Stripped Bear (9 page)

“I did.” Cade continued to play with her hair. The timbre of his voice vibrated through her. “I’d do it again, too.”

It was easier to talk to him with her face nestled against his chest. She listened to the beat of his heart, so loud and steady. She’d begun to cool off; goose bumps rose on her skin. But Cade still burned like a furnace. Did he run a constant fever? “Why now?” Leah should have left well enough alone, but she couldn’t. Old wounds felt raw as she lay in Cade’s arms. “Is this about taking something just to prove you can?”

Her stomach coiled tight in anticipation of Cade’s response. His body tensed beneath her and he let out a slow sigh. “This is about Fate.”

“Fate?”

“We’re meant to be together, Leah.” His fingers slipped through her hair once again and she shivered. “This isn’t about taking something just to prove I can. It’s about claiming what’s mine.”

“Yours?” Leah’s annoyance surfaced against her will. She didn’t want to hear his enigmatic explanations. She wanted to know why, after so many years without a single word, he could march back into her life and stake a claim. “Just when did you decide that I was yours, Cade?”

“I didn’t decide anything,” Cade said. “You did.”

It was one cryptic response too many. She propped herself up so she could look into his face. “And what, you needed
sixteen years
to mull it over? Jesus, Cade. You broke my heart.”

His brow furrowed and a shadow darkened his turquoise eyes. “You were fourteen, Leah.”

“I know how old I was.” Wounds that she’d thought had scarred over, ripped open. Her chest ached with past hurt and embarrassment. “And I know that what I wanted couldn’t have happened when I wanted it. I knew my heart, though. And you treated my honesty with disdain.”

“One of us had to be the adult. Hell,” Cade scoffed. “Only one of us was an adult at the time.”

She should have been able to take the past in stride. Make light of it like Cade did now. But his leaving had nearly destroyed her. Her obsession with him might have bloomed from a young girl’s crush, but her feelings had been more real than anything she’d ever felt for anyone since, including her former fiancé. “You mocked my feelings when you could have been kind, threw them back in my face, and then you had the nerve to just walk away. And now, almost two decades later, you stroll through the door as arrogant as you ever were and declare that I’m yours and that it’s
Fate
?” Her voice hitched with anger. “Do you realize how you crushed me?”

Air. Leah needed some damned air before she suffocated. She pushed herself away from Cade, ready to pitch herself right off the damned balcony if that’s what it took to get some space. She couldn’t look at his handsome and somehow ageless face for another second. His very presence depleted the room of all its oxygen.

“Jesus Christ, Leah.” Cade grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her back to the bed. “I had to leave!”

“Why?”

“Leah, you know why.” Cade rolled them and pinned her beneath his body. His golden eyes sparked with indignation, his brows came down sharply, and a crease cut into the bridge of his nose. “Because you were still a kid and I was an adult.” He’d grown hard the moment their bodies touched, and his erection branded her thigh with its heat. Leah swallowed down a moan as Cade shifted until he was seated between her legs. His expression didn’t soften. His gaze burned. “And because I knew if I didn’t leave right then and there,
nothing
in this fucking world would keep me from you. I left to protect you.”

“To protect me or to protect yourself?”

Hurt flashed in his eyes, and Leah wished she could take back the words. Did what had happened so long ago matter? They were together now.

“Maybe to protect us both.”

The Mitchells had always been secretive. Her father had told her as much when she’d gone to him, furious at Cade for the things he’d said and the way he’d treated her. Cade had secrets; Leah saw them in the shadows that resided in his gaze.

“From what?” If they were going to be together, there couldn’t be any secrets between them. Leah had never kept anything from Cade. When they were young, she always spoke her mind, never hid who she was from him, never guarded her feelings. She deserved the same from him.

Cade’s expression grew hard. “From me,” he said almost too quiet for her to hear. “From what I am.”

He continued to rock his hips gently against her, an almost subconscious act. Warmth gathered between her thighs once again, and Leah tried to focus her thoughts away from her resurging desire. “And what are you, Cade?”

His jaw clenched and released as he let out a slow breath. “A monster.”

