Brodie clasped her hands behind her back. "I brought you some chicken soup and your buds asked me to check on you to see if you're not, well, dead."
"They'd be so lucky," Kade growled, sitting up and resting his elbows on his bent knees.
"How are you feeling?"
"Horrible."
"That good, huh?"
Kade lifted a muscular shoulder. "It's a combination of relief that the pain is gone and mental exhaustion. My head is sore."
"Do you still have headache?"
"Not a migraine..." Kade tried to explain. "It's more like my brain is tired. For a day afterward I feel exhausted, like I have a mental hangover."
"Are you sure you're not pregnant? Add nausea and vomiting and that's how I feel all the time."
"Sorry, babe." Kade patted the mattress next to him. "What are you doing over there? Come here."
She really shouldn't. If she sat down next to him she wouldn't be able to keep her hands to herself and then she'd get naked and he had a headache. And he needed to date other women-women she'd found for him!-and she was supposed to be keeping a mental and emotional distance so there were like, a hundred reasons why she shouldn't sit down, why she shouldn't even be here...
Despite all that, Brodie walked around the bed to sit on its edge. Kade immediately wound an arm around her waist, pulled her backward and spooned her from behind. His hand covered her breast and she sighed. "Kade..."
"Shhh." Kade touched his lips to her neck and thumbed her nipple. It bloomed under his touch and she felt heat rushing down, creating a fireball between her legs.
"I need you," Kade whispered in her ear. "I need to be inside you, touching you, being with you. Say yes, Brodes."
Brodie rolled over to face him and touched his jaw, his lips. She opened her mouth to speak but Kade placed his fingers over her lips. "I don't want to hear that this is a bad idea, that we shouldn't, that this is madness. I know it is and, right now, I don't care."
Oh, in all honesty, she didn't, either. Wasn't she allowed to step away from the complications and just enjoy his touch, take pleasure in the way he made her feel? Making love to Kade was sheer bliss and, after the weeks she'd endured, wasn't she entitled to some fun? To escape for a little while? It didn't have to mean anything. She wanted him, needed him-in her, filling her, completing her.
"You have too many clothes on, babe." Kade covered her breast with one hand. She arched into his hand, frustrated at the barriers between him and her skin.
"I'm happy for you to take them off as quickly as you can," Brodie whispered, curling her hand around the back of his neck.
"Then again, I rather like you like this. All flushed and hot and horny."
Brodie whimpered when Kade's hard mouth dropped over hers and his tongue tangled with hers. He used his arm to yank her on top of him and her thighs slid over his hips so she was flush against his erection, the heat of which she felt through her loose cotton trousers. His mouth teased and tormented hers-one minute his kisses were demanding and dominating, then he'd ease away. Lust whipped through her as she angled her head to allow him deeper access. His kisses seemed different from anything they'd shared before...there was more heat, more desire, more...of something indefinable.
Unsettled but still incredibly eager, Brodie gripped his shoulders as he undid the buttons on her shirt and exposed her lace-covered breasts to his intense gaze. Kade used one finger to pull down the lace cup and expose her puckered nipple. Then his tongue licked her and sensations swamped her. She moaned when he flicked open the tiny clasp holding her bra together and revealed her torso to his exploring hand. He pulled aside the pale yellow fabric of her bra and swiped his thumb across her peaked nipple. She arched her back, silently asking for more. Kade lowered his head and took one puckered nipple into his mouth, his tongue sliding over her, hot and wet. Kade heard her silent plea for him to touch her and his hand moved to her hip, pushing underneath the waist of her trousers.
"Lift up," he muttered and Brodie lifted her hips and straightened her legs, allowing him to push the fabric down her thighs.
Kade tapped her bottom. "Move off for a sec."
She rolled away and he whipped off his boxers. He put his hands on her knees and pulled them apart before dragging his finger over her mound, slipping under the fabric to find her wet and wanting.
"I want you so much."
"Then take me." Really, did the man need a gilded invitation?
Kade sent her a wicked smile. "Yeah, in a minute."
"How's your head?"
Kade looked down and lifted an eyebrow. "Just fine and eager to say hi."
Brodie laughed and slapped his shoulder. "Your other head!"
"Also fine."
Brodie rubbed her thumb against the two grooves between his eyebrows. "Liar. Do you want to stop?"
Brodie hissed as two fingers slipped into her passage.
"Do I look like I want to stop?"
"Kade!" She reached for him, fumbling in her eagerness to get him inside her. "Please, just... I want you."
"I want you this way first. I want to watch you come, with my fingers inside you and my mouth kissing yours." Kade lifted his head and looked into her eyes. "You look good like this, Brodie. You look good anywhere, anyhow."
She was so close, teetering on the edge. "Kade!"
"You take my breath away when you lose yourself in me, in the way I make you feel. How do I make you feel, Brodie?"
He was expecting her to speak, to think? How could she answer when she felt like she was surfing a white-hot band of pure, crazy sensation?
"Tell me, Brodie."
"Free," Brodie gasped. "Safe. Sexy."
Cherished, Brodie silently added as her climax rocked her. All those wonderful, loved-up, fuzzy emotions she had no business experiencing. Brodie cried out, partly in reckless abandon and partly in pain as her heart swelled and cracked the plaster she'd cast around it.
She was being wild but she didn't care. She'd deal with the consequences, and the pain, later. Right now she just wanted to feel.
She wanted to feel alive. Just for a little while.
* * *
Brodie had to open various cupboard doors before she found soup bowls and three drawers before she found a ladle. She placed a bowl of soup in the microwave to heat and while it did its thing, she scratched around until she found place mats and flatware.
Brodie looked up as Kade entered the kitchen and her breath caught in the back of her throat. Kade looked shattered but somehow, just dressed in a pair of straight-legged track pants and a plain red T-shirt, hot. His hair was damp from his shower and his stubble glinted in the bright light of the kitchen.
Kade frowned and walked over to a panel on the wall and dimmed the lights. "Better," he muttered. He walked back to the island and pulled out a bar stool and sat down.
The microwave dinged. Brodie grabbed a dish towel and pulled out the hot bowl of soup. She put it onto the place mat and pushed the mat, a spoon and the bowl in Kade's direction.
He wrinkled his nose. "I appreciate the offer but I don't think I can eat."
"Listen, Quinn-who, surprisingly, is a fusser-will call and I need to tell him you ate or else he is going to come over here and make you eat." Brodie dished some soup for herself. "And frankly, tonight I think he could make you. You look about as tough as overboiled noodles."
"Thanks."
"At least I didn't say you look like hell." Brodie pointed her spoon at him.
Kade winced. "Sorry, but you did. You are looking better. Still tired, but better."
"I've been living on chicken soup." Brodie sat down and nodded at his bowl. "It's good, try it."
Kade dipped his spoon, lifted it to his mouth and Brodie waited. When he smiled slowly and nodded she knew he approved. "It's my mom's recipe. A cure for all ailments." And, years later, still doing its job.
They ate in comfortable silence until Brodie looked around the loft and sighed. "My dad was a builder. He would've loved this place."
"You sound uncomfortable when you talk about your parents," he said. "Why?"
Because she was, because she felt guilt that they'd died and she didn't. Because she still missed them with every breath she took. Kade waited for her explanation and, despite her tight throat, she told him what she was thinking. "It's just hard," she concluded.
"You're lucky you experienced such love, such acceptance. They sound like they were incredibly good parents."