Page 14 of Wait in the Truck
Not considering what I’m doing, I smile. And split the gash in my lip open. The pain has me wincing hard, and I lift a finger to inspect the damage, but Kade is faster. He’s in my space before I realize he’s moved. My hands go up out of reflex, landing on the hard wall of his torso. Theheat of him radiates through his plain white T-shirt at the same time he cups my jaw between his palms. Brushing the pad of his thumb over the cut, I feel the rumble in his chest more than I hear it, and when I look up into his eyes, there’s a storm of emotion there that practically knocks me off my feet.
In a daze, all I can do is stand still as he brings his thumb away from my lip, bright and shiny with my blood. A wicked smirk tilts the corner of his mouth, then his tongue swipes out, catching the droplet as he licks his skin clean.I can’t believe he just did that.A jolt of something wild spears through me, making my head go hazy. My hands claw at his chest through his shirt in a desperate bid to stay on my feet.
If he notices how unsteady he’s made me, he doesn’t say so. His eyes narrow as he moves my head first to one side, then the other. I’m certain the injuries I sustained last night look hideous in the light of day and make me want to pull from his hold. His voice gruff, Kade whispers, “Don’t.”
Outside the barn, the front door of the house slams, snapping us out of our reverie long enough for me to glance out the window. My eyes widen. “Dad has his shotgun.” I whirl around, grab Kade’s hand, and drag him along behind me as I run for the back of the barn. Rectangular bales of hay are stacked haphazardly in here, and we make use of them, climbing over one, then slippingbetween two larger stacks to hide. It’s a tight squeeze between the hay and the back wall, but we manage.
My mind is going a mile a minute, filled with everything from what my dad might do, but also what’s transpired between me and Kade. A Rivers brother. “He can’t find us. He’d?—”
Kade lays a finger on my lips and shakes his head just as the door to the barn slides open.Shit.The large brute of a man confined in this small space with me wraps an arm around my middle and spins me around, tugging me close while hunching over me, my back to his front. At first, I don’t realize what he’s doing, but then it hits me. He’s so fucking tall his head would have been visible above the hay bales.
“Whatever the fuck you were doing with my daughter’s truck, I’m not having it,” my father’s raised voice rings out in the spacious barn. “You in here, boy?”
I close my eyes, willing him away. Fuck, this is embarrassing. My breathing is erratic, coming hard and fast. Surely, he can hear me.Oh, fuck.Kade must be thinking the same thing because his arm tightens around me. Every hard muscle, every breath he takes, I feel the man behind me, right down to the bulge in his pants at my lower back.Oh god.I don’t know if I can handlethat.
“Jinx, get the hell outta here,” my father grumbles, then the sound of the door sliding shut is punctuated with a sharp snap.
“The cat,” I whisper, my throat feeling thick. “He saved us.”
Kade chuckles at my back, sending me spiraling into chaotic thoughts. I breathe against him, his heat soaking into my skin before I move to turn around. Despite the fact that I’m trying to step away, this man doesn’t appear happy to let me go. One arm remains banded around my middle while the other raises to pick a piece of hay from my unruly, sleep-mussed hair before threading his fingers through it. “You’re untamed, Wildflower,” he rasps, lowering his head toward mine a fraction. My chest rises and falls in a brutal rhythm to keep up with my heart. It’s racing with confusion… and excitement.
I let go of a shuddering breath and swallow, pulling my gaze from his. I feel the need to say something to distract him, because the way his eyes are roaming over my face is unlike anything I’ve ever known. There’s heat there. Hunger. Need. Wetting my lips, I take us back to our past. “This reminds me of when we used to play hide-n-seek when we were kids.” Before Lucy and Jonah died in the accident.
His soft laugh makes me bring my face back to his. “Gotta say… I like this a helluva lot better.” His lips are so close to mine, it sends a rocket of lust straight to my pussy.Oh. Shit.I dampen the roof of my mouth, staring into his eyes. He lowers his head to my eye level, and his tongue slowly slips out, the tip dragging along the abraded skin ofmy lip. Of all the things I’d expect Kade to do, this was never one of them. My heart thunders, and I’m helpless to stop him. Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. He groans aloud. “Fuck, Sage, I like the way you taste.”
And then, just like that, he straightens to his full height, releasing me from his hold. I hardly have any presence of mind at all, but I manage to collect myself enough to pretend like that didn’t just happen. Swiftly pivoting, I slip from behind the hay bales, retracing our earlier mad dash to hide until we’re both standing in the middle of the open area of the barn.
Kade eyes me, not the tiniest bit of uncertainty in his gaze. “Have you heard from Toby?”
I blink—with the eye Toby didn’t blacken—and nod. “I don’t know what you said to him, but he left town. He dropped off my things after texting me in the middle of the night with a profuse apology for his behavior. My phone was vibrating like crazy with the texts for a solid minute. Woke me up.”
“Good, though you deserve more than an apology by text.” His lips twitch as he folds his arms over his chest. “I hope he gives it to you.”
I don’t disagree with him, so I remain silent for a moment. Some of Toby’s long-winded apology struck me as odd. Other bits of it didn’t really seem like an apology at all. With a shrug, I sigh. “It’ll have to wait, I guess. He’s gone to figure himself out, take some time away.”
Kade’s dark eyes narrow. “How do you feel about him fucking off like that after what he did?”
I tuck my hair behind my ears, then mirror his stance, my arms over my chest. I’m the tiniest bit self-conscious standing here in my pajamas before him—even though he’s seen me in far less at work. I frown, unsure if my answer is going to sound odd to him. “I’m kinda relieved, to be honest. Is that weird?”
“Not at all. It gives me time to show you what you deserve.”
Well, Christ.The sound of the front door slamming shut interrupts before I can respond, and I let out a hard breath. “I think he went inside.”
We’re both quiet, listening for a few seconds until Kade grits out, “I’m gonna go, but I want you to think about two things. One, Billy offered you some time off, but if I were you, I wouldn’t hide what he did. Toby putting hands on you is never your fault.”
I hug my upper body, nodding. I can’t tell if the way he’s looking at me is care or pity, and it’s making me want to vomit.
He reaches out, steering my face to his with a few fingers to my chin, and peers intently into my eyes. “And two… I think sometime we should have a talk about what you were doing in the barn at dawn in your pajamas.” With a wink, he drops his hand and strides to the sliding door without so much as a backward glance.
I stand, rooted to the spot for a solid minute after he leaves, wondering what the hell I’m going to do about everything that’s happened in the past twenty-four hours. Honestly, I don’t know which scares me more: the Rivers brother who has just turned my world on its head or the bastard of an ex-boyfriend who broke my trust with his fists.
KADE
9
Sunday morning seemslike a lifetime ago, but in reality, it has only been five days since I stood in Sage’s barn and licked the droplet of her blood from my thumb. She’s infiltrated every fucking thought I’ve had from that point on. Several times, I tried to come up with a valid reason to check on her, but every useless plan I had seemed idiotic… and anytime I tossed my medallion, it solidified my decision to stay hidden. So, that’s what I’d done. Every night, I’d remain in the shadows, watching her as she exited her bedroom window—in the tiniest sleep shorts I’ve ever seen—before making her way to the same barn I found her in when I delivered her truck the morning of the Toby incident.
I never approached her, though, unwilling to make my presence known. When darkness fell, I’d go back, hoping tocatch a glimpse of her as she stowed herself away in the loft with my family’s cat trailing behind her.
