Sift Read online

  Sift

  L.D. Davis

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by L.D. Davis

  Copyright © 2016 LD Davis

  Cover Design by Tina Kleuker, Focus4Media

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses, and events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  For Kingston Westmorland, Maria “Cherry” Blanco, and Casey Kirschner

  Chapter One

  I bit down on my bottom lip as Caden gazed up at me with a smirk. He dropped his lips to my navel and kissed it softly before dipping his pierced tongue into it. I giggled and smacked his shoulder half-heartedly. I could feel his grin on my skin as he did it again. I hit him again, but with even less power than the first time. As strange and ticklish the sensation was, it also felt good.

  He captured a tiny edge of my jeans between his teeth and growled as he tugged on it. I laughed as he continued to whip his head back and forth until he was able to disengage the button using only his teeth. He pulled the zipper down with his hand before he trailed a finger down over the seam where I was hot and wanting.

  “Mmm,” he murmured. “I can smell you.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “And that’s a good thing? Should I go shower first?”

  “Fuck no. You smell like you’re wet and ready for me.”

  I pushed my fingers through his blond hair as I looked into his bright blue eyes. “I am.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment as I stroked his head. When he opened them, I could see that he was ready for me. Any ideas of foreplay were forgotten as he got to his knees and hurriedly pulled my jeans and panties off. He quickly stripped out of his own pants and briefs and set his erection free.

  Only a moment later, he positioned himself between my parted thighs and slid into me with one powerful thrust. I groaned against his lips before licking them slowly.

  “Darla,” he said my name as an exhalation.

  He kissed me hard as he took hold of my hands and pinned them over my head. That was how he liked to take me, held down securely under him as he drilled me into the bed. My body arched up to meet his thrusts, my nipples pressed against his chest.

  He gathered my wrists in one hand and held them tightly as he reached down to pinch a nipple between his fingers. I let out a high pitch, lustful noise as I struggled beneath him. He liked it when I did that, too. Whenever I fought to free myself, he went harder, faster. It was how we were together in bed and in our relationship. Hard. Hasty. Hot.

  Only a few short minutes after we started, we came together. I felt him pulse as he groaned my name. I shivered violently as my own orgasm peaked and then began to fade. He lay on me and in me, panting against my neck. I rotated my hands as I tried to get some feeling back into them.

  Caden pushed himself up on his forearms and grinned down at me. “I fucking love you.”

  “I fucking love you, too.”

  He pressed a quick kiss to my mouth before he pulled out of me. Contented, I rolled onto my side, and he took his place behind me. After pulling me against his body and covering us with the comforter, he kissed my shoulder, the back of my neck, and my head.

  “How much longer before you have to go?” he murmured against my hair.

  I glanced at the digital clock next to the bed. “I should have been on the road an hour ago. I still have to go home and finish packing.”

  “You should cancel and stay here with me all weekend. We can stay in bed and watch movies, play video games, eat pizza and potato chips and screw. Like rabbits.”

  I smiled. “I believe the whole breeding like bunnies thing pertains more to how quickly and often they get pregnant. I don’t think they’re actually having sex several times a day, and I don’t think that—in spite of the fact of the present you just left inside me—you truly want us to be like rabbits.”

  He sighed with exaggerated exasperation. “Fine. We’ll screw like porn stars.”

  “Sure. No problem. I can fake it all day long.”

  I screeched when he pinched me hard on the butt. Laughing, I rolled over to face him. I wrapped my limbs around him and put a hand on his face.

  “Stay here,” he whispered as my thumb trailed over his lips.

  “I can’t. You know I can’t. You should come with me. I have to bake tomorrow and do the baby shower thing Sunday afternoon, but we can escape in the evening and go back to our hotel room and you can do whatever you want to me there.”

  “Mmm.” He pressed his semi-hard erection against me. “I already do what I want to you. Anytime and anywhere.”

  I snorted. “That is true, you dominant asshole. So, come with me.”

  “All three of your parents hate me,” he answered flatly. “I’m not going to drive six hours into the backwoods of Virginia so that they can all glare at me and judge me because I have tattoos and piercings.”

  “I have a tattoo,” I argued.

  “And they judge you,” he said pointedly. “But not as much as they judge me. They have to love you. They don’t have to love me. You have a freakin’ cupcake on your back. My arms, back, and torso are covered in ink, Darla. My eyebrows are pierced, my tongue is pierced, my nose, my lip, and my ears. They look at me and see a bad boy corrupting their sweet, country daughter.”

