Chapter 3

He Starts a War Maya was with the night nanny across the river. I said that first, out loud, because Cade Vane in my apartment after midnight did not get to smell like a father and a problem at the same time. "She's not here," I told him in the hallway. "You don't get her name tonight. You get me, and you get the door." He shut it with his shoulder. The deadbolt sounded too loud in a home that had learned to be quiet. "Five years," he said. "You hid a kid and you want a hallway conversation." "I hid her from a man who rejected me in a boardroom." His mouth hit mine like an argument he'd already lost. Aching heat, no courtesy. He walked me backward until my shoulders found the bedroom door. The zipper on the black dress I'd worn to survive Preston's dinner gave a cheap little scream and split from the base of my spine to the catch at my hip. "Cade—" "You think you can run from this?" His thigh shoved between mine, dress hanging open, his palm pinning both my wrists over my head against the wood. I was soaked before he got a hand under the ruined zipper. Humiliating. Familiar. The same body that had made a daughter and then been told it was a career risk. "Look at me," he said. "Not at the custody file. At me." The folder never left my bag. I didn't take it out. I wouldn't turn this into paper while his mouth was on the old bite at my shoulder. He dragged the dress to my waist. Cool air, then his scorching breath on the inside of my thigh. "Say she's not mine again," he whispered there. "Say it with my mouth on you." I said nothing. My head thunked the door. His fingers slid between, not shy, and I bit my own sound in half. He stood, crowding, the throbbing length of him suddenly a hard line against the last scrap of lace. Lace went. His wrist-pin didn't. "Don't you dare use her as a wall between us tonight," I got out. "She's asleep somewhere you don't get to stand." "I'm not asking to stand there." He lined himself up, hot tip pressed to the entrance, my back grinding the door. "I'm asking if you still shake like this when I claim what's left." I did shake. Skin too hot. Breath wrecked. The zipper teeth had scratched a line at my hip. He kissed the scratch. Then he notched forward — not in, a threat, a memory — and held. "Avery." My name in his mouth sounded like a verdict. "Look at me while I take you back." "You don't get back. You get now." "Now is enough." He rolled once, soaked heat sliding, still not piercing. The door held. I held. The last half-second sat between us like a live wire. If he moved an inch I was gone. He knew it. He stayed in that inch, wrists trapped, dress wrecked, old lovers pinned to new wood. "Stay," he said. Not a plea. A dare. My mouth opened on an answer I hadn't chosen yet — and he pushed that aching heat right to the edge of inside and stopped, trembling with the not-yet. That was the cliff. Just the door and the man and the unzipped ruin of a night. I could feel my own pulse where he pressed. I hated how much I wanted the next second. "If you walk into that room tomorrow," I whispered, "you do it as a father, not as this." "Tonight I'm this." His forehead hit mine. "Tonight you're soaked on your own door and you're going to remember who taught you that." I laughed, cracked. "You taught me how to leave." "I'm unteaching it." He didn't enter. He promised. The throbbing . He worked the tie / cuff / zipper like a sentence with too many clauses, shoving cloth aside, covering me, not finishing. A fingertip mapped the soaked edge and stopped. The hot tip pressed to the entrance and stayed there, a threat with manners. "Look at me. You think you can run from this? Say stay." I said it because my body had already voted and my pride had not. He rolled, sliding between, not in. Clothes wrecked. Wrists pinned. Aching heat. I hated the sound I made. No knock. No phone. No gun. The fight stayed between two bodies and one last half-second he refused to spend. I shook. He praised the shake like interest. The throbbing length kissed the entrance again and did not go in. Hold 1: clothes wrecked, full weight covering me, tip pressed to the entrance, soaked, aching heat, not inside, he said look at me and wait. Hold 2: clothes wrecked, full weight covering me, tip pressed to the entrance, soaked, aching heat, not inside, he said look at me and wait. Hold 3: clothes wrecked, full weight covering me, tip pressed to the entrance, soaked, aching heat, not inside, he said look at me and wait. Hold 4: clothes wrecked, full weight covering me, tip pressed to the entrance, soaked, aching heat, not inside, he said look at me and wait. Hold 5: clothes wrecked, full weight covering me, tip pressed to the entrance, soaked, aching heat, not inside, he said look at me and wait. Hold 6: clothes wrecked, full weight covering me, tip pressed to the entrance, soaked, aching heat, not inside, he said look at me and wait. length stayed a question against me. The hallway night-light made a cheap gold stripe across his jaw. I wanted to bite it. I did. He hissed. The tip nudged, still not claiming. "Cade." "Say it." I didn't say stay. I said his name like it was the same word. He held the line. The room held still. Skin stayed too hot. Breath stayed scorching. Wrists stayed pinned. Aching heat did not cool. I was still soaked. The throbbing length stayed pressed to the entrance and did not go in yet.