CHAPTER 6
“We can’t do this,” Ali breathes as she backs up against the wall.
“Yes, we can.” Kade advances toward her with a predatory gleam in his eye that she feels spread through her.
She sucks in a sharp breath as Kade’s authoritative response causes the pulse that is deep in her core to throb heavily.
She holds her ground, not daring to tear her gaze away from his as he closes the distance between them. He stops a breath away, careful not to make contact with her. She’s overwhelmed by him. His scent, his stare, his sheer mass enveloping her. Her entire body is alive with sensation even though he’s technically not even touching her.
His knowing smirk makes her want to punch him and fuck him as he places a hand on each side of her head, trapping her in place. Slowly, he leans in. She tilts her neck so as not to break eye contact with him as he inches his mouth closer until it finally hovers above hers.
“I’ve wanted to do this for a very long time.” His breath is hot against her mouth as he asks, “Do you want me?”
It is a simple question and one that she has an immediate response to. “Yes.”
Without another word, his mouth captures hers in a kiss that sends the pit of her stomach into a whirlwind of arousal and need. His lips are hard and searching and when she feels the tip of his tongue glide against the seam of her mouth, she automatically parts it for him.
The kiss is demanding. Urgent. Exploratory and aggressive. She meets him lick for lick as their tongues dance in perfect unison against one another. Stars explode behind her lids as an intense craving builds inside of her. Her knees buckle beneath its power and she grips his broad shoulders, clinging to him with a desperation that is both exciting and terrifying. The carnal ache between her legs has increased to the point that she fears what will happen if he doesn’t fill the empty need.
Her fingers dig into his rippling muscles as his hands busily travel down her body and slide beneath the hem of her dress.
As his fingers run along her outer thigh, she pulls him closer to her. When his large palm cups her backside and kneads the flesh there, her panties grow damp with desire. She rolls her hips into his and feels the steel strength of his thick arousal press against the softness of her belly.
His touch migrates south and she widens her stance, giving him access to her pulsing sex. The tips of his fingers graze her panties and the teasing friction causes tingles to quake at the epicenter of her core.
“You’re so wet.” He whispers against her mouth. “I love that you’re so wet for me.”
Ali’s body rocks into his touch, seeking release as he begins singing “Brown Eyed Girl” to her. She grips him tighter but no longer feels his chiseled form beneath her touch. Like Marty McFly in Back to the Future, the more he sings the more he fades away.
She shuts her eyes to block out the sound of his melodic voice and focus on the feeling but the harder she squeezes her lids the faster the sensation is slipping away. Ali isn’t normally a beggar but when it comes to coming she allows herself to make this exception.
“Please,” she half-pleads, half-demands.
The sound of her own voice caused her eyes to flutter open. The first sense that registers in her brain is the bright light that streams in through her partially-opened blinds.
“No,” she slammed her eyes shut and groaned as all of her senses returned at once, crashing into her consciousness.
She’d been dreaming. Kade hadn’t really backed her up against a wall, kissed her senseless, and ran his fingers along her panties taking her to the brink of oblivion.
Ali did her best to will herself back to sleep. It had been a long time since anyone had brought her any real pleasure and she needed her fantasies to sustain her. Her nose itched as the sun warmed her face and she turned so that her back was to it.
Wait.
The sun?!
Ali always got up before sunrise.
“Shit,” she cried as she sprung up to a sitting position and reached for her phone on the nightstand.
It wasn’t there.
As she searched for the device she did a double take when she glanced at her clock and saw the time. It was ten-thirty a.m. She felt like she’d been slapped in the face.
She’d stayed up all night fixing Ricky’s science project and now she’d overslept so it wouldn’t matter at all. She’d missed her alarm and hadn’t woken him up. Her mind raced to remember his schedule. A small sense of relief surfaced when she recalled he didn’t have Truman until after lunch. If she got him up now she could get him there in time to turn in his project.
She scrambled out of bed, briefly getting caught in the sheets that were twisted around her calves causing her to tumble over the side. With catlike reflexes the soles of her feet hit the hardwood flooring and she stood, not missing a beat before racing across the room. She swung open her door, making her way down the hallway to pound on Ricky and KJ’s doors.
