“That’s fine.” His voice softened for half a second, not losing the heat, just wrapping control around it better. “Nervous isn’t bad. Scared is different.”
My chest tightened because of course he understood that distinction. Cade, with all his intensity and focus and quiet restraint, somehow knew exactly where the line sat without me having to draw it for him. Nervous meant anticipation. Nervous meant I wanted this enough for my body to panic over it.
“I’m not scared,” I said quietly.
His eyes held mine through the screen. “Good.”
The word hit differently than good girl had. Softer. Heavier. Like he believed me and still wanted me to know he was listening for the truth underneath every breath I took. That should have settled me down. Instead, it made me ache worse.
Cade shifted against his headboard, the phone angle changing just enough for me to see the black T-shirt stretched across his chest and one arm braced behind his head. He looked too calm for what we were doing, but I could see the lie in the tightness of his jaw and the way his breathing wasn’t quite even. He was affected. He was trying to control it, but he was affected, and the knowledge made something warm and reckless bloom low in my stomach.
“You said fair,” I reminded him, because apparently my mouth had decided self-preservation was no longer invited into the conversation.
“I did.”
“And now you’re just staring at me.”
“I like looking at you.”
The simplicity of it made my breath catch. Not a line. Not some polished hockey-boy flirtation meant to get me to lower my guard. Just truth, rough around the edges and devastating because he said it like looking at me was not passive. Like it cost him something to keep doing it from a distance.
I shifted beneath the blankets, suddenly too aware of the hoodie against my bare thighs and the heat trapped under the fabric. “You’re doing that thing again.”
“I know… tell me about it.”
“That thing where you say something simple and somehow make it sound filthy.”
His eyes darkened. “Maybe it is filthy.”
My lips parted, but I did not have a comeback ready fast enough.
Cade noticed. Of course he noticed. His expression sharpened slightly, that focused look sliding into place, and my pulse kicked hard because I knew what it felt like to have all of his attention aimed directly at me. I had felt it in the gym when his hands were on my hips. I had felt it in his closet when he told me to watch. I felt it now through a screen, which was unfair and honestly medically concerning.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“My bed.”
“I can see that.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Because I wanted to hear you say it.”
Heat rushed across my skin so fast I had to look away. “You’re impossible.”
“No.” His voice dropped lower. “I’m trying very hard to be careful.”
That dragged my eyes back to him.
His expression had changed. Still intense, still hot enough to make my entire body feel overheated beneath his hoodie, but there was something else there too. Restraint. The same restraint that had made him step back in the gym when I said we should stop. The same restraint that had kept him across the room after the closet, asking me to text when I got home instead of using what had happened to pull me closer before I was ready.
That was why this felt different.
That was why I had answered the call.
Because Cade wanted me. There was no pretending he didn’t. But he also kept making sure I was still standing on my own side of the choice.
I drew in a breath and forced myself to say the truth before I turned it into another joke. “I want this, I’m so tired of being careful.”
