“You had a concussion!”
“I know that too!”
“Your throat—” His voice broke off, jaw locking so hard the words looked like they hurt. “Your fucking throat, Bliss.”
The way he said my name made my chest ache.
But I was too angry to stop. Too embarrassed and too needy. Too tired of being treated like every part of me had become untouchable.
“So that’s it?” I shot back. “He gets to mark me up and now suddenly I’m some sacred recovery project you can only handle with forehead kisses and medication alarms?”
His face went blank and then lethal so fast I knew I had hit something. Whether it was a good or bad thing, I didn’t know.
But I had hit it.
“You think I don’t fucking want you?” he asked, his voice low and hoarse and furious. His words went straight through me.
My breath caught.
Cade laughed once, but it wasn’t amused. It was sharp and ugly and full of four days of things he’d apparently been swallowing until they turned into poison.
“You have got to be kidding me right now.”
“Cade—”
“No.” He pointed at me, eyes blazing. “No, because I need you to hear me really carefully right now, Pip.”
My stomach flipped at the nickname, at the roughness in it, at the way he looked like he was two seconds from losing every inch of control he’d been clinging to.
“I haven’t slept right since that night,” he said, pacing once toward the island before turning back. “Every time I close my eyes, I see you in that hospital bed. I see blood on your face. I see you looking at me like I was the only thing keeping you from falling apart, and I get to live with the fact that some part of me still thinks I gave him the excuse he wanted. I punched him. I drew the monster out and rubbed his face in it. I let you pretend we were just fucking around instead of demanding the truth from you sooner, and then the one time you were finally coming to me, he got to you first.”
My throat tightened.
“And every morning, I leave this house for practice and tell myself it’s because the season matters, because the team matters, because the opener is Friday and everyone expects me to be Cade fucking Mercer.” His laugh came out bitter. “Captain. Cool, calm, collected. Steady under pressure. All that bullshit.”
I stared at him.
“But all I think about is you in my bed upstairs and whether Luke is stupid enough to come here while I’m gone.”
Emotion burned behind my eyes.
“And when I come back?” He stepped closer, voice dropping into something rougher, more dangerous. “When I come back, you’re there wearing my clothes, sleeping in mysheets, looking at me with those eyes like you want me to remember you’re not just bruises and doctor’s orders, and I do remember. Every damn second, I remember.”
My fingers curled against the counter behind me.
“You think I don’t look at you?” he asked. “I look at you constantly. I look at your mouth and remember exactly what it feels like under mine. I look at your legs in those tiny shorts you keep wearing around my room like you’re not trying to ruin me. I look at you standing in my bathroom trusting me enough to let me shower you, and I have to keep my hands gentle while every part of me wants to put my mouth on every inch of you and remind you exactly who you belong to.”
My thighs pressed together before I could stop them. His gaze dropped, and the heat in his eyes sharpened.
“Cade,” I whispered.
“No, you wanted honesty? Fine.” He moved closer again, close enough now that I had to tip my head back to hold his stare. “The problem isn’t that I stopped wanting you. The problem is I haven’t stopped wanting you for a single fucking second since last year. It’s gotten worse. It’s gotten so much worse I can barely think straight when I’m in the same room with you.”
My breath came shallow, and everything hurt, all while nothing hurt because I couldn’t tell anymore.
“I sleep next to you hard as a rock,” he said, voice low and viciously controlled, his hand gripping his cock through his pants, “trying not to touch you because your ribs are cracked and your body is healing, and I’m trying to respect that. Meanwhile, you’re down here thinking any part of me doesn’t want you because what? Because he has the power to take you from my mind? The fuck he will take you from my bed.”
My eyes filled instantly.
