He increased his speed and rocked into her ass without reprieve as she clung to unraveling threads of her self-control, trying to keep from coming again without permission. For all the foreplay, she’d expected this part to be short, but Kade seemed to be in complete control of his own release.
“Come, Tessa,” he demanded.
The words sliced right through those last threads and she moaned, low and long, as a second, sharper orgasm hit her. He didn’t slow his pace and if anything, he plunged even deeper and harder. The pressure of his hand on her head increased.
Soon, she was gasping and writhing beneath him, the stimulation almost too much, but he wasn’t letting her go.
“Now you fucking do it again,” he said, his voice hard. “You aren’t done.”
The vibrator was trapped against her clit, Kade’s body weight holding her against the bed, and she whimpered. Her muscles were quivering and her skin felt electrified. It was all so much. So much. There was no way . . .
Kade moved his hand away from her face and dropped to his forearms above her. His lips touched the curve of her shoulder, and she thought he was going to kiss her, but instead his teeth sank into her skin, holding her like an animal as he tunneled again and again into the most private part of her.
She shattered, a silent scream searing her throat, as she launched into some other dimension where she no longer had conscious control of her body. Kade let go then, too, sinking deep and pouring his release into her with unintelligible words and coarse, groaning pleasure. But even when he was through, he held her in place beneath him. Her orgasm went on and on, like light trails from fireworks, leaving afterimages and scorch marks on her psyche.
She couldn’t stop. She could barely breathe. She bit the sheets to try to hold back the screams.
But when she started to cry from the overwhelming bigness of all that feeling, Kade gently rolled off of her, taking her with him and getting her off the vibrator. Sobs overtook her as he tucked her against his side, flipped the comforter over their bodies, and kissed her hair. “Shh, just let it happen, baby.”
She had no idea why she was sobbing, but she couldn’t seem to quit. She tucked her face in the crook of his shoulder and cried without reason or understanding. Through it all, Kade simply held her, stroking her and giving her silent support. Unlike many men, he seemed completely at ease with her tears. He didn’t try to talk her out of them or fix them or ask her why. That alone made her want to never get up out of this bed.
When she finally got her breathing and emotions mostly under control, leaving her a sniveling, swollen-eyed disaster, Kade looked down at her with a soft smile and wiped the streaks from her cheeks. “Still with me?”
She made some sound that could’ve been a laugh if she wasn’t so hoarse. “I feel like someone else has taken over my body and brain.”
He touched the tip of her reddened nose, amusement glittering in his eyes. “Someone did. Me.”
“I—” With what little strength she had left, she pushed herself into a sitting position, but her sensitized backside protested the movement. She quickly changed to lying on her side. He followed, mirroring her. She attempted to put into words what she was feeling, to ask the questions hovering at the edges of her mind, but nothing would come together. She let out a frustrated breath. Everything felt fragmented.
Broken.
She looked to Kade, but before she could speak, he cupped her cheek. “Hey, why don’t I get you something to drink and run a bath. Give us both some time to come down. We have all night to talk if we need it.”
She sagged against the pillows and nodded. “Sounds like a good idea.”
Over the next hour, Kade did exactly as promised. He brought her juice and put her in a bathtub, washing her body and her hair with gentle hands, then letting her soak while he took a quick rinse in the shower. She didn’t have to say or do anything. He took care of it all. The intense dominance from earlier had sunk back into the soil, and now he was all kindness and care. Even though the two sides of him appeared to be so very different from the outside, the combination worked.
After drying her off, he forbade her clothes and led her back to the bed. He left for a few moments and returned with a glass of water and some ibuprofen. “You’ll thank me for those in a few hours.”
She took the pills and swallowed them back. “This definitely goes on record as the first sex I’ve had that required medication afterward.”
“Gold star for me.”
The completely shameless grin he gave her made her laugh. “Hey, I’m the one who’s not going to be able to sit down tomorrow. Don’t I get some stars?”
He climbed in the bed next to her. “Tess, I’d give you all the stars in the sky right now if I could.”
She turned to him, expecting to see that cocky smile, but his expression was intent. He wasn’t feeding her a pretty line. She sighed and tucked her arm beneath her head. “I’m not going to pretend I understand this. If I look back at tonight or any of our nights together with my logical brain, I should be kicking your ass out of the house.”
“A lot of women would,” he said, facing her. “My ex did. I didn’t even have to show her this part of me. I just talked about some desires and that was enough to send her running. It’s scary shit to most.”
She met his gaze. “It is scary.”
“I know,” he said, reaching out and brushing a lock of hair from her face. “But you’re still here. Want to tell me why?”
She closed her eyes and rolled onto her back. The sting was almost welcome. “Isn’t that the question of the month? I thought I understood this whole thing. It’s role-playing, fun and games, a kinky thing to check off a list. But tonight . . .”
“Tonight?” he prodded gently.
She stared at the ceiling, trying to process everything that had happened. “Tonight felt real, Kade. This wasn’t like that night at The Ranch with the roles to play and the costumes. That was an exciting fantasy. But whatever you did to me tonight, put me in this place . . . like I really was a slave to you, an object. It morphed something in my mind.”
