Hard Edge (12 page)

Chapter 24

Caden

Kenna and I
had been back in Mayfair for two days. She’d been busy helping her mom with the candy. On the ride home from the beach, we’d discussed a lot of things, my relationship with Mindy, the possibility of me heading back into racing, her finishing school and how we might figure out a way to make this work. There didn’t seem to be an easy answer without one of us giving up a significant part of our lives. The only thing I knew for certain was that I wanted Kenna in my life. I just wasn’t sure how strongly she felt about me being a part of hers.

I’d spent the morning mowing the lawn and trimming hedges for my dad. He stepped out onto the porch to survey my progress. He looked as if he’d aged ten years in the past few weeks. He’d lost a good five pounds, and he’d let his beard grow thick and long.

I reached up to my own beard. “Dad, it’s a good look for you. You should chuck the razor and let it grow.”

A shallow grin appeared beneath the silvery moustache. “That’s what I told Sally, but she doesn’t like it. Still, I think I’ll keep it for awhile. What the hell. Thanks for doing this, Cade.” He walked to the driveway to pick up the newspaper as I finished cleaning up the grass trimmings. He stopped to look down the street toward Mom’s house. “I saw Walt and your mom drive past. How long will they be gone?”

“She asked me to housesit for the week.”

Dad nodded. “What will you do then?” I knew my dad and he wasn’t just asking what I was up to after the week. He wanted to know what the hell I was doing with the rest of my life.

I rested the rake against my shoulder. “Not sure yet, Dad.” For obvious reasons, I’d hesitated on telling him about the ride or the possibility of me getting back into racing. For one, it was far from a sure thing, and for another, he’d just lost one son. Telling him that I was heading back to a sport that had a huge risk factor seemed like a bad idea. But I also knew that the idea of me winning titles and doing something awesome like riding MotoGP excited him too. When I’d first gotten into racing, those been some of the best years of our relationship. He’d called me constantly to find out my stats and my speed times and details about the bikes. My broken leg had been almost as devastating to him as it had been to me. The worst part about it all was that I’d felt, once again, that I’d let him down. Something I was damn good at.

“Dad, while I was down at the beach, I met up with Tanner. He let me try out a new motorcycle down at Charter’s Speedway.”

There was a flicker of relief in his face, as if he was glad I was telling him
after
the ride. “How did that go?”

I nodded and couldn’t hold back a smile. “Pretty fucking good, Dad. Tanner was talking about starting me up again as a rider for the team.”

The mix of emotion in his face, even masked greatly by the thick facial hair, was easy to read. But it seemed excitement about the idea of me racing trumped the worry about me flying over asphalt at two hundred miles per hour. “But what about your leg?”

“Yep, that’s the big what if. I have to go through a physical and talk to an orthopedic specialist first. No sense in wasting anyone’s time or money if I can’t get back into competitive shape. I’m not holding my breath. It would be awesome, but there’s still a lot in the way.” And then, without even thinking consciously about it, I looked at the house across the street. I couldn’t pull my gaze away before Dad noticed.

“Have to say, I’m not terribly surprised that you and Kenna—” He stopped to search for words, fatherly sounding words. “That you two started seeing each other a bit.”

I held back a grin thinking about the last few hot and heavy days together. A
bit
was definitely an understatement. Of course, not something I would confess to my dad. Ever. “You’re not surprised?”

“Nah, I always knew there was something there between you. Anyhow—” He seemed uneasy enough with the topic that he changed it fast, even after bringing it up himself. “Grady’s things arrived yesterday.” He looked pointedly at me, as if he needed to remind me that I’d just lost my only brother. But I knew my old man well enough to know his main motive for bringing up Grady was to remind me that my brother had strong feelings for Kenna too.

“Dad, we both loved her. I never let on to Grady or to Kenna, or, I thought, to you because I knew how crazy Grady was about her. I had no intention of ever getting in the way of their friendship. I’m sorry the timing of this was so shitty, but none of it was intentional. We were thrown back together because of Grady’s death, but that doesn’t change how I feel about her.”

There was a slight nod of his head, but I knew he was still gnawing on the whole thing. I couldn’t blame him.

I walked over to the lawn mower. “I’m done here, Dad. I’m going to head over to Mom’s and do the same thing.” I laughed. “Damn, that sounds familiar.” I hadn’t meant it to be a dig, but by the look on his face, it seemed, he took it that way.

“It was a joke, Dad. I’ll be back later to trim all the hedges.”

“Are you sure? You don’t need to if you have things to do at your mom’s.”

