Give Me Fever (18 page)

Both felt complete.

Jade eased Kaeden’s arms from her body and slid from the bed. Stretching her nude frame, she tiptoed out of her bedroom and made her way into the kitchen where she fixed herself a glass of ice water. She felt exhausted and exhilarated all at once.

She and Kaeden had been inseparable the last few weeks, sharing steamy, sex-filled nights and dates showcasing more of Charleston than she had seen during her entire twenty-five years growing up in Holtsville. She smiled into her glass remembering the good times they had shared. The funny moments. The quiet and reflective moments. The sensual ones. All of them had made for a good time for the new couple.

Jade was finally beginning to believe that her mother was right that Kaeden was her Mr. Right and there was nothing wrong with that.

“I missed you in bed.”

Jade turned. She smiled at Kaeden standing behind her in a pair of pajama bottoms that were slung low on his narrow hips, while he wiped his eyes with the back of his hands. “Needed some water. Want some?” she offered.

At his silence she looked over her shoulder at him. His eyes were running all over her nude body. When those eyes shifted up to her face they were filled with desire. Jade sat the glass down on the counter and covered her privates with her arms as best she could. “Oh no, Kaeden Strong, you know I have a camping trip I’m leaving for early in the morning. I need my rest,” she told him.

Kaeden reached out and grabbed her to pull her close to his body. “Trust me, once I get done you won’t have no choice
but
to sleep,” he whispered near her ear before biting her playfully.

Jade tilted her head back as his dangerous mouth planted kisses along her neck. “I can’t, Kaeden.”

He gave her one final kiss to her collarbone and then soundly slapped her ass.

“Ow!” Jade exclaimed, rubbing her bottom as they made their way back to her bedroom.

“You don’t mind me slapping that ass when I’m hitting it from the back.” Kaeden climbed back into the bed.

“Well, I’m usually pretty preoccupied then.” Jade snuggled close to Kaeden, laying her head on his chest, her arms across his abdomen, and her leg across his legs.

Her body fit his like a lock to a key.

Kaeden brought his hand up to massage her lower back and the deep curve above her buttocks. “Your body feels good, Jade.”

She smiled like a cat stretching in the sun as she looked up through the open window at the full moon seeming ready to burst through. “Do you have any regrets, Kaeden?” she asked him softly into the quiet of the night.

Kaeden nodded. “I have a few. Do you?”

Jade laughed huskily. “I have plenty.”

“Share.”

They had shared many a conversation like this over the last few weeks. Random questions. Reflective thoughts. Both the impetus for talks where they really got to know one another. “I wish my mother and I were as close as when I was a little girl,” Jade admitted.

“Why do you think you’re not close?”

“She’s so busy catching up on her lost youth that she wants a hang-out partner and not a daughter.” Jade’s eyes saddened. “Have you seen my mother? She looks like my sister.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Kaeden drawled.

Jade pinched his side.

“Ow!”

They both laughed as they settled back against one another.

“Your turn,” Jade prodded him.

“I always wondered why I’m the black sheep of my family,” Kaeden said, the sadness in his voice revealing how deeply he meant the words.

Jade hugged him closer.

“It was real hard growing up and having to watch my brothers through the window while they played or worked the farm. I felt like the boy in the bubble,” he joked, obviously trying to lighten the mood.

“Awwwwww,” she said sympathetically.

Kaeden chuckled. “Hell, if I didn’t have the silver hair and looks like Kahron I would think I was adopted or switched at birth.”

Jade thought for a moment as she lightly stroked his abdomen. “Families are like puzzles, Kaeden, every piece is cut differently and every piece has its predestined spot…but when you put the pieces all together, they fit perfectly.”

“That’s deep.” Kaeden placed a kiss to the top of her head.

Jade twirled her tongue around his nipple, the hairs tickling her tongue. “I can get all philosophical when I wanna.”

Kaeden shivered. “If you don’t stop that you’re gonna get all this,” he told her, lifting his chin in the direction of his dick tenting the sheet.

Jade laughed as she turned over in the bed to lie on her side. Kaeden immediately shifted his own body to spoon her from behind. She released a contented sigh as one of his warm hands settled on her breast. “No nipple action tonight,” she told him with a yawn, having learned that he liked to fall asleep teasing her nipples.