He shifted next to her, but didn’t say anything, giving her time to put her thoughts in order.
She turned to meet his patient gaze. “You make things I should be repulsed by seem appealing.”
He considered her. “And that scares you.”
A statement, not a question.
“Yes.” She sat up on her elbow. “Of course it does. If you had hauled me off the bed and slapped me for coming too soon, I probably would’ve let you and gotten more turned on because of it. You covered my head with your hand like I was some whore you didn’t care to look at, and I nearly came from it. You made me want the ugly parts. Why would I want that?”
His eyes went soft. “Baby . . .”
“I mean,” she continued, unable to stop talking now that the anxiety was bubbling up. “I spent a marriage with a man who treated me like I was less than, who had the ability to make me feel worthless with one well-placed insult. I don’t understand why I’d want to be bullied in bed. Shouldn’t I want a guy to worship me or something?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Maybe you do, but that worship looks different than what you thought. In my world, nothing is more precious to a dominant than his submissive. I would break someone’s fingers if they tried to lay a hand on you without permission. I did what I did with you because I enjoy it, yes, but I also did it because it’s what you needed and craved tonight.”
She lifted a brow. “I needed and craved to be beaten with a belt and sodomized?”
“You asked to be broken. Kissing you from head to foot and telling you how pretty you are wouldn’t have done that. You don’t trust people who are satisfied with the surface. You’ve catered to them but you don’t trust them. It’s one reason you’ve been so scared t
o put full trust in me. I needed to get to the woman beneath all those coats of gloss you’ve put on. And you needed to see what I’m like underneath it all, too.
“So take a good look and see, Tess. I’m a nice guy, but I’m also a sadist who gets off on seeing those welts on your back. I’m a guy who likes grabbing you by the hair and treating you more like property than a person in bed.”
She looked away and he grasped her chin, turning her gently to meet his eyes. “And you’re a nice girl who didn’t deserve to be treated like you were in your marriage. But you’re also the woman who gets turned on by being manhandled and likes a little dose of humiliation in bed. A woman who just came three times because I forced her down on the bed, fucked her in the ass, and demanded she obey. And there’s nothing to be ashamed of about it because it’s real. And maybe this friend or that neighbor would think it’s deviant or demented, but who the fuck cares? I love this side of us. Because where else in life do we get to indulge in the darkest parts of ourselves without fear of judgment or censure? You couldn’t tell me one thing you want that would weird me out. Truly. Even if I’m not into that particular thing. This is a safe place to be exactly who you are—even the portions others would label wrong. You won’t scare me away. And I’m not going to try to fit you in some box to suit my needs. It’s why I waited for you to open the door to more before I just ran roughshod over you, demanding you handle whatever I wanted to mete out.”
She stared at him, his speech seeping into her skin and settling into her bones. Acceptance without judgment. No predetermined expectations. It was a completely foreign concept to her. She’d jumped from box to box all her life, trying to morph herself into whatever other people expected her to be.
And this man had just burned down the box.
“I don’t even know what to do with all that,” she said honestly.
He leaned over and kissed her, then tugged her closer to settle her against his chest again. “You don’t have to do anything, Tess. Just close your eyes and rest. You can worry about the rest tomorrow. Right now we simply bask in the afterglow.”
She smiled at that, but when she snuggled closer and let her eyes drift shut, she knew she had far more to worry about than her newfound sexual desires.
She was about to get faux engaged.
To a man who was inspiring anything but faux feelings.
She was falling for him all over again.
And she wasn’t sure she had the strength to fight it anymore.
TWENTY-NINE
Tessa jolted awake, the morning light burning her eyes as she tried to figure out what was going on and what all the god-awful noise was.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Kade groaned and rolled over, his arm thrown over his eyes. “What the fuck is that?”
She peeked at the clock. Right past six in the morning. “I don’t know. I think someone’s at the door. I’ll go see.”
She hauled herself out of bed with a grunt, everything achy and sensitive from the night before, and started to head to the front of the house but quickly realized she was still naked. The loud knocking came again, and she shuffled to her closet to grab her robe. Kade was climbing out of bed behind her when she made her way toward the living room.
“Who is it?” she asked, wishing she had a peephole.
“Police,” a voice called. “We need you to open up.”
Police? What the hell?
Maybe something had happened in the neighborhood. There’d been a few break-ins two streets away a month ago. She knotted her robe around her and opened the door. “What’s going on?”
Two officers, a man and a woman, stood on the other side, wearing matching stern expressions. The man spoke first. “Ma’am, we need to know if Kade Vandergriff is here.”
She blinked. “What? Why?”
The female cop stepped forward. “We have an arrest warrant, ma’am.”
Tessa’s heart climbed into her throat.
Kade walked up behind her, wearing his jeans and wrinkled T-shirt from last night. “A warrant? What the hell for?”
“Mr. Vandergriff,” the male cop said, and Kade nodded. The cop walked toward Kade, his hand on his gun belt. “We need you to step outside and come with us. You’re under arrest for assault and battery of a Mr. Douglas Barrett.”