“I don’t mind. It keeps me busy.”

He walked back to the porch with his newspaper tucked under his arm. “I’ll see you later then, Cade.” He stopped on the top step. “By the way, there’s some really nice pictures of Grady in the box. I think Sally will let you take a few if you’d like to have them.”

“Absolutely, Dad.”

Chapter 25

Kenna

Mom and I
had spent the first two days of my return talking strictly business. She had some marketing ideas, and I gave her feedback. I had to admit it was fun as heck watching the mom I knew, who’d spent most of her waking hours taking care of house and family, morphing into a kick-ass business woman. And as much as she loved her new hat, my dad also seemed to enjoy his industrious new wife. After years of leaving at five in the morning and returning a good twelve hours later tired and grumpy from the stress of a work day, he was enjoying all his spare time. He’d even set up a furniture making workshop in the garage. Although Mom complained that the only thing to come out of the workshop so far was a lot of noise and mess. But they had settled completely and happily into their new roles and entirely new lives. It gave me hope that Caden and I could figure out a way to make things work too. Anything seemed possible when two people really cared about each other.

Mom set another margarita on the packing table. She’d spent the morning experimenting with tequila and rum flavored truffles and we’d both reaped the benefits of her research by using the leftover tequila to make margaritas.

I sipped the drink. I was well on my way to being majorly tipsy. If there was such a thing. Being Mom, she was going pretty light on the alcohol and heavy on the sweet syrup, but after three glasses, the tequila was starting to move into gear. For Mom too.

She stopped at the stove and stared down at it. “What was I just about to do?”

“I don’t know, Mom, but maybe you should stay off stove duty until the drinks start to wear off. You could come help me tie off packages.”

She waved away the idea. “No, I just remembered. I need to take inventory of my supplies. I’m going to have to order bittersweet chocolate soon. It comes all the way from Germany and takes a good three weeks to get here, so I have to plan ahead.”

I placed the cover on the truffle box I’d just filled. “It occurs to me, Mom, that you could lower some of your overhead by buying less expensive, less exotic ingredients.”

She swung around and stared wide-eyed at me as if I’d just told her to commit murder.

“Or not,” I said, quickly.

“My candy is popular because it is of the highest quality. I can’t put out anything less.”

“You’re absolutely right. Terrible suggestion. That’s just the logical law student in me talking. Ignore the last few seconds. They never happened.”

Satisfied that she’d stopped my inane suggestion in its tracks, she continued on to her pantry to take inventory.

My fingers and both hands were in the midst of tying a bow, and it had to be perfect to meet my mom’s high standards, when my phone rang. Just seeing the name Caden on my screen sent my heart skipping ahead. The tequila swirling in my head was going to make a pretty bow impossible anyhow, so I let go both sides of the ribbon and answered it.

“Candy central, how can I help you?”

“Well, now that you ask, there is something you can do.” Caden’s deep voice always sounded extra sexy over the phone. Almost as good as it sounded over a pillow in the morning.

“And what is that? Although, I have to warn you I’m a little off kilter on account of the margarita sipping and booze-laced truffle tasting. So brain surgery and flying an airplane are out.”

“Actually, tequila will only make my request that much better. I’m at my mom’s, and I’m sitting in what used to be my room. Only instead of race car posters, there is a painting of flowers in a vase and a bed covered with lacy, frilly stuff. So I was thinking it was the perfect location for some extremely dirty sex. Which brings me to my request. Why don’t you bring your sweet little, slightly drunk ass over here. I’m bored and you’re the only person who can cure that problem.”

I knew my face was blushed pink from the conversation, but my mom didn’t seem to notice it or the way I was talking quietly into the phone, all while trying to keep my smile to a minimum. “I don’t know. It’s your mom’s house after all.”

“We’ll pretend it’s some over decorated motel on a deserted highway. Hurry. It’s been two days and I need you.” He hung up without another word.

My mom looked over from her order list. “Who was that?”

I could have just lied, but it seemed time we got the topic of Caden out in the open. “It was Cade. If you don’t need me, I’m going to go down the street and hang out with him for a few hours,” I said it as if we were kids again and I was just heading out to ride bikes or play video games. Only my mind was spinning with the alcohol and the suggestion of extremely dirty sex. I just hoped my highly intuitive mom couldn’t use her sixth sense to read it on my face.

Mom twisted her lips in a judgmental knot. Up until now, she’d kept her opinions, of which I knew she had plenty, to herself. It seemed she’d been trying hard to ignore the beach trip I’d just taken with the local bad boy. I knew she approved of us being friends, but as a prospective boyfriend, not so much. Fortunately for me, those days of being told how to live my life by my parents were long behind me.

