Page 6

6

DARYL

I t’s not my goal to be charged with breaking and entering the library, but I can’t help chuckling at how fitting it would look on my record, if I was caught sneaking in the backdoor. If the local paper doesn’t have a field day with that journalistic gold, I’ll lose my last drop of respect for this town.

The old handle finally gives, and I quietly slip inside — just in time to hear Cady cry out before there’s a monumental crash.

I rush toward the library’s main room, to make sure she’s okay, and stop just shy of the doorway, when I see her sink to her knees, next to her upturned desk and all its contents. Her loose hair falls around her bowed head, and her shoulders begin to shake.

I approach slowly and quietly sit next to her. “Did you just She-Hulk your desk, Miss Malone?”

Her head whips up, and her eyes fly wide as she notices me for the first time since I came in.

“How unbecoming of a lady,” I say with a grin.

Her lips twitch into an almost smile, but then her cheeks flush and she hurriedly wipes her face as she looks around. She clears her throat, pushes to her feet, avoids looking at me, and smooths her clothes as if trying to deny there’s anything wrong. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Should. Shouldn’t.” I shrug and get to my feet too. “What does that matter, if you need me?”

She meets my steady gaze with a glare. “I don’t need anyone.”

I nod. “I know it. You’re strong as fuck and could absolutely go through life completely alone. It’s tough without help, but you’re used to doing everything yourself. You’re no stranger to struggle. Heck, you were raised by it — trained by it. You’re a fucking warrior, who’s more than capable of doing anything she sets her mind to. Anyone who cares to look can see that. No matter what you’ve come up against, you’ve found a way to survive it, and you’ve won every battle all by yourself.” I right her desk, set it back where it belongs, and look her straight in the eyes. “But do you want to keep fighting alone? Or do you want to know there’s someone standing behind you, who’s ready to step in front any time you need to rest?”

She blinks and a tear cascades down her cheek. She wipes it away with a harsh sweep of her hand, as if she’s disgusted by its existence. It’s evidence of the emotion she’s trying to suppress.

“It’s okay to cry, Cady,” I say quietly as I crouch to collect some of the books that have fallen to the floor. “It’s okay to feel angry or sad or stuck. You don’t have to pretend everything is fine when it’s not. I know you’re tired. I know it all feels too hard. And I know you don’t need anyone.” I set a pile of books onto the desk and straighten it while I look her over. “If anything, you probably think everything would be a million times easier if you went to live in a cabin in the woods, so everyone would just leave you the fuck alone, and you wouldn’t be wrong.”

She keeps her expression blank, like a practiced stoic, but her eyebrows give the slightest hitch, and her red-rimmed eyes bore into my soul, indignant. My words have struck something she’s been trying to smother and hide, and she’s undoubtedly wondering how I could know those secret thoughts she tries so hard to keep buried. If they came to the surface, life as she knows it would start to change, and change is scary — especially when you’ve been made to feel like choosing yourself would mean you’re a bad person.

“I mean, you’d be lonely out there in the woods, but at least you’d be rid of all the leeches sucking on your energy, right?” I give her a sad, knowing smile, put the last of her papers back on the desk, and set her stamp on top. “You want me to leave?”

Saying nothing, she wipes her cheek, and then her nose, and shakes her head.

“You want a hug?”

She shakes her head again.

I nod and rock back and forth on my heels a few times. “You want me to help you lock up?” I ask, checking the time on the big clock. “I made sure not to damage the latch on the rear door. If I don’t break anything on my way in, they can only charge me with entering, right?” I give her a cheeky grin.

She glances toward the back room and when she returns her gaze to me, she tugs her eyebrows downward. “You shouldn’t be here,” she says again.

I nod slowly. “I am, though.”

She stares at me a moment before her eyelids flutter, and she seems to be grounded back into her body. The set of her eyes switches up like she’s focusing her thoughts, and she starts moving. She strides over to the big entrance door and locks it. She peeks out the side window, squinting as she peers between the leafy branches of the overgrown shrubs out front. “Where’s your truck?”

