Taking Tessa (7 page)

* * *

"
W
hat
?" My eyes followed his to land at the front door, glass shattered across the hallway, a large gaping hole through a window. Cage slipped me out of his embrace and I pulled a throw blanket from the couch across my shoulders. "What happened?"

"Looks like a baseball. Maybe one of the neighbor kids?" Cage crouched down, taking in the shattered glass before looking around the room. "I don't see a ball, though."

"Maybe it rolled under the couch," I offered hopefully.

"Nothing else looks out of place. I'm sure it was nothing. Could have even been a bird, I guess."

"I've never seen a bird do that."

"Me either." He was fingering a large shard of glass between his fingers. "I'll draw you a bath, then run down and get this cleaned up. I'll call someone to replace the window tomorrow. No worries." He placed a palm at the crown of my head and caught my lips in a kiss. "Ready for that bath?"

"Only if I can get some company," I flirted shamelessly.

"Think you could keep me out?" He chuckled, then twined my hand with his as we made our way up the stairs, headed for his master bathroom for steaming piles of fluffy warm bubbles.

His fingertips grazing my skin, his lips dancing across my neck, we huddled in the large bathtub as I sagged against his body in the warm water a few minutes later.

"I was thinking I could work at finding a job this week."

Cage's arms tensed behind me, and I sensed instantly he was not open to the idea. "You sure you're ready for that? I mean, a little transition time isn't a bad thing. Maybe even chat with a counselor who's dealt with family tragedies…"

"No, I think I'm good. I feel like I've been waiting my whole life for this moment, and instead of being shell shocked, I'm just thrilled. I'm ready to conquer life. I'm ready to get out there and do what I was meant to do."

"You were meant to love me." He wrapped his arms tighter around me.

"Aside from that. I want to try everything."

"I think we got a damn good start this weekend." He sucked at my neck as his fingers slipped between my thighs and ran through the slick folds of my pussy.

"We did." I smiled. "But I want to do more things."

"We will, babe. We'll do it all. I promise you."

"Well, I was thinking starting a little smaller than that. Like maybe volunteering at the animal shelter?"

"I like that, too." He squirted soap into a sponge, then ran it over my thighs, under my knees, taking care to wash me with gentle caresses.

"Is there anything I could do that you wouldn't like?"

"Sure." He shrugged and continued to bathe me as if he enjoyed it even more than I did. "Don't leave the house without telling me. Keep your phone at all times. Never, ever speak to that man who raised you. Few simple rules."

"Never speak to him?"

"Never, sweetheart."

A long pause stretched between us before his hands stilled. "Don't tell me you want to?"

"Well," I sighed, trying to figure out my own feelings. "No, I don't want to, but I want to help him. He needs help, I think. He doesn’t know any different in life. I refuse to believe that there is no light or any good to be found in his darkness. We all have fragments of light, Cage. Every human has good in them. But sometimes when all you see is night, it is hard to know what the sun looks like. He has no one, and I hate to think how much worse he would become in complete isolation. What if it becomes worse?

"Oh, Tessa." Cage's eyes were wide and bleeding compassion. "He's not your responsibility. I get it now. You're nurturing, you're kind, your soul is ravishing. But that man doesn't have any decency in him anymore, and you will not be going near him. He is violent and depraved." His hands were in my hair, his lips pressed to my forehead, as if he loved me even more now that he'd come to that realization.

"I just worry." I twisted my hands in the water, feeling like my emotions didn't make a lick of sense when I said them out loud, but they made sense to me deep down inside.

"Promise you won't see him, Tessa. You have no idea what he might do."

"He…" I croaked, knowing deep down I didn't fully comprehend what Tom was capable of, but desperate to think the best of the man who’d been a part of my life for so long.

"Tessa, so help me God, you have to promise you won't see him again. Not once. Not a single time. If anything ever happened to you, I don't know what I'd do with myself. I can't have you getting hurt. I won't have it on my watch." His hands were tightening around my shoulders, his eyes flashing with an intensity I'd never seen from him before, not about this.