“Kenny,” my mom started with a slightly condescending tone, “you know, as your mom, I just want you to be happy.”

“Perfect,” I spoke up quickly. “Then we’re both on the same page.”

“But, Kenny—”

“Mom, it’s been a fun morning. Let’s not ruin it with a heated discussion about my social life. Caden and I might be heading toward a serious relationship. I’m not completely sure what’s happening yet or if it would even work, but we’re finally both acting on feelings we’ve had for a long time.”

She still hadn’t untwisted her lips as she nodded in agreement and returned to her notepad. “Have you talked to Jeremy at all?”

“About what?”

The lacy straps of her apron vibrated as she shrugged. “I don’t know. Whatever you two might have to discuss. You don’t let me in on much, so I can’t really answer that.”

I got up and the three drinks seemed to float right up to my head. It was a good, light feeling that made this unwanted turn in conversation much more tolerable. “Mom, we are through. He’s just waiting for me to get my stuff and give him back his ring.”

Her face snapped my direction with rounded eyes, eyes that were the same color and shape as mine.

“Yes, I’m giving it back. Before the sting of the breakup even had time to set in, he asked for the ring. Which gives you some insight into the man I almost wasted the rest of my life with.” I walked over and kissed her cheek. “I’ll be back in two hours, when the rest of those truffles have set.” I left the kitchen and the house, before she had a chance to respond.

It was a warm, slightly humid day, and heat was coming off the white sidewalks in sticky waves. Halfway up the block, I heard a whistle split the air. I was transported back in time, and without thinking, I looked back in the direction of the sound and expected to see Grady racing toward me on his bike. It had been a neighbor whistling for his dog. The whistle had sparked one of a million memories. Grady had spent the entire summer before sixth grade perfecting his whistle, insisting he could use it to woo the seventh and eighth grade girls as they walked past his locker. I let him know that his plan was stupid and that it would probably end up getting him more scowls than smiles, but he persisted with his whistle practice to the point that it nearly made him sick. On one particularly hot summer day, we’d been sitting on the cement steps in front of our elementary school and he blew and blew, hoping he’d find the perfect pitch for his ‘lady-wooing whistle’. Then the summer custodian came out to chase us off. Grady stood so fast and his head was so light from blowing he fell down the steps and landed on his knees. It had scared me plenty. I raced to him, thinking my best friend had just had a heart attack or stroke or some other fatal, hospital worthy episode. By the time I reached him, he was laughing. ‘Guess I need to swallow some oxygen in between’ he said, still laughing. I slugged him on the shoulder. He complained about it hurting all the way home.

I faced forward again. It was amazing what being back in Mayfair did to me. I wasn’t a kid anymore, and Grady wasn’t riding up behind me on his bike, but those vivid memories of us growing up together were like priceless gold to me now.

Caden was standing on the porch as I walked up to the house. His smile flashed white from beneath the shade of the overhang.

“I was afraid you might get lost with your tequila buzz.”

I climbed the steps. “It’s a pretty straight shot from my house to this one. Besides, I had an incentive to make it here.” I walked into his arms, realizing that I badly need him to hold me. “An extremely hot man invited me for some extremely dirty sex. But I’m hoping that there is no actual dirt involved. I prefer the other kind of
dirty
.”

His arm slid down and he took hold of my hand. “Then, my sugary smelling darlin’, we have a lot in common.” He led me into the house.

It had been years since I’d stepped into his mom’s house. The front room was filled with overstuffed couches and distressed pine furniture painted to look shabby. “Your mom really embraced that whole country chic look, huh?”

“Yep, just wait until you see my bedroom, or, as she named it, the lilac guest bedroom.”

“Lilac?” I asked as he led me down the narrow hallway to the back bedroom.

He pushed open the door. There was purple in every corner and the bed linens were dotted in lavender flowers. “Ah yes, I see.”

“Fucking missed you, Trinket.” Caden pulled me into his arms and kissed me. He ran his tongue across my lip. “Hmm, tastes like booze. I like it.” He squinted down at me.

“What?”

“Just trying to assess how drunk you are. It might play a part in how much fun we can have.”

My mood had been slightly dampened by the flashback on the way over. I pressed myself into Caden’s arms again. “You know what I really want?”

He gazed down at me, more serious now than seconds before. “What’s that, Trinket?”

“I want to hear those last three words you said to me on the phone just now. I want to know that this is still real and not just one of the many images and memories I have floating through my head.”

