by Roni Loren
“Kade,” Tessa said, fear in her voice. “We’ve got him tied up. We need to just call the police.”
But Kade wasn’t ready to listen to reason right now. He pushed the gun to the back of Doug’s throat and Doug sucked.
“You said we weren’t very different.” He moved the gun in and out. “If that’s the case, if you were right, then I guess I should pull this trigger. Because you would. Then you’d probably defile the body afterward. You certainly deserve no better after what you did to me and all those people in the photos.”
Doug mumbled something that sounded distinctly like fuck you.
Kade yanked the gun from Doug’s mouth, put it into the earth next to Doug’s head and pulled the trigger. Screams—both Doug’s and Tessa’s—filled the night and dirt flew.
Kade climbed off of Doug in time to see the dark stain appearing on the front of Doug’s pants as he wet himself. Sirens sounded in the background.
Kade crouched down to Doug and patted his cheek, which was wet with tears. “Guess it’s a good thing for both of us, Douggie, that I’m nothing like you.”
Doug spat at him. “I’m going to tell them you two attacked me. That you were trying to break into the house.”
“And I’m going to show them the video of what really happened,” said an unfamiliar voice.
A woman stepped out from the shadows by the fence. She was in a robe, her dark hair twisted on top of her head, and looked vaguely familiar. In her hand was a cell phone.
Tessa stepped away from Doug and looked to the woman. “I hoped you were still an insomniac.”
The woman nodded grimly. “I got the photos you texted me. I was coming over to rip his computer out of the wall but when I saw what was going on, I called the police.”
Tessa blew out a breath. “I prayed it was you moving in the shadows. Thank you. The video will help.”
“You know me, always the reporter,” she said without humor.
Kade realized this was Marilyn. The woman in the photos. Doug’s mistress and Tessa’s former best friend.
Doug rolled over, no doubt one last-ditch attempt to escape, but the police were pouring into the yard a moment later.
And this time, Kade was the one pressing charges.
But he couldn’t feel triumphant about it. He felt sick. Because for those few moments when he had the gun to Doug, he knew he’d been far too close to crossing the line. The I’m-past-this bullshit had lost all validity. And it had put doubts in the head of the one person whose trust he’d worked so hard to get.
He’d scared her.
He’d scared himself.
THIRTY-THREE
Kade was quiet on the plane ride home. They’d spent the previous night in the hospital to get his leg treated—luckily, the bullet had only grazed his thigh. Then they’d spent the morning in the police station giving statements. So they hadn’t had any time to talk. And once they’d gotten on his company’s private jet, he’d closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. She could tell he was faking because his breathing never turned even.
He was beating himself up over how he’d tortured Doug at the end. He hadn’t said so, but she knew that’s what lurked behind the dark shadows of his expression. After the police had come into the yard, Kade had stood to the side, stricken. When he’d looked to Tessa, it was as if he was looking through her. Empty. Gone. And when she’d gone to stand with him, he hadn’t reached out for her. There’d been this invisible steel shell encasing him.
And part of her had been scared to embrace him in that moment. It had been frightening to see the cold hate in Kade’s eyes, the capacity for true violence. Something had overtaken him there in the backyard, morphing the kind and loving man she knew into one with single-minded vengeance. But knowing what he’d been through in the woods, how Doug had violated him so viciously, she couldn’t blame him for his instinctive reaction. She’d been most afraid that Kade would do something he’d regret, something that would land him in jail. But through the rage and trauma and all that memory, he’d been able to pull back and walk away anyway.
She couldn’t imagine the amount of self-control that had taken. She wasn’t sure she would’ve been able to do the same had she gone through what he had.
But she hated that it’d sent him into shutdown mode. She reached for his hand and threaded her fingers with his. He gave a little squeeze back, proving that he wasn’t asleep, but didn’t open his eyes.
“Only about an hour before we get there,” she said softly.
“Good, I’m ready to be as far from Atlanta as possible.”
“You and me both.” She glanced out the window at the inky blackness. “Dallas almost doesn’t seem far enough.”
He gave her hand another squeeze. “I know what you mean.”
She rubbed her thumb over his ring finger back and forth, back and forth, thinking. “Maybe we should keep going further then.”
He cracked his eyes open and peeked at her, the sadness that had been sitting heavy there earlier still glimmering in the blue depths. “What are you talking about?”
She shrugged. “I heard Vegas is nice this time of year.”
That got him fully awake. He sat up straighter and turned toward her. “Have a hankering to gamble?”
She rubbed her lips together, considering him. He looked so much like the boy he used to be at times—sleepy-eyed, mussed hair, vaguely wary look on his face. “Yeah, I think I do. I’ve never been good at taking risks. Maybe it’s a good place to get over that. What do you think?”
He sighed and stared down at their joined hands. The weight of everything left unsaid about the night before, about what really happened in high school, about the darkness that had chased the both of them through the years—all of it infiltrated the cabin, piling in and filling all the spaces with the heavy baggage they’d gathered over the years.
