Page 58 of Letting Go

“It won’t go away until you face them.”

He moves lower, trailing kisses like warm brushstrokes down my stomach. Each one a little softer, a little slower, like he's memorizing me through his mouth.

My breath hitches. “Caden…”

“Mm?” he hums against my hipbone, lips curling into a grin that Ifeel, low and deep and involuntary.

“This is not helping me avoid emotional intimacy.”

He chuckles, dark and fond, reaching up to kiss my lips. “Who said anything about avoiding it?”

His lips land on my neck, as his hands wander over my breasts. He gives some attention to my erect nipples, licking and biting. I run my hands through his hair as he moves lower, kissing my stomach, belly button and then his mouth isthere, and I forget how to be sarcastic. Forget how to be scared. I’m just sensation, writhing and flushed and shameless, fingers tangled in his hair, one knee hooked around his shoulder like my body already knows this man. Knows how he makes me come apart and want to put myself back together just to do it again.

He sucks my clit like it’s a damn straw, making me bow off the bed and then he thrusts two fingers inside me, immediately finding my g-spot and curling his fingers. I forget to breathe.

By the time he crawls back up the bed, slow and smug and kissed all over, I’m boneless and out ofbreath, and probably in love with him, which is honestly rude.

He settles beside me, propping himself up on one elbow, brushing hair off my forehead like we’re soft and safe and domestic. “Still want me to leave?” he murmurs.

I shake my head, dizzy and dazed. “I don’t think I could walk right now even if I wanted to.”

He grins. “Guess I’ll make breakfast, then.”

From the hallway, a bark. A yip. A high-pitched, unmistakable sound of judgment.

“...After we let the girls back in,” he amends, already standing.

I watch him walk away stark naked, all muscle and tattoos and competence, and for a second, I think, damn.

He keeps his promise.

After I drag myself out of bed, sore in all the best ways and still flushed from whatever the hell that was last night, Caden’s already in the kitchen, shirtless, humming something low and gravelly while flipping pancakes like this is just another Sunday. Thankfully he has put on an apron. He kisses me like it’s habit, hands warm on my hips, and I don’t hate it.

We have breakfast. He feeds the dogs because they won’t stop staring at him. Roxy has officially imprintedon Caden, and the puppy, who still doesn’t have a name because I’m emotionally stunted and can’t commit, is trailing him like he’s made of peanut butter and belly rubs.

Eventually, he showers. With me. Because of course he does. And round six is slower, wetter, lazier. Neither of us is in a rush and maybe we’re trying to memorize each other now. When we’re done, he wraps me in a towel and kisses my shoulder.

He pulls out his emergency suit from the trunk of his car. “For coffee spills and client tantrums,” he tells me, buttoning the jacket while I sip my coffee on the counter. “Not for one-night stands. Which, for the record, this is not.”

God help me, I believe him.

I feel good. Not just tingly, post-sex, half-dressed good, but grounded. Like I’ve finally come home to myself. For the first time in forever, I look at my reflection in the hallway mirror and I don’t wince. I smile. A real one.

Caden kisses me on the way out. He smells like cedar and ambition, and he leaves just in time, because no sooner do I close the door, that I hear the rumble of a familiar car pulling into the driveway.

Not Michael.

The judge.

And just like that, my spine straightens, heart lurches, and my morning takes a hard left into what-the-hell territory.

Because the last time I saw him, I detonated his image of his son.

And now… now I have no idea what he’s here to say.

I open the door, heart already halfway up my throat, only to find him standing there calm as a Sunday sermon. Judge, Michael’s father, but nothing about the man in front of me says “father of the man who wrecked my life.” Today he’s just… himself. Dignified. Imposing. And oddly warm.

“Morning,” he says, not waiting for an invitation as he steps inside. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

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