Nine

Cade couldn’t continue to live in this fantasyland where Leah was his and everything fell into place and his life somehow became magically perfect. He couldn’t ignore that she was still human and he wasn’t. It didn’t matter that he’d basically told McAlister to go fuck himself. A part of Cade would always belong to the Sortiari as well. The mate bond that Leah had forged between them hadn’t erased who he was or the things that he’d done. The things that he’d yet to do in the name of Fate.

It didn’t change the fact that because she’d claimed him, Leah was about to be indoctrinated into a very dangerous world. Would he ever be able to protect her from the life he’d run so recklessly toward?

Leah’s brow furrowed. The anger melted from her expression with his two little words. “You’re a lot of things, Cade. But I doubt monster is one of them.”

It would be so easy to distract her. Seduce her. Cade’s cock was already hard again. Leah’s thighs slickened with want the second he settled himself between her knees. The scent of her arousal swirled in his head. With a few words and careful caresses she’d forget everything they’d said. If he kept her happy, well loved, well fucked, Cade could lull Leah into a sense of happiness that would never give her reason to question him. That life would be a lie, though. Cade’s mate deserved
everything
, and that included every bit of him.

He put his lips to her temple and kissed his way to her ear. If he was going to say what he needed to say, he couldn’t look into her eyes. The anger, the disbelief, the disgust that would assuredly show in her expression would gut him. He rested his mouth at the outer shell of her ear and inhaled her sweet scent into his lungs. “I’m not what I seem, Leah. My family isn’t what they seem. Your father knew that. He’s kept our secrets well.”

Leah squirmed beneath him as she tried to angle her body in a way that would force him to look at her. He cupped the back of her neck and held her still.

“Cade, what in the hell are you talking about?”

“There are things in this world that very few know about. Creatures that come straight out of legend and others that come from nightmare. Magic isn’t something you read about in fairy tales. It thrives in this world, Leah. You created magic when you took my hand. Because of what I am. Because of what you are to me.”

She stilled, and her body went rigid beneath him. Her chest rose and fell with her quickened breath and her scent soured with the rush of adrenaline that dumped into her system. Cade clenched his jaw so hard that the enamel ground. His own fear of losing Leah made an unwelcome appearance, spurring the animal part of him into an agitated state. If she even thought about leaving him, he’d surely snap. The idea of another man possessing her had been enough to convince him to kidnap her. He wouldn’t hesitate to keep her here for as long as it took for her to accept the truth of his words.

“What do you think you are, Cade?” The quaver in her voice nearly broke him. “And what do you think I am?”

“I am one of those things out of legend, Leah.” He took a deep breath. “Shape shifter. Skin walker. My soul exists in a state of duality. Man. Animal. I’m neither and both.” It shouldn’t have been so hard to admit his secret to her. This was Leah. She’d been in his life since the day she was born. He’d watched her crawl. Helped her to learn to walk. And later they’d been friends. He’d comforted her when her mother died. And she’d kept his world from crumbling when he’d lost his own parents. He’d walked away from her, too afraid of what might be, and now he couldn’t bear to think of letting her go. No time apart could alter how he felt. Sixteen years or six hundred, he’d always loved her.

“I can shed my human form and shift into that of an animal. A bear.” Her silence caused a lump to rise in Cade’s throat, and he swallowed it down as he forced himself to continue. “The supernatural world is vast, Leah. It’s violent. We don’t live by the same rules as humankind. When I left here, I joined an organization called the Sortiari. They’re older than time and more powerful than any entity that’s ever existed. I’ve killed for them, Leah. Helped them mold the course of fate. I can’t ever leave their ranks.” He pulled away, finally ready for her to see the truth in his eyes. “You are my mate. Male shifters are claimed by females. Magic blossomed from your touch, and in that moment, I knew. We belong to each other. We always have. I loved you then and I still do.”

“You love me?” Leah choked on the words. She shoved at Cade’s chest as she wriggled out from under him. “You can’t even be honest with me!”

Before she could launch herself off the bed, Cade snatched her around the waist and hauled her back to him. Her blue eyes sparked with anger and her lips formed a hard line. He hadn’t expected her to believe him immediately.

“Let me go!” she demanded. “Goddamn it, Cade!”

