Page 36 of Mariposa (Queens Command #1)

VIOLET

Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol

O pening the door to my room, I throw my keys on the small desk that occupies the corner. A deep voice slips into my ears before I can flick the light on.

“Interesting letters.”

Kade .

The moonlight from my window shines on a massive silhouette. With trembling fingers, I pull on the closest lamp string. It illuminates Kade’s gorgeous face. He’s nose-deep in a stack of papers.

What the hell is he doing in my room?

“You scared the hell out of me! How did you get in here, Master Sergeant?” My heart rate slowly returns to a normal pace.

His face twists into a frown as he folds my grandmother’s letters and returns them to my drawer.

“Don’t call me by my rank right now,” he says calmly.

“Why are you going through my things?” I retort. “Are you stalking me?”

He fixes his glasses on his nose and keeps his heterochromatic eyes trained on me.

“You wear glasses?” I ask. Kade, with glasses on, has my heart stuttering.

“Sometimes when I read.”

“Why are you here, Kade?” I say, stripping off my OCP jacket. I throw it in the corner where I keep my dirty clothes.

“I think you know why.”

He stands at full height—clearly over six feet by four or six inches. He’s so intimidating and beautiful, yet his cold expression melts me.

“No idea,” I mutter sarcastically, pulling on my hair tie. My hair falls all the way down to my hips. Kade walks closer to me and then leans on the door frame.

“I want to know who he is, and I won't leave you alone until you tell me,” he says, pointing to the ring on my finger.

“God, you’re incorrigible, you know that?” I walk up to him, holding his curious gaze.

“I’ve been called worse things.”

He runs his knuckles across my cheek until they’re at my lips. I love it when he touches them.

“I’m not engaged,” I confess.

He stops moving as I blink up at him.

“You’re not?” He lifts his dark, scarred brow.

“No.” My throat rolls.

“Then why?—”

“I was showing Castle my grandmother’s ring.

I put it on because it makes me feel closer to her.

A certain someone asked for it to propose.

When I was home on leave, I tried to return it to my grandmother before I deployed here.

She wasn’t lucid when I asked her to take it back, so my grandfather told me to take it with me. ”

He watches me intently; a curve pulls at the side of his mouth as he continues to drink me in. He plays with my hair, bringing it to his nose and smelling it. Perspiration leaks down his face, dripping onto his black shirt.

It’s hot as hell in my bedroom. I already put a work order in with maintenance, but they still haven’t come to fix it. Every night, I strip naked and plug in a fan to survive the heat.

“The AC doesn’t work in my room.”

“Shut up, Violet,” Kade growls. He narrows his eyes at me angrily.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you. Every single night, I feel you in my veins when I’m alone.

Every single time I’m out on a mission, I can still smell that sweet perfume you wore on the beach, or maybe it was just you.

Every single day, you cross my mind, tormenting me.

” He grips my mouth, forcing his fingers into the hollows of my cheeks, making me part my mouth.

“I can’t have you, Violet. Tell me to leave this room. Tell me that I’m an asshole. Tell me I’m a monster, undeserving of a woman who tastes like heaven. Tell me, I’m not worth waiting for.”

He runs his nose across my cheeks, then hides his face in the crook of my neck. His hands rest on my hips, but he doesn’t hold me.

Why is he saying these things?

“No, Kade. I want you, and I don’t give a crap about what the world thinks. I want you to let yourself be happy with me. Do I make you happy?”

His lips press against my pulse point. The gesture is sweet and too short—I need more. He keeps walking forward, making me walk backwards until my shoulders crash into the wall.

“Happy? No. That word doesn’t justify what I feel for you.

You infuriate me. You have me overly fixated on you.

You are the first person in my life to make me feel alive, and I resent that.

There’s an entire list of reasons why kissing you and holding you is a bad idea.

” He slaps the wall behind me as though fighting with himself.

“You. Have. Me,” he growls.

He hates himself for wanting me, and our attraction to each other weakens him. He wants to be an honorable man—he doesn’t want to cross this line, and I get it.

“Do I?” I breathe, running my hands over the snakes and skulls tattooed on his muscular arms. “Do I have you? I get it, Kade. I understand you don’t want to let yourself have me.”

I’m your son’s ex. You’re my boss. There’s an age gap.

“Whatever this is stays between us. It’s only us. Right now. Right here. Forget the world.”

His hot breath kisses my neck, and I shut my eyes, relishing his touch. He hums darkly. The sound almost feels like a plea for help…like he wants me to save him from himself.

“I can’t stay away from you anymore,” he admits as he kisses my neck again.

“Then don’t.”

Please don’t .

Another kiss on my collarbone.

He straightens, cupping my face with his massive, rough hands. He gets into my face, his beard ghosting my chin. The vein in his neck bulges in desire. His eyes soften as I stare at his emerald iris. I’m lost in his dilating pupils, wholly smitten by this older, more experienced special operator.

“There’s no happily ever after with me, Violet. I need you to know that before I fuck you. Don’t fall in love with me. I don’t believe in marriage. I’m done having kids. I can’t give you the life you deserve.”

