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“Fine,” she said. “You’re probably right.”
“I know I’m right.” I had to be. Otherwise, why the hell would every nerve ending in my body be screaming that I was wrong, that I should ignore all that shit? There was a part of me that wanted to carry her out to my car and take her home with me, and screw the rest. But I was smart enough to recognize that part of me was behaving like a fucking idiot.
“Don’t get used to me agreeing with you, though,” she said.
I chuckled and climbed off her—reluctantly as all hell, but it had to be done. Otherwise, I’d be the one doing the mauling. “I should probably head home. Come on and lock the door behind me.” I grabbed my coat from the hall closet. When I turned around, she was standing there, her lips puffy and swollen and pink, which made it incredibly difficult to keep myself from pushing her back up against the door and kissing her again.
Instead, I opened the door. The snow I’d expected earlier had apparently been falling for a while. There was a thick blanket of the stuff all over my car that I’d have to clear off before I could leave.
“Let me grab my coat,” Cadence said. “I’ll help.”
I started the car and put the defrost on high to help things along. With the two of us working, it didn’t take us too long to clear the snow away. At least it was still soft and not packed down like it would be by morning. When I took the scraper from her, I couldn’t resist drawing her in for another kiss—one that warmed me up in no time.
Breaking away from her wasn’t easy. “Go back inside and lock the door. Get warm.”
“I am warm,” she said. “With you.”
I pecked her on her nose. It was as cold as the snow. “Liar.”
She grinned and ducked her head against my chest, drawing me into an embrace. “’Night,” she said.
“’Night.”
But she didn’t move.
“You need to go in, you know.”
“I do. But it feels too good to be standing here like this. With you.”
I forced myself to nudge her toward the door. When she got to the top of the porch, she turned around and waved at me. Then I got in the car and waited until she was inside and the porch light went out before backing out of the driveway.
Moments later, as I turned from their street to another, I could have sworn I saw a man sitting in a car that wasn’t running. Just sitting there. Not doing anything.
Once I was past it, I glanced in my rearview mirror. The street lights illuminated it enough that I could tell there wasn’t anyone in that car.
Must have been my imagination.
MY HEAD HADnever been filled with such a jumble of things at once. I was scared out of my mind about Guy and what he might do, excited and a little nervous about the relationship I was building with Levi, energized by the progress Anthony and I were making, fulfilled from being able to put my skills and training to use in order to teach Sophie, and gutted that I’d come between my brother and sister-in-law—even if they seemed to be getting back on track now. On top of all that, I missed Mom and my sisters like crazy, and I felt like an absolute idiot for not speaking up about everything that had been happening with Guy, going back for years, when he’d first started treating me like garbage.
Yeah, I’d been young and stupid. Maybe I still was. But that didn’t mean I had to stay that way.
Cam took me to the gym up at the Storm’s practice facility with him early the morning after my first lesson with Sophie. Well, technically it had been the first lesson with Sophie and Levi, but I’d promised Levi my lips were sealed about that, at least when it came to being around his teammates. Yep, one more secret to keep from my brother, but at least this one didn’t have anything to do with my safety. Those days were over.
The team had to be at the Moda Center for morning skate at ten, but Cam said there was no time like the present to work on self-defense, especially since the team was leaving for a road trip in a couple of days. “I used to work with Dana Zellinger on this stuff,” he said, tossing me some sparring gloves before putting those boxing pad target things on his hands. “You can start working with me, and maybe take some kickboxing or Krav Maga classes when we’re out on the road.”
“Krav Maga?” I asked.
“It’s a kind of self-defense they started up in Israel, I think. For their special forces guys. It’s what they’re encouraging women who’ve been victims of assault to learn to take care of themselves.”
That didn’t sound like the worst idea in the world. I nodded and focused in on the instruction he was giving me. We’d been at it for about twenty minutes when he got frustrated with me. I was becoming frustrated with myself, too, come to think of it.
“Harder, Cadence. You’ve got to put all your force behind it. Try to hurt me.”
“I am putting all my force into it.” I huffed, and it blew my hair out of my face. I stripped the gloves off and adjusted my ponytail holder, mainly to buy some time to catch my breath. Cam had been working me hard, and none of this was familiar to me.
“No, you’re not.”
“Maybe you’ve forgotten, but I’m all of five foot nothing and maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet. I seriously doubt I can do anything that will hurt you.”
