JJ STOOD IN the middle of the living room having no earthly clue what to do with herself. The courage to kiss him was one thing, even the courage to suggest they have a friends-with-benefits sort of arrangement.
But waiting for him to get condoms.
Condoms.
She blew out a shaky breath, reminding herself she wanted this. She wanted him. If sex was anything like a kiss with Cade... She might die, and it might be worth it.
If it wasn’t? If it was weird and awkward and terrible, well, she’d know. It’d make the time left a little weird, but wasn’t it better than not knowing?
Cade walked in the door—which she’d thought she’d closed, but was wide-open as he stepped over the threshold. It was dark outside now, and she’d only turned on the lamp in the living room. It gave a weak light that made him looked shadowed and dangerous, if she hadn’t known it was Cade.
Cade, who was tall and broad, who had an easy smile and blue eyes that would make her think of summer no matter the season. He was sweet to his girls and good to her, and he kissed her with very little of the sweet or good.
A few weeks of awkwardness was worth the gamble.
Slowly, he closed the door behind him. Hadn’t she closed that door? She tried to remember herself not closing it, but Cade was walking toward her. Did doors matter?
She’d been brave enough to start this, but her thoughts scattered under the potent heat of his steady gaze.
“Did you want something to...drink? Or...eat? Or...?”
“Nope,” he replied, striding right for her, apparently completely unfazed by the squeak in her voice. “You’ll do.” His mouth was on hers again, and there was a desperate need inside of her that he brought out. Not just by being him, but because he seemed to feel it, too.
His arms slid around her, so she returned the favor, linking hers around his neck. It was amazing that it only took Cade’s mouth touching hers to release all those things she kept held inside so tight. A tightness she hadn’t even realized existed until he loosened it.
It wasn’t just attraction or even that she liked him—it was that she trusted him. With who she was, with this. It had been a very long time since she’d trusted anyone, aside from Grandma. She hadn’t even meant to. It had sneaked up on her and now it just was, whether she was particularly comfortable with the idea or not.
Something she’d have to mull over later when Cade’s hands weren’t sliding over her butt. Which might have caused her to laugh with awkward nerves, except the move was so possessive, the threat of laughter died on a shiver of excitement.
He lifted her off her feet with an ease that brought back the laugh, though with none of the nerves. It simply felt good to laugh against his mouth as he started walking, as if he could carry her.
“I really like your smile, JJ.”
She didn’t know what to do with the ache in her chest, or the way that simple statement made her want to cry. She was looking down at him for once, because he was holding her up. The only words she had were the truth. “I don’t know what to say to compliments.”
“Usually a thank-you will suffice. Upstairs?”
“You can’t carry me—”
“Upstairs,” he said with a firm nod, as if she hadn’t said anything at all.
She renewed her grip around his neck as he took to the stairs. Like he was just used to this kind of thing.
“I wrestle cattle, and sometimes my hardheaded brothers. I can carry you up a flight of stairs, JJ,” he said as if reading her thoughts.
“But you don’t need to.” Though it made her understand the word swoon for the first time in her life.
“No, I don’t need to.”
“So why would you?”
“It’s called romance, I think.” He grinned at her as he crested the stairs.
“I’m not sure romance is something I want.” She was already taking a space shuttle outside of her comfort zone. Romance seemed like an added intimacy she wasn’t sure she’d be able to bear.
“Well, don’t you worry, I don’t have a whole heck of a lot to give. What I’ve got, I will. This one?”
She nodded as he inclined his head toward her bedroom door—it was the only one open in the hallway, which was weird. She didn’t have time to think about that as he strode inside, still carrying her.
“You make your bed,” he said, an odd note to his voice.
“Of course I make my bed,” she replied, trying to wriggle out of his grasp, but he only held her more firmly to him.
He laid her on the bed, as if she weighed nothing, and whatever she’d been about to say was lost. Then he stood there looking down at her with such intensity she wanted to squirm.
“You’re sure?” he said, as if the making of her bed proved to him she didn’t know what she was doing.
Which was enough for her to double down on the sure. “I’m a twenty-six-year-old virgin, Cade. Not stupid. Just slow and a hater of mankind.” She rolled her eyes, trying to sound far more flippant than she felt. “Get over it.”
“I’ll be your first.”
“Yes.” It didn’t have to be weighty, but it felt that way. More so when he smiled down at her. “Why are you grinning?”
“I don’t mind giving you something to remember me by.”
She liked the idea a little too much. That she’d always have a piece of him. Not just fuzzy memories of a happy summer, but an actual specific first from him.
He lowered himself over her, and it was all so...much. The breadth of him, the heat, the fact he wanted her in some way. His warmth and the intense intimacy of someone else’s body being on top of hers.
It wouldn’t matter what it felt like—just him would always make this special and amazing.
Somehow she had to let him know that, to make him understand it wouldn’t matter. “I know first times aren’t necessarily good. I won’t hold it against you.”
