Maybe he had lost it, drank too much of the Kool-Aid around here.  I walked over to the entrance of the hallway and turned to face him. He was staring at me with a stupid knowing smile on his face.  What it knew was beyond me.  Maybe Dylan wanted me to walk in on Kade in some precarious position.  Slowly, I backed into the hallway and made my way to the door of his office.

I was about to throw all the crap on the floor and run when I heard Fran’s voice in the barroom talking with Dylan, asking him if he’d seen me.

Crap. Now it was between hearing Fran’s excuses for drunkenly attacking me in the bathroom, opposed to sneaking past Kade asleep on the couch.

Kade.  Fran.  Kade.  Fran.

All right, deep breath, there was no way I wanted to see Fran and listen to his whining and begging.  In a rush of glittery costumes and feathered freaking boas, I dashed through the office door and searched for the nearest hiding spot. It was either under Dylan’s desk where I sure as shit couldn’t fit, or in his coat closet.  Closet it was.  I didn’t even look to see if Kade was asleep on the couch.

Diving in, glittery sequins and all, I yanked the door shut behind me.  Total darkness consumed me and a lone hanger swung against the rod and whacked me in the eye.  “SON OF A…” I grabbed for the door handle, and it wouldn’t budge.

Oh, just wonderful.  I was locked in.

“Lainey?  Lainey?” Fran’s muted voice called from the hallway.  His footsteps clopped heavily against the floorboards and moved throughout the room.  “Oh, Kade, hey.  Have you seen Lainey?”

“No,” Kade’s rumbly voice replied from somewhere just outside the closet door.

“Dylan said she was just here,” Fran pushed.

“Does it look like she’s in here?  Go check the bathroom,” Kade rumbled.  Fran’s fast footfalls stomped down the hallway, the closet door swung open, and a blast of bright light hit my eyes.  Kade’s face came towards me like a ton of bricks.

“No-no-no don’t…don’t close the door…” I whispered loud as he stumbled in with a rush of air, slamming into me, causing my head to knock against more empty hangers that jangled amongst each other and clanged to the floor.  “The door locks…”

“Now, that’s a piece of information I wasn’t aware of.”

Awkward silence.  From somewhere just above my head the tiniest puff of warm breath came.

“This…is…interesting,” he chuckled.

“Why are you in here?” I hissed, realizing that because of the way Kade landed in the closet, he was now pressed up against me.  Leaning back as far as I could, I pressed the palms of my hands against his chest to push him away.  Except that I couldn’t, because as soon as my fingertips touched the tightness of his chest, the gasp that came out of his mouth made my heart race and I had to resist the urge to pull him close and bury my face in his scent.  Godfuckingdamnit!  I was not going to turn into one of those women who threw themselves at a man who didn’t want her.

“I wanted to see why you jumped in here,” he whispered back.  Strong thick fingers gripped my arms.  “You smell good.”

“That’s cleaning supplies, jackass.”  It wasn’t.  I lied.  I actually did smell good.

He gripped me tighter, and I wanted to run, run before I did something stupid, like kiss someone who didn’t want to have anything to do with me.  A warm hand slid slowly up my arm…  He had to stop playing with me.  I was not a toy.  As I started to speak, I felt the tip of his nose softly trace the edge of my jaw.  The smooth, moist heat of his lips moved down to my neck then back up trailing a path of fire to my ear. I needed to stop him. I needed to push him away, but I couldn’t, because I was frozen.

And, of course, there was the little fact that I liked it.  I sighed into the silent darkness.

“You left me with that creeper last night. I couldn’t find you.  I knocked on your trailer door almost all night and I just came back here to sleep,” he whispered hotly in my ear.

“Creeper?”  My stomach flipped. He had looked for me?

“Yeah, what’s her name, Natalie, I think,” he replied, pulling the warmth of his face away from mine. I could still feel his breath on my skin, but I couldn’t make out any of his features.  “She was one of those touchy feely, be my baby daddy, gold digging, online pussy showing creepers.”

“I figured you’d enjoy her company,” I laughed darkly.

“Seriously?  Did you get dropped on your head as an infant?” he asked dryly.

“Yep, into a large puddle of glitter, glorious intelligence, and flawless awesomeness.  What happened with you, did you get left in the mud?”  I heard him chuckle.  “Oh, God.  Look, I didn’t quite think it fully through. I just wanted to get away from Fran, so I went back home and went to sleep, had my earbuds in listening to music and I might have taken two sleeping pills.”

