Thunder Road (Rain Chaser Book 1) (11 page)

The sound he made was enough to break my heart: a low, sad wheeze from the back of his throat, like he was standing next to the body of his fallen horse at the end of an epic battle.

“It’s just a car,” he repeated. This time I didn’t offer any words of comfort. I knew he needed to believe it
was
just a car. If only for now.

I imagined that the next morning, in the light of day, things would look much, much worse. While Cade stared mournfully over the corpse of his noble steed, I pulled my phone out of my bag and sent a text to Sido. Looks like I’d need my Mustang sooner than anticipated. She replied immediately, and without asking any probing questions said it would be dropped off by the next morning.

How they would manage to get my Mustang from Seattle to Colorado in less than eight hours was one of those things I wasn’t sure I needed to know. If Sido said the car was coming, I knew it would be here. Whatever weird magic it took for it to happen didn’t matter.

Although if that selfsame magic could have gotten me to New Orleans in the same amount of time, that would have been nice.

Cade took one last look at the ruined Dodge before guiding us to our room.

Inside it was a carbon copy of the last room I’d stayed in, and the one before that. Only instead of one queen, there were two doubles. For some reason the sight of two beds felt strange and vaguely inappropriate, though it would have been much more scandalous for us to share one.

I set Fen on the floor, and he proceeded to go about his usual new-room investigation. Seemingly satisfied nothing was out of order, he bounded up onto the bed nearest the bathroom and nestled himself between the pillows.

“Guess that one’s mine.” I tossed my purse onto it, and Fen didn’t even look up.

“Maybe you should be more careful, considering there’s an idol in there apparently worth killing both of us over.”

“Skulls are hard. It’ll be fine.”

Cade stared at me, either in disbelief or annoyance, I couldn’t quite tell which. Suddenly it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. I started to laugh, and this only made his scowl deepen, which in turn made me laugh harder.

I laughed until tears were streaming down my cheeks and it was difficult to breathe. I laughed so much my chest hurt and I began to hiccup.

And then I started to cry.

I sat down on the floor between our two beds and put my face in my cupped palms, sobbing until my throat was raw and my eyes burned.

I was the kind of person who knew exactly what I was going to do in any situation, because in my line of work you were either prepared or you were done for.

But how in the name of the gods was I supposed to prepare myself for this?

I was going to die, and I really,
really
didn’t want to.

“Tallulah.” Cade’s voice cut through my sobs, but I couldn’t stop. I was so wound up the only thing my body was capable of doing was crying. “Stop it.”

“I-I-I c-can’t,” I sputtered.

He crouched in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders. When I lifted my head to look at him, he blanched. “Your eyes.”

The sizzle of energy I’d barely noticed since we left the mountain road sparked back to life, and my hands tingled with it. My eyes must have been blazing with lightning to make him look as unnerved as he did.

“I-I c-can’t stop it.” My hands were shaking, and tiny sparks of electricity danced off my skin.

His fingers dug into my arms, and he hoisted me to my feet, where I barely got balanced before he dragged me into the bathroom. I tried to speak, to ask him what the hell he was doing, but he jerked back the shower curtain and lifted me over the side of the tub like I weighed nothing.

“W-wh—?”

My question was cut abruptly short when he turned the shower handle and a spray of frigid water hit me.

I yelped, blinking hard at the sudden burst of ice coating my skin under my jacket. I stripped the coat off like it was a living creature clinging to me, and scrambled to get to the tap. He held me firm around the waist, locking me just out of reach.

The wave of hysteria that had gripped me was long gone, replaced with a burning rage that could see only one outlet. I grabbed ahold of his shirt and used all of my not-inconsiderable strength to pull him towards the shower.

He’d been braced for me to push him, so the tug threw him entirely off balance and he pitched forward, falling against me.

My boots skidded on the wet surface of the tub, and I landed flat on my ass, the full weight of his body crashing down on top of me.

At least he was shielding me from the shower.

“You
asshole
,” I snarled, trying to wriggle myself out from under him.