He choked out a laugh and rested his forehead against hers. “It’ll be good.”
“You don’t know that,” she returned. It wasn’t like she had any practice to know how. He couldn’t just say things that weren’t true or proven fact.
He grinned down at her, pressing a kiss to her mouth before leaning back. “Sure I do.”
“Cade.”
He ignored her admonition and moved onto his knees, pulling her into a sitting position. He lifted the hem of her shirt and tugged upward until it got through to her sluggish brain to lift her arms so he could pull the T-shirt off her.
He cupped her face and held her there, his eyes darker blue here in the low light of her room. She could still see the outline of stubble around his mouth—just like she could still feel the scrape of it from those kisses downstairs.
Then his hands—rough from ranch work, but gentle in every other way—slid down her cheeks and moved featherlight over her neck. Her heart was beating so hard she was certain it was shaking her body in time with each beat.
He molded his hands over her shoulders, taking the bra straps with him as he moved his hands down her arms. He didn’t kiss her again. Instead, he watched the journey of his hands as more and more skin was exposed.
He nudged her onto her back again, hands trailing down her body as she moved. Then his fingers were on the button of her jeans. Nerves threatened, but there was something about the way he held himself—tense and ready—that, along with all these sensations, made her too curious to worry.
No lists. No what-ifs. Just a pulsing need that expanded from the deepest part of her, out to the tips of her fingers.
Cade slid her jeans off her legs, taking the underwear with them. She wanted to cover herself up, but that would be cowardly and the antithesis of the point of what they were doing. Sex was nakedness. She was here, which meant she was brave enough to be here.
He lay next to her. “Aren’t you a picture,” he breathed.
She wanted to shake her head, because how could she possibly be anything worth a look? But he kept staring at her, like he wanted to. Like to him she was pretty as a picture. She didn’t know how to accept it was true. “Cade...don’t...”
“Don’t what?” he asked, tracing a line from her shoulder, the side of her breast, her waist, to her hip and leg. All the way to the ankle and back up again.
She was afraid he’d stop if she didn’t tell him the truth, so it fell out like a toad’s plopping jump in the grass. “I don’t think I’m very pretty.”
His gaze whipped to hers, though his touch remained lazy and gentle. “Well, I do,” he said firmly, as if there wasn’t a doubt. “Why don’t you let me tell you?”
“No, you don’t have to—”
He shushed her. Shushed her. She might have found some outrage, but he got off the bed and undid the button of his jeans. “I remember when you opened that door the first day I dropped off the girls, and it struck me speechless for a second.”
She wanted to shake her head, but he was slowly taking off his pants, revealing long, powerful legs.
“Then there’s your eyes. Always so serious, so intent.” He held her gaze as he knelt back on the bed. “Filing things away and I know you’ll remember them all, or at least write them all out on a list, and I don’t know why I think that’s sexy, but I sure as hell do.”
“You should take off your shirt, too,” she said, too interested in what he revealed to be embarrassed that her voice shook.
He grinned, reached back and lifted his shirt off him in the way men seemed to do that was so fascinating. He was just that. All hard angles and delicious ridges. She could trace the outline of the days he spent out in the sun on his skin—so when he got back on the bed, that was what she did.
“Sometimes all I want to do is lean in and...” He didn’t say it, demonstrated instead, pressing his open mouth to the curve of her shoulder. “You’ve been driving me crazy for weeks.”
“Oh” was all she could manage.
“I suppose I could tell you all the things I’ve imagined, but I’ve always been better with my hands than any flowery words. So let’s try this.” He cupped her neck and pulled her into a kiss.
It was fierce with teeth, and so potent she didn’t even tense when his fingers explored her, touched her, drove her to a peak she hadn’t known could exist, so sharply, so exquisitely. It rolled through her, and that should be it.
But she wanted more. She rolled onto her side, pressing her mouth to his, indulging in another heated kiss that made his grip on her tighter. She slid her hands over his body, just as he had hers, outlining his muscles and spanning the entire shape of him with her fingers.
Up to this point she’d been thinking about her—the way he made her feel, whether he thought she was pretty, what this meant to her.
It dawned on her he was having his own thoughts and feelings. She could feel the way his heart beat hard, hear the sounds of pleasure he made. He would get something out of this, too, and she wanted to be active in giving it to him.
When she worked up the courage to tug away his boxers, she forced herself to look him in the eye. To close her hand over him while she watched the reactions chase over his face. Then she stroked.
His head fell back, a groan escaping his mouth. He was hot and hard, and the sound he made when she touched him made her pulse jump. He wanted her, just as much as she wanted him. For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel like she was on uneven footing with someone else. They were equals—power to power.
You really want to find out all the things you’ll have to leave behind?
She pushed away that depressing thought, that better-safe-than-sorry thought. Maybe she’d be hurt. Maybe she’d be sorry.
