The sky was starry and crisp tonight, the ocean gentle but no less majestic with its steady, relaxing roar. Cade and I shed our shoes and socks, stowing them on the blanket, which we spread out far enough back from the foamy line of the water on the sand for it all to be safe while we walked. He didn’t drop my hand, didn’t seem to mind the slow pace I set. I really was tired after work, but it felt easier to walk and talk. I had very little confidence in my ability to stare right into the bluest eyes I’d ever seen and have a normal conversation.
It was good to know myself. The limits of my self-control. Especially where this man and his two friends were concerned.
“Thanks for coming out here with me,” Cade’s shy voice cut through the night, barely louder than the waves.
“Of course,” I told him, just as gentle, though there was something bugging me. “Why did you want to see me so bad?”
“I thought that would be obvious after the last time I saw you,” he said. The subtle growl in it, the reminder of how well he’d touched me, how well they both had, sent a shiver through me that I tried to play off as from the ocean breeze.
“Sure,” I allowed. “And I…obviously I’m glad to see you too. But why alone? Why now?” Why not wait for the plans we already had that included his two best friends?
I wasn’t sure what answer I was looking for, but I felt like I was fishing for something. Cade mulled it over for a long moment, then squeezed my hand as if to fortify himself.
“I felt like I needed the advantage,” he started. “Not that it’s…a competition, or anything. You’re not some prize to be won. But if it’s gonna be any of us, I wanted to make sure you knew that I want it to be me.”
God, how could I not look at him when he said something like that? I stopped us, my toes sinking into the sand as I turned toward Cade, looking up into his eyes. It was dark enough that they looked as black and fathomless as the sea beside us.
“Cade,” I said, not sure where I was headed.
“I just think about you all the time. Always have, if I’m honest. And now that I’m here with you, I…I don’t know. It’s good to know the image I had of you in my head since Vegas isn’t just an exaggeration. You’re better than I remembered.”
“You remembered me?” I asked, feeling almost silly.
“I’ve spent five years trying not to,” Cade admitted. “I…you were a fantasy. Even though I’d touched you, you weren’t real. But the real thing is better. Better than my dream girl—dream woman,” he corrected himself, and that made me smile.
“You really are a romantic, aren’t you?”
“Guilty,” he winced.
“It’s a good thing.”
“Not the way I’ve done it in the past.” His head dipped, eyes downcast. I understood.
“Your ex-fiancée,” I breathed, and Cade shrugged it off.
“It’s not like I even miss her anymore. I know now that we weren’t right for each other, and she was…well, it doesn’t matter. But the damage was done, I guess.”
I could understand it. I’d never been rejected by someone I wanted to spend my life with, but hadn’t I kept myself from getting too close to anyone in part because that prospect sounded hard? I’d always been looking for an easy way. An easy life. If not for me anymore, since single motherhood was the hardest thing I could imagine, then at least for my little girl.
I picked up on another truth in Cade’s words too. Curiosity spiked.
“You haven’t…” I stopped, reconsidered, but Cade finished the thought for me.
“I haven’t even tried to be with anyone since her,” he said with no shame, and I admired him for it. “Thought I was done with all of that, really. After this, after you, maybe I will be.”
After me. The implied ending there, his disbelief that we could go the distance, stung even as I recognized the practicality in it. Even I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be with him, to be a family like my friends had suggested. For a split second though, I wanted to correct him. To tell him he had a window into my life for the rest of time if he wanted it–that he was Daphne’s father, and he could choose to fill the role in more than biology. But something about this moment felt like it should only be about the two of us. And a fair bit of cowardice kept me from spilling the beans too.
Well, that and the fact that I badly wanted to kiss him.
“You’re much sweeter than you seem at first,” I told him, slightly teasing. I took the hand that still held mine, pulled it up to my mouth to kiss the back of it. Cade sighed into the affection,took the opportunity to break the contact of our palms by sliding his hand up to cup my cheek instead. I leaned into it.
“You are too,” he said. “Sweet as honey under all that spice.”
“Kiss me then,” I whispered, and Cade obliged.
He tasted as sweet as his words, felt as strong and inevitable as the water that roared toward us. I sank into him, happy to drown, only resurfacing when he broke the kiss and led me back down the beach toward the blanket.
When we sat together, Cade’s words from before played through my head again, bringing up questions. Though all I wanted was to sink into him and let our bodies do the talking, I had to ask.
