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CHAPTER SIX
Torn, restless and discouraged, Marly went to bed early that night. Cade was indulgent, treating her gently, seemingly amused by her attempts to be close to him. He had foiled her at every turn, making her feel like an obtuse teenager rather than a beautiful woman.
She finally had enough, retired to her room and showered, then crawled into bed. Sleep wasn’t long in coming, but if she had known the nightmare would hit her that night, she would have stayed up longer.
It washed over her, the leering gaze of her stepfather, the demonic look in his eye as he jerked her over his lap. Her buttocks were bare, and he enjoyed spanking her as he described in graphic detail what he would do to her when she was older. She screamed, fighting him, knowing he was drunk, praying she could get away from him.
“You’re mine, Marly.” His evil whisper didn’t sound drunk. Intent, cruel, but not drunk. “I’ll have you girl. I’ll have you soon.”
She fought to get away from him. She kicked out, her foot connecting with flesh. She scratched at hard arms, fought to scream. She wanted to beg, plead, but knew it wouldn’t help.
“Cade!” she screamed out in desperation, her throat finally unlocking as she felt hard fingers pushing at the tender lips between her thighs. Marly awoke when she fell from the bed, scratching and clawing as she fought for balance to reach Cade’s room. The bedroom was cold, or she was. So cold, she shivered and cried, nearly paralyzed from the instant chill that hit her body.
“Son of a bitch. Marly.” Cade was there. His big warm body was suddenly close to her, jerking her into his arms, holding her against his bare chest as she cried out his name, trying to convince herself that the demon was gone, and the nightmare was over.
“What the hell have you done to yourself?” He wrapped her with a blanket, leaving her for a moment on the floor as something slammed. “Dammit, you went to sleep with the balcony doors open, Marly.”
She had? She looked around wildly as he picked her up in his arms, carrying her quickly to his warmer, safer room. But she hadn’t had the doors open.
“You’re soaking wet.” His voice was gentle, soothing as he sat her on his bed. “Sit here, baby. Let me get a towel.”
He moved away from her, and Marly knew he was watching her closely. She was shaking. Shaking so hard her teeth chattered. Her body hurt, and the echo of remembered pain could be felt on her bottom. She tried to clench her teeth closed as Cade knelt in front of her, wiping her face with the towel, then her hair.
“What have you done to yourself, Marly?” He sounded agonized, and his expression in the harsh light of the room was worried, inexpressibly concerned. Lora Leigh
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She could only shake her head. Trying to speak only caused her teeth to chatter harder.
“You’re still freezing.” He moved up beside her, wrapping her in his arms, pulling her close to him.
The warmth of his big body seeped through the blankets and into her skin.
“Jesus, Marly, that was a bad one.” His fingers were moving through her hair, combing through the tangled curls as he tried to calm her. Terror still strummed through her body, making her blood rush and her body shake. She couldn’t seem to get totally warm, no matter how hard she tried. She kept shaking, shivering harshly.
“I’m scared,” she finally whispered tearfully, shaking in his arms. “Oh God, Cade. It’s like he was right there this time. Like I couldn’t escape.” Tears ran from her eyes as his arms tightened around her.
“It’s okay, Marly.” He rocked her gently, like he used to when she was young and screaming, unable to separate reality from nightmare. “Look what you’re doing to yourself, baby. You have to stop this.”
“I didn’t do this,” she cried out, trying to burrow closer to him, to steal as much of his warmth as she could.
“Didn’t you, Marly?” he asked her gently, tipping her head back as he looked down at her. “Think about it, baby. You’re pushing yourself into believing you want me, but you don’t. Are you scared I’m going to throw you out if you don’t sleep with me?
What’s gotten into your head?”
Shock of another kind held her immobile now. She shook her head slowly, her body now shuddering with misery. He thought she was having nightmares because she wanted him? It made no sense. Why would he use this against her?
“How can you use that?” she whispered painfully, a harsh sob tearing from her chest. “Are you so desperate to deny what you want yourself, that you would use my nightmares against me, Cade? That wasn’t about you.”
“But it was the worse. You’re shaking like a leaf, and damned near froze to death. You aren’t thinking straight,” he accused her harshly, though his grip was still gentle.
