“Get out!” Cade’s voice was completely devoid of any emotion other than pure disgust, tinged with hatred, as he pointed at the door, indicating for me to leave.
It was nothing less than what I had expected, yet it still hurt to see how his loving and kind blue gaze had quickly morphed into a cold, hard stare. He was looking at me like I was the lowest of the low, and that was exactly how I felt.
Somehow, I managed to gather my clothes and cover myself with them. I held my ruined silk shirt together with the one remaining button and my hand, since the other buttons had been scattered.
I swiped at my tear-covered face with my sleeve, knowing that the shirt was already beyond repair and needing to try to clear my blurry vision. After stuffing my panties and bra into my purse and donning my skirt and shoes, I made the walk of shame to his front door.
Unable to face him, but needing to make a feeble attempt to clear the air, I stared at the door and said, “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t respond. His silence was not surprising, and it revealed more than a thousand words could say.
Needing to get out of there before I started sobbing uncontrollably, I scrambled to open the door and stumbled out to my car. As I sat in the safety of my own vehicle, I struggled to hold down the bitter bile that threatened to rise in my throat. I was utterly unsure what to do now.
I jumped slightly when I heard Cade’s front door slam shut with a boom of finality. Suddenly, the emotions of the past twenty-four hours bubbled up and demanded release. Resting my head on the steering wheel of my car, I let out a hiccup sob. Before long, I was bawling like a baby.
The realization that I had made a stupid decision that would most likely ruin the rest of my life crashed down on me. How could I have been so dumb? What had I been thinking? There must have been a better way. This had all been my own fault.
I have no idea how long I sat there sobbing and berating myself. By the time I had myself pulled together enough to drive, I had shed more tears than I normally do over the course of five years.
“What’s done is done.” I said the words out loud to the empty car, trying to believe them. “Now I have to live with the consequences of my actions.”
As I made the drive to my apartment, I replayed in my mind the horrific scene that had just happened with Cade. He had been such a tender and talented lover that I had almost been able to forget for a moment the massive guilt that was pressing down on me, like a giant weight on my shoulders.
When we finished, rather than the delightful afterglow that should have accompanied having such fulfilling sex, the oppressive shame came rushing in like a freight train. Being the wonderful guy that he is, Cade thought I might be feeling slutty for sleeping with him on the first date.
“It’s okay,” he had cooed, pressing sweet kisses down the side of my face, drying my tears with his lips. “We have a very special connection. Things might have happened a little fast tonight, but we are going to do things right from now on. We will take the time to truly get to know each other, and I have the feeling that we are destined to be together for a very long time.”
His soothing statements were absolute perfection, so they only served to make me cry harder. I so wished to ignore the giant, pink elephant in the room and pretend like Cade’s words could possibly be true.
Trying to guess what was upsetting me so much, Cade had said, “I know things weren’t ideal tonight. I lost control, and for that, I apologize. You’re just so damn sexy and responsive to my touch. I’ll be more gentle and take things slower next time, I promise.”
I hated that my tears were making him feel insecure about our intense, but fabulous sexy time. I had been just as frantic as he was, and I didn’t want him feeling guilty about anything. It was touching that he would be willing to take the blame, if there had been any wrongdoing, but there hadn’t. I had lost control just as much as he had, if not more. “No,” I tried to make my voice clear, despite the fiery basketball in my throat. “You were perfect,” I assured him.
The relief was obvious in his expression. This marvelous man didn’t deserve to feel bad, yet that is exactly how I had made him feel. Somehow, everything I touched seemed to be turning to shit lately.
Cade hadn’t moved back yet, so we were still very intimately connected. He leaned his upper body away to look down at me. “What is it then?” He looked so sweet and concerned, I almost chickened out on what I had to admit.
“We need to talk,” I started out, the tears blazing streaks down my cheeks.
“Whatever it is, we’ll work through it,” he promised. “I know it’s fast, but I feel like we belong together, Becca Nickles, like pickles.”
I tried to smile at his lame attempt at a joke. My tears were falling so fast that he had given up on swiping them, but he lifted one of my hands in his own and placed it over his heart, which was thumping wildly in his chest. “That racing heartbeat is not just from the afterglow of hot sex.” He guessed what I would have said, if my mind had been able to focus on anything except what I had to tell him. “It’s because you make me feel more alive than I have in years,” he revealed, his adoring blue gaze sparkling down at me.
Even though I loved his words, I had to stop him before he went any farther. What I was about to say would permanently alter how he felt about me, and I didn’t want to cling to his words to give me any shred of hope that he might someday be able to forgive me for what I did.
We both needed a clean break, so I swallowed my pride and my tears long enough to blurt out the truth. “I was in on the heist.”
His reaction was immediate. When he lunged backward from me, I immediately missed the connection with him and the warm heat from his body. The look on his face was a terrible mixture of shock, disbelief, and disgust. When he glared and told me to get out, there was no doubt in my mind that he meant for me to leave now and never contact him again.