21. Mollie
CHAPTER 21
Mollie
DIRTY LOOKS
I’m shaking as I push through the bathroom door.
Cash punched Palmer because he upset me.
Not only did Cash punch Palmer. He also knew, somehow, that Palmer hurt my feelings when he flirted with those cute girls in the cowboy hats. Yeah, I don’t want anything serious with him, but it still sucked to see him on the prowl when he’s supposed to be here with me.
Cash was paying attention. To me . In a bar crowded with pretty women, I was the one he was watching. And when he saw something he didn’t like?—
Well, he took action.
Stepping up to the sink, I look in the mirror and put a hand on my face. I’m bright red, my skin hot to the touch.
Is Palmer okay? Should I call him? He was being kind of a dick. And he did start the fight, although I’m sure Cash had a hand in egging him on.
Honestly, I feel…relieved that Palmer left. Which means what, exactly?
Pondering the answer, my legs turn to Jell-O. My heart elbows against my breastbone, its urgent jabs making it difficult to breathe .
Holy shit, Cash was watching me . He cares about how I feel. Who I’m with. What does that mean?
I have feelings for Cash. No denying that. But I think I might’ve just been presented with incontrovertible evidence that he has feelings for me too.
Cash pays attention to me in a way no one has. Ever.
My eyes burn. I cover them, throat locking up with the sudden urge to weep.
I whirl around at a loud bang . Cash stands in the doorway, looking so good—so angry—my right knee literally gives out. I grab at the lip of the sink behind me, steadying myself.
“You can’t—you shouldn’t be in here,” I stammer.
The door swings shut behind him as he stalks into the room. His scent—eucalyptus, skin kissed with sweat—fills my head.
My heart lurches as he begins to push open each stall door. “Everybody out. Now.”
The third and final stall is locked. The girl inside immediately scurries out when Cash bangs on the door, glancing at me before she loops her purse across her chest. “You okay, Cash?”
“Mind giving us a minute, Lucy?”
“You got it.”
When Lucy exits, Cash crosses the room and bolts the door that leads to the bar, the lock sliding home with a definitive thump I feel between my legs.
Then Cash turns to me. My pulse leaps, feeling like a fist slamming against the back of my throat.
He looks downright furious. Jaw ticcing, nostrils flaring. Eyes on fire.
The hungry, barely contained something I see in them turns me inside out. I hold on to the sink for dear life, falling back against it as he approaches.
He closes the space between us in three huge, angry strides. He’s enormous. Even in my boots, Cash towers over me, the air vibrating with emotion as he stops six inches from me. Way too close.
Not close enough.
Is he angry with me? Why?
My body pulses at his nearness, sparks of desire catching up and down my spine. My nipples are hard. Pulse is frantic.
“Him?” Cash finally says.
I blink. “What?”
“Palmetto. Palmston. You want him ?”
“We’re not—I’m not—we’re friends who—wait. My relationship with Palmer is none of your business, Cash.”
His chest barrels out on a sharp inhale. “Answer me.”
“We’re friends.” My voice shakes. “And, yeah, we hook up sometimes.”
“Did y’all hook up today?”
“I’m not answering that.”
He leans in, eyes flicking to my mouth. “Did. You. Hook. Up. Today?”
“We didn’t, all right?” I put my hands on Cash’s chest and give him a shove. “Why do you care so much anyway?”
Cash grabs my wrist, stepping forward so my hands are on his chest again. The firmness of his grip makes my pulse riot. “He’s an idiot. You can do better. So much better, Mollie.”
“Again, who I’m with?—”
“That’s really what you want?” He searches my eyes. “Someone who has no clue how fuckin’ amazing you are?”
My heart must explode into a million pieces, because I feel its ardent beat everywhere: in my lips, my skin, my stomach.
I’m hit again by the urge to cry.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
“Don’t what? Tell you that I was wrong? That you’re everything I thought you weren’t? Big-hearted and generous and smart as hell and, yeah, fuckin’ beautiful? Sexy as hell?” Cash’s eyes graze my face. “Tell me to go, then. Tell me to let you go, and I will. But you gotta say the words, honey, or?—”
“Or what?” I blame him calling me honey for this sudden burst of bravery. “You’ll give me what Palmer couldn’t?”
His eyes flicker. “You’re such a brat.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a brute.”
“I am.” His gaze is pleading. “Tell me to go.”
But I don’t. I look down at my hands, which are still on his chest. He’s a solid wall of warm muscle. I can feel his heart beating against my palms.
“You’re the center of everyone’s universe, you know,” I manage. “Everyone on the ranch. Everyone in your family. They all look to you, and you never ever let them down.”
He breathes in. Out. “They’re everything to me.”
