Cade kissed me. Not carefully. Not like a question. Not like some fragile, aching first kiss out of a romance movie where everyone had the patience to be poetic about it. He kissed me like he had been waiting, like every moment of restraint had stacked inside him until the second he finally decided to take what I had already told him I wanted.
My back hit the counter with a soft thud, and I gasped into his mouth.
That was all it took.
He stepped into me fully, his other hand gripping my hip as his mouth opened over mine, hot and commanding and so much better than anything my brain had tortured me with. He tasted like coffee and mint and something darker that was just him, and the first stroke of his tongue against mine went straight through me so violently my hands fisted in the front of his T-shirt before I could pretend I had dignity.
Holy fuck.
Cade groaned against my mouth when I pulled him closer, and the sound broke something loose inside me. I kissed him back harder, letting every stupid rule, every warning, every careful little lie I had told myself fall apart beneath the pressure of his mouth.
He was not gentle, but he was precise.
His hand at my neck tilted my head exactly where he wanted it. His grip on my hip dragged me tighter against him. His body pressed me into the counter, and I felt the restraint stillin him, the way he was taking but not losing himself completely. Controlled until he wasn’t. Commanding enough that I didn’t have to think. Cocky enough that when I made a sound into his mouth, he smiled against me like he had been waiting for that too.
“There,” he muttered against my lips. “That’s what you wanted.”
The arrogance should have annoyed me but it made me kiss him harder.
His laugh was low and rough, swallowed by my mouth as he bent slightly, grabbed the backs of my thighs, and lifted me onto the counter like I weighed nothing.
I yelped, legs parting around him automatically.
His hands landed on my thighs, palms hot against bare skin, and his eyes dropped to the place where my shorts had ridden higher before lifting back to my face.
“Benefits,” he said, voice rough with amusement and something much darker. “Sure.”
I narrowed my eyes even though I was breathless and sitting on my kitchen counter with his hips between my knees. “Do not mock the agreement.”
“I agreed.”
“You’re mocking it with your face.”
“My face thinks you’re full of shit.”
“My face thinks you’re an arrogant jackass.”
He leaned in, mouth brushing mine. “Your face looks like it wants me to keep kissing you.”
I hated that I had no comeback.
He took my silence as permission because it absolutely was, and kissed me again.
This time was worse.
Slower at first, but only because he was making a point. His mouth moved over mine with filthy patience, dragging thekiss deep enough that my spine softened and my fingers slid into his hair. He made a sound when I tugged, low in his chest, and that sound turned my body to liquid.
His hands moved from my thighs to my waist, then back down again, like he was memorizing what he had access to now. My knees tightened around his hips. His mouth left mine only to drag along my jaw, and when his teeth grazed the sensitive place beneath my ear, my breath shattered.
“Cade.”
His whole body reacted to his name like I had pulled a trigger.
His hand slid up my back, holding me to him as his mouth returned to mine, hungrier now, rougher. The kiss turned messy fast, all heat and breath and the slick slide of tongues while his hips pressed closer between my thighs. My body arched into him before my pride could stop it, and he caught the movement with a growl that made me forget every single reason I had started this conversation in the first place.
Physical only.
Right.