Kaeden slid his hand down to her belly. “All I’d have to do is lift your leg and slide in. Just a little light one. We won’t shake the bed or even break a sweat.”

Jade had to admit that it sounded tempting—especially with his hardness pressed against her buttocks. But if she gave in she wouldn’t be worth a quarter in the morning. So she closed her eyes and threw out a fake snore.

Kaeden chuckled. “Night, Jade.”

“Good night.”

Kaeden spent most of that weekend at his parents’ missing Jade and avoiding as much of the outdoors as he could. He knew she was getting in today. He just wasn’t sure what time to expect her. But as soon as he got the call he would walk out of church if he had to, to get to her. He was ready for his woman—
his
woman—to get home. Particularly from a trip where she might be the lone woman among a group of men. Jade in jeans and sweatshirt was just as tempting as a nude woman. There wasn’t much she could do to hide her wide hips and full bosom.

Bzzzz.

A text. He grabbed his BlackBerry.

Kaeden smiled broadly as he rose to his feet. “This is good,” he told the rest of the Strong bunch that were lounging in their Sunday finest on the porch. “But I gotta go.”

“Must’ve been one helluva message,” Kahron drawled as he led one of the ranch’s ponies with Kadina and KJ nestled on its back.

Everyone laughed.

“Is Jade back from the trip?” his mother asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered as he walked down the stairs and made his way to his BMW.

“So you’re going to miss church this morning?” Kael called to his son.

Kaeden looked up, surprised because his father usually didn’t want to go to church himself. But his concern faded at the twinkle in his father’s eyes. “Jade and I might come back later this afternoon,” he told them before climbing into his vehicle.

They all waved him off as he reversed in an arc and then pulled off down the drive. The idea of bringing Jade around his family was spur of the moment but the more Kaeden sat with it, the more he liked the idea of it.

At first he worried Kaleb would hold a grudge because his brother was with the woman he briefly tried to pursue, but when Kaleb first heard the news he just shook Kaeden’s hand and asked: “Sure you can handle all that?”

Kaeden had gripped his brother’s hand tighter and replied: “Trust and believe that.”

They laughed. It was done. Kaeden 1, Kaleb 0. When it came to Jade, anyway.

And Kaeden was happy with Jade.

The sound of a horn blaring made him shift his bespectacled eyes up to the rearview mirror. He smiled as the black Wild-n-Out van turned into the yard. Before she had even come to a stop, Kaeden was out of his car and ready to swoop her into his arms as soon as the driver’s-side door opened.

“Hey, ba’y.”

“Hey, sexy.”

They smiled even as their lips touched.

“Miss me?” Jade asked as she wrapped her arms up around his neck.

“Yeah, I did,” he told her with complete honesty as his body reacted to being near her and having her in his arms.

“Good,” she teased with a laugh.

Kaeden looked down into the smiling mocha face and he felt some powerful emotional clutch at his heart. “I could really fall for you, Jade Prince,” he told her low in his throat.

Jade’s smile faded as her eyes glimmered. “And I think I have already fallen for you a little bit,” she told him.

Kaeden dropped his hands to her waist. “Just a little bit?” he joked.

Jade leaned back in his arms and winked. “Just a
lee
little bit.”

Kaeden kissed her deeply with a hungry moan opening his heart and allowing himself to freely fall.

Jade held the sheet up with her arms to cover her nudity as she fed Kaeden fresh fruit from a glass bowl. “This was nice,” she told him before biting into a bright red strawberry and then offering him a bite as well.

“You’re welcome.”

Jade leaned down and licked the trail of juice from the fruit that drizzled down his chin. “Now, why does that taste better than the actual fruit?”

“Must be all this chocolate,” Kaeden mused, dropping the sheet to expose his chest.

Jade playfully plucked one of the lenses of his glasses. “Well, I loved my bubble bath and the breakfast in bed and the massage and the things that happened
after
the massage.”

Kaeden reached over to rub light circles on her back with his fingertips. “I know you like to relax after an excursion.”

Jade lifted the sheet to stretch her body out next to Kaeden’s. “All I want to do right now is sleep, and then I’m going to make us dinner.”

“Actually, I thought we could ride over to my parents’ and eat there,” he told her before he removed his glasses and set them on the nightstand. They both turned on their sides and snuggled close in their beloved spoon position. “But if you’re tired, we don’t have to go.”

