I grinned. “Okay, you find us two nonhandsy guys to dance with and you’re on.”
I hugged Sofie good-bye in the taxi, but she wasn’t done.
“I had so much fun!” she cried. “I missed you so much, Lex. We gotta do this like more. Like a lot more. ’Cause I love you, Lexie.”
I smiled at her drunken affection. “Love you too, babe.”
Relief moved through me when her fiancé, Joe, opened the driver’s door. Although I was tipsy, Sofie was smashed. I’d forgotten what a lightweight she was. After we’d danced the night away in a few bars in Cambridge, changing dance partners when they got too “handsy,” I’d tumbled Sofie into a taxi and had the driver drop her off first even though she lived in Southie. My worry had been that I’d have to carry her into her apartment, but Joe had obviously been keeping an eye out for us.
“Joe!” Sofie cried, her whole face lighting up at the tall, handsome redhead. “I love you, Joe.”
“I love you too, Sofie. I’ll love you even more if you keep it down.” He reached for her, helping her out. He shot me a smile. “Thanks for bringing her home, Alexa. What do I owe you for the cab?”
I shook my head. “It’s on me.”
He smiled gratefully. “On us next time, okay?”
“Sure.”
“Bye.”
“Night.”
“Bye, Lexie!” Sofie shouted, and I laughed as Joe tried unsuccessfully to shush her and half carry her into the house.
As the driver drove back toward my place, I contemplated directing him to Arlington Street. I was still wide-awake and Caine had suggested we get together tonight.
I chewed my lip, thinking it over.
Eventually I decided against it, wishing it could be easier between us, wishing we could trust each other enough not to feel so insecure around each other. For all I knew, Caine didn’t even feel that way. I was probably projecting my neurosis onto him.
He’d been so busy that day that he’d more than likely passed out surrounded by paperwork. I decided he’d be even less amused than he had been earlier if I showed up unannounced again.
It was a shock, then, when I stepped out of the cab and found Caine sitting on my stoop.
I stared at him as the cabdriver pulled away, taken aback to see Caine sitting there in a sweater and jeans, his phone dangling between his hands. He looked like an ordinary guy. A very hot, ordinary guy, obviously, but gone was the impressive, intimidating businessman. Right then Caine was just a guy waiting on his girl.
Except … I wasn’t really his.
“Did you have fun?” he asked quietly in the hush of the very early morning.
“I danced a bit,” I replied, my voice as soft.
He nodded and looked away, staring off into the distance. “Alone?”
I stared at his handsome profile, trying to work out what was going on here. “No,” I admitted.
After a few seconds he looked at me. “May I come up to your apartment?”
In answer I strode toward him, my heels clicking loudly on the sidewalk. Caine stood up as I approached and he held out his hand to help me up the stoop.
I curled my fingers around his, shivering at the slide of skin against skin.
We were silent as I let us into the building, and we were silent as we climbed the stairs to the first floor. We were silent as we walked into my apartment and I locked the door behind us, and we were silent as I threw my purse on the sofa and kicked off my shoes.
No words passed between us at all as Caine reached for me.
The only noise that filled my apartment was the rustling of clothes, the panting of breaths against lips, and our groans as Caine took me hard on the floor of my living room. We were so frantic to have each other that we couldn’t even make it to the sofa, never mind the bedroom.
I was nearing climax when he pinned my hands above my head and stopped thrusting into me.
“Caine?” I gasped, the first word spoken between us since the stoop.
Fierceness tightened his features along with his impending orgasm. Something primal glittered in his gaze, something thrilling but terrifying that I’d never seen there before. “Say you’re mine. Right here, right now, you’re mine,” he growled.
I pushed my hips against his, desperate for him to move again. I was so close. So, so, so close. I whimpered, “Caine.”
“Say it.” He almost slid all the way out of me. “Say you’re mine.”
“I’m yours, I’m yours,” I agreed, barely cognizant of what I was agreeing to. “Please.”
He crushed his mouth over mine and started to pump harder into me.
It wasn’t until long after, after we came in unison, after he picked me up and carried me to bed, and after I woke up in the early hours of the morning to discover he’d left, that I realized what Caine had asked of me.
And if he hadn’t snuck out on me and ignored my call a few hours later, I would have said his caveman request was a turning point.
Maybe it still was.
Or maybe it had him running scared instead.
CHAPTER 16
I didn’t hear from Caine on Sunday at all.
Whether it was the mixed signals—the back–and-forth “I want you, I don’t want you” shit—or the fact that I’d gotten my period, the truth was I was feeling highly emotional about the state of our “relationship.” I even avoided calls from Rachel and I definitely avoided my grandfather’s calls. I knew if I picked up the phone to him that I’d just spew my accusations at him, and I was still wary of the fallout of that confrontation. Until I sorted my feelings out about his part in Caine’s father’s death, I couldn’t talk to him. Instead I did what I’d been good at doing since I discovered the truth—I pushed it to the back of my mind. Instead I thought about Caine and wondered if it was silly and possibly dangerous to my heart to keep seeing him when so far he was showing no signs of wanting to deepen the connection between us.
By the time I walked into work on Monday, my feelings were hurt. Again. I was unsure whether I should let things continue between us. I’d never thought I was a particularly sensitive person, but I guessed Caine had a way of getting under my skin.
I didn’t know what to expect from him when I got into the office, and what I got was Caine being his usual self. He wasn’t cold or impatient, but he wasn’t overly warm either. He was professional and cordial.
Such blah little words.
I, on the other hand … Well, I was distant.
It wasn’t like I’d had any intention of going into work and deliberately throwing a very obvious wall up between us. It just naturally happened. I walked into his office, took in his handsome face, and felt this horrible, jagged melancholy overwhelm me.
The only way not to feel like that was to have as little interaction with him as possible until I had the feeling under control.
“Here are the photocopies you needed,” I said after knocking on Caine’s door.
He waved me in. “Thanks.”
I placed them on his desk, feeling his eyes on my face. “Do you need anything else?”
“May I have another coffee?” he said, his question quiet.
“Of course.” I began to walk away, but he stopped me, calling out my name. “Yes?” I whipped around to face him.