“What the…?” She asked the empty hallway when she saw that both boy’s doors were open and neither of them were asleep in their beds.
Maybe they got up without me waking them, she considered.
Stranger things had happened.
Her heart was still pounding in her head when she heard music playing. The upbeat chords of “Brown Eyed Girl” were drifting up from downstairs.
“Ricky! KJ!” she called out as she hurried down the stairs.
“They’re at school,” Kade shouted from the direction of the laundry room.
Relief spread through her. She hadn’t single-handedly screwed up Ricky’s perfect attendance record. It was short-lived, however, when she rounded the corner and saw the autopsy that Kade was performing on her dryer. The machine was pulled out from the wall and the top of Kade’s head was peeking up from behind it. There were parts and tools laid out on the floor.
She took in the scene and panicked. “What are you doing?!”
“The boys told me it was broken.”
“It was temperamental,” she defended, “but it worked!”
His only response was to sing along to the song that had been featured in her dream. When he did, her lady parts sang right along with him.
No. Down girl. He’d lost the right to cause her to flutter. She was banning herself from having any physical reaction to him.
She stood taller and cleared her throat. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”
The moment the question left her mouth she winced. She hated that she sounded like a nagging wife. It was mainly the nagging portion of that title that she took issue with, the wife part sounded great. And that just pissed her off more.
“Yeah,” he paused before explaining, “I looked up a YouTube video.”
“A YouTube video?! It worked before, but now… Do you even know how to put this back together? Because I don’t. This isn’t a Lego project, I need that dryer!”
“Wow.” Kade stood from behind the machine and Ali’s legs went wobbly.
Kade McKnight was always disarming, but Kade McKnight first thing in the morning was almost too much to bear.
His dark hair was disheveled just enough to make someone, not her of course, but someone, think that it might look like that after he’d been rolling around in bed. The five o’clock shadow that he’d been rocking the day before was now a midnight scruff that somehow managed to score a gold in his sexiest feature Olympics. He wore a white cotton T-shirt that would be basic on your average man, but on Kade it became a work of art, perfectly chiseled like a marble statue of a Greek god.
No. Physical. Reactions, she reminded her traitorous cells that had all come alive with heated lust.
The intensity of his emerald stare forced her to step back, stopping only when she felt the cool surface of the wall against her shoulders and ass. His eyes pinned her there, just like his body had done in her dream. The small space they were occupying suddenly felt even smaller and she came to the conclusion that the drive to KJ’s class hadn’t been a fluke. Arousal induced claustrophobia was a real thing. This was the second time she’d suffered from it.
He leaned forward and splayed his hands on the top of the dryer as he spoke in a controlled, measured tone. “I was kidding about the YouTube video. Of course I know what I’m doing. I’d never touch anything I don’t know I can fix.”
Nothing he was saying was even remotely sexual, but her brain translated it as being just that. Maybe it was the confidence with which he spoke, or maybe it was the deep, rough quality in his voice, or maybe it was just the way he said the word touch, that lit up her body like a pinball machine in the hands of an arcade champion.
Swallowing proved difficult as her throat became constricted with pent-up lust. She broke eye contact then, knowing it was the only way to save herself from ending up on the floor in a puddle of desire. That’s when she saw her phone sitting on the washing machine. Seeing the device snapped her out of her swooning state.
It might’ve been early in the morning before she made it to bed, but she vividly remembered checking her email before her head hit the pillow. Next week was spring break, which was the start of Whisper Lake Rentals’ spring/summer season. She had eight days before the rental shop and equipment had to be ready. Her handyman, Amos, was scheduled to come into the shop today to work on the plumbing and general repairs. She’d shot off a quick checklist for him in way of confirmation yesterday and she’d checked to see if he’d responded to it. He hadn’t.
Amos did great work, but since he’d become semi-retired, getting him to show up for jobs had become something of a crap shoot. She remembered being irritated that up until three-thirty this morning she hadn’t received a message confirming their appointment. So, if she was sure that her phone had been in her room then, the question was how had it ended up here?
Ali took a step and picked it up as she voiced her inner musings out loud. “Where did…? How did this get here?” she asked.
“I took it,” Kade answered.
Her eyes flew to his, expecting him to be kidding. But his expression told her he wasn’t. What in the hell is he up to?
