Chapter 24

twenty-four

Cash

To the findings of the detectives on the case, including Wrenlee, four people who’d visited the café where she’d drank her latte from had visited the emergency room and been diagnosed with arsenic poisoning after presenting with excruciating stomach cramps, diarrhea, vomiting and delirium. None had died. Yet. One, a mother of three in her forties with a pre-existing heart condition was still in hospital. It didn’t look good.

I shouldn’t know what I know about the case, but money goes a long way, and for answers about Wrenlee’s poisoning, there’s no amount of money I wasn’t willing to spend. This had repercussions in the form of my mother calling more frequently, demanding to meet the woman who had my attention and affection. More than once, she’d asked me if I was ready to choose a diamond. Just last night when she’d called, she mentioned a wedding cake artist that, in her words, created only masterpieces.

I’m not happy about it, but it seems Wrenlee’s poisoning was random. A disgruntled employee adding the toxin to the drinks. As far as I know, they’ve found and charged a young man of only nineteen with four counts of attempted murder. Even though he clung to his innocence, all evidence pointed unwaveringly to him.

I’m just happy he’s in custody. If he were free in this city, I’m not sure I could refrain from finding him and…

No, don’t go there.

Swallowing the bitter sting of rage, the need for vengeance, I tip my head back, close my eyes, and let the hot water beat down on my face.

The last couple weeks had been harder than any I’d ever lived in my life. Watching Wrenlee lay in my bed, deathly ill, hadn’t been fun. I’d sat on the side of the bed for days just watching her sleep, skin ghostly white. For days, I’d felt my heart in my throat with every swallow—felt as though I were choking on it.

She hadn’t been in my bed since she’d woken, but the vision of her like that wasn’t easy to burn from my mind.

Finishing my shower, unable to jack off with the vision of her pale and sick in my bed, I pull on grey sweats and a black t-shirt. I’ve already been up for hours, sweating in the gym. Before I hit the shower, I’d stood outside her door to listen, but only silence met me.

Stepping into the hall now, I catch the scent of something good before I catch the sight of something even better.

Wrenlee is in my kitchen in one of her beer shirts, but she’s up on her tiptoes reaching for the powdered sugar on the top shelf. The shirt is pulled up enough to expose a pair of pink lace booty shorts that grip the globes of her sweet ass in a way that has me lifting my fist to my teeth, biting down hard.

She doesn’t know I’m behind her, because when she fails to reach the sugar on her tip toes, she lifts one knee onto the countertop to hoist herself up. I get a quick view of full ass before she’s on her knees on the countertop and her shirt has fallen back down to cover her ass. But that sight is nearly enough to burn away the haunting image of her sick in my bed.

Blood rushes to my dick and I bite back a groan. I should have rubbed one out in the shower. Devil knows I need the release.

Ignoring the heavy in my dick, I lean back against the counter opposite her as she finally grabs hold of the powdered sugar. She twists around, her ass landing on my countertop in the moment her eyes land on me, and she yelps, startled.

“Cash!” Powdered sugar connects with her chest, thankfully contained by the bag. “You surprised me.”

My eyes slide from her to the waffle iron. “Feeling better?”

Color rises in her cheeks. It’s been too long since I’ve seen that healthy splash of red. “I am, actually.”

“Good.”

She begins to shimmy her butt to the edge of the counter, prepping to leap, but I get there first. My hands on her hips, I slide her forward but don’t move back and her body slides against mine on her descent to the floor. I’m under no delusion that she can’t feel the hard pipe of my dick as I place her on her feet, proven correct when her full lips part on a sharp inhale that only fuels my want for her.

Shyly, she shimmies out of my hold. I watch, amused as she dunks the scoop into batter before dropping it into the waffle iron. Then she turns to a bowl with whipped cream on the counter. She must have done this while I was in the shower. She swipes a finger into the white puff before she brings it to her mouth, sucking it clean.

I nearly loose a growl as she shrugs innocently, uncapping the container of sugar before adding another generous scoop to the whip, mixing it only to repeat her taste test.

Only this time, when her finger swipes through cream, I catch her wrist and bring it to my mouth, sucking it clean.

Again, her lips part. But it’s not just shock I see in those cat-green eyes. Bright as a flame in the night, I see arousal.

