Page 19 of Hideaway

“Kara, look at me,”Cade commanded curtly, his control worn thin after just a few minutes in Kara’s presence. The girl was driving him utterly mad.

With a loud sigh of exasperation, Kara lowered the book, laying it face down across her thighs, and looked at Cade expectantly.“Yes?”she answered, her voice full of syrupy sweetnessand completely fake.

Resisting the urge to continue fighting her—because that could take all fucking night without either of them emerging victorious—Cade ran his fingers deftly through his dark hair and desperately attempted to tame his reaction to her relentless attitude. If she was his girl, she’d probably never be able to sit down comfortably again with how much trouble she gave him. But she wasn’t his. Nor would she be. The previous night had made that particular fact abundantly clear. Whatever her feelings for him, Kara was too prim and proper to act on them and endanger her precious reputation. And she was too fucking vanilla to give him what he really needed. So, he needed to wrap things up with Kara and go find someone he could really play with.

“Come here,”Cade commanded brusquely, pointing to the empty space beside him. He didn’t have time for her attitude. He needed to get Kara reasonably contented and get the fuck out of there.

Surprisingly, Kara walked obediently, albeit sullenly, toward him. She stopped when she reached the exact spot he pointed to, staring up at him with a mixture of insolence and something more fragile. It was that fragment of vulnerability that gave Cade pause. He reached for her chin, gently pulling her toward him.

“What’s wrong?”Cade asked softly, genuinely interested in what was actually bothering her. Was she starting to care for him in the same way he was desperately trying to avoid caring for her? So desperate, in fact, that he was willing to mindlessly throw himself at the first eager victim to escape thoughts of her. Was she hurting for the same reasons he was running?

“Nothing,”Kara lied unconvincingly, pulling her chin from his grasp.

The deception, the evasion, the sheer fucking brattiness had Cade’s fists curling in anger and frustration. Why couldn’t she be reasonable? Why couldn’t she just fucking talk to him? If she simply asked him not to go, he would bow to her request. And he hated himself for the weakness she exposed.

“Do you want me to stay?”Cade asked, his tone turning from concerned to acrid.“Is that it? Want to pay me back for services rendered during dinner last night? Seeing you on your knees might be enough incentive for me to stay.”The cruelty of his words surprised him. He had never had a tendency toward meanness, at least where women were concerned. He had never needed it. Speaking with honesty, rather than modesty, the women he associated with groveled at his feet. Literally. He was proving to be ill equipped in dealing with someone like Kara who required a little more coaxing. The thought vexed him greatly.

“You’re a fucking bastard, Caden,”Kara admonished, the anger in her tone getting lost amid the anguished embarrassment causing her voice to tremble.

“Well, if you’ve got nothing better to offer, I’ll be going now,”Cade said coldly.

“Try not to fall off a cliff and die,”Kara muttered to herself as she turned away from him with the intention of returning to her romantic novel and drowning out any lingering, poisonous thoughts of him. And what he would be doing on his night outnotworking.

“What was that, Kara?”Cade sneered as grasped her arm and pulled her back toward him.“I couldn’t quite hear you. And I believe you’ve been warned not to turn your back on me. Shall I remind you what happens when you do?”Cade gripped her arm tighter as if in threat of something worse.

“Iapologize,”Kara answered scathingly, aware her tone might get her into trouble, but not quite caring at the moment.

“Do I need to punish you, baby?”Cade asked, his tone softening in spite of his words.

“I don’t think that will be necessary. You have plans tonight,remember?”Kara answered, jerking her arm from his grasp.“Enjoy your night out,baby.”

Cade stood still for a moment, glaring at Kara as indecision flickering across his face. Finally deciding tofuck it, Cade closed the space between them, fisted his fingers in Kara’s hair, and forced her mouth up to meet his. He kissed her viciously—more an attack than a caress—his lips claiming her, his tongue invading her mouth and sparring against her own, his teeth demanding destruction as he sucked her bottom lip between them and bit down hard. Hard enough to taste blood mingled with the intoxicating essence ofher.