Don’t fall in love with him?

“Already saying the L word with me, Kade?” I smirk.

“I’m serious.” His hooded eyes rake my face with tenacity.

“You belong to me until I say this is over. You won’t scream anyone else’s name.

If another man touches you, I’ll kill him.

I don’t share what’s mine. I don’t give a fuck if that makes me crazy.

I’m greedy. You need to know what happens when you give yourself over to a heartless, cruel, starving man. ”

His possessive threat causes shivers to roll up my spine.

“So…” I gulp, almost afraid of this version of Kade. He’ll kill another man if he touches me? It seems a little over the top, but surely he doesn’t mean it literally. “Does this mean I have to cancel tomorrow’s date with the infantryman I met tonight?”

“Who the fuck?” he growls, picking me up from the floor. The air escapes my lungs once my ribs touch his shoulder. I’m upside down, staring at his perfectly sculpted ass.

“You make this too easy, Kade.” I burst out in giggles. He pulls down my pants as he stalks over to my bed. Once my skin is exposed, he smacks my ass hard with the palm of his hand.

“You’ll be punished for this, Little Mariposa.” His possessive tone makes my blood hot, like liquid fire. Every touch makes me crave him even more. “Act like a fucking brat, and I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll feel me inside your soul for the rest of your life and when you’re resting in your grave.”

He drops me onto my bed, my back hitting it first. He’s impatient, as am I, with every move and every glance.

I claw the bedsheets and watch him tuck his hands at the bottom of his black shirt and lift it over his head.

He throws it into the corner of my room as he pulls off his belt.

My eyes trail from his thick six-pack towards a 3D, incredibly detailed skeleton engraved into his chest. My gaze traces the veins near his groin. I want to lick them.

I’ve never seen Kade without his shirt. There’s a scar on the right side of his stomach that resembles a deep gash.

When he gives me his back to take out his phone and a pack of cigarettes, I’m met with realistic, detailed shadows with skulls and bullets.

The shadows are long and spread, touching his shoulder and the nape of his neck.

The way his back muscles move underneath the tattoo as he removes more of his clothing is doing all kinds of things to me.

My mouth parts, and I drag my tongue across my bottom lip because wanting to touch him is making me feral.

“Jesus Christ,” I murmur sensually.

Kade snickers as he turns his head and lifts his scarred brow so I can only see one side of his face.

“It’s Kade or Beast,” he corrects with a billion-dollar smile. His sharp canine teeth dig into his bottom lip.

Standing from the bed, I rip off the rest of my uniform as fast as possible. My shirt and bra are off me in a split second. Bending down, I untie my boots and kick them off. My pants pool around my ankles, and before I can kick those off, too, Kade is pushing me onto my back.

He takes off his glasses and places them on the nightstand—the sound of a condom wrapper being torn by his teeth.

“No.” I shake my head. His brows pull together. “I want to feel all of you. I’m on the pill,” I whisper. Tracing my fingers against the scar on his brow down to his cheek, my heart beats faster, crazier. I’ve never felt this way.

“I’m clean,” I say.

“Me too.”

I know what this is at the end of the day—it’s lust. Still, it feels different. He closes his eyes, leaning into my fingers more, savoring how my fingers feel on his scar.

His hooded eyes look deep into mine as I spread myself wider as much as I can, with my ankles still bound together by my pants.

“I’ve never let anyone touch my scar before,” he says through a flexed jaw, dipping his head closer to mine. The tip of his nose brushes against mine gently. Every move he makes, there’s passion behind it. He shuts his eyes tightly, clearly fighting demons inside his head.

Is he going to change his mind? Or is there a deeper reason?

I’ve gotten to know him well enough, and he’s not as monstrous as the military and our peers paint him to be.

He’s an honorable man—he always puts his job, morals, and family before his own happiness.

I see it in the way he tries to protect me.

He tries to show up for Adam even when he can’t.

He assigned me to North Carolina to be closer to my grandmother.

“I want you, Kade. Let yourself feel good. Be selfish for once. I’m not so bad...I don’t think.”

He pauses for a moment, dropping the condom to the floor.

I almost writhe from the intensity when his heated eyes lurch to mine.

His hands are on either side of me, as though waiting to snap and conquer me like he’s been wanting to.

I look deeply into his icy eyes. Now that I’m up close, I notice the deep, blue sea flecks surrounding his left, expanded pupil.

His cool breath is laced with cigarettes and a hint of whiskey.

“I’m already going to hell—fuck it.”

His lips meet mine with a surge of fire that implodes beneath us.

The flesh around my mouth tingles from his beard moving against mine.

I love it when it does that. Our breathing heightens, and the need to feel every inch of him is consuming.

The tip of his thick cock glides through my slit, making me moan low and soft.

The teasing is driving me wild. He breaks the kiss, forcing his tongue to dance with mine.

We compete for dominance, but he wins in seconds.

He tilts his head to the side, gripping my hips until it hurts, pulling me into him.

“I’m the only one that gets to touch you like this right now. Until the sun rises, I own you, Violet. Every moan, every scream, every breath, and again until the moon goes down, you’re mine .”