Free Unbroken by Maisey Yates Page A

it in the depths of his dark eyes.
    â€œYou have to be careful saying things like that,” he said.
    She tried to say something, anything, to smooth it over because, hello, she was a bitch and she was most particularly a bitch because Cade was trying to help her and she was being a jerk because her pride was acting up like a bad case of hives. But she couldn’t speak, her throat totally closed up for some reason.
    Maybe because she’d never had Cade’s anger directed at her, not like this. Not in this very male, very predatory kind of way that seemed dangerous in a—dare she think it?—sexy way.
    â€œBecause,” he continued, “some people might think you were asking for a demonstration.”
    She nearly choked. “I’m not.”
    â€œLike I said, be careful. Now, be a dear and show me to my room.”
    Her jaw dropped and she forgot to feel guilty for her bitchiness. “Don’t make me fire up the forge and brand your ass, Mitchell.”
    She turned and walked back toward the house, and Cade followed. Close. She could feel his heat at her back, could feel a weird crackle of tension between them.
    They walked inside and he closed the door behind them. “Just a second,” she said. She looked into the living room and saw her grandfather asleep in the chair in front of the TV. “All right, follow me.”
    She headed up the stairs, their feet clunking on the hollow wood steps and, somehow, adding to the awkwardness. Since when was there awkwardness between her and Cade? She blamed him for this. For his stupid plan. His stupid Save the Amber plan.
    Like she was a snowy plover, sitting on a beach and being all endangered, and he was some kind of magnanimous park ranger keeping people off her dune.
    She could defend her own dune.
    Except now, he was all up on her dune. Meddling and shit.
    â€œOkay, Cadence,” she said, because when she used the childhood nickname given to him by Lark she could not think about him having sex—either on the bottom or the top. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”
    She pushed open the faded wooden door at the end of the hallway and made a grand, sweeping gesture toward the twin bed with a rustic metal frame, covered by a faded and threadbare quilt her grandma had made around the time Hitler had invaded France.
    There was a round tatted rug on the floor, also the handiwork of her grandmother. Also from a time that predated the Internet.
    There was an old-fashioned alarm clock on a doily, on a rickety old nightstand. And in the closet, Amber happened to know, was a collection of her grandma’s old winter coats. Which smelled heavily of mothballs.
    They didn’t often put guests in the guest room, so it was, frankly, not entirely guest-ready.
    But Cade had volunteered. So he could suck it.
    â€œHere it is,” she said. “All the comforts of home. If you happen to be the Swiss Family Robinson.”
    â€œI’ve spent nights sleeping in horse trailers; do you really think this bothers me?”
    â€œYour family home is pretty swank.”
    â€œYeah, and I’m not in it very often. At least, I spent a lot of years not being in it very often. Besides, Amber, I’m not backing out on this. Not now. It has to last for at least as long as Davis is sniffing around. I’d be bunking with you even without your grandpa counting on it.”
    â€œI don’t want to lie to him,” she said. “Not Davis. My grandpa.”
    â€œYeah, I got that. And I don’t want to lie to him either. And I didn’t mean to. But he overheard what I said—which was not premeditated, by the way.”
    â€œWhich gets you a reduced sentence, but doesn’t absolve you entirely,” she said, glaring pointedly.
    â€œI wanted to help. Which I think should get me pie and cookies, and not your laser eyes of doom.”
    â€œI have my pride,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed and