Page 33

Chapter 11
After,he cradles me in his arms and eases me back onto the bed. I keep my hands on his chest as he slips under the sheets with me. With care, he pulls them up and over me, as if making sure I’m tucked and resting.
As my palms press against him, I can’t get enough of the sweaty, manly feel of those muscles and that warm skin. I swear I’m floating on a cloud, high from what he just did to me.
I don’t even stop to think of the tenderness between my thighs or wonder why I liked being dominated by him so much. It just is.
Under the sheet, he walks his fingers down my bare hip, exploring my skin, and I snuggle my face into the crook of his neck and shoulder, my favorite place. Or at least one of them.
“You’re spoiling me,” I say softly, almost drunkenly.
“For what?”
“Any other man in the future.”
I don’t know why I said that. Maybe it’s because of the way he’s holding me, so intimately, as if I matter beyond what our arrangement says. Honesty seems so natural with him right now in this raw afterglow, but I have no idea what happens after having sex. Do I keep on talking about how incredible he is and no one will ever compare?
Or is this where we start to talk about exes and all the other things I don’t want to reveal?
God, I can’t think about those secrets. Not while I’m here with Cage.
He hasn’t said anything else, but his fingers are still busy, slowly trailing down the front of my thigh. Goose bumps make me shiver.
“If you just want me to be quiet,” I say, “I can do that.”
He laughs a little, seemingly relaxed. “Generally, this is the point where I get asked about my crazy dating life and my casual affairs and why I’m not the serious type.”
“Because your other women want to know if they’re different from everyone else? They want to see if you’ll let them, out of everyone else, stick around?”
“I think that’s what some of them are up to. That’s why I’m not much for pillow talk.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t grill you.” And I hope he won’t do the same to me, asking about my past, because I’m not about to tell him. It’s enough for him to know that he took my virginity. Nothing else is relevant.
His fingers go still until he smooths his hand up and over my thigh, cupping the back of it so casually that I almost believe we’re a couple who’s done this before.
“I won’t bore you with the details of my social life anyway,” he murmurs. “I don’t want you to think I’m a complete bastard.”
“You’re not?”
He presses his lips against the top of my head then talks against me. “I grew up on my own, and I’ve never had anyone who was…close. My mother died and my father is no longer in the picture. I’ve never exactly been a…warm…individual.”
I wait for him to continue, to tell me how his mother passed away or why his father isn’t around, but he never does. I only imagine that he’s got that darkness in his gaze again as he continues to hold me.
As I keep pressing my hand to his chest, feeling the thudding of his heart, I realize that Cage and I have crossed yet another line. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t reveal anything to anyone about himself, doesn’t like to feel vulnerable at all, and the fact that he just let me in a little bit more…
I sigh again, running my hand from his muscled chest to his cut waist. I pull myself closer to him until my breasts are crushed against him and my leg nestles between the two of his.
Heaven.
“I understand what you’re saying,” I whisper against him. “Sometimes it’s not easy to get close to people. It’s always been hard for me, too.”
“You?”
He laughs, and that makes me smile against him.
“What’s so funny?” I ask.
“You don’t come off as someone who has a problem with getting close to people.”