“I don’t fucking know, Winter.” His eyes met mine. “I wanted to kill him and punish you, with the way you were all over each other. Then I was angry because I thought you might be in danger. I just…I don’t know, alright!” He ended his sentence on an angry growl.
I stepped even closer and wound my arms around his waist. He stiffened but didn’t push me away.
“You realise I was acting back there, right? It literally made my skin crawl to touch him, thinking that he could be involved in whatever this is.”
He moved one of his hands around my back, gathering a handful of my hair and bringing his other hand up underneath my jaw to lift my chin, cupping my throat.
“I don’t like other people touching what’s mine,” he said roughly.
“Am I yours?”
He looked at me, his gaze hard and possessive. “We’re fucking, and I don’t share, so in that respect, other men better keep their hands off you.”
“If that’s the case, can I expect other women to do the same? Can I expect you not to be touching other women?”
“I’m not interested in any other women.” He rubbed his thumb over the pulse point in my throat, raking his other hand through my hair, making me shiver, then released me.
Oh. “Since when? What about Portia? Jessa?” I bit my lip.
“I’m. Not. Interested.”
“Good. Glad we’re on the same page,” I managed to say.
I stood up on my toes and put my arms around his shoulders, and his body relaxed slightly, some of the anger disappearing from his eyes.
“You called him handsome,” he muttered, and I smiled.
“Were you jealous?” I ran my fingers over the short hairs at the back of his neck.
“No.” He put his arms around my waist, pulling my body into his.
“You’re lying again. I can tell.” I kissed his jaw, the stubble scratchy against my lips.
“I’m not.” He lowered his mouth to mine, biting my lip softly, before pulling back to look at me again.
I stared at him for a minute, trailing my eyes across the angular planes of his face. From his tousled raven hair, to his stormy grey-blue eyes edged with thick ebony lashes, to his stubbled jaw, and the sexy tattooed body that was underneath his clothes, he was insanely gorgeous by anyone’s standards.
“Cade. I shouldn’t even have to state the obvious, but I was trying to flatter him by calling him handsome, and, also, have you seen you? You’re like—like a sex god or something!”
“That’s true,” he agreed with a smirk, the remainder of his anger dissipating, and I punched him in the arm, laughing.
Our moment was interrupted by his phone ringing loudly in the quiet field, and he pulled it out. “Cass… Yeah, coming now. Be there in twenty.” He inclined his head at the car as he spoke into his phone, and we climbed in to make our way back to meet the rest of the Four.
At the boys’ house we didn’t even get to discuss the morning’s events. Everyone decided they were suddenly hungry, so I offered to make sandwiches with Cass and West while Caiden and Zayde had a quick workout—I heard Caiden mention needing to punch something to Zayde; unsurprising, I guess, after his mood earlier. Speaking of punching, I was kind of shocked that none of the boys had a black eye courtesy of Caiden, after the stunt they’d pulled at the castle.
Sandwiches made, I sat with Cass and West in the large lounge area to wait for Caiden and Zayde. It was a little uncomfortable, to be honest, remembering the last time I’d been there and Cade had been all over that girl and I’d kissed Cass. I cast around for conversation to stop myself being lost in memories I really, really didn’t want to be thinking about.
“How much longer will my car take?” I directed my question to Weston.
“Uh. It should be ready tomorrow. I’ll phone the garage in the morning to check.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes, for some reason.
“I don’t understand what’s taking so long. I know you said they saw it needed new brake pads when they were replacing the tyres, but surely that should be a quick job.”
“I said one of us would give you a lift if you needed to go anywhere.”
“I know, and I appreciate that. It’s not the point I was trying to make, though.” Giving up on that line of questioning, I kicked my shoes off, curling my legs under me. “Never mind.”
A thought suddenly occurred to me. “Hey, West? How come you don’t have a car, anyway?”
“I have an Aston Martin on order. There’s a waiting list.” He pulled out his phone and proceeded to tell me, in much more detail than I needed, how amazing the Vantage AMS was and how he was having to get it specially resprayed in the matte-black paint that the Four seemed to favour.
After I’d looked at close to a hundred photos and watched no less than three YouTube videos of the car in action on Weston’s phone, Caiden and Zayde finally strolled in. Cade had showered—his hair was damp and tousled, and he had grey sweatpants and a navy T-shirt on that stretched across his muscles. It went without saying that he looked so. Fucking. Hot.
His eyes arrowed straight to mine, and he smirked at my blatant ogling. Sauntering over to me, all sexy, powerful male, he threw himself onto the sofa, kicking up his legs onto the coffee table.
“Fooooood time!” Cassius shouted, making me jump, grabbing the tray of sandwiches and brandishing it in our direction.
Finally, after yet another delay, everyone had eaten, and we could discuss the events of the morning.
Cassius, Zayde, and Weston listened attentively as Caiden and I ran through what had happened at the hotel. Or, more accurately, I ran through the events, while Caiden grew more and more tense next to me as I described my harmless flirting, and the others agreed it had been a genius idea. Cass seemed to find it hilarious that I’d given Caiden the name “Barry,” but after Caiden threatened to punch him in the face, he stopped taunting him. As I described how I’d touched Petr’s hand to get a closer look, on the pretence of admiring his jewellery, Caiden growled under his breath and suddenly tugged me into his lap, putting his arms around my waist and burying his face in my hair.
I froze for a moment, noticing the mixture of surprise and amusement on the boys’ faces.
I knew not to read too much into it. He was just possessive. And jealous, even though he wouldn’t admit it.
It didn’t stop my heart beating faster, though, and those damn butterflies from starting up again.
I finished describing the rest of the morning, minus the part where we ended up parked in a field thanks to Caiden’s display of temper, and forwarded the selfies I’d taken with Petr to Weston’s phone so he could put them into his computer and work his magic on them.
“Never underestimate a woman,” Cassius said, as I trailed off. “I doubt any of us would have been that resourceful.”
“Well, unless he’d been gay, I suppose,” I mused. “Lucky for me, Petr seemed to like what he saw, and that worked in our favour.”
“Course he fucking did,” Caiden muttered in my ear. “He’s got eyes, hasn’t he.”
“Was that a backhanded compliment?” I murmured.