Chapter 8 – GLENNA #2
He goes hard on my clit, lapping with a flat tongue, and his thick finger probes at my hole, slides inside, and then there are two fingers, and I’m moaning in the back of my throat.
“Come for me, baby,” he urges between licks. “Let go. Let me see how pretty you are when you come again.”
I explode on his fingers and tongue, clamping down, curling into a crunch and grunting as pure ecstasy rocks my body.
Then I go limp, legs dangling, arms flung over my head, landing with a clack on the computer keyboard.
Cash chuckles. “Attagirl.”
He stands, wipes his face with the back of his hand, turns his cap back so the brim faces forward, and then holds out a palm. Wrung out as I am, I take it. I’m smiling, and my eyelids are drooping. I must look high.
“You look so damn beautiful when you come.” He kisses me, and I taste myself. His short-trimmed beard is wet, and it smells like pussy.
I don’t know what to say to that, so I do a little bow. He laughs.
“There’s a sink over there.” I point.
“Nah. I ain’t washing this off. It’s fucking amazing.” He licks his first two fingers, and my face burns. “Don’t get shy on me now.”
I bend forward to grab my pants. He bats my hand away and draws them up, helping me down from the desk to pull them all the way to my waist.
“So do I get my bones jumped every morning after I take you to a shitty dinner at my parents’, or is this like a once-off?” He plops his ass in the rolling desk chair and pulls me into his lap, cuddling me to his chest. His hard-on pokes me in the butt.
“I was just—” I rest my head in the crook of his neck. I don’t know how to explain.
“Proving a point to Toby Guilfoyle.” He doesn’t sound bothered. But what does a bothered Cash sound like?
“He was lecturing me.”
“Sexy. I see why you were turned on.”
I lazily smack his thigh. He grabs the hand and winds our fingers together.
“I’m sorry I took advantage of you.”
He snorts. “Anytime, baby.” He thinks a moment. “Can I kick his ass?”
“No. I can handle him.”
“I know you can handle him. I’m asking can I plant my fist in his face? Don’t say no. Think about it.”
“He’s really an asshole,” I sigh. It’s a weird thought. It’s definitely true, but until recently, I would’ve also thought, “And I’m an asshole for dating him.” But no. He’s the asshole.
Cash grunts in agreement and rotates us slowly side to side in the chair.
“Did you know I’m a stage-five clinger?” I ask him.
Cash snorts. “Ain’t clinging if the dude wants you.” He lays a wet smack on my cheek. “Cling to me anytime.”
“I knew if I dragged you back here, you’d go along with it.”
He grunts again. Sounds like “duh.”
“You like me.”
“Yeah.”
No coyness. No qualification. Just “yeah.”
That easy.
“Why’d you come by, anyway?” I ask.
“Breakfast. It was delicious.”
I giggle. He hoists me higher on his lap. He’s still hard.
His voice grows serious. “I wanted to check and make sure everything’s okay, considering.”
“Considering what?”
“The news?” He squints down at me. “Oh, shit. You don’t know?”
I reach for my phone, and I realize I left it at my apartment when I went back for the keys. Oh, no. Dad.
“What happened?” I’m already on my feet, taking off my apron.
“Del Willis got arrested. It was on the morning news. He’s facing multiple federal charges. Life in prison. They’re saying he sold the vehicles on the black market. Possibly to foreign adversaries. It’s gonna be national news. It’s insane.”
Cash is telling me this like he can hardly believe it.
Like it can’t possibly be true. But that’s what my dad has been saying all along.
He said you can maybe sell a few vehicles online, but with the numbers he counted as missing, Del had to have had regular customers.
And who buys a fleet of armored vehicles?
Drug lords. Mobsters. Dictators. That’s who.
Cash is still sitting. He takes off his hat and scrubs his neck. He’s genuinely dejected. Confused.
I don’t know what to say. I get quiet. Chew the inside of my cheek. My dad has got to be blowing up my phone. I don’t want him worried.
Shit. That’s why no one’s coming in this morning.
I’m the woman who set Del Willis up to be put away for life. My stomach heaves.
I go to the sink and wash my hands, splashing some water on my cheeks.
I never wanted this.
I need to talk to Dad.
“Hey.” Cash is behind me, and then his muscly arms are wrapping tight around me, his beard scratching my neck. “We’ll deal with it.”
