Page 97 of Perfect Alpha

When Cade returns, he looks shattered. He’s wincing when he walks, but when I ask him if he’s sore, he just shrugs a massive shoulder and says he’s fine in typical Cade fashion. All I want to do is take his and Aidan’s pain away, even if that means absorbing it all for myself.

I’ve never felt so useless.

“I’m going to lie in bed,” Cade mumbles. He doesn’t say go to sleep, and I sense rest hasn’t come easy to him in a long time.

“Okay,” I whisper.

The tears I glimpse in his eyes before he heads back upstairs make me die inside, and I know that I have to go to him. He’s so broken and defeated, and he needs to know he’s still strong and capable. I crave being there for him with everything sacred inside me.

I dash up the stairs and change into one of his discarded T-shirts, wrapping myself in the delicious masculine smell of him, and then pad down the hallway to his room.

I open the door without knocking, closing it as quietly as possible behind me. He’s silhouetted in the moonlight, and my breath catches when he sits up in bed and faces me.

“Cade.”

I don’t know what to say.

I just know we need to be together.

He opens his arms and I run to him, burying myself in his chest while I cry. So much for me comforting him.

“I don’t want you to be alone tonight,” I manage through my tears.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “I don’t want to be alone tonight either.” He traces the outline of my lips with a calloused finger, and the desire on his face is clear as day.

Cade is made of steel, though, and he sets me down beside him before lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. Need pours off him, but I don’t know what to do to help other than simply being here.

I want to reach out and touch him, but I’m afraid. So I just lay here, listening to his steady breathing and wondering what the hell I’m doing.

Chapter 34

Cade

Runawayemotionsmakemybody vibrate.

Unable to believe I’m lying in bed next to Victory after dreaming about it for years, I don’t know what to do with my idle energy. More than my next breath, I want to wrap her in my arms and hold her until everything stops hurting.

We’re both locked in grief, and being this close to each other while barely clothed is stirring up all kinds of confusing feelings. How can I experience love and desire this overwhelming when I just lost my sister?

None of it makes sense, and I just need to turn my brain off.

Flipping to my side facing away from Victory, I move to the edge of the bed and try to catch my breath. So many emotions are waging war inside me, and I can’t even begin to express them. Words would never be enough.

A gasping sob fills the quiet room, and I’m shocked to realize the sound is coming from me. Tears course down my cheeks, and my body twitches like I’m on a live wire. It’s impossible to keep still, and I want nothing more than to lose myself in Victory and just forget the pain.

“Cade,” Victory whispers, and then she’s behind me, her warm, soft, and feminine curves pressed against my back while her fingertips softly graze my shoulders and neck.

It’s just like my daydream when she massages my aching muscles that are so rigid with tension and stress. She feathers kisses onto my shoulder blades and I’m done, my insides completely melting.

“Babe,” she whispers.

She doesn’t tell me it’s okay because it isn’t. She doesn’t tell me everything will be fine because it won’t. Hannah was a huge part of my heart, and life will never befineorokayagain.

Instead, her soft voice assures me, “I’m here, Cade. I’m right here.”

I don’t remember moving, but I’m suddenly facing her, the air knocked out of my chest by having the beautiful face that has always destroyed me only inches away.

The muted light filtering into the room from the stars makes her porcelain skin iridescent, and her perfect, pouty lips part under my gaze, tempting me to take her mouth.

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