Against my ear, I felt him take a deep breath and exhale slowly with the smallest tremor. “Didn’t affect you one bit that I might have fucked Natalie, huh?” he asked.

“I didn’t think about it.  Why would I care?  You threw me out of your car last week and I haven’t seen you since,” I said in a low voice.

“Okay, then.  I’ll just grab my phone here…” he whispered, and there was a loud thud as, what I believed was his elbow, whacked against the wall.  A string of murmured curses hissed under his breath.  Then, suddenly a bright light illuminated the small dark closet, reflecting the planes and angles of his face.  “And I’ll just call Dylan and tell him to tell Fran where you are.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Fuck yeah, I would.  Or you could tell me how you really felt about the stripper and me.”  A smirk lit up his face. “You never know, Fran could go all caveman on you.  Get all possessive, seeing you talk to me this close in a closet.  Grab you right out of my arms.”

I leaned my back against the wall and shrugged my hands in my front pockets. “He could be a bad ass tree hugger.  Very dangerous.  What if he grabs you instead of me?  You might want to rethink this plan of yours.”

Kade leaned in, smiling.  “Yep.  I bet he could be very scary to a few dust bunnies under a chair somewhere.”  Taking in a long breath, he sighed, “Tell me how you felt.”

I laughed, and looked down shaking my head.  We were getting too close to each other in here.  “I’ve been to his place; he lives in harmony with his dust bunnies.”  I looked up as a dangerous flash of something flickered in his eyes.

“You’ve been to his place.” He leaned away.  He looked down at his phone, closed it, and then leaned quickly back into me, his lips whispering against my ear, hot breath tingling down my neck.  “I hate thinking that he’s been inside you.  It makes me want to hurt him.  And I’m sorry for being such a mean dick the other night.”

My breath caught from his closeness, “He was never inside me.”

A small movement and the phone illuminated the closet once again.

“Okay.  So you didn’t fuck him, and now you know I hate thinking you were.  What did you think about me and Natalie?”  He flicked the phone off again and total darkness engulfed us.

“I didn’t like it.”

Light flooded my eyes again.  His eyes looked menacing, intense.  “Why?”  He raised the phone.

“What, are you twelve?  You shut that phone off one more time; I’m going to kick you, Kade.”

“How about you kiss me instead?”  The tension thickened, the small space turned humid, hotter…slicker.  Scents of cinnamon apples against worn leather saturated my senses.

“I don’t think that would make me smile half as much as kicking you right now!”

“Seriously?”  He flicked the phone off again.  Darkness.

“Kade,” I hissed smacking my hand against his chest.  The light on the phone flickered on again and we both watched the phone tumble out of his hands and land amongst the clumps of boas and costumes at our feet.

“Tell me how you really felt,” he said, eyes softening, face moving closer to mine.  “I need to know,” his warm breath fanned across my lips.  Eyes so painfully, savagely grey that they looked lost and colorless, starving.

Fuck, his words made sweat break out on my skin.  Primal.  Heated.  “Yeah, why is that?”  The phone’s light blinked out.

“I want you to hate the thought of it.”

“Kade, I hated the thought of it.  I hated it so much I didn’t even want to know.  I want to get out of this closet and away from you.  Your mood swings are giving me whiplash.”

“I didn’t,” he whispered, pulling me closer.  “I didn’t touch her.  I ran out of there and looked for you.  All I wanted was you.”

For a few slow heartbeats, the only sound was our breathing, soft hot breaths against each other’s skin.

“I read your book,” I whispered.

His movements stilled for a moment. I feared he stopped breathing, yet just underneath the tips of my fingers, I felt the erratic acceleration of his heartbeat and I knew I had somehow affected him.

My hands closed over the material of his soft cotton shirt, fisting it in my fingers.  I wanted him to know that I didn’t want to let go.  In the pitch-blackness, I had shaken off all my inhibitions, all my fears of not being good enough for someone.

“Dedicated to me,” I whispered.  Light fluttery touches, brushes of heat against my skin caused shivers that made my whole body tremble.

Thick heavy hands slid slowly up the flesh of my neck, rough fingertips sending shivers up my spine, both of us breathing loudly into each other.  In the dark, my senses exploded.  My pulse raced, my body melted into his.  Powerful.

“Cliffhanger almost killed me. How does it end,” I whispered against his lips.