I’m proud that I have.”
“Keeping it together like you do, dollface, it’s a waste.” I leaned in and angled her rib cage close to me so I could graze my teeth over that tattoo. “I should carve this tattoo out of you.”
“Why?” She was breathless as I rubbed it and sucked my way to her back, up her shoulder blade and then to her neck. “I like it now. It reminds me of how far I’ve come.”
“How far you’ve come from what?”
“I used to indulge in my emotions, Cade. I used to dwell on every stupid thing. It’s what got me to where I was. The dwelling, only focusing on my pain.”
“Pain from what?” I slid a hand from her tattoo down to her pussy. I needed to work her, to feel her, to know that her arousal was mine to drown in as she shared herself with me.
She paused and then her words came out painfully. “I lost someone.”
“Who?” How had I not known this?
“Why do you have to know, Cade? It doesn’t matter.”
Everything about her mattered to me; I’d just started to see that. “Maybe it matters to me.”
“I was just young and dumb. Drop it.” Her voice cracked, and I filed it away to explore later. I wasn’t going to drop anything about Izzy Hardy any time soon.
It was a filler answer. And suddenly I wanted to decode her. I wanted it all. I rubbed her clit as I massaged one of her breasts and murmured, “You’re not telling me the whole truth.”
She rolled into me and whimpered. “What do you need my whole truth for when we’re not doing anything after this re—”
I curled my fingers into her to stop her words. I didn’t want to hear them anymore. “You want to get rid of me so badly, huh?”
Instead of answering, she gripped my wrists for leverage to ride my hand. She was so wet, it sounded like my own little personal waterfall instead of her denying that we had something outside of fucking on this trip. That’s what I wanted to hear, all I wanted to hear.
“Knees, baby doll. Right in front of the fire.”
She was so close she couldn’t deny me as she slid to the ground and kneeled before it. I stood, shoving the chair back, and then stepped between her calves, spreading her knees farther into the dirt. Instead of telling her how good her ass looked or how someone could paint a damn masterpiece of her back alone, I took one step back, kneeled behind her, and yanked her ass back against my sweatpants.