“Evidently I’m not thinking at all.” Dammit, why couldn’t she stop crying? “I’m throwing myself at a man who doesn’t even want me. I think its time to find someone who does. Would that suit you better, Cade? Would you feel better if another man were in my bed?”
“I’d kill him.” The words sounded torn from his chest.
“Listen to you,” she accused him harshly. “You don’t want to touch me, but no one else can either. Dammit it, Cade, I’m twenty years old and I’ve never had sex. Not even oral sex. I can’t save myself for you forever.”
He was suddenly breathing harshly. His hands were on her arms, his fingers firm on her flesh.
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“Never?” he growled, as though it seemed inconceivable to him. “Nothing?”
“Nothing,” she bit out, more angry than frightened now. “And I’m sick as hell of waking up to nothing but empty dreams. I won’t be a nun for you, so you can hide from this.”
“I’m not hiding from it.” He shook his head harshly. “Dammit, Marly. I’m not one of your teenaged boys. The things I want to do would send you into hysterics. The things I want you to do would destroy you and any love you have for me.”
He didn’t want that. He couldn’t have that. He needed Marly. Needed her love and her laughter more than she would ever know.
“Try me,” she challenged him harshly. “Don’t keep turning me away Cade. I need you. Please, I need you.”
His lips swallowed the last of her words as they covered hers. Swift and sure, making no concessions for innocence or nightmare as he jerked her to him, one hand holding her head securely, the other thrusting the comforter away harshly as his arm went around her waist.
He kissed her like a man possessed. His lips eating at her, his tongue staking his claim on the moist interior of her mouth. She moaned against the invasion, allowing her tongue to tangle with his, her hands to clutch desperately at his shoulders.
“You’ll kill me,” he whispered as he tore his mouth away, his lips running over her neck.
“Touch me,” she panted, shuddering as his teeth nipped at the skin of her neck.
“Cade. Please, please touch me.”
He drew back only enough to gaze down into her face.
“Have you ever come for a man?” He growled. “Tell me now if you have, Marly. I need to know how to make it easy for you. Don’t lie to me, not about this.” Savage and intense his eyes snared hers.
She shook her head harshly, her arousal sweeping over her mindlessly.
“Never,” she gasped. “Never, Cade. No other man has touched me. Please make me come. Please.”
He clenched his teeth, his breath rumbling from his chest as he fought himself. Then he was pushing her down on the bed, coming over her as his lips clamped on the tip of her breast, his tongue curling around her nipple, rasping the ultra sensitive nerves with a stroke of fire.
“You want to come for me, baby?” He parted her thighs, moving over her as his lips moved to her stomach, his tongue painting her skin with need as his lips sent her body trembling with passion.
“Yes,” she gasped, her fingers in his hair now, her head twisting on the bed as he moved swiftly down her body. “Only you, Cade. I only want to come for you.”
He paused the moment his lips were poised over the vee of her thighs. Marly opened her eyes, watching as he gazed down at her.
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“Oral sex,” he groaned. “This isn’t oral sex, Marly, it’s a feast for kings, and I’m about to devour it.”
His head lowered, then his tongue touched her. Marly cried out, arching to the soft stroke of his tongue as it circled her clit. His hands pushed her thighs further apart, his lips settling on her, suckling her in time to the slow flicks of his tongue. Marly panted for air. Her heart was ready to burst out of her chest her excitement soared so high. She was no longer cold, no longer frightened. She was so hot she felt on fire. Cade’s tongue was an instrument of pleasure so intense it bordered on pain. Sweeping through the velvet folds of skin, licking sensually at her clit, then suckling it firmly. She was bucking against his mouth, hanging on an edge that was both terrifying and exhilarating as she fought the mindless sensations ripping through her body. Cade didn’t protest her heaving body. He merely gripped her thighs in his hands, held her hips steady and proceeded to torture her in a way that left her breathless, pleading. Then that devilish tongue moved lower. It dipped into the soft recess of her body, thrusting inside her, making her cry out harshly.
She was disoriented, shaking in need as he growled, rose from the delicate feast he was making of her, and turned her quickly to her stomach.