He had regained his senses after my surprise assault and now easily held my arms pinned above my head while I squirmed, sliding uselessly on the slick porcelain. Without being able to find purchase on anything, it was impossible to get any traction. His knees slipped as he lifted his weight and straddled my waist, still holding me down.

“You’re losing your damn mind.”

“You think that was crazy, I’ll show you crazy, you fuck.” I jerked my hips up and flipped over, soaking my whole front in icy-cold water. Twisting my body, I was able to wrench my hands free of his grip, and this time he let me go. I climbed over the side of the tub, flopping onto the floor as a puddle started to pool around me.

Cade shut off the water and got out after me, standing with his legs on either side of my hips.

I should punch him in the nuts.

I should claw out his eyes.

Instead I pressed my cheek against the cold tile and closed my eyes, pulling in long, deep lungfuls of air until the urge to scream faded. The red haze of my anger towards him dissipated, and soon I felt almost like myself again.

“Help me up,” I grumbled, rolling onto my back. My shirt was soaked through, and my jacket, still in the tub, was probably ruined. “What kind of moron takes a girl who is throwing off electric sparks and tosses her under water?”

I wasn’t about to acknowledge that his plan had worked. That would be telling him he was right.

Cade said nothing but offered me his hand and pulled me to my feet. He was already so close the action drew me up along his front, his shirt lifting slightly from the press of my body. A flash of abs peeked out above his belt buckle, and my fingers accidentally grazed bare skin on his back when I went to steady myself.

In an instant, I forgot how cold I was, because I was flushed all the way through with heat.

His hands went to my arms, squeezing a ever so slightly too hard. I glanced up and found him staring at me, an unexpected intensity in his brown eyes. It was something I’d never seen on Cade’s normally emotionally shuttered face. Hunger. A bare, unhidden want had tightened his features, and he looked like he was in pain.

My heart pounded, and given how close we were he must be able to feel it.

Instead of pulling my hands away, I adjusted them up a fraction of an inch, my fingers tracing the bare, cool skin of his lower back, finding the groove of his spine and where it went lower, lower…

He sucked in a breath.

“We…” There was a chance he was trying to come up with something logical to stop this, whatever it was, but he didn’t finish the thought.

“We could have died,” I whispered. “We
almost
died.”

His hands moved up to my shoulders, then my neck. Strong, rough thumbs rubbed along the line of my jaw, and he kept touching me, tentatively, exploratively, until he paused at my mouth, one thumb pressing down on the center of my lower lip.

I fully stopped breathing, worried the smallest exhalation would send him flying off like a murmuration of starlings.

“We didn’t die,” he said finally, pressing down a little harder until my mouth opened.

Around us, the floor was a growing puddle of cold water. Goose bumps had erupted on my skin, but I didn’t think they had anything to do with the chill from the shower’s blast.

His hand trembled the slightest bit as he tilted my chin up, and my heart was beating so hard all I could hear was the pulse of it in my ear.

He had just complained about me being crazy, but here he was trying to drive me absolutely mental.

Cade took a step towards me, his knee pressing between my legs as he backed me into the bathroom vanity. Then his hands were gone, leaving my face and dropping to my jeans, clasping behind my thighs as he lifted me onto the sink.

I made an
Oh
sound, but once again his lips were on mine, and any thoughts of speaking vanished in the span of one breath.

Compared to how cold our clothes were, his mouth was a shock of warmth. His kiss was hesitant and tentative at first, like he was waiting for me to push him away or stop this. But he
must
think I was crazy if he believed I’d be the one to put the brakes on.

I balled my hands into fists in his shirt, pulling him closer to me, my legs wrapping around his thighs. This was all the invitation he needed to take the kisses from tentative to demanding. Maybe this was nuts, maybe it was a terrible idea, but right now it was the only thing in my world that made sense. His mouth tasted faintly sweet, like mint and desire, and I wanted to lose myself in the solace of his touch.