“I parked it behind the gym and ran back under cover of the hedge lines.” I hold up my forearms to show her the scratches. “I didn’t want to leave things where we did, but your dad clearly has spies everywhere.”

She walks closer, her eyes assessing the damage from the brambles and briars. My arms are quickly dismissed when she lifts her gaze to my face. She winces, and I reach up to feel what she’s looking at. “Am I bleeding?” I ask as I discover a sore area near my hairline. I check my fingers and see only a smudge of blood. “It’s just a little scratch.”

She looks me in the eyes and then glances at the side of my head. “Your little scratch has a twig sticking out of it,” she says in a flat tone. “Should I pull it out? Or do you want to leave it in and see if it grows?”

I can’t help my smile. “I love your fucking mouth, Cadence Malone. Screw the way your dad tries to silence it, you can sass me any time you want.”

She snorts and pulls her chair over. “You want it out or not?” She points at it, commanding me to sit.

I do as I’m told without delay. “Do I want you to touch me? Yes .”

“Even if it hurts?” she says with a smirk. She leans in close to inspect my damage, and I breathe in the heady scent of her shampoo and the faintest hint of soap on her skin. The nearness and warmth of her is making my own temperature rise.

“Worth it,” I say with a grin.

She tugs her mouth to one side, her expression serious. “We’ll see.” She pokes at my head.

“Ow.”

She meets my eyes. “There’s a build-up behind the stick. It’s acting like a plug, and when I pull it out, it’s going to bleed. I need paper towels.” She starts to walk away but then turns to face me. “We should do it in the bathroom. This carpet has enough stains.”

I get to my feet and follow her to the library’s very tired looking but extremely clean, fresh smelling bathroom. It’s a tiny little country library, so it’s not full of stalls and sinks. It’s more like a powder room in somebody’s house. Small, yet spacious feeling, there’s a toilet, a sink, a paper towel dispenser, and a lot of ugly tiles.

Cady points at the closed toilet, and I sit while she’s extracting towels. She wets a few and sets them aside, and I wait excitedly for whatever surgery she wants to perform. Will she sit on my lap while she does it? If she straddled me, I could pull her closer. She’d feel my cock, swollen beneath her, and I’d feel the heat of her pussy calling me homeward.

She clears her throat, and I blink her back into focus. “Hmm?”

My auburn-haired princess glances pointedly at my crotch and then raises her eyebrows.

Heat fills my cheeks. I’m not usually one to be ashamed of my body and its natural desires, but she makes me so fucking shy sometimes. It’s probably because I’m unworthy of being in her presence. I know it, but I just can’t seem to keep myself away. “Do you want me to apologize?” I ask.

She considers that a moment. “Are you sorry for it?”

“Only if it offends you.”

She looks at the bulge in my jeans again and sighs — and not in a good way. “I don’t know how it makes me feel.”

I frown. “You did earlier.” I search her face. Something has definitely changed. “I think this is where we talk about what happened after I left. What made you flip your desk?” I ask. “What did he do?”

Cady looks to the ceiling and releases another long sigh. “What does he always only ever do?” she mutters, before meeting my gaze and firming her jaw. “Why were you in prison?”

Oh . He’s been filling her mind with horror stories, has he?

I snort softly and look up at her from under my lashes. “He went with scare tactics, huh?”

“He did. Right after the threats of shame, the reminder of his authority, and the usual guilt trip about what my mother would want. Answer the question.”

I study her assertive posture and moody, expectant eyebrows. If she feels threatened by me in anyway, she’s not showing it, so her father can’t have been too successful at branding me as dangerous.

“Which time?” I ask.

She flinches, and the first real indication of fear flashes in her eyes. “You’ve been to jail more than once?”

I remain calm and still and as unthreatening as I can. “That can happen when you continually stand up for the things you believe in.”

“You don’t believe in laws?” she asks, hearing me out, but challenging my truth.

“Not the ones that are wrong,” I say without pause.

She watches me a while and then grabs her wad of paper towels and approaches. “Which laws are the wrong ones?” She presses her makeshift sponge to the side of my forehead head and pulls at the splinter lodged there.

