She smiled, not at Cade but at Aiden. “Congratulations,” she said dryly. “I didn’t think there wasanythingthat could tear Cade away from his work.” She looked back at Cade as she said, “I’m glad to see I was wrong. Take the afternoon, Cade. Absolutely.”
Cade flipped a switch on his computer and then crossed the room. He couldn’t get too close to Aiden, considering the number of coolers rotating around him, but he held out his hand and Aiden reached out to take it. They shuffled into the relative privacy of the hallway before Aiden said, “You don’t have to take the afternoon off. I didn’t want to get in the way of your work.”
“You’re allowed to get in the way sometimes.” Cade tightened his fingers. “Especially when you bring me food.”
“You want to go across to the bench to eat?”
Cade stopped walking and Aiden turned to him in concern. “I want to go home to eat,” Cade said. He sounded like he was pushing himself, working hard to be honest and open. “And then I want to go to bed withyou. If that’s what you want. If you don’t want—if you—I don’t know, if you need some more time—”
“I want,” Aiden said quickly. “That’s kind of what all this was about. I mean, lunch too. But….”
“Lunch first,” Cade said. He seemed to have relaxed a little, and his grin seemed genuine when he said, “I wish there was some way we could eat while we were walking. It really seems like it would be most efficient if our food was in convenient finger-food format.”
Aiden grinned back. “This is your lucky day,” he purred. He was pretty sure it washislucky day too.
Chapter Thirty-One
They weredone with their lunch by the time they got to the apartment. Cade helped Aiden shed the cooler bags, and then they stood there in the living room, awkwardly frozen.
It was Cade who had the courage to speak first. “I think I want to contact Warren’s wife. Maybe it won’t mean anything, or do any good, but I want to try.” He frowned, then said, “I want him to know I’m not running away from him. Not hiding. I wantmeto know that too.”
“Okay,” Aiden said quietly. “I’ll get her phone number from my parents.”
And with that out of the way, they were back to their strange silence. The bedroom seemed ominously close, but somehow impossibly distant. Again, Cade was the one who spoke first. “Are you grossed out? I mean, you don’t want me anymore?”
“Fuck, no!” The guilt flashed through Aiden. He’d been so caught up in trying to figure out his own feelings that he hadn’t given enough thought to Cade’s. “I just, I don’t want you to…. Every time I think about touching you, I worry that… you know. I’ll do something that someone else did. Something you didn’t like. Something fuckingWarrendid. Or something that will make you think of that, and I don’t want you thinking of him, or how he made you feel. I want you to be able to forget all that.”
Cade nodded slowly. “The thing is,” he finally said, “we’ve been having sex for months. Youknowingabout the other stuff is new, but it’s nothing I haven’t already worked through on my own.” He was watching Aiden closely, clearly ready to stop talking if he got a negative reaction. When he didn’t see one, he added, “So I don’t think it makes sense for you to worry aboutme. Do you think maybeyou’rethe one thinking about other guys?”
Aiden sighed. Why did Cade always have to be so logical? “Maybe,” he conceded.
“And thinking that I’m dirty? Used?”
“Fuck, Cade,no. Seriously, no. I don’t know. I think about you, and then suddenly I’m thinking aboutthem. I want this to be just us.” He froze and stared at Cade. “I don’t want you to perform,” he said, hearing the words echoing before he spoke them. “I don’t want you to play a part. I want it to be just you and me.” Exactly as Cade had wanted the first time they’d been together.
Cade smiled bleakly, apparently recognizing his own words. “It was hard for me to block them out, at first,” he said. “But I kept thinking ofyou. It wasyoutouching me.Youinside me. And the others faded away.”
“You,” Aiden said softly. “Cade.” He reached forward almost experimentally and laid his palm on the warm, familiar slope of Cade’s cheek. “Cade,” he said, and he brought their lips together for a light kiss. He pulled back and saw Cade’s expression, tender and anxious and raw. “Mine,” Aiden murmured. Another kiss and then he brought his mouth to the hollow where Cade’s neck met his shoulder. How many times had Aiden left his mark here, nipping and sucking until his ownership was clear? Had he ever had more reason to make a claim than he did right then?
Cade gasped and tilted his head back, giving Aiden more space and making himself completely vulnerable. Totally open. Cade’s skin was so soft and sweet, so warm against Aiden’s mouth. He sucked until the skin was purple-red, then tugged at the buttons of Cade’s shirt. One mark had been enough before, but now he needed to make it clear to Cade, to himself, to anyone and everyone. Cade was his and he was Cade’s, and nobody could pull them apart.
He tugged Cade’s shirt open and pushed it halfway down his arms before abandoning the effort and focusing on Cade’s chest. Right over his heart. Another mark. Cade’s hand was tight on the back of Aiden’s head, holding him in place, urging him on. Aiden pulled away when he was satisfied, admired the mark he’d left, then slid his mouth down along Cade’s ribs. Cade’s skin twitched as Aiden tickled him, but he didn’t pull away, and his chest was rising and falling with quick, excited breaths.
“Cade,” Aiden whispered. “You’re Cade, and you’re mine.”
“Completely,” Cade agreed, his voice a gasp as Aiden lowered his mouth again.
They got naked, eventually. Aiden wasn’t really sure how or when it happened, but he was happy to have more skin exposed to his ravenous mouth.
He was leaving hickies. It should have seemed juvenile, but instead he felt primal, almost barbaric. He’d claimed his partner and now he was marking his territory. And he was ready to fight anyone who dared challenge his rights.
But nobody challenged him. When they finally ended up in the bedroom, Aiden shoved Cade down on the bed and surveyed his work. Cade was his. All over. But there was one final place he needed to claim.
“I want to fuck you,” he said. Cade didn’t look exactly surprised by the news, but his face changed when Aiden added, “No condom. We don’t need it.”
Cade frowned. “How can you say thatnow?”
“Because it’s been years, and you’ve gotten tested. Right?”