I release her hand with a husky, “Perfect.”

She blinks up at me, want and indecision warring in those eyes before she shakes her head and turns back to the waffle iron. Flipping the golden waffle onto a plate, she drops another scoop of batter into the iron and gestures to the stove. “Will you cook the bacon?”

It’s the first time I notice the pan with the bacon already set in strips. “Trying to distract me, Kitten?”

“No.” Her arms fold over her chest. She’s nervous.

I fucking love that we’re back to this. It’s been two weeks of hell for me, and probably for her too. I’ve kept my distance as much as possible, not wanting to cause her any stress while her body healed. But I’ve missed her.

“Seems like it to me.”

“I hate cooking bacon. It spits.”

I give her a rueful grin, loving when her eyes drop to my mouth and her tongue pokes out to wet her lips. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from the big, bad bacon.”

She huffs but surprises me. “You’re a big, strong man. Isn’t that what you’re here for?”

The first bit of the comment has me grinning wide. The second bit—it’s like I’ve been hit by a bucket of ice water. It’s my job to protect her. I promised to protect her, and I failed. Someone hurt her. Fuck, someone nearly killed her.

I don’t know where I go, but it’s far enough that she steps close. Her hand on my arm jolts me out of it, and I blink down to see her frowning in concern up at me.

“Cash?” she asks. “Where’d you go?”

“Nowhere.” My mood went from light and easy to dark and broody in seconds. The climb out of the dark feels momentous.

“Hey.” She steps in closer, pushing her body between mine and the stove I’ve yet to turn on. “Don’t do that. Don’t shut me out.”

“I’m not.”

“I said something to upset you,” she observes. “I just—I don’t know what.”

Her hands are on my chest, and I know she can feel the violent drum of my heart. “It’s my job to protect you. I didn’t.”

Confusion, and then her eyes widen. “You mean—you don’t mean the poisoning?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. If I could get my hands on the little shit that—”

“Cash!” Exasperation is heavy in her voice. “You can’t be serious? A girlfriend bought me a latte that some angry kid poisoned. It was random. There’s nothing you could have prevented—nothing for you to protect me from. Sometimes life—it just happens.”

“Wrenlee.” Her hand moves up from my chest to my face when I close my eyes, hating the vision of her body so pale and sick and on the verge of being irrevocably broken on the bathroom floor.

“Cash,” she calls. “Please look at me.”

I open my eyes. I’m not sure I could deny this woman a thing that she asks for. Not a thing.

She speaks again, “It was random. He’s been caught. It’s over.”

“Seeing you like that—” I swallow hard. “It’s going to haunt me.”

Her green eyes search mine for a long moment before she reaches both hands up to loop around the back of my neck. She rises onto her tiptoes as she tugs me down, pressing her warm, soft mouth to my jaw.

Wrapping my arms around the small of her waist, I drag her body into mine as she breathes against my throat, “You’ve already saved me from so much more than you think. And when I was sick, you made me safe. You cared for me. You were a safe place for me to heal. Cash,”

When she says my name, something in me just breaks. Snaps.

It’s been two weeks since I’ve tasted her lips. Two weeks of hell.

It’s not about desire now as my lips search for and find hers. It’s about connection. I need to connect with her. Need to feel her. Taste her. Breathe her in.

When I find her mouth with mine, she doesn’t shy away from me. She doesn’t hesitate or put up a single barrier. She opens under me, leaving herself beautifully vulnerable for my taking.

I take. When she parts her lips to invite me inside, I take. When she sighs, I deepen the kiss. When she moans, I devour.

I kiss her like my life depends on it until the scent of something burning distracts me and I pull away to realize we’re both breathing hard—and the waffle in the iron is burnt black.

“Oh shoot!” Wrenlee exclaims as she jumps from me. “Damnit.”

I slide the burnt waffle onto an empty plate, grinning at the frazzled way her hands dive into her hair. “Not a big deal, Kitten. There’s more batter.”

She scowls at me cutely. “You’re a bad distraction, Cash Jagger.”

“I’m the best distraction.”

She rolls her eyes and I bark a laugh. The dark is gone. She kissed it out of me.

“Just cook the bacon.”

Chuckling, I do as I’m told, thinking that maybe, just maybe I was made for domestication after all.