“The ones that prevent justice for children or animals or anyone else who can’t stand up for themselves.”

She throws a small, bloody stick in the sink and pushes at my head with the paper towels while she stares down at me. Eventually, she nods. “So which laws did you break, exactly?”

I wrinkle my nose. “You want a list of all of them? Or just the ones they could pin on me?”

Her unimpressed stare makes me gulp.

“The rabbits I stole from the research lab were too unwell to travel, and when they couldn’t prove I was the one who took them, their egos got all butt-hurt, so they pinged me for having too many critters in an urban environment and fought for a harsh sentence. The other time, I was coaching football, and a kid kept showing up with the wrong kind of bruises. I beat up his dad a bit too publicly. That sentence was lighter than it could have been, because other people had suspected it was happening and were secretly glad the issue got resolved. I also did some shit to hold some of those people accountable for their silence, but nobody pressed charges for any of that. They knew they deserved what they got.”

Cady still has the paper towels bunched against my head, and it makes it hard to see her with both eyes. It’s really hard to read her face, and I don’t know if it’s because I have to do it with one eye, or if she’s just… unreadable. She looks like she’s thinking deep thoughts, so maybe that’s why I can’t tell what they are.

The vibe has definitely shifted between us. The suspicion and mistrust have eased, but there’s a sort of edginess to the tension still lingering between us. It wasn’t there a moment ago, and I don’t know what it means. Does she need more information?

“I’m not sure if you want to know the stuff that isn’t already on record,” I say carefully. “It might make you complicit.”

Her lips give a tiny twitch upward but then flip the other way. “You haven’t ever forced yourself on a woman?”

I lean back, horrified. “ What? ” I shake my head. “Cady, I would never . No.”

She presses her lips together as she nods and then comes at me again with the paper towels. “I didn’t think so.”

“Good.” I breathe a sigh of relief, and then still. I reach up and move her towel-holding hand out of my face. “He said that about me?”

“He implied it.” Her attention is trained on the twig-extraction site so acutely, I’m sure she’s avoiding my eyes on purpose. “And I think he’d state it as fact to anyone who’d listen if he ever found out you were fucking his daughter, so it’s probably for the best if you don’t start.” She quickly turns away, but not fast enough for me to miss the disappointment in her face.

I try to chase her with my eyes, but she keeps her head low, takes a step back, and puts the used paper towels in the trash.

“Cady…”

She shakes her head. “I’m not risking that.”

I ease back against the cistern. If there’s one thing I know about Cadence Malone, it’s that she’d never willingly hurt a soul if she could prevent it — even if it meant she had to suffer. Her heart is pure, and her convictions are strong. She means what she says, and she’d never puts her needs above those of others.

“Is that your firm and final decision?” I ask. “Because as extreme as it may sound, I’m pretty sure I’d volunteer for the electric chair if it meant I could have you come on my cock even once before I go.”

Her eyebrows plunge, and she parts her lips like she’s about to say something, but I raise my palms to show her I don’t need to hear it. “If you’d rather we continue with our current diet of casual chitchat and celibacy, that’s fine too,” I say firmly. “I just need you to know that I’ll do whatever you want, either way. Before today, I was sure I’d never be invited into your life and was content to linger on the fringes — was grateful to be that close. Today, you changed shit up and said you’re feeling a certain way about me, but if you want to retract that information, then I’ll go back to assuming I have no chance with you. Not happily, but respectfully and obediently. Your command is law I won’t ever break.”

She whimpers softly and turns her back to me. “Why do you have to be such a sweet, articulate asshole?”

“Because you need me to be,” I say with sincerity. “I do it for you — and only you,” I clarify. “I’m not sweet for everyone. Only for the people I love. Mostly I’m just the articulate asshole part.”

Cady snorts softly and faces me again. She wipes a fresh tear from her cheek. “I don’t want to ruin your life.”

“Well, snap , Beautiful. I don’t want to ruin yours either.”

She purses her lips and stomps her sensibly shoed feet. “I want to… do stuff with you.”

I try not to enjoy her so fucking much, but it’s impossible. “I also want us to do that stuff,” I say with a shy smile.