"Okay, I won’t. Thank you.” He caught my chin, his eyes showing earnest compassion.

I nodded, my heart feeling oddly bruised from this whole ordeal. Maybe it would always feel that way, not quite whole, not quite healed. Cage could fill a lot of the nooks and crannies, but I didn't think anything could fill the hollow a toxic parent leaves.

"We should get some dinner in your belly. You might be eating for two, ya know."

"Cage," I giggled when his hands wrapped around my flat stomach, both of us thinking about seeing it round with our babies someday.

"I’m going to clean up downstairs. You take your time and relax. I'm serving you dinner tonight. Give me thirty minutes." He pecked at the skin beneath my ear, the place that seemed to be his favorite.

"Sounds amazing." I stretched when he crawled out of the tub, the water sloshing around and exposing my sensitive nipples to the cool air.

"God, every muscle in my body is telling me to crawl back in that tub with you," he growled, his eyes on my chest as his thick erection came into my line of sight.

I grinned, licking my lips. Without thinking, I wrapped my fist around his base and licked the bead of pre-cum off the tip.

"Christ, Tessa, I think you're trying to kill me." His hands pushed in my hair as my lips covered his dick completely and I swallowed his length. With his tip pushing at the back of my throat, I hummed as my pussy charged with desire. I sucked, and hollowed my cheeks, loving the feel of him in my mouth.

"Fuck, Tessa." He flexed his fingers, letting me know he was close to losing control. His thighs tensed, and one of his palms wrapped around the base of his dick. His other hand pulled my head off his cock before he was shooting long, white streams of cum across my chest. "That's my mark, baby."

I watched in fascination as his cock leaked a few remaining drops and his palm spread his seed across my tits. In wide, sweeping brushstrokes, he painted me with his cum and it turned me on even more. I loved being his. Loved smelling like him. Loved being claimed by him.

I grinned, swiping the last drop of the tip of his beautiful cock and sliding it into my mouth.

"I didn't know it was possible, but I'm positive I love you a little more every day, Tessa Talbot."

"Good." I swirled the digit in my mouth, then removed it with a satisfying popping sound.

"Tessa…"

I only smiled as I threw a fluffy towel at him and pushed myself beneath the bubbles. A smile turned up the corners of my mouth as I heard his huff followed by his heavy footsteps leaving the bathroom.

I was so happy I couldn't see straight. I couldn't see anything through the haze of passion Cage wrapped me in. I couldn't wait for tomorrow or the next day. I couldn't wait for the rest of my life. I was drowning in Cage West and couldn't have been happier.

* * *

I
woke
the following morning with Cage's hands creeping across my body, his fingers dipping into my soaked folds, his fingertips grazing my nipples in the morning air.

"You're a dangerous man, Cage West."

"You're even more dangerous for my heart, gorgeous." He slid his fingers into my body and brought me to a fast and crashing orgasm. My smile even wider, my bones even more relaxed, he disappeared from the bed a moment later, licking at my taste on his fingers as he went, calling that pancakes and OJ would be ready downstairs in fifteen.

Little did I know that in fifteen minutes my world was going to turn upside down again.

I padded down the hallway after pulling on a silky robe, and entered the kitchen, the sexy expanse of his chiseled back facing me as his eyes trained on the small TV mounted in the corner.

"Mornin’." I echoed his familiar greeting as I slipped my arms around his taut waist.

"Tessa." The tone of his voice chilled the marrow in my bones. Turning to follow his gaze, I caught the headline, then tuned in to the announcer. "The local woman reported missing last week has been found. Reportedly just a runaway, she was found to be living with a man, reportedly an officer with the local police department."

"What the fuck?" Cage's gravelly voice froze my heart as he slammed a hand on the counter, silverware shaking across the granite as he did. He swiped at his phone, punched in a number and lifted it to his ear. His eyes finally caught mine then, his lips ready to form words before he registered my shrinking form and set the phone on the counter instantly.

