Pretty in the Dark (Dark and Wild #2)

Chapter 6

6

JUNIPER

I ran.

The way he’d looked at me. His eyes had darkened and his lip curled in a half snarl as he dared me to run, dared me to escape him.

It had been like a command my body had no choice but to obey.

My Converse sneakers skidded on the loose gravel as I scrambled through the metal framing that held up the risers of the old bleachers.

It had only taken me a moment to remember this exact place. The way I’d teased and taunted him until he’d finally given in and kissed me.

The way he’d pushed me away when I’d wanted to go farther and he’d said no.

He’d always said no when I so desperately wanted him to say yes. And then he’d carved our initials in the metal frame and told me it was a promise.

I ducked under a low, metal bar, my heart racing as I took a moment to look over my shoulder, my eyes searching through the darkness for any sign of him.

He wasn’t there. Or maybe it was just too dark now to see.

My breath came out in little puffs of white as it hit the icy air, but I wasn’t cold. Where was he? Had he given up? Cade was huge. There was no way he could have followed me through the maze of metal and bars that held up the bleachers.

I paused, looking around for an opening back to the field.

“You should have kept running.”

His voice curled around me in the icy darkness, and I shivered with the way it shot straight to my core and sped up my pulse, my heart pounding in my chest. Spinning around, I tried to see where he was hiding, and ran into a solid brick wall of muscled leather as he dropped down from an opening in the bleachers above. How had he moved so quickly? So quietly?

“Why?” My voice came out in a trembling whimper.

His body caged mine in, pressing me back against one of the pillars and I remembered another pillar, another dark place where he’d cornered me just like this and I’d reveled in it, even as my heart had been breaking.

Would he break it again?

I swallowed past the rising emotion and memories, and watched his jaw clench and unclench as if he was remembering the same thing as I was.

“Because I knew if I caught you, I wouldn’t be able to let you go.”

Heart thundering in my ears, I gasped as I felt the heat of his body sink into mine through the thick layers of leather and denim between us.

“Who says you have to?”

I felt the brush of his stubble against my cheek as he leaned down, inhaling my scent, his nose grazing along my jaw.

“You’ve always smelled so good. So sweet.” His teeth nipped the tender skin along my jaw and I wrapped my fingers into the soft leather of his jacket, pulling him closer.

“I didn’t want to corrupt you with my darkness,” he whispered, his lips tracing a path from my jaw to my neck, leaving a trail of heat that contrasted with the cool air. My head tilted back, granting him more access as I let out a breathless response. “That’s where you’re wrong. I was corrupted long before I ever met you.”

He drew back, his eyes narrowing in the dim light. In the depths of darkness, I could sense his disapproval. "You weren't corrupted," he said. His voice was rough with an emotion I didn’t understand. “You were forced to make tough choices at a young age, without fully grasping the consequences.”

“But maybe you weren’t the innocent angel I always tried to make you into.” He grasped my chin, his thumb tracing my bottom lip and instinctively I nipped at it, drawing my teeth across the thick pad of flesh.

“I told you a long time ago, Cade, I was never good. Never perfect. And yeah, I may have been a pawn in my father’s games, but I wasn’t the only one. You were just as much a victim of our past as I was.”

He hissed in response, then growled as his hips pressed into me, his hardness grinding against the sweet spot of flesh hidden behind layers of clothes. Clothes I desperately wished we were out of.

“So where does this leave us, pretty girl?”

I knew what he was asking. Could we leave behind the Cade and Juniper of the past? Could we begin again with something new? It wasn’t a question I was prepared to answer. Especially not with Edmund Wild’s presence still hanging over us like a dark veil. Obscuring truth from reality and twisting up any hope I had of having a normal life, right along with it. I gave him the only honest answer I could.

“It leaves us right back where we were all those years ago. Are you going to finish what you started, Cade Black? Or are you going to leave a girl high and dry again?” I threw out the taunt, arching a brow as my tongue darted over my lips in nervous anticipation. I wasn’t sure if he could even see my facial expressions in the darkness. But the way he chuckled in my ear and the tightening grip on my hip, told me he knew exactly what I meant.

“Fine. We’ll play it your way. But Juniper,” His voice was a rumble of desire in my ear as he flicked open the button of my jeans and lazily drew down the zipper. “... the next time I tell you to run, don’t make it so easy to get caught. It might make me think that you want me to chase you.”

I hissed as the cold air hit my skin, but it was quickly replaced by his warm hands sliding over my hips, pulling down my jeans and turning me so that I was pressed against the cold, metal pole.

“Maybe I did…” I gasped when I felt his hand glide between my thighs, spreading them just enough to allow him access. I loved the way he felt against my skin, hard and firm, the rough calluses on his fingers adding extra friction to where he touched.

He chuckled and my heart did somersaults. “Is this what you wanted, pretty girl?” His fingers slipped through my wet folds, dipping and curling inside, teasing and tapping until I forgot it was so cold, my breath was coming out in rapid puffs of white. “You wanted me to chase you, catch you, fuck you here in the open?” While we weren’t entirely exposed to any prying eyes, the idea sent a fevered rush of desire through me, and I groaned at his filthy words. God save me, but yes, that is exactly what I wanted. Cade the boy had always been so proper with me, such a gentleman. Cade the man was anything but, and I loved every second of it.

“Look how wet that got you. You like the idea of being taken like this, don’t you?” His tone wasn’t accusatory, but rather awed, as if he was just coming to an understanding that the woman he had bent over in front of him might be able to better understand his own needs and desires because they matched her own.

“If you’d have finished what you started all those years ago, you might have found out.” I rocked against his hand, pulling his fingers deeper into me, demanding more from him. He chuckled, and a hand gripped my throat, pulling me back against him even as I felt the thick head of his cock press against my opening.

“Be careful what you wish for, pretty girl. I’m not one of those three-piece suits your father wanted for you. I will fucking wreck you.”

“What gave you the impression I wanted someone in a suit? Quit talking and fucking wreck me.” I snapped back at him. One way or another, I would get through to Cade that it wasn’t his status, or his clothes, or even his family name that could make me want him. It was him. Cade. Just Cade.

He snarled. The growl of it was like a straight shot of adrenaline to my brain, and my pussy. He lined up the head of his thick cock at my entrance and I heard myself whimper with need. And then he was filling me, stretching me fully and completely, taking over as something in him snapped.

Wave after wave of pleasure rocked into me as he pistoned in and out of my pussy. “Oh fuck, Cade…” I felt a pressure on the back of my neck as he pressed forward, bending me over and forcing my back to arch against him.

With another hand, he ripped the zipper of my jacket down, pulling away the thin fabric of my shirt as he exposed my breasts and skin to the cold air. Not that it mattered. I couldn’t feel it with my body on fire for the man who was growling in my ear, and the pleasure he created building into a massive inferno inside of me.

Pleasure, pain, the searing cold as my nipples met the metal pole while he drove his hips into me, pushed every dark thought I had out of my mind.

This. This was what I needed.

This was what I needed him to remind me of. What I needed him to learn now. I wasn’t the Juniper from five years ago. I was more. So much more.

His hands on my hips tightened, and he leaned over me, running his tongue along my neck until his teeth found the tender spot and sank into my skin, marking me, claiming me. Owning me just like he’d said he did.

I felt it down to my soul.

I was his Juniper. And he was my Cade.

I came, milking him as the orgasm ripped through me, crying out his name as he swelled and lost control.

As we both lost control.