His screen blinks with a new message. He swipes it open, not looking at me anymore.
I’m mentally filing through every damn human I’ve seen interact with Cade— both guys and girls, because it could beanyone— while he smiles at his phone like a giddy thirteen-year-old. Then bites his lip. In the dark living room, highlighted only by the flashing TV, I can barely make out a pink tint in his cheeks.
I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. What if they make his eating disorder worse? Or trigger that horrible catatonic state?
Over the next hour, while he not-so-subtly texts nonstop, I stew in a cesspool of reasons why he should stay far away from whoever this person is. By the time the movie comes to an end, I’m boiling over.
Mom stretches her arms overhead with a sleepy smile. “Pretty good, huh?”
Declan hums in agreement, setting his empty wine glass down. I think he fell asleep halfway through.
Cade immediately springs off the couch and lets out an exaggerated yawn. “It’s been real, but I’m beat.”
Our parents nod with tipsy, spaced-out stares as he sprints upstairs. They might buy his bullshit, but I know better. It’s barely eleven. Cadenevergoes to bed this early. He’s usually up doing…
It’s like a boot to the face.
Is the mystery texter the one he’s been fantasizing about when he…
I’m on my feet in seconds, mumbling about needing to piss before racing after him. He’s halfway to his room, that fucking phone beckoning me like a red flag does a bull.
My hand clamps around the back of his neck.
He gasps.
Spinning him, I pin him to the wall by the throat. “You lied,” I snarl in his face. “We both know you’re not going to sleep.”
Wide blue and honey eyes gaze up at me. Little puffs escape through parted lips. His pulse thrums against my palm as his chin lifts a fraction.
“So?”
My fingers flex. “You’re a brat, you know that?”
I feel his Adam’s apple roll with a swallow, his eyelids drooping.
“Gonna punish me, Saint Seba?” He rasps, teeth catching his bottom lip as he arches?—
It’s then that I realize my thigh is wedged between his legs. Each breath rocks him against me. A tiny sound vibrates from his throat— so quiet, it’s barely a pant, but it slides down my spine, taking a rush of blood with it. There’s no stopping my body’s primal response.
Or his.
The evidence of my effect on him digs into my hip.
A deviant smile unfurls on his lips.
It’s a lightning strike to the dome.
I’m exposed.
Because he’s not the only one hard.
I rip away, stumbling until my back hits the opposite wall. A dark, breathy chuckle reverberates off the ceiling, the floor, the fucking inside of my skull, following me as I retreat to my room and sink to the carpet against the locked door.
Fuck.
Eighteen
CADE