When Kade finally spoke, his voice was unbearably quiet. “I’m so sorry about how I acted last night, Tess. How I . . . lost it. I thought I’d shown you my ugly parts, but even I didn’t know that side of me was in there. Being near him again brought all that shit up, and I was there in the woods again, seeing it all again, feeling every kick, every broken bone. All logic went out of my head. I wanted to make him suffer. I wanted to humiliate him and tear away every thread of pride he had. Destroy him. I needed him to feel what he made me feel that night.”
“Kade . . .” she said, her heart breaking at the anguish in his voice, the disgust with himself.
“Maybe I’m not as different from him as I thought I was. I could’ve killed him and not felt bad about it. Part of me wishes I would’ve. And I don’t know what to do with that.”
“Hey, look at me,” she said, her voice firm. He lifted his gaze to hers, all the pain shining there. “Don’t ever say stupid shit like that again. You’re as far from someone like him as anyone can be. You may have wanted to kill him, may still want to, but you didn’t and you won’t. You had the chance twice, and you didn’t hurt him. Your reaction was human. The things he did to you left scars that you may have moved past but are always going to be there on some level.”
“I just hate that it’s still there at all. I thought I’d exorcised it all. I never wanted you to see that side of me. I know I scared you.”
She shook her head. “I was scared that I’d lose you if you did something to him. That’s where my fear was. And you don’t have to pretend that those things never happened to you. That stuff fades but doesn’t disappear. We just learn how to deal with it better. It’s why any time you mention the word relationship I get a fat dose of panic rushing through me. No matter how much I try to convince myself that I’m not that insecure foster kid anymore, part of me will always expect people to let me down and leave.”
He reached out and pushed her hair behind her ear. “Then why do you want to go
to Vegas?”
“Because I love poker, duh.”
He laughed, and the rich sound was so welcome after the last forty-eight hours that she nearly climbed into his seat with him to absorb it fully.
“I want to go because, just like you, I’m tired of all that stuff from the past holding me hostage. The times I’ve spent with you since that night in the restaurant have been the most exciting and happiest I’ve ever had. Yes, you’re intense and dominant, and I know I still have a lot to understand about that. I will warn you now that if your idea of submission is having some kept woman who sits around the house and waits for you to come home, that isn’t going to fly for me. I will never be a housewife. I suck at it. And I don’t care how adorable and sexy you are, how convincing you can be when you get that badass dom look on your face, or how madly in love with you I am, that’s not going to change.”
He gave her a roguish smile filled with that trademark confidence that had been absent in Atlanta, and her belly did a flutter. “Madly in love, huh?”
“Yes. Madly. Deal with it.”
“I kind of want to hear you say that over and over again. Possibly while I’m deep inside you.”
A pulse of desire heated her from the center outward. But she was not to be distracted from her demands.
“I want to keep going to school. I want a career. I need to stand on my own two feet in the world. I won’t be anyone’s trophy again.”
He lifted an eyebrow, his expression amused. “Is that all Mistress McAllen?”
“Well, I do agree that you can have your wicked way with me when I’m not working or in school. I mean, I do have to concede some things. Plus, you’re so very good at that part.”
He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the center of her palm, sending a shiver up her arm. “I would never make you quit school or give up a career. I want you submissive to me. I don’t want a Stepford wife.”
“Good.”
“But I’m going to give you my own warning right back,” he said, his gaze meeting hers. “I want to take care of you, Tess. That doesn’t mean making you dependent on me. But it does mean that I want to pamper you and surprise you and take you places on a whim. It means that I’ll worry about you and make sure you have everything you need. I’m madly in love with you right back, and I’m going to want to show it in every way available.” He kissed up her arm. “And I have lots and lots of ways available to me.”
She closed her eyes, his simple touch soothing something inside her. “I think I can work with that.”
He unhooked his seat belt and got to his knee, wincing slightly from his injury, then took her hands in his. His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath before he met her eyes. “Tessa McAllen, I fell in lust with you the day I first saw you walk across the cafeteria in that purple flowered sundress you used to wear. I lost my heart to you when you hugged me that day in the cabin after your test and looked at me like I mattered to you. And I fell in love with you when I discovered the strong, smart, unfairly sexy woman you’ve become. I want nothing more in this life than to make you mine and to be yours in return. I know it may take you a while to trust that, but I will give you my love without limit or conditions, without an end. I’m not going anywhere. You’re it for me, Tess. Always. No matter what.”
Her throat felt filled with cotton, and fat tears rolled off her cheeks, splashing onto their joined hands. It was everything she’d always wanted to hear, the promise of forever. A real forever. And for the first time, she believed it could actually exist. She’d waited all her life for this man. For this kind of love.
“Will you be mine, Tess? Wear my ring and my collar?”