* * *
“You took my phone?” Ali asked with confused indignation. She shook her head dramatically and the motion caused a thick strand of hair to fall over her right eye.
It was everything he could do not to reach out and brush the stray lock of spun gold, tuck it behind her ear, and kiss the confusion off of her creased face. There wasn’t a shortage of moments that Ali looked perfect but topping the list for Kade had to be first thing in the morning Ali. Her face was just a tiny bit rounder than it normally was and that extra bit of puffiness did things to Kade. It made him want things he shouldn’t want. Things like waking up to that puffy face every day for the rest of his life.
“Technically, Ricky took it, but I asked him to. I didn’t think you’d appreciate waking up to find me next to your bed.”
A pink tint that rose on Ali’s china-doll cheeks did not escape Kade’s notice.
“Why did you have Ricky take my phone?” she asked, her voice sounding raspier than it had moments before.
“So you could sleep in. You needed the rest.”
All traces of soft puffiness were wiped clean and replaced with steel fury. “I needed rest?! You think you can show up after being gone for over a year and decide what I need?”
Fuck.
Mayday, mayday, this mission was going down in flames before he’d even made it to the drop zone.
“You have no idea what I need,” she continued.
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” he apologized and retracted his statement. “I don’t know what you need, but I asked the twins about your schedule and they told me that Friday’s were your catch-up day.”
Friday’s were her catch-up day. During the off-season she typically stayed home on Friday’s and caught up on household duties and finances.
“The boys and I thought it would be nice if you got a day off and we pitched in to help you with anything you needed to get done.”
“Speaking of the boys, what time did KJ leave for school?” she sidetracked. “If he gets another tardy he’ll get expelled.”
“I dropped the boys off at seven-thirty. I borrowed the truck so Ricky wouldn’t have to walk with his project, I hope you don’t mind.” He always used the Whisper Lake Rental truck whenever he was here. In this sleepy town, the loud roar of the motorcycle was not appreciated.
“KJ was up at seven-thirty?”
“No. KJ was up at five-thirty. Both the boys were.”
She let out a harsh laugh. “Bullshit.”
He grinned, he couldn’t help it. That was the Ali he knew and loved. No one else dared to call bullshit on him, and even though she was wrong and his shit was no bull, he still loved that she’d done it.
“We went on a run. I talked to them last night about conditioning and they said they wanted to join me for my morning run.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Wow.”
Ali’s lips made a perfect O and the image had Kade picturing her doing other things with her smartmouth besides give him grief.
“I don’t know what is more unbelievable, that KJ got up that early or that Ricky went on a run.”
Pride sprung in Kade’s chest but he squelched it. He hadn’t done anything remarkable. Not like Ali had.
He remained behind the dryer because he had another bit of information to divulge and he wasn’t sure how she would take it. He liked the idea of having a large, box of steel between them, just in case.
Treading so light he was sure not to break the eggshells he was walking on, he began, “I know that I don’t have any idea what you need, but after talking to the boys, we decided you deserved a day off. So Jess is going to be here in half an hour to take you out for a girls’ day.”
“A girls’ day? We’re twenty-eight years old,” she snapped back.
“You know what I mean,” he contended.
“And you know it sounds condescending.”
“I don’t get offended when I get written up as the Bad Boy of MMA. I don’t ask the reporters to call me the Bad Man of MMA,” Kade reasoned.
The corners of her perfect lips pulled up into a whisper of a grin. “Yeah, because that sounds like you’re some kind of child predator.”
“Exactly. So how does a woman’s day sound?”
Her small grin bloomed into a full blown smile. “Like it should be on a commercial for menopause medication. Or adult diapers.”
That was one thing he’d always loved about Ali. She’d never had an issue admitting when he had a point, even if it contradicted hers. From the time Ali was old enough to talk, their dynamic consisted of mostly bickering and challenging one another. His favorite part was that neither of them had a problem admitting when the other got the best of them. If anything, they enjoyed being bested by a worthy opponent.
“So, Jess will pick you up for a girlfriend’s day in thirty minutes.”
“She can’t. I have Amos coming to the shop and I have to get—”
“I already talked to Amos,” Kade interjected.
“You talked to Amos?”