  That was rather true. Cade looked like the epitome of a bad boy, and my parents did judge him based on his appearance. They didn’t seem to care that he had an MBA and owned his own successful three-star restaurant in Philadelphia. I had been dating Caden
off and on for over three years—the past year being the most permanent so far—and my dad always asked me the same question whenever I brought him home with me. “When are you gonna bring home a decent boy?”

  “Okay,” I sighed. “They’re snobby sometimes, but so what? You won’t be going for them. You’ll be going for me.”

  He at least seemed to think about it for a moment before he declined again, but I knew it was coming. He almost always said no.

  “I really don’t want to do deal with that BS, Dar. Besides, I have to work this weekend.”

  “You’re the boss man. You can let your other chefs handle the work for the weekend. Besides, you just asked me to stay here with you. You weren’t so concerned about work then.”

  He kissed my nose as his hand gently rubbed my back. “If you stay, I’ll stay. If you go, I’m going to work, and that’s that. Maybe another time, but this time you’re going to be busy, and I’ll get stuck with one of your crazy, judgmental family members.”

  I blew out a breath. He was right, but it didn’t make me want him with me any less.

  “Fine.”

  His lips lightly touched mine. “I love you.”

  “Sure you do,” I responded sulkily.

  He gasped comically and drew back a little. “You doubt my love for you?”

  “Right now I do.”

  “Your name is permanently written on my heart.” He put his hand on his heart as he tried to look hurt.

  I rolled my eyes, even as my mouth twitched while I tried not to smile.

  My name actually was permanently written across his heart. When he moved his hand, I replaced it with my own. I carefully traced the curvy letters that spelled out my name, Darla.

  Two years ago after a particularly nasty breakup and equally passionate make-up, Cade went and got my name signed across his stupid heart. It had been a very romantic sentiment, but at the same time, it put a lot of pressure on me. I sure as hell wasn’t getting anyone’s name inked on my body. It made me feel locked into our relationship. How could I permanently break up with a guy who had my name in ink on his chest?

  Not that I had any plans of breaking up with Caden. I loved him, and most of the time I thought I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. But then there were other times when I didn’t feel that way, and I wasn’t sure. I had my doubts, more than I wanted to acknowledge, especially when I took into consideration how my family felt about him and vice versa.

  “I do love you,” he said. All amusement was gone from his face. His forehead creased as he peered at me and waited for a response.

  “I love you, too.”

  He kissed me again, and I felt him growing hard again against my belly. I really needed to get up and get out of there. I had a long drive ahead of me, but as he rolled me onto my stomach and pinned my hands down, I thought that perhaps I could spare another few minutes.

  When he speared me from behind, all thoughts of leaving were temporarily forgotten.

  Chapter Two

  I decided to take a shower at Cade’s. That way I could just swing by my apartment, hurriedly throw the rest of my stuff into a bag and be on my way. I just hoped that I was a little more expeditious about leaving Virginia for my trip home. According to the weather reports, a monstrous snow storm was headed our way late on Monday. I planned to be on the road in the early hours of that morning and curled up with Cade by the time the first of the snowflakes began to fall.

  Typically, I wouldn’t have risked getting snowed in anywhere, but my sister McKenzie and her husband Cort were knocked up. The baby—whose sex was unknown—was due in a few weeks. The baby shower had been planned for a few months, without any foresight of a late winter mammoth blizzard. If I didn’t go down there for the baby shower, my sister would never forgive me. My mother would publically shame me for no less than five years, and my dad would find some way to blame my boyfriend. I had to go. I guess I wanted to go, too.

  I didn’t wash my mane of blonde hair because I didn’t have time. After my shower, I quickly put it up in a loose bun and started to get dressed. During the winter, I preferred to get dressed in the bathroom because it was still warm from my hot, steamy showers. I had just pulled on a pair of panties when Cade opened the bathroom door without knocking. I didn’t necessarily mind, but what if I had been on the toilet? As many positions as he’d seen me in, on the toilet wasn’t one of them.

  I barely glanced at him as I put on my bra. “Whatever happened to knocking?”

  “Who the hell is Trey?” he demanded as he held up my phone.

  Oh, damn.

  I narrowed my eyes at the phone and then at Caden’s face. “Why do you have my phone, Cade?”

  “Why the fuck is some dude asking to see you before you leave?” he shouted.

  As always, when Cade shouted at me, I shouted back. “I don’t know!”

  “The fuck you don’t know! You’ve been texting back and forth with him for over a month, Darla!”

  I rolled my eyes as I began to pull on my jeans. “So what? I haven’t said anything wrong to him.”