“We can’t keep this up. People are gonna hate me. They’ll hate you if you’re with me.”
“No, they won’t.” There’s not a shred of doubt in his voice.
“You’re deluded.”
“No.” He turns me so I face him. “I know how shit works. I’m a dick. I always have been. I park on the sidewalk. I curse. Granger’s never on a leash. I skip church most Sundays, but you know when I roll up, everyone is hey, hi, good to see you.”
“Yeah. I know.” It’s annoying as hell, especially because he’s not a dick. Not exactly. Not with me. Not lately.
“Everybody loves the maverick, right? The prodigal son. The guy who doesn’t give a shit about them.”
“People suck.”
“Yup. That’s why we’re gonna make a home on the mountain, live off the land, and make babies smart like you and cocky like me.”
“You’re nuts.”
“I’m confident.”
“Your charm doesn’t work on me, you know,” I grumble. ‘Cause it does. “I know you give a shit about me.”
He smiles, and it’s gentle and dopey and shameless. “You got protection in here?”
“Like a gun?” I shake my head. “We do not have a gun in the coffee shop.” I pause a second. “Do you think we need one?”
When the article first came out, there was the boycott and some graffiti, but nothing threatening. This is a whole other level, though. This is real.
My stomach really doesn’t feel right.
Cash actually seems to think before he answers. “No. This is Stonecut. They’re probably gonna boycott you again, though. And I don’t want you walking home alone after dark.”
“Okay.” I force myself not to smile. “I’ll ask Toby to take me home after close.”
“The hell you will,” he growls, crowding me into the counter, grabbing my hair and tilting my head for his kiss.
He’s mid-tongue thrust when he jerks back like a thought has occurred to him.
“Shit. I’ve got a client this week. I’m gonna be up on the east face through Wednesday. Fuck. Not good timing.”
He frowns, genuinely consternated. “I can’t cancel,” he says.
Before I can reply that I’d never let him, he says, “I’ll ask Jesse to keep an eye on things.” He levels a very serious finger at me. “Don’t leave until Jesse comes for you, all right?”
His brow’s furrowed, his brown eyes as serious as I’ve ever seen them. He’s worried.
That makes me worried. I need to talk to Dad. I don’t want him walking anywhere alone, either.
But also—
Cash is worried for me.
He is always—from when we were kids—the epitome of not serious. He can be chill or hyper or dickish or obnoxious, and maybe once or twice, I’ve seen him pissed, but he’s never concerned . He never means business.
It’s unnerving.
And it makes my insides squishy.
I’m important to him.
Despite just about everything.
I cannot wrap my brain around it.
“Glenna? Say yes.”
“Yes?”
“It’s not a question. You don’t leave until Jesse’s here to walk you home. Agreed?”
I straighten my spine and give him a salute.
He gestures me toward the front of the shop. When I pass him, he slaps my ass.
“You do not have my permission to do that.” I stick my nose in the air and brace myself for Toby’s disapproving cold shoulder.
“Didn’t ask for it,” Cash says, all arrogance again as he struts out, holding the door for me.
Then, as soon as he sees Toby on his phone at a table in the empty dining room, he clears his throat, smirks as smarmy as I’ve ever seen, and announces, “Sorry for the inconvenience, man. Just ate Glenna’s sweet pussy until she called my name instead of God’s.
Apparently, she’s never had it so good, but don’t be too hard on yourself, my dude. ”
Cash has been walking and talking, and when he passes Toby, he claps him hard on the shoulder. “You like to run your mouth to tear a woman down. I got other skills.”
He smiles wider, and he leans down, getting right in Toby’s face, but he doesn’t lower his voice.
He projects it so I can’t miss a word all the way behind the counter.
“If I walk in here again, and you’re chewing her ear off, and she looks like she did when I came in earlier?
I’m gonna throw your hipster ass through that front window like it’s a bar scene from a western on channel fifty-four. ”
I—
Before I can think of a word to say, Cash straightens and waves at me. “Purely metaphorically, babe! Wait for Jesse. I’ll call you when I have service.”
Then he glances down at Toby and says, “But seriously. Right through the window.” He makes the sound of glass shattering, waves at me again, and strolls out.
Toby opens his mouth and sputters.
I shrug. “Yeah, I wouldn’t have guessed he knew the word ‘metaphorical’ either.”