“Yep. He called this morning to say that he was sick and wasn’t going to be able to make it until Monday. I told him that was fine and that I’d go ahead and call Gil Simmons to get a bid on the work and since he still owed me a favor for setting him up with his now wife for junior prom, and I was pretty sure he’d cut me a good deal.”
Gil was Amos’s only competition in Whisper Lake. At least he had been the last time Kade had been in town. It was a bluff since Kade hadn’t actually set Misty and Gil up together directly. It was more indirectly since he’d dumped her the week before the dance.
“You can’t do that!” Ali shot back. “Amos has been our guy for decades and he’s sick.”
“He didn’t look too sick when the boys and I saw him packing his ice chest and rods in the back of his pickup before sunrise.”
Ali’s caramel eyes lit up with amusement. “He caught a bad case of gone-fishing-itis?”
“He did, but it seems he’s made a miraculous recovery because after a minute of grumbling he said he’d see you at the rental office at noon, just like you’d arranged. But I told him that you were playing hooky and that I would meet him there.”
“But I can’t. I still have so much to do.” She looked around the laundry room as if all of the tasks she needed to accomplish were there. “Next week is spring—”
“—break,” Kade finished. “I know. And I also know that after the season starts, you’re not going to be able to take a day like this off. You deserve a break, Ali. And unless you want to be wearing a Garfield shirt and cutoff sweat shorts for your girls’ day, you better hustle, woman.”
Her left cheek hollowed as she bit the inside of her lip. It was a decision-making tick she had. He knew that she wanted to take him up on his offer but she was fighting herself. Weighing the pros and cons.
“You know what, let’s do this the Walsh way.” Kade made a fist with his hand and hovered it over his palm.
Her lips pursed for a moment and then in true Walsh form, she got into rock-paper-scissors formation. Something Ali didn’t know was that Kade had studied Ali’s game over the years. He’d witnessed she didn’t have a poker, or in this case, a Roshambo face.
If she was going paper, her eyes squinted. When she went rock her nose flared. For scissors, she would blink. It wasn’t an exact science but they were fairly reliable tells.
They hit their hands to their palms three times and he saw her nose flare so he laid his hand flat. His paper beat her rock.
“Best two out of three,” she instantly challenged.
“You do realize that you’re betting against taking a day off?”
“Best two out of three,” she reiterated without a moment’s hesitation.
“Fine.”
He knew he was taking a gamble, but he decided to throw the second round anyway. Her nose flared again but he went scissors. Her rock beat his scissors. She let out a victory “whoop” and he knew he’d done the right thing. If she lost by a landslide, it would’ve put a damper on her excitement for the day. She was that competitive.
In round three, Ali blinked and he went with rock. His rock beat her scissors.
The tip of her nose twitched as she scrunched it in defeat. It was damn adorable and Kade wanted to tell her but he refrained.
“Alright, loser—”
“Hey!” She slapped his arm playfully.
“Sorry, defeated party,” he rephrased as he clapped his hands. “Chop chop, Jess is going to be here soon and I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little scared of her.”
Ali’s head fell back as she laughed and it sounded even more melodic than the oldies he’d been listening to.
“I’m serious,” he teased. “I spent a good fifteen minutes writing and rewriting my text before I sent it to her to ask if she was free today.”
“Shut up.”
He was joking about being scared of Jess, but he hadn’t been kidding about the text part. He knew that Jess would do anything for Ali so it wasn’t that he was scared to ask her to take Ali out on a girl’s day. He was worried that in this case she’d be all too happy to kill the messenger.
“I’m surprised that you didn’t have one of the twins ask her.”
“You don’t send a boy to do a man’s job.” He puffed out his chest and pounded on it once with his fist closed.
“That’s right, I forgot, you’re the Bad Man of MMA.” Her smile was a mile wide as she spun on her heel and practically skipped up the stairs.
Even though she’d protested, he could see that she was excited at the prospect of having a whole day off. It might’ve taken him longer than he’d wanted to make it back home, but now that he was here, his only goal was to keep her smiling. He wanted her and the twins to look forward to life again. It’s what Patrick would’ve wanted and Kade was going to do everything he could to take care of his best friend’s family and honor his memory. One rock-paper-scissors at a time.