He pushed against me, hips grinding into mine, and my head bumped the mirror as he devoured me one kiss at a time. The room became a blur, and all that mattered was the burning heat of his skin and the demanding urgency of his passion.

Cade moved his hands from my hips to my waist, then sliding under my shirt and up to my bra, cupping my breasts. His palms were warm, tickling my nipples, which were already rigid from all the wet cloth.

“Tallulah.” He whispered my name against my lips, and the naked desire of his voice, raspy, aching, made me dizzy.

He tried to kiss me again, but this time I stopped him, bracing against his chest to hold him back as I fought to catch my breath.

We couldn’t do this.

Oh, gods help me, I
wanted
to do this. His hands were still covering my breasts, and only an inch of distance needed to be crossed and I could be kissing him once more. Just thinking of the way his tongue felt against mine was almost enough for me to throw caution to the wind. I could
feel
how bad he wanted me, pressed between my legs, and I would have given damn near anything to undo his pants and let him have his way with me.

But we couldn’t.

Adrenaline was high, and barely five minutes earlier we’d been trying to kill each other in the shower. A minute before that I’d been so out of control I’d damn near sparked lightning in our motel room. Yes, my body ached for him, demanded him, wanted to feel him all over me. It was like I was filled with a thirst so intense I needed to drink down the whole ocean, and here he was offering me every last drop.

Was I out of my mind to say no to this?

He saw my hesitation and closed the gap, kissing me again, slow and imploring. I moaned, dragging my nails down his chest. His body was strong and firm, and I imagined how good it would look if I could get him out of his wet shirt. I wondered how far the tattoos went.

I let out a shuddering breath and bit his lower lip. I didn’t draw blood, but it was enough to give him pause.

“No.” I forced the word out. Cade was rough around the edges, but he was a gentleman at the core. I hoped he’d understand how hard it was for me to say it.

He stopped like I’d uttered a magic incantation. “No.” He repeated it back to me, but not as a question.

Oh, let me take it back. He could help me forget everything we’d been through in the last two days. His body would be enough to make everything okay, at least for a few hours, while we waited out the last breaths of night.

“I can’t.” I gave him a gentle push and hopped down off the sink.

“Oh.”

I could tell this wasn’t what he’d expected me to say, and it was the last thing I wanted to say. Even though this had to stop now, I felt like I had to add something. “I
want
to. Gods, Cade…I… You turn my brain to soup. How did a priest learn to kiss like that?”

This brought a smirk to his lips. “I told you I wasn’t temple pure. Did you think I was lying?”

“I definitely don’t
now
.” I let out a shaky breath. If I had any less willpower, I’d be in his arms right now, ripping the shirt off his body.

“But we can’t?” He asked it as a question, like he was hoping I’d change my mind.

“Not yet.”

“Yet.” He mulled the word over, scrubbing his hands over his cheeks and through his short hair. The way it sounded when his palms scraped against the shaved hairs on the side of his head was so profoundly erotic I almost lost it.

I wanted to say something else to explain my reasoning, but everything that came to mind seemed like an absurd excuse, no matter how real the logic was. We were marked for death by the gods, and I had a demigod’s life to save. While the possibility of being killed at any minute might seem like a powerful motivator to get in one last booty call before I died, the truth was I didn’t need the risk of an added emotional attachment.

Cade wasn’t just anyone, and if the last two days had taught me anything, it was that he wasn’t who I thought he was either. He was, for better or worse, someone I was growing to care about, and that meant sex wouldn’t just be sex.

And falling in love would be a
major
disadvantage to me right now.

Chapter Thirteen

Both Cade and I needed a break from being in close quarters near a bed.

Because we couldn’t use his car, we were limited to where we could go, but the Sleepy Dayz motel happened to share a lot with a quaint diner, giving us an obvious place to distract ourselves from what we’d done in the bathroom.

We were probably better off giving each other a little breathing room before we attempted to discuss our hot-and-heavy romantic encounter. Chances were if I brought it up now, I’d climb across the booth and mount him in the restaurant.