Page 39 of Anger Bang
“I think we’re becoming friends.”
Oh, we’re going to be so much more than that.
The words were on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t say them. Not yet. First he needed to plot out his plan to get Thea to see this as more than a fling, more than an experiment. That meant not spilling his plot twist early. So instead, he lifted her hand and brushed a kiss across her knuckles before turning onto his side and tucking her against him so they fit together perfectly. He dropped his arm around her waist, cupped her breast, and held her tight as he tried to plot his way into making this something more than a wedding fling.
But still less than a relationship, right, because you don’t do those—ever?He didn’t know how to respond to his nagging inner voice, so he closed his eyes and just ignored it. For now, at least.
Chapter Sixteen
Over the next few days, Thea kept finding herself again and again in Kade’s RV. Needless to say, her ability to ditch her sister, her mom, and the entire camera crew had reached elite levels. It also helped that Kade’s RV was backed up to the area blocked off for resort staff only, where the reality TV show’s cameras weren’t allowed.
Somehow her clothes, every bone in her body, and her ability to stay away from him for longer than thirty minutes at a time had evaporated. She’d tried to explain it to herself as the thrill of sneaking around and the petty fun at getting back at her sister by banging the best man Jackie abhorred all over the resort. Of course, she knew she was lying, but she’d deal with the reality of the situation after the wedding when they all went back home.
For now, she was living in the unplanned moment, newly baptized into the church of spontaneity, and as long as she kept her head straight, everything would work out just fine.
She silently reminded herself of that as she traced a lazy line over the owl tattoo spanning Kade’s chest while they lay in his bed. The sheets were tangled around their legs as they lay naked, with her draped over him. Technically, they were supposed to be playing racquetball with the rest of the wedding party—the bridesmaids accessorizing with bright-blue leg warmers and the grooms with blue and white–striped headbands. They’d made their appearance, and once all of the cameras were focused on Jackie and Dex as they took the court in matching parachute pants and Members Only jackets while the Go-Go’s played over the loudspeakers, she and Kade had snuck off.
Hand in hand, they’d dashed back to his RV, and she was half naked before he even got the door closed. Seriously. Keeping her clothes on around this man was practically impossible.
“You know,” she said, starting the little fun-facts game that seemed to be their thing. “Before the Greeks gave their gods human forms, the owl was a symbol for Athena. She was the goddess of wisdom and war—a total badass. There are statues of her with an owl at her side so she could see the whole truth.”
“I just thought it would be a cool tattoo,” he said as he wound a strand of her hair around his finger, his eyes half closed and his breathing steady.
She propped her chin on her hand and stared at him, lifting an eyebrow. “Really?” She scoffed.
“It’s the honest truth.” He lifted his head and looked down at his tattoo, squinting as if he was trying to picture something else. “But maybe adding Athena into the design would be a good call.”
Butterflies broke loose in Thea’s chest, and a ridiculous amount of happy hormones flooded her system at the idea that he just might take her idea into consideration, tattooing a permanent reminder of her on his chest, even.
Girl. You need to calm the fuck down.
She would if she could, but being with Kade was like being high. There was a rush and a freeing sense of ease, and her shoulders finally inched down from her earlobes because it didn’t feel like anyone could shove her aside on their way to get to someone more important.
“You’re thinking hard enough I’m surprised I can’t hear each thought.” He drew circles on the bare skin of her lower back in slow, easy movements. “What made you tense up?”
Because the truth—the way he made her feel—was very much not on her list of shit to say out loud, Thea said the first plausible thing that came to mind. “My sister and mom.”
“Are they still assigning you Cinderella tasks?”
She flinched at the dig, correct as it was. “They aren’tthatbad.”
His circling stopped, and she cringed at getting caught in such an obvious lie.
“Fine,” she said with a sigh and laid her cheek down on his chest, taking a moment to listen to the reassuringthud-thudof his heart. “They are, but not all the time. In fact, Jackie’s actually been looking at me a little differently since the whole foam-heart thing.”
He wrapped his arm around her, tucking her close against his side. “When you went all quiet that day and just sort of froze? I did not think that would be the outcome.”
“Well, the outcome wasn’t the way I would have normally reacted.” The surge of adrenaline that had shot through her when Jackie had gone all bridezilla had been enough to steal her breath away.
For more than a few moments, she tried to resign herself to just accepting her part was to suck it up and do what needed to be done. Then she’d heard Dr. Kowecki’s voice talking about the experiment and, well, she’d gone a different route. “I would have just gone along with it, no questions asked, no pushback given, because it was easier than dealing with whatever blowups would inevitably happen. But freezing like that? It actually gave me the time I needed to sort out how I was feeling and what exactly I was reacting to that was sending me into panic mode. I guess that’s growth.”
Thrilling was the wrong word. She hadn’t been exactly excited and happy about it, but she was flush with a sense that she had control over things. She didn’t have to just accept. She could demand. And she had.
“It wasn’t the act of adding the flowers that pissed me off,” she said, her blood pressure picking up at the memory. “It was that neither my mom nor Jackie seemed to care enough to ask me.” Her voice cracked on that last bit, and she swallowed past the hurt forming a lump in her throat. “They just assumed I’d do it. I mean, they’re right, but I still should have been asked.”
Kade gave her a squeeze and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Seems fair enough.”
She melted against him, taking him up on his silent offer of solid comfort.
