Oh my God, she was seriously insane. But she’d had a lot of time to think on the ride, and she’d decided that she’d been stupid to keep Cade to texting. Stupid that she’d never moved past their text conversations to phone calls or, yes, dating.

Still, this was a huge leap. Her heart fluttered like a trapped butterfly, and her skin sizzled to a million degrees as his hot gaze pierced through her. He was so big, so overwhelming, but he touched her tenderly. He didn’t shove his tongue down her throat or do anything she didn’t want him to do.

Hell, he hadn’t done anything at all except kiss the living daylights out of her. Make her crazy with need. She’d wanted to climb up his body and wrap her arms and legs around him and never let go. She’d thought a small leap was needed, a kiss only, and then maybe she could think about doing something more at another time.

She’d been wrong.

Right now she was wet, aroused, and dying for some relief. Was she scared? Partly yes. But mostly no. Cade was nothing like the man who’d forced his way into her body with his fingers. If she told Cade to stop, he would stop.

Brooke believed it with every fiber of her being. He was a risk she was willing to take.

He didn’t move, and she knew he was considering how to tell her no, it wasn’t time, they needed to wait.

But she didn’t want to wait anymore. She was done with waiting. Someone had chased them tonight, someone who presumably wanted to hurt her. What if they’d succeeded? She wouldn’t have known what it was like to be with this man, to explore his body and let him explore hers.

And she desperately wanted those things. She was tired of hiding, of cowering alone in her apartment. She’d told Grace that it was time she started living and she meant that. She hadn’t known how much she’d meant it until Cade had kissed her.

She glanced at the couch where Max lay, head on his paws, watching the two of them. That wasn’t going to work. She strode into the bathroom and called him. He came trotting in. Thankfully it wasn’t tiny. She patted his head, told him to stay, and shut the door. He’d be okay for a while, just until she did what she needed to do.

Cade hadn’t moved from where he’d been standing. Though it scared her a little, Brooke shrugged out of her jacket, grasped the hem of her T-shirt and yanked it up and over her head.

“Angel,” Cade growled.

“It gets better, Cade,” she said, reaching behind her back to unsnap her bra. She hesitated for a moment before sliding the straps down her arms and tossing the garment on the bed.

Cool air caressed her nipples, making them tighten and stand up straight. Cade choked out a word, but she didn’t hear it past the rushing of blood in her ears.

She toed off her shoes and hooked her thumbs into her yoga pants. A moment later, she dragged them off and dropped them. That left only her panties, a tiny G-string number with lace and sparkly threads.

“Brooke, holy hell,” Cade said.

She couldn’t bring herself to remove the panties, as if that single scrap of fabric could protect her if he refused her offering.

“I want you, Cade. Not an eggplant or a tongue emoji. You, doing all those things you promised me. Do you even know how, or do you spend your nights making that stuff up to help lonely women get off?”

She had to tease him or she’d lose her nerve. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and she began to worry. But then he swore. A moment later, he dragged her against him, naked flesh to naked flesh, and she moaned with the sheer excitement of it. He was big and hard, but he was also gentle with her.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he growled. “I’m going to kiss every inch of you, Brooke Sullivan. I’m going to kiss and caress your naked skin until you can’t stand to be touched another moment, and then I’m going to lick your sweet pussy until you’re as limp as a wet noodle. If, at that point, you still want more, I’m gonna fill you with my cock and take you over the edge one more time. At any time if you want to stop, you tell me to stop. That will be the end of it. Understand?”

All she could do was nod. He put an arm around her waist and one under her ass and lifted her. Brooke instinctively put her legs around him. He held her high against him so that she was looking down at him. His gray eyes were so serious as he gazed up at her.

“You’re pretty special, angel,” he told her. “You do things to me… Hell, I don’t know what it is or why, but I know I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. I need to be in your life, Brooke.”

If her heart hadn’t already melted before, it certainly would have with those words. He made her want to cry. And he scared her too, because when had the good things lasted for her? Her entire life had been turned upside down two years ago—what if it happened again? What if he couldn’t handle her craziness once he got what he wanted?

“I need you too, Cade. So much.” It was the truth. Not just physically but in her life. She needed Cade Rodgers. It hit her suddenly what that really meant. She’d watched Grace and Garrett for so long, and she’d envied them. Her friend was head over heels in love with her husband.

And Brooke was head over heels in love with Cade. It ought to be impossible, but it wasn’t. She loved him and needed him in her life.