She looped her arms around his neck and slid down to her knees between the seats, almost too filled with joy to breathe. The truth poured out of her, without filter or fear. “It’s always been you, Kade. I walked away back then, but I never collected all of my heart back from you. Before this, if someone had told me there was a perfect match for me out there, some person destined to fit just right with me, I would’ve laughed. Especially if they told me that guy was someone who’d want to put a collar around my neck. But when I landed back in Atlanta and thought that I may have to give you up, give this up, I realized that I can never go back to the before state. I don’t want to. I thought I was happy with my new life in Texas. And I was. But not like this. I love you, Kaden Fowler Vandergriff, the boy you were and the man you’ve become. And I can’t think of anything I’d rather be more than the wife on your arm . . . and the slave in your bed.”
Kade’s smile lit up the darkened cabin and nearly broke her chest open. There was so much in his eyes, so much emotion he’d been keeping hidden from her, so much love. No one had ever looked at her like that—like she was the reason the sun rose each day.
Kade slid his hands up her neck and cradled her face. “I don’t want to go another day without making you mine. I’ve waited too long already.”
She nodded in his grip, excitement rather than nerves taking over at the prospect.
He reached back to press a button, calling for the flight attendant. The guy came down the aisle, not blinking an eye at the two of them kneeling between their seats. Kade barely spared him a glance. “Tell the pilot to reroute us to Las Vegas. And please close the curtain behind you and don’t check on us again until I open it.”
The attendant gave a brief smile. “Yes, sir. Right away.”
Tess lifted her eyebrows when he looked back to her.
“Tell me,” he said with a wicked tilt to his mouth. “Was membership in the mile-high club on that list of yours?”
She grinned. “It’s not, but I should definitely add it.”
He stood and took her hand, guiding her to her feet. But she didn’t miss the little flinch he gave when he’d gotten up.
“What about your leg?”
He put his hands on her waist and quieted her with a slow, soft kiss. When he pulled back, he gave her an enigmatic smile. “I’ve got ways around that.”
He led her down the aisle and she assumed he was taking her to the back where there was a small sleeping cabin with a twin-sized bed. But he stopped in the open area behind the seats where two couches flanked each side of the jet.
“Take off your clothes, Tess,” he said, that commanding tone sending goose bumps over her skin.
She glanced at the back of the plane. “Here?”
“Yes. Here. I suggest you don’t question me.”
She wet her lips. “Yes, sir.”
She pulled her shirt over her head and slipped out of her jeans, then tugged off her bra and underwear. The plane jolted and she grabbed for the overhead bin to keep her balance.
He gave her a long, sweeping once-over. The cabin lights had been turned down low and the starless night bled in from the windows, painting Kade in shadows and making him look ominous and intimidating and sexy. She shivered in the cool air, her nipples pebbling.
Kade opened the bin behind him and pulled out something. He turned around, holding seat belt extenders. “Wouldn’t want to risk the safety of my pretty little slave.”
She eyed the straps, her heartbeat hopping against her ribs.
“Turn around and face the windows. The view flying into Vegas at night is pretty breathtaking.”
“Yes, sir.” She turned on bare feet, facing the row of round windows, and Kade stepped behind her.
His body was hard and warm against her as he lifted one of her arms above her head. He wrapped the seat belt extender around her wrists and made a makeshift knot. Then he threaded it through the handle of the bin above her. He secured the other wrist to the other end of the strap. “Too tight?”
“No, sir, it’s fine.”
“Good.” He caressed her sides with hot palms as he moved down her body and squatted at her feet. He wrapped the belts around h
er ankles and secured her, legs spread wide—one hooked to the seat to the left and one to the leg of the couch. “There, now you won’t fall if the plane hits turbulence.”
“Thank you, sir.” Though she suspected Kade was going to provide turbulence of his own.
He trailed fingers down her spine. “Tonight I don’t want anything between us. I get checked regularly and am safe. Are you on birth control?”
“I’m on the pill. And I got tested after I found out what Doug had been doing.”
“Good girl,” he said, kissing along her shoulder. “I need to hear you say you’re okay with me fucking you bare, baby. That’s not something I will order you to do.”
The dirty words made her stomach clench low, her body already growing wet and hot for him. “I want it, sir. No more condoms.”
He circled his arms around her and brushed his fingers over her folds. Her legs went boneless for a moment and she groaned into the touch, the pleasure so welcome after such a stressful few days. “I agree, no more condoms when it’s just us.”
The words took a second to register with the delicious stroking that was going on, but all her attention honed in on his words. “Won’t it always be just us? We’re getting married.”
“I promise you there will never be another woman for me. You’re all I need, and more than one woman is not my kink. But I saw how much you enjoyed that night with Colby. And I like giving you that kind of pleasure, sharing you as my slave.” His fingers dipped inside her, his slow strokes matching the soft, cajoling sound of his voice. “Like I told you that first night. I’m a kinky fucker. Our love is monogamous, so I trust in that enough that if we play with someone else, you’re still all mine and vice versa.”
The concept was so out there, so very different from anything she’d ever known or considered. But there was something wildly enticing about that deep a level of trust. It’d be okay to explore each other’s edges, together, without worrying that it would shake their foundation. She knew without a doubt that it didn’t matter how many men touched her when they had a kinky night, none would tempt her away from this man. He would truly own her body, heart, and soul.