An older man with a closely buzzed haircut approached our table. The guys around me instantly dropped the wild energy down a notch, so I knew this was a man they looked up to and respected.
Cade cleared his throat. “Brooke, this is Hawk, our station chief.”
I stuck my hand out and shook his large, calloused palm.
“Nice to meet you, young lady,” his gruff voice said. “You take good care of our boy, here.”
“I’ll do my best.” I squeezed Cade’s thigh under the table.
“You’ve really made a life here,”I marveled as we walked to the car.
“Yeah,” he agreed. He dropped a kiss to my jawline. “Home?”
I nodded.
By the time we reached the apartment, our hands were frenzied and our kisses hurried. The kiss we’d shared at the bar had reignited the flame that had been burning since that morning at the beach. I pictured the sunflower tattoo on his calf, and I longed to trace it. I couldn’t believe he’d kept it hidden from me for so long. We kicked off our shoes at the door, and he pulled off his socks, discarding them in the living room. Breaths heaving, we fought to slow ourselves down.
He broke our kiss to slip my shirt over my head, and I instinctively used my hands to cover a bit of the exposed flesh. All the lights were on in his apartment, causing my self-consciousness to creep back in. He slowly reached down and encircled my wrists, pulling my hands away from my body.
“Don’t,” he pleaded. He ran his fingers along my shoulders and down my arms.
I twitched away when he touched the soft spot on my stomach, below my belly button. Undeterred, he dropped down to his knees to kiss the area in question.
“This is one of my favorite spots,” he declared. He met my gaze, recognizing the disbelief in my eyes. “I’m serious.”
He bit at the skin playfully.
“That’s what you get for questioning my taste,” he said teasingly. He moved to my hip bone, placing a kiss there as well. His hands reached around to my backside.
“And this ass is a work of art,” he declared. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve caught myself staring at it.”
I pulled him back up to me and kissed him, unable to give voice to my appreciation of his compliments.
“Let me take a quick shower,” he whispered into my ear. I groaned my disapproval at him moving away from me, and he looked back with a grin. “Really quick,” he assured me.
He exited the shower wearing just a pair of snug black boxer briefs. Pulling me up from the couch where I’d settled, he nodded in approval that I hadn’t slipped back on my t-shirt.
He gingerly slid my hair from its ponytail, running his nails gently across my scalp as he spread the hair out around me. He let the strands fall across my shoulders, softly murmuring phrases like “angelic” and “mesmerizing” as he gently kissed my neck, shoulders, and arms. My arms were covered in goosebumps from his praise. His eyes were heavy-lidded and full of heat. He slipped his hands behind my back and undid my bra, letting it fall to the floor.
I felt exposed in front of him, but I allowed him to continue his slow, measured perusal. I glanced down to below his waistband, and he caught and followed my gaze.
“You see what you do to me,” he said matter-of-factly.
Biting my lip, I nodded. My body was thrumming with need.
Grabbing my hands, he brought me close, like we were slow dancing. I draped my arms around the back of his neck while he swayed me, relishing the feel of my nipples scraping gently across his bare chest. Every nerve ending was on fire. I tangled my fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck that I loved so much.
We continued to sway, skin touching skin. It was the most erotic and arousing experience I’d ever had, and we were barely even touching. He leaned down and dropped a warm kiss on my neck, and again I felt goosebumps erupt across my skin.
“I love you,” he said softly, so quietly I almost couldn’t be sure I’d heard him.
But then his eyes were on mine, and he was nodding, and I knew I’d heard right. He leaned his forehead down to mine. In a way the words seemed quick, but I also knew they’d been building for well over a decade.
“I love you, too, Cade.” I told him, nodding. “You make me so happy.” I nuzzled his neck. “You make me feel safe.”
My confident words seemed to unlock something in him, and he met my lips in another fevered kiss, his pace picking back up to the tempo we’d had when we’d walked through the door. His hands rubbed my shoulders more roughly, and he guided me toward his bedroom. As he moved me, I reached down to feel the bulge beneath his boxer briefs.
“We’ll go slow,” he assured me, dropping a kiss to my neck.
