Page 80 of It's Going to Be a Chrome Christmas
Trixie breathed out a long sigh of relief as he pulled her flush up against him. She’d missed him so much. Not just the feel of him, but his smell, his confidence, his heart… A giggle escaped her.
“Do I want to know what just went through your mind?” He ducked to nibble on her ear.
“You’re wearing more earrings and makeup than I ever have in my entire life.”
Cayden picked her up. Trixie’s legs wrapped around his hips under his leather cut. She could feel the bulge in his pants in her most intimate of places. Her hands clung to his shoulders.
“Ignore my armor, baby. You are the only person on this entire planet who knows the real me, whoseesthe real me, even under this ridiculous getup.” His tongue flicked out, and Trixie caught sight of the silver barb there too before he ran it across her lower lip. Interesting. The barb didn’t feel…bad. She wassuddenly curious what it would feel like on other areas of her body. “God, I missed you.”
She ignored her tears that continued to fall. “I missed you too. So much. I feel like you took a piece of me with you.”
“Feels like I left my heart with you. I feel like I’ve been suffocating these months without you.”
She pulled his necklace out from between her breasts. “You took my soul with you.”
Cayden rested his forehead against hers. “I know I told Lee I would help him. I know it is the right thing to try to take down a bastard like Carver. I know doing so will eventually find justice for Marco. But damn, baby, I am having a really hard time remembering right now why the fuck I left the comfort of your arms.”
Trixie knew he believed in his reasons, and as much as it hurt, she couldn’t force him against them. It was the same reason two months ago that she hadn’t given him the ultimatum of her or Lee’s vengeance mission. Cayden deserved the right to choose without her forcing his hand. Because they both knew he’d choose her, and they both knew he’d regret it.
Which is why now, when he was struggling in her arms to remember his reasons, she said, “Because you’re an honorable man, Cayden Russo. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. Because you believe in right and wrong. And most importantly, because I love you.”
She felt Cayden’s smile against her face. “Those are some damn good reasons, but the last one is truly my favorite.”
“You said you only had four hours?” He nodded against her. “Are you planning on talking away those hours or making the most of them with me? Because I think this is the longest we’ve ever gone without sex while your hands have been on my ass.”
“What the fuck did you think you were doing?”
Cayden sighed when he entered the apartment he and Lee shared. Wondrous thoughts of Trixie still swirled in his head and nothing gave a man limp-dick like his girl’s pissed off brother. Cayden just wanted to bask in his precious stolen hours with Trixie a little bit longer, but apparently Lee had other plans.
“Clearly you know exactly where I was.”
“And if you were so sloppy that I followed you, others could have too!”
Cayden snorted. “Please. Why would anyone else believe I would return to Romero’s? They all believe that I was either working there while out or running a score that went badly there. Either way, I had to get out fast and took the Spyder to do it. It makes no sense for me to return to Romero’s.”
“Except forher!”
Cayden flinched. It was rare, but the only times Lee truly lost his temper was when the topic of his family rose.
Cayden had yet to figure out if it was who Lee was or if it was who he had had to become while being undercover. Either way, the man standing before Cayden was coldblooded and ruthless. While Cayden believed he was the only person who knew Lee’s weakness, Trixie and AJ, it was still very intimidating to be questioned by him.
It was also only Cayden’s knowledge of Lee’s love for his siblings that kept Lee as a person in Cayden’s mind rather than a robot or a monster. Lee was a hard man to care for, but an easy man to respect. At his core, he was honorable. His morality was facing north. He believed in his mission, which was whatkept Cayden going when thoughts of missing Trixie became too painful.
“I needed to see her,” Cayden defended himself. Seeing Trixie again had been uplifting. While sex with her was amazing, it was the least of what he’d missed about her. “I needed… God, Lee, I needed tofeelsomething.”
“This close to the takedown? What if you’d been followed? What if someone put two and two together and realized that Romero’s was a setup?”
Cayden flinched. “It’s because of how close we are that I had to! Don’t you get it?” He gestured up and down himself. “I’m wearing a mask, my armor. Every fucking day, it chips another piece of my soul away until I barely feel like me anymore. I just needed… I needed to feel like me. For just one fucking night.” He let out a long sigh. “I was careful. No one followed me. She knows not to tell anyone, obviously.”
Lee was silent for a moment. “How is she?”
“Thin,” was Cayden’s reply. “I told her she needs to eat better, more, but who knows if she’ll listen.”
Maybe he’d have Paul keep an eye on the feeds to make sure Trixie was eating. He’d contacted his former housemate within hours of breaking his parole. It had taken some convincing, mostly because Paul hadn’t wanted to risk doing anything going back to jail for. Once Lee had spoken to Paul in his official Cop Voice, Paul agreed to monitor the Romero security feeds. It had also been Paul’s doing that had kept L and S from being alerted as he got the Spyder out of Romero’s, and how he’d gotten into Trixie’s apartment this evening without them.
As a thank you for his assistance on keeping an eye on Trixie, Lee had put Paul in contact with a friend of his from the FBI who had agreed to give Paul a job interview with cybercrimes. The damn man seemed to have friends in every corner of the universe and had served with half of them. His captain?A former fellow Marine. His FBI contact? An ex-Navy SEAL. Cayden wouldn’t be surprised if Lee had arranged for the man who had delivered Trixie’s pizza that night to be a former Green Beret.
Maybe it was too much of an invasion of privacy to ask Paul to verify Cayden’s girlfriend was eating three meals a day. A simpler route would be to guilt her into eating. Since she regularly refused the meals Mrs. Wynn brought her, Cayden thought perhaps it was time for something a bit more drastic.