A spark of fear flared deep inside. He’d said she did things to him, but he’d also said he didn’t know what it was. He needed her in his life—but that wasn’t love. He hadn’t said he loved her.

Crushing fear threatened her happiness, but she squeezed her eyes shut and forced it away. Nothing was going to ruin this moment with Cade. Nothing was going to mar her happiness at what she was about to do.

“We shouldn’t be doing this here,” he said. “You deserve better. Not a cheap motel in a small town but a soft bed with satin sheets and rose petals or something romantic like that.”

“Just being with you is romantic, Cade. We’ve had two weeks of foreplay. I don’t need anything more than you.”

“Put your hand over my heart.”

She did as he told her. His heart pounded beneath her palm.

“You do that to me,” he said. “I want you to know that before we go any further. This isn’t just a hookup, and I need you to believe that.”

“I do believe it.”

His gray eyes searched hers. “Remember to stop me if you don’t like something. Even if you change your mind entirely. Tell me to stop.”

She put her fingers over his mouth. “Enough, Cade. I know the drill. And I trust you. There’s nothing more to say.”

He lowered her slowly until their faces were close. She didn’t wait for him to make the first move. She closed the distance between them and kissed him, her tongue sliding into his mouth and finding his. It was sheer heaven to kiss Cade Rodgers.

He took his time, his mouth moving against hers, his hard body holding hers. His arm beneath her ass supported her, and his other hand was free to roam around to her front. He skimmed his fingers beneath her breast and goose bumps rose on her skin. Then he pinched her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and a lightning bolt of heat and need sizzled straight down into her core.

“Is that okay?” he asked, and she loved that he did so. He was thinking of what she’d told him about her captor, but the way he touched her was nothing like what that man had done. It wasn’t vile and it didn’t make her skin crawl.

No, it made her skin glow and her nerve endings dance.

“Yes,” she said—moaned, really. “That’s perfect, Cade.”

“Pretty angel,” he said, putting his lips against her neck, lifting her with that broad arm supporting her, trailing his mouth down her neck and toward the sloping flesh of her cleavage.

Brooke had never wanted anything as much as she wanted Cade to lick her nipple right that moment. He seemed to know it too, because he licked a trail around it without actually touching it. Her fingers curled into his shoulders.

“Cade. Please.”

His chuckle was a hum against her skin. “Please what, Brooke?”

“You know what.”

His tongue darted out and swiped across her nipple. “Yeah, I know.”

She moaned. “You’re evil.”

“Nope. Just making you squirm a little. Makes it that much better when it happens.”

“I’m ready for it to happen, Cade. Now.”

He laughed and then fastened his mouth over her nipple and sucked. Brooke saw stars.

“Oh my God.”

“Mmm-hmm,” he hummed against her flesh, and she shuddered from head to toe as pleasure rolled through her.

“Cade. Oh, Cade. I can’t believe you wanted to be a priest. I am so thankful you changed your mind.”

He laughed as his tongue flicked her nipple before he let it pop out of his mouth again. “Seriously, angel, all I’ve done is suck your pretty nipple. Don’t be happy yet that I’m not a priest.”

She put her fingers into his hair, pulled his head back down again. “I’m happy. Very happy. Keep going.”

“If this makes you happy, I can’t wait to see what happens when I slide my tongue into your hot little body.”

Brooke’s breath caught in her throat. How was she going to survive it when he did that?

He sucked her nipples, alternating between them, holding her high as he did so while she mewed and held his dark head to her body. Finally he dropped her down and stabbed his tongue into her mouth.

“Cade,” she moaned between kisses. “Why did I wait for this?”

“I don’t know, angel. But I’m going to make up for lost time, promise.”

He tipped her backward then, lowering her to the bed and coming down on top of her. He hesitated for a moment, and she opened her eyes to find him looking at her with a serious expression.

“You okay?”

She nodded. “It’s you, Cade. I’m fine.”

He smoothed a hand down her chest, over her breasts, down her abdomen. She tensed a little when he reached the waistband of her G-string. He didn’t miss it.

“I won’t touch you there if you don’t want me to.”

“I want you to. I honestly do. It’s muscle memory, I think.”

“We’re going slowly here,” he said, teasing the top of her panties. And then he dropped down to that level and ran his tongue along the line of her waistband.

Brooke clutched his head, squeezing her fingers in his hair, her heart hammering harder than she would have thought possible. This wasn’t her first time with a man, wasn’t her first time having a man perform oral sex on her, but this was definitely her first time being in love with the man doing it.

