Chapter 79 Chapter 79

Chapter 79 Chapter 79

Caden

Kimberley goes silent as my words die on the air.

We’re locked together in a violent embrace, our bodies moving in sync as we breathe hard and fast.

I don’t know how the fuck this happened. I went out to get a few things for the party, and the next thing I knew, I was staring into Kimberley Smith’s eyes as she stood in my living room like a deer in headlights.

Maybe I should’ve let her go when she ran for the door. Maybe I should’ve let her lie slide and pretended this never fucking happened.

But I couldn’t. I know she didn’t leave a damn earring here, and I know even if she did, it wouldn’t be enough to entice her back. She came here for some other reason, and I want to know what it was.

Is that the only reason you stopped her? A traitorous voice in the back of my mind taunts me. It wasn’t because you couldn’t stand to watch her go?

I grit my teeth, refusing to answer that question even inside my own head.

“Well?” I say instead, hauling Kimberley tighter against me. “What is it, Smith? What’s the truth?”

“The truth…” Her words are low, and I can feel her body pressing against the confines of my arms. I can’t tell if she’s trying to escape my touch or to get closer to it. “The truth is… I didn’t fuck up your parents’ relationship.”

I grit my teeth. Goddammit. We’ve been over this already.

“Liar.”

If I expect her to stop there, or to seem cowed by my response, I’m dead wrong. Her voice gains strength as she continues, her body practically vibrating with anger.

“And the truth is, I didn’t tell your dad jack shit about anything. I didn’t want your parents to get divorced.”

“Bullsh—”

“The truth is, I introduced your mom to my dad because I had a fucking crush on you!”

That stops me.

My body goes rigid, and my brows pull together as I try to process what she just said. I only found out recently that Kimberley was the one who introduced our parents, and it all made perfect, twisted sense.

Her mom died when she was twelve, and I figured she must’ve been so desperate for someone to fill that hole in her life that she went after my mom, hooking our parents up before betraying them to my dad.

The shitstorm that followed blew my life apart, and my heart hasn’t fucking recovered since. My mom lied to me for years just like she lied to my dad when she cheated on him, and I don’t know who to trust anymore.

So I’ve chosen to trust no one.

“You had a crush on me?” I murmur. We’ve both gone completely still, both of us barely even breathing anymore. “Then why did you say no when I asked you out?”

“Because I had feelings for—” She breaks off, shaking her head slightly, as if she won’t let herself say what she was about to. “Because it was too… complicated. But I—I cared about you, and I wanted our parents to know each other.”

There’s something heartbreakingly sweet in her words, and it tears a hole in my fucking chest. It makes every self-preservation instinct I have rear up, warning me not to trust the warmth that creeps in at the edges of her voice or the way her body relaxes against mine a little as she speaks.

But I can’t help it. I want more.

This girl is poison to me. She brings out the absolute best and the absolute worst in me, equally strong impulses to protect and destroy.

To love and to ruin.

I should shove her out the door and tell her to never come back. I should give up this fucking vendetta against her and just try to find my way back to a place where she doesn’t live under my skin, infecting my every thought and feeling with her presence.

But I can’t.

I’m an addict, and I’m holding my fix in my arms, wrapped up so tightly I can feel her heart beating against my chest.

“Tell me something else that’s true, Kim,” I say. “Something you’ve never told anyone else.”

My lips just barely brush the shell of her ear as I speak. She shivers and sags against me even more, and my dick, already semi-hard from holding her this close, twitches in response.

She inhales a jerky breath, and for a moment, I don’t think she’ll answer me. When she finally does, her voice is so quiet it’s as if she’s granted me access to her innermost thoughts instead of speaking them aloud.

“I think about that night.”

Oh, fuck.

My cock jerks to attention, straining against my pants as her words make blood rush in my ears.

I’ve fucked my fist until my damn dick was raw more times than I can count thinking about that night.

And now she’s telling me she thinks about it too.

The arm around her upper chest stays locked in place, keeping her pinned against me. But my other hand moves slowly, sliding over her stomach. I feel her abs contracting and releasing under my touch, and she shifts her hips slightly, as if she can’t keep herself still.

My hand slides even lower, and when I cup her pussy through her clothes, a tiny, unintelligible noise falls from her lips.

I can feel her heat against my palm, can imagine her slickness. How wet and swollen she is.

For me.

“You think about that night?” I slide my palm between her legs, rubbing the heel of my hand over her clit, my touch rough and possessive. “The night you seduced me and fucked me so you could get blackmail material on me?”

I slide my hand up and down again, and her breath picks up.

“That wasn’t why I—”

She starts to speak, but I cut her off, not wanting to hear whatever excuse she’s about to give.

“Uh uh. No more lies, Kim.”