God, how have I not gone up in a fireball yet? Because truly, there is nothing sexier than a man who shows up for the people he loves.
He’s showing up for me.
“You being here.” I swallow. “Sticking up for me. Helping me. Filling me in on everything I missed with Dad. That’s everything to me, Cash. You’re a good man, and I…”
The edges of his eyes crinkle. “What, honey?”
“At first, I couldn’t fucking stand you.” I scoff. “And now I can’t fucking stand how much I want you.”
His eyes look positively feral. “Ask me.”
“Ask what?”
“Ask me to give you what you want.”
I stare at him. “I can’t?—”
“But you can.” He steps closer, melting his hips into mine. “Because you gotta know by now, I can’t deny you anything, Mollie. Not a fuckin’ thing.”
I thought swooning was something that only happened in books. I can now affirm it is an actual thing that happens to actual people, because it’s happening to me .
I go weak in the knees; the only thing holding me up is the solid weight of Cash’s body pressing me against the sink.
Reading me like—ha—a book, Cash curls an arm around my middle. The throb between my legs blares hotter at the onslaught of contact. I love it. Love the feel of him pressed against me. So much so that I feel my eyes rolling to the back of my head.
I bite my lip. “Be the brute,” I breathe. “Leave the good man?—”
“Hello?” There’s a knock on the door. “Hello?! Y’all, I have to use the bathroom?—”
“Get fucked,” Cash shouts.
Then he glides his hand onto my face and leans in and kisses me.
Cash Rivers kisses me, his scruff catching on my skin as he presses his mouth to mine.
It’s the kind of kiss that immediately has my toes curling inside my boots. It’s urgent and hot and hard, weeks of pent-up frustration finally let loose. I close my eyes and move with him. His lips are soft but eager as he drinks me in, hard, thirsty pulls that demand surrender.
And, oh, am I all too happy to surrender. The soft, slick feel of his mouth gliding over mine draws a moan from the back of my throat. My hands fist in his shirt. His other hand moves from the small of my back to my side, his thumb brushing the underside of my breast. A bolt of lust cracks down my middle, fast and loud as lightning.
He opens his mouth and licks into my own, urging my lips apart. I rise into the kiss and taste him. My hand moves up to his neck. He groans when I dig my fingertips into the hair at his nape. I give it a tug.
He bites my bottom lip. Scrapes his beard against my cheek. I’m definitely going to have beard burn tomorrow, but I don’t care .
The hunger I saw in his eyes is very much alive in his kiss. I love it.
Bursts of neon light streak across the backs of my closed eyelids. My pulse thunders, my entire being lighting up as he firms his grip on my waist. His thumb arcs over the swell of my breast and moves across my nipple. At the same time, he ducks his head and kisses my neck— God, I love neck kisses —and I gasp, arching into his touch.
He lets out a low, sinister chuckle, his breath hot on my skin. “How much of a brute you want me to be, honey?”
“We’re in a bathroom.” I give his hair another tug. “At a bar.”
He sinks his teeth into my jaw. “No one’s comin’ in.”
“Everyone knows we’re in here. Everyone knows what we’re doing.”
“We better do it quick, then.”
Before I know what’s happening, he’s sliding his hands down my sides. He’s roughly pulling up my skirt. It bunches around my waist as he lifts me onto the sink, the porcelain cold against the backs of my bare thighs.
He shoves my knees apart and steps between them. His crotch meets with my center, and I roll my hips, my body starving for the friction. He’s doing that thing where he takes my face in his hand and he leans in, tilting his head. The sinews in his thick neck pop against his skin.
And then another kiss. He tastes clean, a hint of tequila on his breath. His tongue finds mine, and suddenly we’re a frenzied tangle of mouths, breaths, bodies.
The feel of him between my legs is everything.
“Can you be quiet?” he grunts.
“Why don’t you find out?”
I slide a hand inside his shirt. His stomach caves, abdominal muscles contracting into hard ridges beneath my palm.
Can’t help it. I laugh.
“What?” He’s nipping at my earlobe now .
“Your body.” I bite his neck, opening my eyes. “It’s laughably hot.”
Cash meets my gaze and runs a hand up my thigh. “Could say the same about yours. Only I ain’t laughin’.”
“What’re you gonna do instead?”
In reply, he lifts his hand and turns his head and spits onto his fingertips.
I jump at the sound. It’s rude, the gesture even ruder.
It might also be the hottest thing I’ve ever witnessed.
Now he’s reaching between us, reaching between my legs. He presses the pad of his thumb against my underwear.
Another dark chuckle. “May not even need this, huh, honey?”
“Maybe no— oh .”
He hooks his thumb into my underwear and tugs them aside. Then he’s using those spit-covered fingertips to part me.
