Pretty in the Dark (Dark and Wild #2)

Chapter 23

23

JUNIPER

I awoke to the smell of bacon and the sound of movement coming from the kitchen below Cade’s loft bedroom. Glancing over at the alarm clock on his bedside table, the red numbers blurred into focus, letting me know it was three in the morning. What was he doing making breakfast so early in the morning?

Rising from the warmth of his bed, I felt around until I found a discarded t-shirt draped carefully over the back of a chair, and slipped it on. It nearly fell to my knees and smelled like he’d recently worn it as the musky, amber scent that was uniquely his washed over me.

Padding down the spiral stairs from his loft area, I approached him quietly as he worked. He was once again dressed in gray sweatpants and shirtless, with just a kitchen towel thrown over his shoulder. Sliding onto a stool at his kitchen island, I rested my chin in my hands and admired the view. His tattoos moved and bunched over his muscles as he worked, dicing vegetables and cracking eggs. Scars I’d never noticed before stood out to me. One on his ribs, where it looked like something jagged had caught the skin and ripped. Another one in his lower back, just shy of the kidney and circular in shape. An ice-pick maybe? Or a bullet?

How many scars did he have that I’d never noticed before? That I’d never taken the time to notice?

With seamless ease, he placed all of the ingredients into a pan, grabbed a coffee mug that was filled to the brim, and slid it toward me.

“Morning sleepy-head.” His smile was dazzling, and for the first time, I saw a lightness to him that made my heart melt.

“Morning? It’s three a.m., what normal person is up making breakfast at three in the morning?” I sniffed at the coffee and was greeted with the scent of my favorite French vanilla creamer.

“Not a morning person, I take it?” He winked at me and turned back to the stove, where he pulled off a few strips of bacon and added more to the sizzling pan. I reached across the counter to snatch a piece where it was cooling, and took a bite with a delighted moan.

“No, but if this is how you wake me up every morning, I could be persuaded to become one.”

“Make noises like that again and I might have to take you back to bed.” He leaned across the counter and placed a soft kiss on my lips before snatching the rest of the bacon out of my hand. “And no snacking until it’s ready.”

“But!” I eyed the bacon with a pout as he placed it back on the cooling platter and sighed. “Fine, your kitchen, your rules I guess.”

“It’s always my rules, pretty girl.” He shot me another wink before flipping the omelet onto a plate and sliding it in front of me. “But I promise it’s worth the wait.”

I took a bite, and the flavor exploded in my mouth. “My god, Cade, this might be better than sex.”

“Say that again and I’m definitely taking you back to bed.” He eyed the forkful of omelet with a jealous glare as it was headed to my mouth, like he might seriously consider snatching it away, and I quickly pulled my plate closer to me and shot him a glare.

“Don’t you dare. I don’t care what time of the morning it is. If I get to wake up to this, then I’m never leaving.” I said, and shoved the forkful into my mouth.

“You aren’t leaving, anyway.” He said with a smirk, as he turned back to the stove and pulled his own omelet off the pan and onto a plate before sitting down across from me.

“Oh?” I arched a brow as I watched him eat. Everything about this seemed so cozy. So normal, despite the weight of a murderous cult and my psychopath ex-father hanging over our heads. Cade didn’t even look up at me and just shrugged.

“You can’t go back to your house, it’s compromised. Here is the safest place for you.” Something about the way he made that statement didn’t settle with me.

“Jaxon is dead. The sheriff is dead. What do you mean, my house is compromised?” I asked, and took another sip of my coffee, hoping the caffeine would clear the fogginess in my head.

“Juniper.” Cade’s hazel and gold eyes were serious, the playfulness from earlier, gone. “Do you really think killing the sheriff and Jaxon will stop Edmund from trying to get to you again? He’s already proven that he can get to you wherever you are. The only way to truly protect you is to have you either locked up in one of Kage’s safe houses, or with me.”

I gripped my mug and frowned. “I don’t care about Edmund coming after me. I want him to! It’s the only way we’re going to get Stacy back. I’ll never be safe until Edmund is dead and you’ll never get him to come out in the open without me.” I had no idea where Stacy was being held, or what Edmund would do to her. Either Jaxon had been more loyal to Edmund than anticipated, or he simply hadn’t known, but he couldn’t give us any details beyond that Edmund had her.

Cade seethed as he leaned forward and growled in a voice that left no room for argument. “It will be over my dead body if you think I’m going to allow you to use yourself as bait, Juniper Wild.” Then he shoved away from the counter and began to clean up the breakfast mess. Tension settled into his muscles as anger radiated from him.

No. Not anger. Fear.

“Kage already talked to you about it.” I didn’t ask a question. It was a statement. Kage and I had discussed the next steps on the drive back from the warehouse. It was clear that our only option to get Stacy back and to lure Edmund out in the open, was to offer me in exchange. The only unknown in our plan was that Edmund had not reached out to me yet, and we had no idea what his next move might be. But that also meant that he might not be aware that we already knew Stacy was gone. And that could work in our favor, but only if I was the bait.