“How?” she asks, her voice high and squeaky. “How do we do that?”

I reach for her hand and pull her closer, until she’s standing in front of me, and I have to tilt my head right back to look up at her. “I imagine, it would be pretty similar to how we’d planned to do it before,” I say, as I slowly drag the fabric of her skirt upward and slip my other hand underneath to stroke her bare leg. “Secretly.”

Her chest rises and falls a bit faster, as her breath quickens, but she doesn’t pull away. “You think we could?” she asks, breathlessly.

“How would protecting my reputation be any different from protecting yours?” I ask, trailing my fingertips up and down the soft skin on the back of her thigh. “Hidden is hidden.” I pull her skirt higher and duck beneath it to press my face to her mound. Her panties are damp with her scent, and I inhale deeply with a moan of desire. “ God , I want to taste you so fucking badly, Cadence Malone.”

She steps her feet a little wider and makes a subtle shift of her hips, to tilt herself toward me. If that ain’t the sweetest invitation I’ve ever had, I don’t know what is. I swear under my breath, rip her panties downward, and tongue her juicy slit like a man possessed.

Cady gasps and loses her balance, but I grip her tight and keep her steady while I make her gasp again. And again.

“ Daryl .”

My name, rasping from her throat like that… The way she’ll have felt the shape of it in her mouth… The husky, silken sound of her voice as it dripped from her lips…

I rumble into her sweet flesh with great approval, and I savor the feel of her sweet, virgin clit swelling from the stimulation as I suckle it. Her knees grow wobbly and start to give way, and the perfect weight of her fills my hands, as she has to rely on my strength to keep her standing. It’s an absolute honor to be entrusted with that task, and I let her know it by increasing my efforts to please her.

She begins to tremble and whimper, and I urge her onward, rewarding her moans with more attention. She grips at my hair through her skirt, and finding purchase, she then angles herself until she’s so beautifully open I can thrust my tongue inside her and drink straight from the source.

She’s so fucking wet. Her arousal has soaked my beard and more. It dribbles down my chin, and neck, and I want to rub it into my skin, so I’ll smell of her until I next shower.

A gorgeous pre-orgasmic quiver twitches at me, and I nuzzle at her clit while I fuck her with my tongue. Instinct kicks in, and she starts to buck at me. I grip her harder, to control her strength and keep her from breaking my nose, but her squirming hips, and the panted squawks of her pleasure unfolding, make me feel like a fucking hero. I’m going to be the first man to make her come, and I’m going to make damn sure she knows what a privilege that is. I’ll make her understand her worth if it’s the last thing I do.

“Fuck. Daryl. Fuck …” Her movement get jerky as she crests, and I draw back just a little, teasing her right to the edge, and then I push her beyond it with a force she won’t soon forget.

She falls with a climax so powerful, it’s a strain to keep up. She gushes into my moaning mouth, and I slurp at her between thrusts of my tongue. Her tight little cunt clamps and releases with a fierce grip, pulsing more juices at me with each powerful squeeze.

God , that’s going to feel so fucking good on my cock. Just the thought is enough to make a grown man cry from joy and cream in his fucking jeans. Fuck . I clench my lower abs hard, forcing myself to contain the release. I should have rubbed one out before I came back to see her. I’ve been celibate too long, and it’s got me backed up so badly the floodgates are threatening to open without warning.

I grunt and grit my teeth, cling to her and hold back with all I’m worth, desperate for this moment to be all about her — which is when something amazing happens. The sensation flutters to a peak within me and then explodes in ripples through me on the inside . My whole body jerks with the pleasure of it, and I moan into Cady’s sweet pussy with pure gratitude as I’m flooded with orgasmic bliss and enough endorphins to make my brain tingle.

What the fuck is this magic?

Cady’s rapid, twitching spasms slow to more sporadic quivers, and as the strength of them fades, she starts to wilt. I throw her skirt off me, reel her in, and cradle her close while he both catch our breaths.

Neither of us tries to speak.

There’s nothing we could say that isn’t already known between us in this moment.

Cadence Malone is the love of my life, and nothing — nothing —will stop that from being true.