“How’d you know where he’d taken me?” I asked, my voice quiet in the dark.
“I knew what I’d do, if I was him,” Kade replied. “The bungalow presented limited options.”
I was silent as I digested that, then said, “Thanks for going all Batman and saving me.”
Kade chuckled at that and I smiled. I thought of something and turned in his arms so I could see him.
“So if John was called the Krait, did you have a code name, too?”
Kade’s lips twisted in a smirk. “Yep.”
“Well? What was it?”
Leaning down, he whispered in my ear.
I looked at him and grinned. “Okay, that might be hot.”
“Might be?” he asked, rubbing his nose alongside mine.
“Okay. Definitely,” I amended. “Definitely hot.”
Kade chuckled softly. “You’re such a cliché,” he said, his lips a hair’s breadth from mine.
Then he kissed me and I had to amend my earlier thought that neither of us had sex on the brain tonight.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mona and Gerard were overjoyed to see Kade and me once we returned to Indy. Blane was in Washington, and it seemed Alisha had been right—word all over the news was that he was a shoo-in for the senate appointment. Kade and I told Mona and Gerard about the baby, and Mona got tears in her eyes, hugging me so tight and so long she nearly brought me to tears, too. They insisted on us staying for dinner, which was why we were still at Blane’s house late into the evening.
“We should probably go,” I said, turning to look up at Kade from where I lay on the couch, my head in his lap. Tigger readjusted his position lying across my legs. “Mona and Gerard left a while ago.” He took another drink of the scotch in the glass he held, his other hand resting on my stomach. I smothered a yawn.
“My place is still shut down,” he said. “I need to get the utilities turned back on. We can stay here or get a hotel, if you’d rather.”
I grimaced. “You really think I trust you to pick a hotel that won’t give me hives?”
Kade shook his head. “Such a princess,” he said, trying to hide a smile.
“You know,” I said, a sudden thought occurring to me, “you’ve never actually shown me your room here.” I’d seen him disappear into it many times, but I’d never been inside. “Does it still have all your high school stuff?” I’d pay serious cash to go through Kade Dennon’s yearbooks.
“All that crap is buried in a box somewhere in the closet,” he said, finishing his drink.
I climbed off his lap and stood. Tigger jumped to the floor, disgruntled. “I wanna see,” I said. “Show me?”
Kade cocked an eyebrow at me, but he stood and took my hand. He led me upstairs, only this time I didn’t go to my room, nor did I head for Blane’s at the end of the hall. Kade stopped in front of the door to his room and opened it.
I followed him inside, curiosity raging. I wanted to know more about who Kade was, what he’d been like when he was young.
Kade stood to the side, watching me as I looked around. The room was larger than mine, though not as big as Blane’s. Like in mine, the walls were painted in a mural, only the theme was . . .
“Cowboys and Indians?” I asked.
“Frederic Remington,” Kade clarified. “Famous American painter. He specialized in depictions of the Old West. I think Blane told me his mother hired someone to duplicate a few of his pieces as a mural in here.”
It was beautifully done, the figures of men on horses captured in such a way that they appeared to be moving. The landscape showed both the beauty and desolation of the American West. I spent several minutes moving around the room, inching along the walls to see the entire mural.
When I turned back to Kade, he was still watching me. He wore his typical dark jeans and black button-down shirt, left untucked and with one too many buttons undone in the front. He was the only man I’d ever seen who could get away with that and not look sleazy. His hair was black as night, a lock falling over his forehead, and his eyes were piercing blue beneath thick, dark lashes. His cuffs were turned back several times and my eyes caught on his hands—large, strong, capable. His forearms were marked by the trace of veins just under the skin, evidence of hours pumping iron.
“I love when you look at me like that,” Kade said, his voice a low murmur.
Startled, I jerked my gaze back up to his face. “Like what?” I asked innocently.
Kade moved closer. “Like you want to rip my clothes off and have your way with me,” he teased, reaching out to wrap a lock of my hair around his finger.
“Your ego is imagining things,” I said loftily, moving out of his reach. “And I’m still exploring.”
“Can you explore naked?” Kade asked, settling onto the bed. He leaned against the headboard and bent his arms to lock his hands behind his head, his legs crossed negligently at the ankles.
I gave him a look but he just smirked, completely unrepentant.
The bed was similar to the one in his apartment only not as big, queen-size rather than a king, the frame a heavy, dark oak. There was a matching desk in the corner with computer equipment on it, which even to a nontechie like me had to be at least a decade old. It must have been what Kade had used in high school or college and I found myself drifting toward it. The keyboard was so well used that the letters were nearly worn off. My fingers traced the keys as I pictured Kade sitting there years ago, typing.
“So . . .” I said slowly as I explored, “tell me about the first time you . . . you know.” I deliberately didn’t look at him. I was embarrassed but too curious not to ask.
“The first time I what?” Kade asked.
“The first time you . . . you know . . . your first time,” I tried to clarify, glancing over at him now.
His eyebrows climbed. “You want to hear about the first time I had sex?”
My cheeks were burning, but I nodded. “I’m curious,” I said defensively.
Kade shook his head. “You know these conversations never end well.”
“Tell me,” I insisted.
He shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal. I was fifteen. She was my fifth-period algebra teacher.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re joking,” I said in disbelief. Kade just smirked at me. “You had sex with your teacher?”
“Ms. Thompson,” he said. “And before you go thinking it was a long-term thing, it wasn’t. She had a thing for me and I took advantage of that.” He waggled his eyebrows.
Wow. I didn’t even know what to say. I shook my head and went back to exploring the room.
Two framed photos peeked out from a couple of shelves, likely put there by Mona, I figured. Both were of Blane and Kade together. One looked to have been taken when Kade was really young. I picked up the photo to examine it more closely. Kade looked thin, almost scrawny, in clothes that were too big. He wasn’t smiling as he and Blane posed for the picture, his lips twisted in the poor parody of a smile I’d seen on him too many times. Though he and Blane stood close, they did not touch.
“When was this taken?” I asked, moving to sit next to him on the bed. Kade glanced at the photo.
“About a month after Blane assumed guardianship of me,” he replied. “I wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy.”
“What was it like?” I asked. “When Blane came for you and you first started getting to know each other. Was it hard?”
Kade hesitated. “I didn’t know what his agenda was,” he said. “Why he’d take me to live with him. In walks this guy who looks like he just stepped off the pages of GQ and he tells me we’re brothers and he’s taking me home.” He paused. “It was too much for me to believe it was real, and it took a long time and a lot of patience and persistence on Blane’s part for me to trust him.”