But she’d always have Cade in this moment. She wanted him to have that, too—a memory of her, something that would make him smile. So she touched him, learned him. When she was sure and ready, she slid her hands back up his body, then cupped his face as he had hers. “I want...” Her throat was closing up, some mix of nerves and overwhelming emotion, but she swallowed. “I want you.”
His gaze held hers, and though not one tensed muscle on his face moved, his eyes seemed alive with passion and need. Still, he held himself so still, so...controlled.
She wanted to break it. For whatever reason, she needed to break all the ways he was holding himself back for her.
“Get the condom, Cade.”
He didn’t break, but he moved away, pulling the packet out of his discarded jeans. He rolled on the condom, the whole process fascinating, and JJ was so flushed with pleasure it didn’t even occur to her to be embarrassed.
When he settled himself between her legs, his blue eyes held hers. She didn’t want to meet that frank, searching gaze, but she couldn’t seem to look away.
“I promised it would be good,” he said, his voice gentle, but there was a scrape to it, as if he was holding himself back. “Trust me.”
She hadn’t trusted anyone. Not like this. But she did trust him—both in control and out of it. So she nodded.
He slowly moved inside of her. All her breath got caught up in her lungs, because it was too much. The moment, the physical feeling of him inside of her—too much pressure in her chest and where he entered her.
She wanted to cry, and she wanted to grab onto him. Hold on to him. Squeeze her eyes tight and let him take care of all this building inside of her.
“Breathe, J. Just breathe.”
So she did, and all that pressure eased some. He kissed her cheek, her temple. He touched her, gentle caresses meant to soothe.
It didn’t matter that there was a part of her that wanted to wriggle away from that pressure, it was Cade. She wanted this with him no matter what it felt like because...because it was him.
He thought she was pretty, and he’d wanted to kiss her long before he’d done it. He had a good heart and an easy way, and what was a little discomfort?
She’d always have the memory of him filling her for the first time.
If she breathed, if she touched him like he was touching her...
She dragged her fingers down his back, steadied by the strength there. The pressure eased more as he moved, as she breathed. The scrape of his rough cheek against hers, the mix of sweet and erotic things he whispered to her, until she forgot all about that pressure.
“Cade.” Something bigger and brighter was building inside of her. The discomfort was gone and there was only his body and hers—joined and pressed together, moving together toward that elusive end.
There was a break, and then pulsing pleasure. She shuddered, and he did, too. Wrapped together. Her and Cade. Like it was just where she was meant to be.
After a few minutes of even breathing and something close to pure bliss, he rolled off her. She was ready to mourn the loss, but he wrapped her up against him. Like the night on the porch, where he’d put his arm around her and she’d leaned into it. It felt like that elusive belonging she seemed to only find here at Grandma June’s.
She would feel this way with Cade no matter where they were, and that was new and overwhelming—more so than the rest of it.
Cade was her first. She’d had sex. She turned her head, all but touching her nose to Cade’s. He had his arms wrapped around her, and their faces were so close.
It was too hot for all of this, the air heavy and sticky in midsummer, and she didn’t care one bit.
“You know what’s one thing I always wondered?” he said, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth, one of his hands tangling itself in her hair.
“What?” she murmured, happily buzzed on everything.
“What does JJ stand for?”
She winced, some of that sweet warmth evaporating into a chill—despite the fact nothing in this house was remotely cool. “Nothing,” she answered automatically, rolling onto her back again, away from his face and gentle kisses.
His grip didn’t loosen, and he moved to his side so his face loomed over hers. “Liar,” he murmured, pressing his mouth to that spot on her shoulder that almost distracted her enough to tell him. But no. She didn’t want...that weight here. Ever.
He didn’t press the subject. Instead, he sighed. “I have to go.”
She’d known that all along, so that it caused a jolt of pain was beyond stupid. “Of course.”
“I want to make it clear, I don’t want to go. I have to go.” He dropped a kiss on her mouth before rolling off the bed.
“I know. I...appreciate that. It’ll never hurt my feelings that you put them first.” She understood too much what it was like to be put second, or last, by the people who were supposed to take care of you.
She sat up, pulling the sheet with her. Cade got dressed and she watched, marveling at the fact he had just been inside her. He was so beautiful, and he’d made her feel beautiful somehow. Desired.
Dressed, he turned back and bent down to kiss her. She lifted her mouth to his, but he paused. His expression went grave for a moment. “We’ll have to be careful around the girls. I wouldn’t want them getting their hopes up that there might be...”
Her brain shied away from finishing that sentence for him—from wanting things she’d never be able to have. She nodded, maybe a little too vigorously so he wouldn’t find the words. “Yeah. Definitely.”
“Free tomorrow?”
He wanted to come back. She’d hold on to that. “I think I could clear my schedule.”
Finally, he dropped his mouth to hers. Just a peck, but then it lingered, heated, ignited. Until she was pulling him back down on the bed, and he was going willingly.
“What’s another hour?” he murmured against her mouth, already pulling off his shirt. She laughed with him as he wound himself around her and they lost themselves in each other all over again.