"Jesus, I'm so sorry. I should have asked, are you okay?" He dipped to catch my gaze.

"Yes, I just wish you'd talk to me before you stomped away and grunted."

His lips twitched at my small joke. "I saw red, baby. That man needs to be taken care of, I don't trust him for a second."

"I know you don't. I don't either, but maybe with some therapy he can get better."

"I know, I know, Tessa, but you don't know what I know."

"What do you mean? What could you possibly know about Tom that I don't?"

He shook his head as if warring with the decision whether or not to tell me something.

"Do you know something?" I tilted my head, suddenly wondering if he knew way more than he'd let on from the very beginning.

"I didn't want to tell you. It's your stepfather. I didn't want to ruin your image of him anymore than—"

"Cage, tell me." I clutched at his shoulders then, my jaw set and my gaze boring into his. "If you don't tell me, God help me, I'll find out myself."

"Your stepfather…" He breathed, his eyes turning down with some sort of pain. "A long time ago, your stepfather, before he was your stepfather…"

"Jesus Christ! Cage West, just spit it out!"

He chomped down on his bottom lip then peered into my eyes, looking so ravaged I hated that he even had to say the words. "Your stepfather raped my mother a long time ago."

His words hung in the air like barbed icicles.

"No." I shook my head, tears itching at my eyelids. "He's never done anything like that." Why did it feel like my lungs were exploding? Why did it feel like my ribcage was about to split in half?

"Tessa…I didn't want to tell you."

"I… How can that be? It doesn't make sense. He's not like that."

"He was never convicted, Tessa. There wasn't enough evidence. They didn't do DNA back then, so it was just his word against hers, and he had this bullshit paper-thin alibi, but it was enough. I saw the look on her face, Tessa. I saw it with my own eyes. Every time it was brought up, her entire face would change, she lost color, it looked like she might be sick. And then when they started splashing his face on TV during the trial—"

"He went to trial?" I was astonished. This couldn't be true. But why would Cage lie? Why would his mother lie? I knew Tom would lie, he had plenty times before, but was he a rapist?

"It dragged on for months. He was young, his parents had some money, they hired the fanciest lawyer and they just kept throwing up all these character witnesses and presenting all this probable cause shit. It destroyed my mother. Living through it destroyed her. That's why I went into the police force, I wanted to protect victims like her, and I secretly hoped I could gather enough evidence to really lock him up someday. My family thought I would go into business, but I knew I couldn't have that man or anyone like him roaming around hurting innocents. I just wanted to see him put away for something. It happened when I was young, but I could see the look in her eyes, he haunted her for years."

"Cage." My hands went to his cheeks, instantly only concerned for his breaking heart. "Is she…?"

"She passed away a few years ago. Lung cancer." He shook his head and swiped at his eyes.

I pressed myself against him, my arms around his neck, holding and hugging him so tightly I thought I might lose what little breath remained in my lungs. I cried on his shoulder, sobbing as I felt the pain and truth of my past shredding me.

"I could have been her. Why wasn't I her?"

"I don't know, baby. Maybe deep down there's some shred of good in him. He couldn't bring himself to destroy you."

"No, not someone that can do that to an innocent woman. That's evil." I shook my head, suddenly feeling the same fire that burned in Cage's gut light in mine. "I hate him. I hate him for what he did to her."

"I did, too, for a long time." His palms spread across my back and rubbed in wide circles. "Hate only breeds more hate, Tessa. You can't lose yourself in it. You just have to find the good things in life and hold them a little tighter." He breathed into my neck, holding me harder and tighter than he'd ever done.

"What now?"

"Not a thing, baby. We move on with our life. This will all fall dead behind us. But first thing I need to do is get a security system installed. No way am I risking…" He paused, his eyes searching mine as he gazed down at me. "Not risking you."