Page 31 of The Chief (Those (Damn!) Texas Dantes #3)

HE WOKE ALONE.

The bed was still warm beside him, the sheets rumpled.

Elise’s scent lingered. Lavender and her personal scent and the faint trace of last night’s need.

Cade’s heart kicked once, then pounded like a war drum.

He sat up fast, hand flying to her side of the mattress, still indented where her body had been.

“Elise.”

No answer.

He swung out of bed, grabbed the Glock from the drawer beside him, and stalked downstairs and through the house, barefoot, naked, half-wild with fury.

No guards raised alarm. No doors stood open.

No signs of struggle. But his gut burned like he’d guzzled glass.

The scent of danger wasn’t in the air. But Elise wasn’t where she was supposed to be, and that alone sent heat pumping through his veins.

A soft clatter echoed from down the hall.

Cade’s head snapped toward the sound, his pulse spiking. Kitchen.

His stride stretched, lengthened, until he was almost running, wild images spiraling through his head: Elise cornered, Elise bleeding, Elise gone. He rounded the final bend, gun tight in hand, breath burning.

And froze.

She was in the kitchen.

Barefoot. Standing at the stove in one of his shirts, his favorite, the one he’d worn the night he first realized he couldn’t live without her.

Her hair was a pale, sleep-mussed halo around her face.

Her legs were bare, long and golden in the kitchen light, and the oversized fabric hung just low enough to tease him with what it barely covered.

She moved like she belonged. Like she’d always belonged. As if this space had been made for her hips to sway lazily in rhythm with some silent, sultry beat only she could hear. Eggs cracked in a pan. Bread toasted behind her. And Cade, he just stood there, his pulse crashing like thunder.

Relief flooded him, hot and dizzying, but it didn’t erase the fury or the ache. It mingled with something darker. Something primal. The want hit him like a freight train. The hunger. Not just for her body, but for the image of her like this. Soft. Safe. Here. And she was his.

Need surged inside him, hot and demanding. His cock hardened, thick and aching in an instant, the sight of her igniting every stripped nerve in his body. Because she didn’t know what she was doing to him just by being here, barefoot and bare-legged and his.

God help him, he needed her more than breath.

Cade’s heart slammed, the release of tension so sharp it almost brought him to his knees, while a rush of cold sweat prickled down his spine. The silence roared in his ears, louder than any gunfire, and the pounding in his chest echoed like a sledgehammer behind his sternum, jarring every bone.

Then came fury.

“Don’t ever disappear from our bed without telling me,” he snapped, his voice more gravel than sound.

She turned, startled. Her eyes dropped for just a beat.

Chest. abdomen. Crotch. And Cade saw the flicker there.

Her gaze snagged on his body, on the thick jut of his cock standing hard and ready between them.

A sharp breath punched from her lungs, the defiance in her eyes clashing with unmistakable heat.

She dragged her eyes back to his. But the damage was done. He saw it all, the craving, the awareness, the flush blooming high on her cheeks.

He stalked closer, fury and relief tangling in his chest. “Do you have any idea what I thought?” He broke off, breath catching in his throat, the words snagging somewhere behind his ribs. “I woke up and you were gone. The bed was empty. I was afraid—”

He held up a hand. He couldn’t go there. Couldn’t give voice to the image burned behind his eyes, the kitchen empty, her body broken, the silence permanent. The possibility clawed at him, ripped him apart.

“I tore through this house with a gun in my hand,” he ground out. “I was ready to kill whoever took you. Because if someone had—”

He wouldn’t have stopped. Wouldn’t have waited for orders or mercy or reason. He’d have hunted them down and buried them. No trial. No second chances. The house, the world, he’d have razed it all until her name was safe on his lips again.

He flicked the safety on and slammed the Glock down hard on the counter, the metal clattering against the surface with a brutal finality. His chest heaved, voice breaking. “I’d have razed everyone and everything that stands between us.”

She froze.

Her eyes darted to the gun, the way it still vibrated slightly from the force he’d used to slam it onto the counter. “What the hell, Cade?”

“I thought something happened to you,” he bit out, voice ragged.

She squared her shoulders, defiant now. “I got hungry. What, I’m not supposed to make myself a midnight snack?”

Her voice was sharp, a spark of challenge beneath the irritation.