His spit feels warm on my pussy. His kiss is even warmer, his tongue stroking into my mouth as he strokes me between my legs. I want to howl when he dips a blunt fingertip into my entrance, gathering more moisture there before spreading it upward.
My hips punch forward when he hits my clit. I’m already this close to coming.
“Cash,” I breathe. “Oh my God .”
He grunts. “No shit, honey. You’re soaked. For me.”
“For you.”
I bite back a cry when his fingers fall away from where I want him most. But then he’s tearing off my underwear and sinking to his knees, and holy Christ, he’s going down on me.
“Look at this pretty pussy,” he says. “Perfect. So fucking perfect, Mollie. I fuckin’ hate that you kept this from me for so long.”
I don’t have time to protest. I don’t want to protest. I just knock off his hat and grab his hair and pull him against me .
His turn to laugh. The sound vibrates through my pussy as he grabs my thighs and leans in. I nearly convulse when he gathers my clit in his lips and sucks, the pressure there coiling tight to the point of pain.
His mustache tickles me just where I want him.
He kisses my slit. A deep, ardent caress of tongue and lips that’s worlds different from Palmer’s half-hearted ministrations. It’s like Cash is actually enjoying this.
It’s like he’s savoring me, taking his time. My chest clenches. Is he going slow because this is the first and last time we’ll do this? Or is he going slow because, well, that’s Cash, isn’t it? Going all in on the things he cares about.
He’s dropping everything to be here. He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t give a shit what people hear or think. He just gives me what I want, what I need, because that’s more important to him than anything.
I close my eyes. A thought circles wildly inside my head. It’s not easy to break your way through Cash’s defenses. But once you’re in—heavens, he’s the kind of man who’s so easy to fall for.
He is so fucking good at eating pussy.
The pressure in my core becomes unbearable. I roll my hips against his mouth, legs beginning to shake.
“Play with yourself,” he growls, shoving up my shirt with his hand before pulling down my bra. “Touch your tits.”
But he’s already doing that, eyes locked on my bare breast as he thumbs my nipple. The pad of his thumb is rough, calloused, but his touch is gentle. The juxtaposition is mind-blowingly hot.
I cover his hand with mine. My orgasm rises, rises, a growing, thunderous throb that has me biting my lip to keep from yelling. Cash licks my pussy, deep strokes that go back to front, back to front. He circles my clit, sucks on it. Plays with my nipple all the while.
My heart flatlines. Then bursts into vibrant, ardent life as the orgasm finally slams into me. The release is brutal, and I curl my fingers into Cash’s thick hair, searching for relief. Support.
Sympathy.
And I get it. Cash slips a finger inside me, the pressure just what I didn’t know I needed. I look down and see him watching me.
“I gotta feel you comin’, honey.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “You gonna come this hard on my dick?”
I can only nod.
“You’d best be tellin’ the truth. ’Cause you feel so fucking good. Tight and wet and hot. I’mma fuck you here, and you’re gonna love it, ain’t you, honey?”
I nod again.
Cash presses one last kiss to my clit before straightening. Then it’s my mouth he’s kissing, keeping that finger inside me. This kiss is soft, sweet, and he wraps an arm around my waist and holds me against him as wave after wave of sensation crashes through me.
“Wow,” I say when I’m finally able to breathe.
He pulls his finger out. I wince.
“Shit, that hurt?”
“No. Yes. That orgasm—it was the kind that’s so good, it hurts. I think it was that.”
“What can I do?”
I rest my cheek against his chest. His heart thunders in my ear.
There’s a bulge in the front of his jeans.
“You can do that again,” I say, and a sharp, searing sense of light fills my chest when Cash laughs.
A big, booming belly laugh that I’m sure the entire bar can hear. Far as I can tell, the band still hasn’t started playing again.
“Happily.” He leans down and thumbs my chin. Tilts my face up and kisses me. “Better now? ”
“Much.” I reach down and cup his bulge in my hand. “But you?—”
“I ain’t nearly as quiet as you are. C’mon.” He yanks down my skirt. “I’m takin’ you home, honey.”
He bends down and grabs his hat and my underwear. I reach for the underwear, but he shakes his head.
“These are mine now.” Tucking them into his back pocket, he helps me off the sink and laces his fingers through mine.
“How do I look?” I ask.
His eyes flick over my face. “Like you just came hard on my face.”
“Oh, God, Cash?—”
“Let them see.” He gives my hand a tug. “Who the fuck cares? No one’s gonna say a word, I promise.”
I shouldn’t believe him. But I do.
I shouldn’t follow him out the door. But I do that too.
I follow him, and I fight back a smile the whole time.