  “Maybe not, but every fucking time he told you how beautiful you looked or said that he fucking missed you and wanted to see you, you’d answer with some stupid ass smiling emoji!”

  “Oh, dear God, not the emojis!”

  “Don’t be fucking sarcastic, Darla!” He threw the phone at me, pelting me on the chest with it and without apology. I just barely caught it before it fell on the floor.

  I took in a deep breath as I glared at him. I pushed my phone into my back pocket and shook my head. “You’re overreacting, as usual.”

  “I’m overreacting? I’m overreacting?” Even though his voice had dropped some, he looked angrier than ever.

  “First of all, I don’t know why you were in my phone. But Trey is just a customer.”

  “Just a customer?” His eyes darkened. “You forget that I can download old messages, Darla. I know you’ve gone out with him!”

  I threw my hands up. “I didn’t ‘go out’ with him! He brought me lunch a few times, okay? I didn’t go anywhere with him.”

  “It’s the same thing! Why are you encouraging him? Why is he saying shit like ‘your boyfriend doesn’t appreciate you?’ What the fuck does he know about our relationship?”

  I laughed without humor. “Interestingly enough, my boyfriend doesn’t appreciate me, but I am not encouraging him! You read what I said when he asked to see me, asshole! I said no!”

  “You said, ‘sorry, I can’t,’ and added a fucking sad-faced emoji! Are you really sad that you can’t go see him, Dar? Are you disappointed that you had to be here with me instead of basking in the glow of his ‘appreciation’ for you?”

  I suddenly felt very drained and just wanted the argument to end.

  I pushed a few stray hairs off my cheek and tucked them behind my ear. “You’re being really stupid right now, Caden. I don’t have time for this.”

  I started to push past him to go into the bedroom, but he blocked my way, grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me.

  “You’re not going anywhere until we’re done talking!”

  “I am done talking!” I shouted back as I struggled to break free. His hands gripped me painfully. “Get off of me!”

  We shoved at one another as I tried to get away from him and get out of the small bathroom, but Caden was bigger and stronger than me. When he slammed me against the doorframe, I reacted viciously by clawing at his face and drawing blood.

  Infuriated, he shoved me away so hard that I couldn’t stop myself from crashing into the nightstand in the bedroom. A bottle of water, the digital clock, Cade’s phone, and a few odds and ends all fell to the floor as the stand was violently jarred into the side of the bed. I must have bitten my lip somewhere along the way because I could taste the blood when my tongue swiped over a sensitive spot.

  I didn’t fall, but I was bent over as I leaned up against the wall and tried to gather my wits. Cade was pacing the room like
a lion. Any moment he would attack, but not if I attacked first.

  With a burst of fury of my own, I charged him and shoved him harder than he had shoved me. He was a little bit harder to move, but he did stumble back into a bureau. He looked at me with wide eyes and an open mouth, as if he couldn’t believe I had dared retaliated against him. Blood oozed from the slashes on his cheek and my own blood dribbled down my chin.

  I wiped my chin with the back of my hand as I glared at him. My voice tremored with fury and heartache. “Trey works at a youth center down the street from the bakery. We were one of their sponsors for a fundraising event, and I worked closely with him for a couple weeks. I am not guilty of cheating, but I am guilty of accepting his flattery. We sometimes talk when he comes in. I let him say nice things about me.”

  Caden’s eyebrows pulled together. He was still furious, but he had stopped shouting. “Why do you?”

  “Because you don’t.” It was a simple, but very true statement.

  I turned away from him to look for my shoes.

  “You know that I think you’re beautiful. You know all of the things I think about you.”

  “Sometimes I need to hear it, Cade!” I snapped as I pulled a pair of socks on my feet. “Maybe telling me that I have a good pussy isn’t enough.”

  He moved away from the bureau and stood over me as I hastily pushed my feet into my shoes.

  “Maybe that asshole tells you all the shit you want to hear about yourself, but he doesn’t love you. I do!” He pounded his chest where my name was. “I fucking love you with my whole heart. I show you that every damn day.”

  I stood up so fast that he had to take a stumbling step back so our heads wouldn’t collide. I shoved him away from me. His face turned red, and his fists clenched at his sides as he breathed like a bull ready to charge.

  Pointing to the blood I knew was smeared across my chin, I shouted, “This! This isn’t love!”

  His eyes widened as if he was seeing the blood for the first time. Maybe he was. Maybe he was too blinded by his own rage to see clearly.

  Before he could argue or start issuing apologies, I stalked out of the bedroom. Cade was right behind me as I searched for my bag.