He pressed his hand against my face and kissed me lightly on the lips. “Kenna, I need you. I need you in my life.”

I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him back. He swept me into his arms and carried me across the room. Seconds later, I was surrounded by purple flowers and soft pillows. Caden took off my shirt and bra. He kissed my bare breasts and my stomach as his hands worked at the buttons on my shorts.

He straightened and stared down at me with such intensity, it made my already light head spin more. Not just from the anticipation of sex but from the reality that Caden Stratton, the boy I had been completely nuts about, was standing over me, wanting me, needing me in his life.

His shirt came off. The chiseled muscles of his arms and chest pulsed with strength and power. My heart raced with the thought of being in those steel arms. His eyes glittered with an almost feral gaze as he stripped naked. A smile flashed across his face, and instead of climbing on the bed, he walked over to the dresser and opened the drawer.

“What are you up to?”

“You’ll see.” He spoke without looking up from the drawer. “I figure, you don’t drink much, so I’m going to take a little advantage of the tequila. Ah ha, this will work.”

His hand emerged with a narrow strip of fabric the same lavender color as the curtains. It was something that could be used to tie the curtains back. But it seemed Caden had come up with a new, less decorative use for it.

Caden walked back to the bed with a devilish, cocky smile, swinging the strip of fabric around his hand. He stopped in front of the bed and looked pointedly at the wrought iron frame of the daybed. Then he looked at me. “So, baby, is the tequila still working its magic?”

“I don’t know about the alcohol, but you standing naked in front of me with all that—muscle, ink and raw sex thing happening has its own brand of magic. What exactly do you have in mind?”

He reached down, took hold of my hands and tied them lightly together. I watched, at first, with amusement but then with a sense of erotic anticipation that made my heart race and white hot heat flow through my entire body. That same strength and power I’d been admiring in Caden just moments before was now swirling around the room, like its own entity. Suddenly, I was his captive, his to do with as he pleased. And I was loving it. Not because I was slightly drunk and lacking inhibitions, but because it was Caden. Everything about him thrilled me.

“Get on your knees, baby.”

With hands tied, it took a bit of skill to follow his order. I knelt in front of him. My entire body trembled with excitement, and my nipples hardened at the idea of being his plaything. It was something completely out of my usual comfort zone, and yet, with Caden, it felt completely exhilarating. I wanted whatever he had in store. My pussy throbbed with the prospect.

Caden took hold of the end of the lavender fabric and led me to turn around and face the ornate bed frame. He climbed on the bed behind me and kissed my shoulder as he lifted my hands and tied me to the wrought iron railing.

With my hands secured to the bed, he began a long, hot trail of kisses down my back and along my ass. The small bed shifted under his weight as he scooted back. His hand came around in front of me. As he slid his fingers through the folds of my pussy, he moved my hips so that my ass jutted out and I was completely exposed. He pressed his mouth against my pussy from behind while stroking me from the front with his deft fingers. He used those same fingers to part the folds of my pussy.

Cool air and his warm breath mingled, causing tingling sensations to course through the heat between my legs. I was completely exposed and vulnerable and the mere thought of being his to do with as he pleased, nearly sent me over the edge of an orgasm.

His tongue lathed over my clit, and I sucked in a breath. “Yes, please. Yes, Cade.” The words ushered from my lips without me even forming them in my head.

He answered my plea with his thumb, massaging my clit as his tongue impaled me over and over again. More than once, I went to move my hands, only to remember that I was tied to the bed and completely at his mercy. That delicious thought made my pussy clench, and the early waves of an orgasm thundered through me.

Cade sensed it and pulled his tongue and fingers away. I collapsed forward. My breaths came in fast, short spurts. Every inch of me was begging for the climax.

“What?” I asked breathlessly, nearly delirious from the need to finish.

“I don’t want you to come yet. I’m going to bring you to the edge again and again until you are mine. Until you are begging me to fuck you.”

As my breathing slowed and my body relaxed with the disappointment of unfinished sex, he began again, with the skill of a man who knew exactly how to touch me. His fingers returned to my aching clit, and I shuddered as he, once again, made it ache with need. Again his tongue licked my pussy to a frenzy. He added a teasing wet finger, pushing inside of me at just the right time to make me tighten and contract my pussy and thighs against the pressure. Again, he brought me to the starting line of a mind-blowing orgasm, and again, he pulled his exquisite touch away, leaving me nearly delirious. It was an erotic, torturous game that left me dizzy, trembling and close to tears. And I loved every second of it.