“No, let’s go. I wanna go horseback riding.”

Kaeden stiffened.
Please don’t ask me to ride with you. Please don’t ask me to ride with you.

Jade’s eyes popped open before she rolled onto her back. “Actually, I know your allergies get to you, but I think it would be cool if we rode together for a little while.”

Kaeden knew that Jade made concessions for him all the time. She was an outdoors baby and they spent the majority of their time together indoors because of him. “Yeah, we can ride,” he promised, a man of his word.

If he had to go to his allergist and get a dozen shots in his butt to take Jade horseback riding for an hour, then he would just have to do that.

Jade took a deep sip of her glass of cherry lemonade as she and Kaeden sat in his parents’ kitchen eating fried chicken, cabbage, white rice, and huge spoonfuls of macaroni and cheese. “Oh my God, this is so good,” she sighed, doing a little dance on her stool.

Kaeden laughed. “My mom and my sisters-in-law cook like this every Sunday,” he bragged before taking a bite of a chicken thigh.

“I couldn’t eat like this all the time. I would blow up like a double-wide mobile home.”

Kaeden leaned back to eye her buttocks and her long shapely legs in the jean shorts she wore with studded flip-flops. “Nah, don’t do that,” he told her in appreciation.

“Y’all done eating?” Lisha Strong asked as she strolled into the kitchen.

“Yes, ma’am, everything was so good. My grand-daddy would love it,” Jade said as Kaeden rose to pick up their plates.

“Take a plate for Esai,” Lisha said, moving to the pantry to grab one of the hundreds of to-go containers they kept handy. “Him and Kael used to hunt with that Holtsville Hunting Club, and the wives took turns taking food out to their little clubhouse, so Esai’s eaten plenty of my food.”

Jade nodded as she watched the becoming woman ladle heaping servings of food into the Styrofoam container. “Thank you, Mrs. Strong,” Jade said, hating that she sounded as nervous as she felt.

“Uhm-hmm. No problem. I’m just going to leave it in the fridge ’til y’all go.”

Kaeden squeezed her shoulders comfortingly before he briefly kissed her neck and whispered, “Relax, Jade. She doesn’t bite.”

She smiled…until Garcelle, Bianca, and Kaitlyn strolled in.
Oh great, I’m about to be quizzed
, Jade thought, stiffening her back as Kaeden gave her one last wave and left the kitchen.

Of course Jade knew of the women—they all lived in the same small town and attended the same church—but Jade didn’t know them personally. Jade knew she was an attractive woman, but watching this unholy trifecta was still intimidating.

Garcelle was a Beyoncé look-alike, curves and all.

Bianca was equally gorgeous with a stomach flat as a board—all hints of a baby bulge gone.

And Kaitlyn was tall and thin and willowy, with a head full of curly jet-black hair.

“Jade, would you like something to drink?” Garcelle asked, moving to the fridge.

“I have lemonade.”

Bianca waved her hand. “Not that. We mean a real drink.”

Kaitlyn sat four crystal wine goblets on the island. “Oh my God, Jade, Garcelle makes the
best
white sangria.”

“Ooh,” Jade sighed as she eyed the huge glass pitcher of white sangria filled with slices of oranges, peaches, green apples, and grapes. She filled each of the glasses halfway.

“Let the men have their ugly and nasty beer in a can, but we ladies sip on sangria.” Lisha winked at Jade as she opened a bottle of Sprite and topped off each glass with a splash.

Jade accepted the goblet passed to her and immediately raised it to her lips.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” Mrs. Strong admonished. “First we toast to something good in our lives.”

Bianca snuck her a look saying,
just smile and nod.

And so Jade smiled. And then Jade nodded.

“Now, I’ll start.” Mrs. Strong cleared her throat and raised her goblet high. “Here’s to family. The most important thing to me.”

Kaitlyn stopped checking her nails to pick up her own goblet. “Here’s to Louis Vuitton and Gucci. Chocolate mani-pedis and stone massages. Ooh, I almost forgot—”

“Kaitlyn!” Mrs. Strong snapped.

“Remember the rules, Mama, no judging,” Kaitlyn reminded her chidingly with a twinkle in her eyes.

Mrs. Strong rolled her eyes heavenward.