Page 49 of Matchmaking the Rival

I jolted. "That's not what I meant. But this is exhausting work."

He stepped closer to me. "Which is exactly why I want to help."

He pressed his thumb to the corner of my mouth before drawing it over my lips. On instinct, I pushed my tongue out, licking his thumb.

"Fuck," he murmured, taking a step back.

"Oh, that's right. Now I understand why you said you’re not coming near me. Shall we make it more official? Set a number of feet between us?"

He laughed. "That doesn't sound half bad."

It turned out we didn't have to, though, because my parents decided we should start assembling the dresser after all. They were excellent chaperones.

I couldn't believe Cade offered to help us put together the furniture. It was frustrating work, and he was the CEO of a big company; he certainly had better things to do with his time than doing this manual labor with me and my family.

Mom and I assembled the smaller pieces of the dresser while Dad and Cade did more of the muscle work. It gave me the opportunity to fully focus on Cade, as Mom and Dad were busy at their tasks and probably wouldn’t notice. He was wearing a shirt underneath the sweater he'd taken off when he arrived at the house.

Who wore a dress shirt on weekends? Then again, when that’s what you wore day in, day out, it probably became like a second skin.

I totally approved of his dress code. He looked mouthwatering, every single part of him—his tight ass, bulging biceps, that six-pack I thought I saw whenever he stretched and his shirt rode up.

It was late at night, almost midnight, by the time Mom practically shooed the two of us out of the house. The second we were outside on her porch, Cade came closer to me. Even though it was cold as all get-out, my body temperature skyrocketed the second he touched my lips with his fingers.

"Meredith...”

“I'm sorry this took so long tonight. Do you want to go to my place and order some takeout?" I asked. My parents had already ordered pizza for us all earlier, so I was certain neither of us was hungry, but I wanted an excuse to be with him.

"No." He said the word slowly and deliberately, as if he was trying to feel the weight of it on his tongue.

"No?" I was stricken. Had my parents already scared him away? Or had I?

"I realized one thing tonight, Meredith: I can't be close to you and not devour you."

"Yeah," I murmured. It felt great to be wanted so desperately by him.

"But then it got me thinking about some things your mother and my grandmother said, and I want to start this right."

I blinked. "What do you mean?"

"No rushing into things. No midnight quickie—not that it would be quick."

I laughed. "Right. So then, what great proposition do you have?"

"Tonight, I'm going to drive behind you to make sure you get home safe."

"Cade," I said. "Come on, I live, like, ten minutes away. Nothing's going to happen to me."

"I want to make sure you're safe. I'll drive behind you. I will definitely not get out of the car to walk you to your door, because I’d end up kissing you against it and taking you inside and having my way with you the whole night."

"But that sounds great."

"Taking it slow, remember?"

Stepping back, he took my hand and kissed it.

Is this real? Did this absolute god of a man just say all those romantic things to me?

His eyes shone in the dark. The intensity in them made me shiver. I knew he was right. If we went to my house, that was exactly what would happen. We would be all over each other, though, oddly, I didn't mind. But there was some part of me that was afraid to let myself go, and by tomorrow morning, my defenses were going to go right back up again. Cade did a great job tearing them down and getting beyond my insecurities. And that frightened me.

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