“Cade?” She felt his hand smooth over the soft rise of her buttocks.
“Shhh. Baby, what did you do to this pretty little rear?” He groaned. “It’s so damned red I’d swear someone smacked it.”
Marly flinched. She had been whipped in her dream. She would have questioned him, but suddenly she felt his lips on the tender flesh. She groaned, shuddering as his palms smoothed over her, pulling the rounded cheeks apart tenderly.
“Scared yet, Marly?” he asked her roughly, his fingers holding her apart, his breath hot and moist at the tender bud she knew he sought.
“No,” she cried out harshly.
Her head tossed as his lowered. His tongue swiped over the area quickly. From the clenching, drenched vaginal opening to the tight little hole of her anus. His tongue licked her over and over again, dipping into each entrance with slick deliberation as his hands spread her thighs further apart, smoothing over her skin, making her tense, groan, and push against his mouth for more.
Then he turned her to her back again, raising her thigh, his tongue penetrating her with a smooth, deep thrust that had her bucking against his mouth.
“Scared?” he groaned, his head raising, his voice dark, harsh. Scared? Terrified he would stop.
“More,” she begged. “More, Cade.”
His fingers joined his mouth, moving the drenching lubrication of her body to her anus. His finger dipped in with each pass, pressing against her, easing his way into her body. Marly was on fire. She panted, fighting to relax, to further invite the invasion of Lora Leigh
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his finger into her body. When it came, she nearly screamed from the bite of bliss that seared her.
His finger was inside her now, stretching her, moving smoothly as he tongued her cunt to delirium, spreading the silky liquid back, keeping the entrance hot and easy to access as he drove her higher, always higher.
She was falling. Dying. The harsh ring of the phone on the table beside Cade’s bed was barely noticeable until he reared up with a virulent curse.
“No,” she gasped, clutching at him, her body slammed suddenly back to earth, the edge of oblivion shattered.
Growling, cursing, he jerked the phone from the bedside table.
“What?” His voice was so harsh, so graveled that even Marly flinched.
“Then get the fuckers back in the damned pasture.” He raked his fingers through his hair, his chest heaving. “Shit. Shit. I’ll be right there.”
Cade slammed the phone down, then turned and looked down at Marly. She looked drunk, high and dazed.
“Cattle are filling the yard. They got out of the pasture.” He raked his fingers through his hair again. “I have to go, Marly.”
She was fighting for breath, her fists clenched beside her, her eyes large, dark and pleading. She had been so close. So fucking close, but not close enough to throw her over before that damned phone would have disturbed her.
“Cattle?” she gasped, closing her eyes.
Her body was tight, once again damp with sweat and trembling. Trembling in need. It was a shimmer through her body that echoed in his. A need to release. He couldn’t leave her this way. He dropped to the bed again, his mouth going to the saturated flesh between her thighs and began to feast on the creamy nectar. With his thumb on her sensitive clit, rasping it with gentle strokes, he moved his head lower, then plunged his tongue swiftly inside her melting vagina. One thrust and she heaved. On the second she tightened, arching high and hard. The third had her screaming, convulsing mindlessly as the sweet essence of her release began to fill his mouth and his own hollow ejaculation spilled to the sheets. She collapsed to the bed long moments later, boneless and spent, her hands falling from his shoulders. Cade rose painfully from her body, and shook his head in disbelief. She was asleep. Damn it all to hell, but she was asleep. He flipped the blanket over her body, and went quickly to the bathroom to clean up. Ten minutes later he was dressed and running down the stairs to meet Sam and Brock at the front door.
“What the hell happened?” Sam mumbled sleepily.
“Cattle’s loose in the yards. Bret says it looks like the whole herd is busy munching the lawn grass,” Cade bit out furiously, not even certain why he was so pissed. Cattle Lora Leigh
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got loose all the time. “Get out there and get them herded back, then we’ll find the break in the fence.”
“Damn, thought we had cowboys hired,” Sam sighed.
“We do, and they need help, so get your ass out there.” He pushed Sam none too gently out the door, then stared in amazement at the sea of bovine guests. “Dammit to hell.” His curse rang through the yard with his disgust. “Get these damned animals back the hell where they belong.”