Page 115 of Finding Forever

“But they love you, they’d probably be happy if you confided in them sometimes.”

“I’m not someone who wears my emotions on my sleeve,” he confessed, sounding uncomfortable at the mere thought of it.

“So, your mother was the one who called you Cade?” Fern repeated, refocusing the conversation.

“Yes. Well, not just her. Everyone did. I was named after both grandfathers. My mother’s father—Caden—died just a few months after I was born and even though my first name is Niall, both of my parents decided to use my second name to honor his memory. From what I gather, my father was smitten with my mother at the time and would have done anything to make her happy. They separated when I was ten and officially divorced a few years later. After their split, my father started calling me Niall. I think it was more about scoring points against my mother than about me. My mother still called me Cade, as did my brothers and Kenny.

“But—you have to understand—when we were younger, we all vied for our father’s attention. He was always busy so we did what we could to win his approval. It took a couple of years but eventually Nox started emulating Dad. I understood why he did it, my father had started saying shit about how Niall is a good strong name, his own father’s name. How I should wear it with pride. And Nox—the consummate middle child—would’ve done anything to gain his notice. He was only about eleven at the time, but he was already so damned competitive when it came to winning the old man’s affection.

“Gideon and Kenny only started calling me Niall because they were imitating Nox. They were just babies really. I don’t blame any of them for it. My mother died when I was twenty-three. At that point she was the only one still calling me Cade. And once she was gone, I stopped thinking of—or referring to—myself as Cade. But it never sat well with me. It felt like a betrayal of my mother’s memory and wishes. Very few people call me Cade anymore. One or two childhood school friends and—well—you…”

“Why did you tell me to call you Cade?”

“Because it’s been years since anyone has called me by thatname, and Niall Hawthorne is someone else, someone harsh and uncompromising. A coldhearted bastard. I don’t really understand what impulse compelled me to invite you to call me Cade that night. I thought it would be a one-time thing. And as a result, I felt free to be… myself. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be that bastard with you. And that…” He paused and his chest moved beneath her head as he sighed deeply. When he spoke again, his voice had the slightest of wobbles to it. “And that I wanted to hear my name on your lips.”

She lifted her head again and this time he made no attempt to hide from her. He met her eyes with a directness that stole the breath from her lungs.

“I was quite taken with them, you see?” he whispered, the blue striations in his irises in vivid contrast to the dark, stormy gray.

“With what?” she asked, almost absently as she found herself completely mesmerized by his hypnotic gaze.

“Your lips.” He finally broke eye contact and diverted his attention to her mouth.

She wet her lips self-consciously with her tongue and was startled by his almost primitive groan in response, the ragged sound that of a man in agony. His cock lengthened and hardened beneath her thigh, sending a flutter of anticipatory excitement zinging through her stomach.

“You’re trying to drive me insane, aren’t you?” he accused. “You’ve somehow recognized how gorgeous I think your mouth is. Which is why you’re constantly worrying at that top lip with your teeth, or your tongue… orsuckingit into your mouth to plump it up so fucking irresistibly. You must know that I have a hard time thinking straight when you do any of that shit.”

“I didn’t know you felt that way,” she denied weakly and he shuddered, before tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling.

“I feel a lot of ways, Fern,” he admitted, his voice raw with need.

Her hand crept down over his abs toward the hard, twitching length of flesh.

“Hmm, I can tell,” she whispered, taking him in her palm.

He hissed and shifted his own hand from her hair to stay the movement of her hand on his cock.

“Not what I meant,” he asserted in a strained voice. “I meanaye, I fucking want you, pretty much every waking moment of the day… not that there’s much respite from this relentless drivingneedwhile I sleep mind you—I often wake up hard and in pain after dreaming about you. My point is, this is notallI feel. Not by a long shot.”

Startled by that revelation, Fern released her grip on his shaft, ignoring the frustrated sound he made in the back of his throat when she did so.

She sat up, pushing her hair out of her face and looked down at him. He peered up at her and groaned when he saw her expression.

“Elaborate.”

He tilted his head back to rest on the sofa and covered his eyes with his forearm.

“I’m not sure I know how to do that,” he admitted.

She didn’t reply, all that was visible of his face was his wickedly curved mouth and lean jaw. Her gaze swept over the rest of his big, rangy body. By now she’d acquainted herself with every inch of his perfection, but there was so much more to him that remained undiscovered.

How could she know so much and so little about someone at the same time? Yet, every reluctantly conceded insight into what made him tick only made him more fascinating to her. The more she learned the more she wanted—noneeded—to know about him.

“What the fuck is going on in that complex mind of yoursright now, Fern?” he asked, after the silence had stretched into minutes.

“I’m thinking I want to know everything there is to know about you,” she admitted, seeing no reason to hide the truth from him.

He smiled and lowered his arm.

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