Mara

 

I stared at the page on my laptop accusingly, as if staring at it long enough was going to unlock the secrets that would make me a real writer. My laptop was predictably mute, and no magic words came out to get me to the next bit of action. Instead my characters were in limbo, and I felt that if I stared at the screen any longer, I would go stark raving mad.

It was a few hours past sundown, and there was a velvety quiet over everything. I thought it would be the perfect time to work on my novel for a while, but I hadn't been making all that much progress. 

"Hey, Mara?"

I looked up to see Shannon in the doorway of the little office I had always claimed as my bedroom when we were staying at Grandma's. She looked somehow irritated and amused all at once, which was something.

"What's up?"

"Cade Lowell is throwing pebbles at my window," she said. "Unless you really, really pissed him off and he thinks he has a chance with me, he’s probably trying to get your attention."

I blinked.

"Okay, I'll go out and deal with it," I said, blushing just a little at Shannon's laugh as I passed her by.

"Well if you two want to do something that’ll put you on Santa's naughty list, I'm going to a choral concert tonight. There's a free one at the community center."

"You're getting pretty settled in here," I commented, and she shrugged.

"Maybe after we sell the house, I can get an apartment here or something."

"You could keep the house," I suggested, and she shook her head.

"No, too big, too many rooms. What the heck am I supposed to do with all this? If someone was going to keep it, it should be Chloe. She's the one with a baby coming."

I let it go. It was a conversation we had had a few times, and we were still no closer to solving it. None of us really liked the idea of our grandmother's house passing to strangers, but none of us were quite sure what should be done with it either. As I headed to the front door, I was happy to put the matter behind me for at least a little while. Cade was waiting in the yard, and he greeted me with a wide smile.

"Hey, you know that was Shannon's window, right?" 

Cade frowned.

"Really? I could have sworn that was yours..."

"It wasn't even my window when I was seventeen," I said with a grin. "Did you want something? Or should I get Shannon out here and let her deal with you?"

Cade walked up the porch steps and wrapped me in his arms. It felt so good that I stayed in his embrace for a short moment, but then I headed back into house, tugging him after me with a grip on his scarf.

"Brrr, it's too cold to be out there without a coat."

"So get a coat," Cade said. "I'm taking you out tonight."

I blinked at him. This was the first I had heard of it.

"Really? Where are we going?"

"Well, did you know there's a French restaurant in White Pines now? White tablecloths, red wine, the works. I snagged a reservation for tonight, but there's plenty of time for you to get into something nice."

I stared at him. Being taken out to a nice French restaurant seemed like it should be any girl's dream, and I felt a little ungrateful for not being immediately enthused, but I hadn't planned for it at all.

"I was working on my novel, actually," I hedged, and Cade shrugged.

"You've got plenty of time to do that later, don't you? Come on, you're going to love this place."

I frowned at him, pulling away and making no attempt to go up to my room and change out of my sweatshirt and yoga pants.

"A please would be nice," I pointed out, and Cade looked startled.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "I figured you would love some French food after spending a few weeks in White Pines."

There was something derogatory about the way he mentioned the town, and it raised my hackles a little. I may not have spent as much time in town as he had, but I had spent enough, and I decided I didn't really like how he was talking about it.

"As a matter of fact, I'm having a pretty good time eating at all the places I remember, and French food is fine, but I prefer to eat it when I'm in good company."

Cade scowled, crossing his arms over his chest. It made him look even more imposing, but I wasn't feeling in a mood to be imposed upon.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he growled, and I glared right back at him.

"What that means is that I prefer to be asked when it comes to deciding what I'm doing, not told, and that as a matter of fact, I do have something better to do than to be dragged to dinner with a man who thinks that he's always in charge."

"I do not think I’m always in charge!" Cade snapped. "I was trying to do something nice for you!"

"Cade, you know I don’t like surprises—especially when they interfere with plans I’ve already made. Next time maybe ask if you want to do something nice for me," I said, and he threw up his hands, walking out the door as quickly as he had come in.

I stood still, feeling as if I had just weathered a hurricane. Making a low, frustrated sound in my throat, I threw my hands up in the air and stalked back to my room.