But Cade saw it, the flicker of heat in her eyes as they dipped to his chest, then lower, lingering for a half-second too long on his rigid arousal before jerking back to his face.

She was pissed. But she was also lit from the inside, her anger edged with the same craving that clawed through his own blood.

She didn’t want to want him. Not after that growled threat, not after the gun. But her pupils were wide, her nipples tight beneath the cotton, and Cade could see the flush crawling down her throat.

He took another step closer, and she didn’t back up. Didn’t blink.

She tilted her chin higher instead, defiant to the end. But her voice dropped a notch, husky now. “You don’t get to snap at me and act like I belong to you.”

But her body leaned in, every line of her humming with tension, her presence pulling him closer like gravity laced with sin.

And Cade, he was already halfway to hell for her. Might as well burn.

He fell still, muscles coiled, his silence more dangerous than a shout, his voice dropping to a rough whisper.

“You don’t get it, do you?” His eyes devoured her.

“I didn’t just wake up panicked. I woke up gutted.

Like I’d already lost you.” He dragged a hand through his hair, frustration blatant in every line of him.

“You think this is about eggs and toast? No. This is about not knowing if the only woman who’s ever mattered to me is breathing. ”

He looked her over. Every inch. The bare legs. The too-big shirt. The mess of her hair. “You’re standing there looking like that, and you expect me to be sane?”

“What if I wanted to surprise you?” she shot back, chin tilted, eyes blazing. “Maybe I thought you could use some eggs and toast. Maybe I thought I’d be sweet, thoughtful, try to do something normal. And maybe I didn’t think I needed your goddamn permission to crack a couple eggs.”

The air between them shimmered, thick with friction and denial, with fury laced in want. Everything they hadn’t said. Everything he was one second from proving with his hands, his mouth, his body.

It rose within her, the pulse beneath her skin, the heat blooming just below the surface. Not just rage. Not close. The defiance in her eyes warred with something molten and hungry.

His stare pinned her. Hard. Direct. And she stood her ground, though barely. He saw her fingers twitch like she wanted to strike him. Like she wanted to drag him closer and shove him away at the same time.

Every breath she took sharpened his own need. And she was watching him now, too. Watching the way his cock pulsed, heavy and ready, his desire written in every rigid line of his body. She was fire, barely contained, and God help them both, she didn’t know she was feeding the same blaze inside him.

She looked like she wanted to scream. Like she wanted to break something.

Like she wanted to be broken open by him.

She wanted him to pin her down and take her.

“You act like I ran off to start a war,” she muttered, but her voice was already rasping. “It was a midnight snack, Cade. Just a snack.”

But her body had already betrayed her. Because even now, even angry, she wanted him more than she could stand.

“You don’t fucking leave our bed without telling me.”

“Without what? Getting your permission?” Her voice spiked, sharp and incredulous, but there was a tremor under it, something hotter, something that tasted like insolence and heat. Her cheeks flushed, not just with outrage but something else, something darker. “You don’t own me, Cade.”

“The fuck I don’t,” he growled, stepping in until there was no air between them. “I own every inch of you. Your mouth, your body, your screams—mine.”

She glared at him, eyes flashing, her breath rapid. “You can’t just bark and expect me to heel.”

Cade watched her falter. Her words caught mid-breath, mouth slightly parted as his gaze tracked down from her lips to the swell of her breasts.

The burn in his chest wasn’t fury anymore.

It was need. Fierce, possessive need that crawled under his skin like fire.

He saw the shift in her, the subtle waver in her posture, and knew she felt it too, that electric snap in the air that meant he was one second from taking.

She glared, her voice low and ragged. “You think you can scare me into submission?”

“No,” he gritted out, stepping closer. “But you don’t get to vanish on me, not after—” He broke off, nostrils flaring, trying to rein it in and failing.

“I haven’t been able to breathe for weeks, Elise.

I still feel the warmth of your blood coating my hands.

Dream of losing you. You don’t get to walk away from me without a word and pretend like it’s nothing. ”

They stood there, chests heaving, the space between them charged with weeks of desperation and hunger and need, simmering right beneath the surface.

Her lips parted. “You’re crazy.”

His eyes burned into hers. “For you.”

Her eyes went wide, then softened. She smiled. “For me?”

And that was it. He snapped.

That smile.

It demolished his control. Undid him cell by cell until all that remained was the frantic need to have her beneath him again.