He drew on his power. Not enough to initiate a full shift, but enough to show Leah the truth of his words. Heat twined through his body and burned as it pooled in his muscles. It took an enormous amount of concentration to give Leah a tiny glimpse of his animal side. His gums ached as his incisors elongated. His senses sharpened even more, and he gave his head a shake as the scent of Leah’s fear scorched his nostrils.

She stilled in his embrace. “Oh my god,” she said on a rush of breath. “Your eyes are glowing. And your teeth…”

Cade’s body wanted to shift. He felt himself give over to its pull, and then Leah’s voice drew him back into the moment.
Ease her into it. Don’t scare her off
.

“Vampires.” Leah gave a disbelieving shake of her head. “You were talking to someone on the phone about vampires.”

She’d heard his conversation with McAlister? Damn it. No wonder she’d tried to bolt. He’d found Leah standing in the doorway to his bedroom, and she had been looking for the way out. Cade nodded his head slowly. There was no point in sugarcoating it. “I was due in L.A. over a week ago to deal with one of the Sortiari’s problems.” Cade’s voice grated in his throat. “A vampire whose existence might disrupt the course of Fate. When I got the call that my grandmother was ill, I came home instead.”

“Luanne…” Leah said. “She set us up, didn’t she?”

Cade laughed. “She did. She and your father.”

“My dad knows? Jesus.” It would take time to rebuild the notion of Leah’s world that Cade had so easily ripped apart. “How could he not have told me?” Her gaze settled on Cade. “How could
you
not have told me?”

“Our world is a secretive one, Leah. I’m sure your father thought he was protecting you.”

“Did you know?” Her voice broke. “Before you left, did you know what we were to each other?”

“No.” In hindsight, he should have known. He’d always been drawn to Leah, and it was their age difference that had prompted him to keep her at arms’ length as they’d gotten older.

“I knew.” Tears glistened in Leah’s eyes. “I always knew you were the one.”

*   *   *

Leah couldn’t wrap her mind around what her eyes saw, and yet, she’d sensed the truth in Cade’s words. His irises shone with an otherworldly light and his canines had elongated into wicked points before retracting to their normal size. Vampires and shape shifters were real?
Holy shit
. And other creatures. Scarier creatures. Magic thrived all around her and she’d never known it. A sort of magic had resided inside her that had allowed her to claim Cade as hers. It made no sense and perfect sense all at the same time.

Even as a girl she’d recognized an otherness in Cade. An awe-inspiring quality that had held her rapt. Her earliest memories were of Cade. Not her mother or her father. Not the family dog.
Him
. Always him. When he’d rejected her, Leah doubted she’d ever recover. She’d chosen to hate him rather than let him break her and held on to that hatred for over a decade. But it had only taken a touch to banish those negative feelings and replace them with the love she’d once felt.

If that wasn’t magic, she didn’t know what was.

Leah relaxed in his embrace. All she’d ever wanted was Cade. There was no way she’d run away from him now. “You said you loved me.” Anger had prompted her to disregard his words, but now she let them sink in.

Cade’s gaze held hers. “I do love you, Leah. I’ve always been in love with you.”

Her mouth found his and she melted against him. The shock of what Cade had just told her hadn’t worn off. Leah wasn’t sure it ever would. Whatever happened between them after tonight she’d deal with later. Right now, all she wanted was to live in the moment. To love Cade and to let him love her.

Leah shifted and settled into Cade’s lap. She straddled his waist as she impaled herself on his erection. They groaned in unison as their bodies joined. Cade gripped Leah’s hips as he urged her into an easy rhythm. As she gave herself over to sensation, Leah’s mind fogged in a haze of lust. Nothing mattered but Cade. This moment. The taste of his mouth, the slide of his tongue against hers. Their mingled breaths and the nip of his teeth on her bottom lip. His scent, clean and woodsy like the forest in spring. The heat of his body as he held her and the delicious torture of her breasts grazing his chest as the motion teased her nipples to aching peaks. His cock so hard and satin smooth as it glided in and out of her, the way he filled her completely. And the undeniable emotion bursting in her chest that told her without a doubt that she’d come home.

Leah had claimed him long before that night one short week ago. Cade had been hers since the day she was born.