“Yeah, and I told him he could go fuck himself for even suggesting it.” He bristled as he moved about his kitchen, wiping down everything meticulously and replacing every spice he’d used back to exactly where he’d gotten it. I watched silently as he washed every dish by hand, then dried it before placing it back exactly where it belonged. Then, when he was done, he washed and dried his hands thoroughly before it seemed like he was more in control of himself.

“Cade,” I spoke softly as I stood and came around the island to where he was standing, his hands braced on the counter and his head bowed. He didn’t acknowledge me, too lost in the darkness of his thoughts to respond.

“Cade,” My hands touched his lower back and his muscles flinched, but then relaxed as I slowly encircled his waist, pressing my cheek to his back. “I’m not going to let him send you back there, Cade. I promise. As long as we are together, we can take him. He won’t win this time.”

For a moment, he didn’t respond, but then he turned and pulled me tight to his chest. His head bent and he buried his nose in my hair, breathing in my scent. “You don’t get it, Juniper.” He murmured against my hair. “I’m not worried about going back to prison.”

I pulled back and looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

“Do you know what the hardest part about being locked up is?” The gold in his hazel eyes glinted in the dim light of the kitchen as he looked down at me. “It’s all the time you have to think. I spent every day in that prison thinking about you, Juniper. If I wasn’t hating you and raging against you, I was wondering what you were doing, where you were, who you were with.” He gripped my chin in his hand, his thumb gently grazing the fullness of my bottom lip.

“I can go back to prison. But I can’t go back to not having you in my life.”

I swallowed the ache that his words caused.

“So you’d keep me in a prison instead?” I asked. He flinched and frowned at my words.

“What? No. Keeping you safe is not the same as keeping you in a prison.” He said, as I pulled away from his embrace and shook my head at his denial.

“But it is, Cade. Don’t you see? You want to keep me locked away to protect you.” I folded my arms over my chest. “Do you think I want to put myself out there and risk my life? No. I don’t. But I don’t have a choice. Edmund wants me. These crazy, masked people want me. And I don’t know why, believe me, I certainly didn’t ask for it. But my mother gave up her life trying to make a better life for me. My father, Kage’s dad, was murdered because of me. ” I said, with emotion riding every word. I was shaking, rage and anguish churning through me like a maelstrom, as all the thoughts I’d been consumed with over the past several days bubbled to the surface. “Stacy was taken because of me. And even you, Cade, you were imprisoned and locked away because of me. I am not running and hiding away anymore.” My jaw clenched as I stood in his kitchen, watching his stony facade, hoping for a hint or a sign of any emotion other than the heated stare he gave me. “I came here to ask for your help, not your permission, Cade. Either you stand with me, or you can get the fuck out of my way.”

He studied me for a few heartbeats of a moment before he shook his head with a resigned smirk, curling the corner of his lips and twisting the scar I’d grown to find one of the sexiest things on him. “Well, I tried. Fucking hell, I owe him a hundred bills now.”

“What?” His quick emotional change had me feeling like I’d just been hit with whiplash, and while it sparked hope, it also confused the hell out of me. “Owe who a hundred?” I asked, shifting nervously on my bare feet.

He reached out to grab me, pulling me towards him as he gripped my chin and absently tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “Your brother. Seems he knows you better than I realized. He said you’d never go for it, but I had to try.”

I smacked his chest and glared. “Are you serious? Did you just try to guilt me into letting you lock me up? That’s fucking manipulative as hell, Cade Black!” I wanted to be angry, but it was hard when his lips were teasing the sensitive flesh on my neck. He pulled back with a dark chuckle, but there was no hint of apology or remorse in his gaze.

“Let me be clear, pretty girl. I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe. I will lie.” His lips brushed against mine, and goosebumps danced along my flesh. “I will manipulate. I will murder. I will maim.” He punctuated each statement with a soft kiss, his teeth gripping the edge of my lip and biting down gently as he pulled away, leaving me arching into him for more. “I agree that the only way to end this is to get Edmund out in the open, and you’re our best option to do that. But don’t think for one second that if I feel like you are too much at risk, I won’t throw you over my shoulder and get you the fuck out of there. Do you understand me, Juniper? I will not take that chance.”

His hands dipped under the shirt I was wearing, drawing it up around my hips and exposing that I was completely naked underneath. I gasped when his fingers danced along the edge of my folds, teasing at my opening, and I parted my thighs enough to let him slide his hand between them. “How many times do I have to tell you, Cade, you don’t own me. You can’t just tell me what to do all the time, and think I’ll actually listen.”

He picked me up unceremoniously and set me on the kitchen island behind me, where he spread my legs and knelt between them. His hooded eyes burned a dark gold as he looked up at me between my thighs. “Wrong, pretty girl. I own your body, heart and soul. Now lay back and let me remind you, why.” And then his tongue touched my center and sparks exploded behind my eyes.