Shannon appeared in my doorway a moment later, dressed all in black with sparkling earrings dangling from her ears. Right, choral concert, I remembered.

"Was that you and Cade I just heard?" she asked, wide-eyed. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything is just peachy,” I growled. “As it turns out, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, particularly when that old dog's favorite trick is to always get his own way."

Shannon raised an eyebrow.

"Should I ask?"

"No, probably not. It's just stupid. I'm sure we'll work it out."

She nodded, and ten minutes later, I heard her car start and head down the driveway, leaving me alone. Of course by then, I had resigned myself to staring at my novel some more, changing a few words here and there and hating all of it.

I couldn't stay focused on my writing because my brain kept returning to Cade and the spat we’d just had. I'd told Shannon that we would work it out, but what in the hell were we working out? What were we doing? Were we friends with benefits? Were we boyfriend and girlfriend? Something more, something less?

More importantly, would he ever learn that the last thing I ever wanted was to be led? I knew plenty of women who loved the idea of being taken care of, of having a guy take the lead, but most of them also had no problem making their own decisions at the end of the day.

In the last ten years, I had spent plenty of time dating and plenty of time being single, and what I had learned was that I liked getting my own way, too. Sure, if I was in a relationship, I could cede some of the control, compromise, figure out how to find something that would suit all parties, but I had never wanted to give it up entirely.

In a dark mood, I wondered what would happen if I told Cade that I wanted to be the one to make all the decisions from here on out. I would be the one to decide where we would eat, what we would do. I knew that he would like it as little as I did, but maybe it would get the point across.

I jumped a little when I heard a shower of pebbles against my window. When I opened the curtains, I saw Cade standing in the lawn, a large paper bag in one hand. With a frown, I opened the window.

"What are you doing back?" I asked. "Don't you have a reservation at a French restaurant to get to?"

Cade grinned, white teeth flashing in the light from the house.

"Pull your claws back in, Mara, I come in peace. I thought that maybe if you didn't want to go out, I could bring some food back to you. Truce?"

I thought for a moment, and when my stomach rumbled, I decided that a truce sounded like a great idea.

"Truce. Come meet me by the back door, it's closest to the kitchen."

When I opened the kitchen door for Cade, he startled me by dropping his head down to plant a gentle kiss on my forehead.

"Sorry," he said. "You're not an employee, and I shouldn’t boss you around like one—nor do I want to."

"Really? If you are taking your employees out for French dinners, maybe I have a few more questions for you."

He laughed, setting the food on the counter, but his face was serious.

"I have a bit of a problem where I like to be in charge, I guess," Cade admitted. "Works just fine when I'm actually paying all of the folks around me. Works less well with you."

"Yeah, unless you start paying my salary, you're going to have to ask permission, or at least for my opinion," I said absently. "What did you bring?"

"Believe me when I tell you that the folks at the French restaurant weren't all that keen on packing me up a takeout order," Cade said. "I got them to pack up a little bit of everything though. I think that's the duck."

It was in fact the duck, dark and fatty and delicious, and I admitted to myself that yes, it was a little nicer than yet another burger at Malarky's. We took the food, some plates and some silverware into the living room, and with the TV turned on to something light and brainless, we devoured the food. It wasn't the most glamorous date, but there was something companionable about it: sharing food, pointing out what the other should try, talking about the places we had been.

"Oh my god, that was so good," I said with a sigh, leaning back on the couch. "Next time you should let me pay, and by next time, I mean tomorrow at the latest because that lamb was amazing."

"First, you're not paying for anything, and second, I'll bring you food whenever you like. I didn't realize you were working on your novel, and I'm sorry I tried to take you away from it."

I shot him an amused glance.

"Let me pay sometimes," I said. "You're not actually my employer, remember?"

He looked like he might argue, but then he shrugged.

"You know I don't try to dominate things because I think you can't handle them, right? I don't buy dinner because I think that you can't."

I tilted my head to look at him. There was something thoughtful on his face, and that was new. The Cade of ten years ago had been a lot of things, but contemplative definitely hadn’t been one of them.

"Then why do you do things like that? I figured it wasn't for some kind of bullshit macho reason, but I'd be curious to hear what it really is."