He rose over her and pulled her panties down her hips, down her thighs, and then dropped them on the night table.

“Gorgeous,” he said, staring at her nakedness. “Everything I dreamed you’d be.”

He skimmed his fingers over her mound, gently. When she’d started texting with him, she’d trimmed and shaved because it made her feel sexy. She was glad she’d done it now, because his fingers on her, gliding over bare skin the lower he went, was erotic and exciting.

“You’re bare down here. I like it. May I?”

She couldn’t have loved him more than when he asked the question. “Yes.”

He slid a finger over her clit, between her labia, down through the wetness he’d created. But he didn’t try to put his finger inside her. He just dipped and swirled and rubbed around her clit while she bit her lip and clutched fistfuls of covers in her hands.

“I want to lick you here,” he said, skimming his thumb over her clit again, setting up a cascade of sensation inside her body.

“I want that so badly.”

He dropped his shoulders between her legs, and she widened them to accommodate him. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach at the way he looked between her legs, this big man getting ready to touch his mouth to her body in a place that hadn’t felt that kind of sensation for far too long.

He spread her with his thumbs and then dropped until he was almost there. He shot her a grin. “You ready?”

She could only nod.

“Pinch your nipples, angel. I want to watch you do that while I lick you.”

Heat flared beneath her skin, but she did as he said, her body zinging with sparks as she pinched.

And then his tongue dropped into her heat and she arched her back up off the bed, crying out.

It was too much pleasure, too much anticipation, too much sensation all at once.

But that didn’t stop him. He swirled his tongue over her clit, down between her lips, inside her, back up again. Over and over he licked and retreated, licked and retreated, until the tension building inside her was at a fever pitch.

“I want to add a finger, angel. Will you let me do that?”

“Yes. Anything you want. Please.”

He sucked her clit between his lips and slid a finger inside her at the same time. Brooke exploded, crying out, her body shaking as her orgasm rippled through her.

His finger didn’t retreat, and she didn’t want it to. Instead, he’d found her G-spot, that sensitive area inside that he stroked as she came.

Brooke nearly blacked out the pleasure was so insane. But she held on to her consciousness and carefully floated back to herself, becoming aware that he’d stopped applying direct stimulation to her oversensitive flesh. He was stroking the insides of her thighs, licking around her clit without touching it, calming her while also keeping her ready for more.

She touched his head, stroked his hair, his ear. “You’re too good to be true, Cade Rodgers with a D,” she said, trying to be lighthearted when she was feeling anything but.

No, she was feeling as if her world had been thrown into a new kind of chaos. A good kind of chaos, at least where it involved Cade, but chaos nonetheless.

“I’m very glad you didn’t become a priest,” she added. “I’d be in danger of eternal damnation for corrupting you if you had.”

He laughed then. “If I were a priest, I don’t think we’d have met. So you’d be safe.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Though maybe we’d have met anyway.”

“Thankfully we don’t have to worry about it.” He swiped his tongue over her clit and she gasped. “We’re here, now, and you are currently my favorite thing to eat.”

“I want to do the same to you, Cade.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Do you?”

“Yes. I’ve been dying to see you since you sent me that first picture. And I’ve wanted to touch your eggplant since the first time you described it to me.”

He snorted. “My eggplant is more than ready. But what I really want is to be inside you, Brooke. Not sure I’d last all that long if you started sucking me.”

“Only one way to find out. Please,” she added.

He hesitated for a long moment and then got to his feet and unbuttoned his jeans. “No finishing me, Brooke. If I tell you to stop, stop.”

She briefly considered ignoring him and then realized that she owed him the same respect he’d shown her. Even if it was for a different reason, stop was stop.

“I will.”

He shoved his jeans down his legs and his cock sprang free.

“Wow,” she said. Cade was big, hard, and long. She’d thought there was a lot in his jeans, but she’d never really been sure. Now she knew. “You didn’t quite give me the whole picture when you described it.”

He wrapped his hand around it, which was an even more beautiful sight than his dick alone. She imagined him stroking it while she watched, imagined the explosion when he came.

She scrambled up onto her knees and came to the edge of the bed. He looked a little uncertain.

“You sure about this?”

“I’m not a virgin, Cade. I know what to do.”

“I know that. But are you ready for it, or do you think maybe you’re taking this too far too soon?”

She reached for his hips, forced him closer. Then she stuck out her tongue and licked the tip, caught the salty drop of precome that resided there.

“I’ve dreamed about this for weeks, imagined it in detail. It’s not too soon. It’s just right.”