Tessa’s mouth fell open. “Doug? No, wait, there’s been a mistake. Kade didn’t hurt anyone.”
The male cop moved past her, unhooking his handcuffs from his belt. “Well, Douglas Barrett disagrees and spent the evening in the hospital getting patched up from a beating he claims Mr. Vandergriff is responsible for. He also claimed you threatened his life.”
“A beating?” Kade said as the cop snapped handcuffs around his wrists. “I didn’t hit him.”
The cop began the Miranda warning and ignored Kade’s protest.
Panic welled in Tessa. She looked to Kade who appeared to be either intensely calm or intensely pissed, then tried to implore the female officer. “Nothing happened. Doug’s my ex-husband and is making this up.”
“Not my call, ma’am,” she said, all business.
“Tess,” Kade said, dragging her attention his way. “Call Reid Jamison, he’s my lawyer. Tell him what happened and to meet me wherever they’re taking me.”
She grabbed a scrap of paper and pen from a drawer in the entryway table and scribbled the information down as he rattled off a number. “Okay. Reid Jamison. God, this is ridiculous. I’m so sorry. Doug must’ve—”
“Doug’s doing what he always does. Lying. Don’t worry. We’ll get it sorted out.”
He seemed confident that it’d be resolved easily, but worry rolled around in her gut like a heavy boulder. Nothing was ever simple with Doug. He wouldn’t do this if it was a quick fix. There was more to it. She knew him too well.
Tess watched with dread as they tucked Kade into the back of the squad car. The cops pulled away, and she put in a call to Reid. He asked for details of the night before, and she told him the quick version of what had happened.
“Okay, Tessa,” he said, as calm as a judge. “I’ll head out that way. You should probably go there, too, to give a statement. You’re a witness to what really happened last night.”
“Right. Of course. I’ve got to get dressed then I’ll drive up there.”
She said her good-byes and hit the End button on her phone. She hustled to her room and grabbed jeans and a sweater. She tugged her clothes on and ran a brush through her hair. But when she pulled the door open to go to her car, Doug was standing on the other side. And he looked like absolute shit—eye swollen and bruised, lip split, surgical tape over one of his eyebrows.
She recoiled. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He smirked, which looked macabre with his cut lip, and walked past her into the house without invitation. “We need to talk.”
“You need to get out,” she said, staying by the open door as he took a spot on her sofa. “I don’t know what happened to you or who did it, but you need to go tell the police that it wasn’t Kade.”
“Oh, but it was. Didn’t you see? He laid me out on your front lawn last night. I even have a witness who saw it happen.”
She stared at him, her heart sinking as she remembered the shadowed figure near Doug’s car last night. “You’ve lost your goddamned mind.”
“And I’ve heard Vandergriff has a nasty little custody fight on his hands. You’d think he’d be more careful with his anger. I mean, who would trust him with a little girl when he can’t control his temper or his fists?”
Her whole body went cold.
“Shut the door, Tessa,” he said evenly. “Like I said, we have a few things to discuss.”
Her bones felt like they would splinter she’d gone so stiff, but she managed to reach out and slowly shut the door. When she he
ard the click, it felt like she’d just locked herself in a cage with a venomous snake. On wooden legs, she made her way into the living room and sat down in a chair. “Why are you doing this? Haven’t you done enough to Kade?”
“Ah, poor Kaden Fowler, always getting in my way when it comes to you. He should know that’s not going to work for me.” He pointed to his battered face. “I’m willing to go to any lengths to handle my business.”
Her jaw clenched. He’d probably paid some bum to beat the shit out of him. “I’m not with you anymore. He’s not in the way of anything.”
“No, maybe not, but you are. Do you know how much of my congregation I’ve lost over the last year because of the scandal you created? Not just because of the rumors that I cheated but because I got a divorce? You know how long I preached about the sanctity of marriage and how it was a sin to give up on that sacred bond. You made me look like a hypocrite and a fool. The church has lost a lot of money, Tessa. I’ve lost a lot of money and respect. And that’s on you.”
“You are a hypocrite. I told the truth. If you didn’t want scandal, you should’ve kept your dick out of other women.”
His eyes narrowed. “You talking like a whore now, too? I know Fowler has made you his bitch. What kind of sick shit have you gotten into with him?”
Her fingers tightened on the arms of the chair. “What are you talking about?”
He pulled folded pages from inside his coat and flattened them on the coffee table. In them, though the images were hazy from being shot through her sheer curtains, was Kade standing over her, her hair looped around his fist, as she crawled for him.
Her stomach lurched. “You fucking bastard. You watched through my windows?”
He shrugged. “No, but you know how Marilyn is, always the reporter. She came with me last night because she really did want to apologize for the bad blood between you two, so she stayed behind when you sent me off. But when she went to knock on your door, she saw what was going on and was worried for you. She snapped a few cell phone pictures for evidence in case you wanted to press rape charges. But of course, she figured out quickly that you weren’t saying no to him.” He leaned over the coffee table as if examining them closely. “But really, it’s hard to tell. If the press got ahold of these, Kaden would have lots of explaining to do.”