"I want to make sure you know that I can do all those things for you now," he said. "That I've got plenty of cash, or that I'm tough enough to handle things, or smart enough. Something like that, anyway."

My mind flashed back to Cade and myself ten years ago, standing just a few dozen yards away from where we were sitting right now. He had looked so arrogant on his bike, demanding that I drop my entire life and come out to the open road with him. Maybe now I could see that it wasn't arrogance at all.

"Cade, I read up on you. No one is going to question how much cash you have or how tough you are now."

"I know that," he said with a slightly lopsided smile. "There was a time when I was younger when I wanted to prove it to the world. Now..."

"Yes?"

"Now I just have to prove it to you."

The words were calm, stark, and threaded with absolute truth, and I couldn't resist the urge to curl up closer to him, bringing him in for a sweet kiss. There were a thousand things I wanted to say to him just then. I wanted to tell him that he had nothing to be ashamed of, and that he had nothing to prove to me at all.

“You don't,” I said softly. “You really, really don't.”

“Because you know me so well after ten years away from where we were?”

I thought about it a moment and then shook my head.

“Who you are shines through,” I said softly. “It... gleams. You're something special, Cade, but I've always known it. I know who you are. Sometimes, it feels like I've always known.”

Cade pulled me close to him, a little rough, and I realized that his hands were shaking a little.

“Cade?”

“It's always been you,” he said, his voice slightly hoarse. “Is that strange? No matter where I went, who I met, what I did or how much money I made; in the back of my mind, you were the one that I wanted to understand me. You were the one I was trying to impress.”

The honesty in his voice, rough as old leather, took my breath away. When he reached up to caress my cheek, I leaned into it. I felt something soft and quaking inside me, as if we had gone too far together to ever be apart. My heart whispered that it was love. My brain tried to pull us both back.

“You don't need to impress me, Cade,” I said, laying a soft kiss on his palm. “You just need to...to touch me. To be with me.”

His reply was to draw me closer for a kiss, and despite the fine tremors that ran through his frame, I could feel how gentle he was, how he handled me as if I was something infinitely precious and frail. In other circumstances, with other men, that might have been something that frustrated me. I could take a little bit of rough handling, and sometimes I craved it, but right then, in the silence of this house, I wanted to be precious to him.

“Are you done?” he asked softly, and I nodded.

In response, he tugged me up from the couch and let me lead him back to the room where I was staying. It was only a twin bed instead of the luxurious king we had shared at the Driscoll’s house, but we bundled ourselves into it neatly. We didn't need space between us just then.

It felt as if we spent an eternity kissing. There was something about it that reminded me of high school, when we were both full of nothing but wild longing for each other, full of breathless need for things that we couldn't even name yet. We weren't high school kids anymore; we were adults, and we had seen more of the world, been burned, and maybe done a bit of burning ourselves.

It felt as if we were making up for a decade of missed kisses. Cade's hands wandered my body, exploring and claiming. I was so eager for him that it felt like forever before he worked his way under my clothes, and when he found my warm skin, I squeaked a little with the cold.

“Sorry,” he said with a brief chuckle.

“Here, give me your hand...”

When he offered one hand to me, I kissed his knuckles and then his palm, brushing my lips across the sensitive skin there and between his fingers. He made a brief noise of surprise, and I purred a little. I felt him shift a little against me, and I felt his cock get harder through his jeans, as if his entire body was paying attention to me now.

“Mara...”

I slipped his first two fingers into my mouth, making him hiss with surprise. I watched him through lowered lashes as I sucked on his fingers, lapping at the sensitive tips with my tongue before pulling them in deeper. He couldn't take his eyes off of me as I worked over his fingers, eyes that nearly glowed with hunger.

“God, do you have any idea what you do to me?” he asked, and then he pulled his fingers away.

“Likely the same thing you do to me,” I said with a smile. As Cade leaned in to kiss me again, I knew that he had always been a part of me, always been with me. He had been locked in there all this time, and now that he was here, with me, I never wanted to let him go.

Silently, we stripped and came back to each other in the bed. The passion was rising between us again, and sooner rather than later, it would consume us.

As we kissed, growing more desperate with every passing moment, I closed my eyes, sending a silent prayer up to anyone who was listening.

Please. Please, I want him. I want him, and I love him...