Kara pulled away for an infinitesimal fraction of a second, the bare minimum that her dignity required, before she was moaning into Cade’s mouth, eager to devour everything he had to give her. She threw herself against him, her hands clawing at his jacket, delirious with the need to get it off of him, to touch him. Obliging her, Cade whipped off the jacket in one swift movement and threw it to the floor. His lips slipped to her neck, kissing her and tasting her as his hands flew to her thighs and hiked up the hem of her dress. Kara tilted her head back, giving Cade full access to her throat as she grabbed ahold of his hair, relishing the softness of the silken strands. She whimpered as Cade’s fingers trailed up to her thighs and dug harshly into the bare skin of her hips.

“Does that hurt, Kara?”Cade asked, his mouth against her ear.

“Yes,”Kara answered breathlessly.“More.”

Cade grinned at the need in her voice, the responsiveness of her body. Happy to acquiesce, he bared his teeth and sunk into the tender flesh of her neck, reveling in the moans he pulled from her as he bit deeply. Blindly, Kara reached for the buttons of his shirt, practically ripping them from the seams in her desperation to find bare skin. Having managed to undo the bottom half, Kara slid her hands over Cade’s naked abdomen, memorizing the ripples of muscle and the sharp edges of his hip bones. Cade hissed as Kara raked her nails down his abs when he bit down particularly hard on her shoulder.

“Fuck me, Cade,”Kara pleaded breathlessly, digging her hands into his hair and pulling roughly as he continued to devour the exposed skin of her neck.

“What?”Cade asked in shock, fairly certain he misheard her.

“Fuck me, please.”

Cade stilled, his expression clouded with a mixture of anger and uncertainty. “No,” he answered finally, leaving little room for misconception in his single worded rejection.

The sexually charged spell between them suddenly broken with her desperate plea, Cade pulled away harshly, nearly dropping Kara on her arse. He turned away from her, swearing to himself for letting things get so out of hand as he re-adjusted his shirt and tucked it back into his pants. He ran trembling fingers through his hair, his body still coursing with the adrenaline of what he almost did. Withher. Under no circumstances was she available to him in that regard, and he needed to get the fuck away before thinking with his cock instead of his head really got him into fucking trouble. After picking up his jacket from the floor and sliding it back on smoothly, Cade finally turned around to face her. Kara’s chest heaved erratically as she stared back at him, her features marred with shock and hurt. Her soft brown eyes were pooled with tears on the verge of spilling down her cheeks, her lips quivered until she bit down with her teeth to keep them from exposing her vulnerability, her pain. She’d never looked so devastated. And she’d never looked more intoxicatingly beautiful.

Cade gently grasped Kara’s throat and pulled her toward him; she followed as though she had no will of her own. He softly touched her mouth with his thumb and pulled her bottom lip free from the sharp imprisonment of her teeth. He continued to stroke her bottom lip, loving how it had turned red and swollen from the violence of his kisses. Slowly, he pressed his thumb further into her mouth; instinctively, Kara opened for him. She allowed his finger to slip past her teeth, welcoming it with a swirling caress of her tongue. Looking up at Cade with the tears from his rejection streaming down her flushed cheeks, Kara wrapped her lips around his thumb and suckedhard.

“Kara,” Cade scolded, his voice rough with pent up need. “Behave,” he ordered with a slight squeeze of his hand on her throat. With one last flick of her tongue, Kara obeyed and released his finger. Cade stepped away from her even as every instinct in his body begged him to get closer. “I’ll be back in the morning.” Cade flashed a smile that was just as charming as it was cruel “Probably.” And he turned toward the library doors to leave.

“Enjoy your whore,” Kara responded breezily before reaching for her book on the chair. God, she needed a fucking distraction from him.

Cade turned backed toward her in surprise. “Trust me, love, I’ve never had topayfor sex,” he answered tauntingly.

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