Chapter 34 Hawk
HAWK
“You’re not going alone.”
It wasn’t the first time I said it but I’d say it as many times as Cassie needed to hear it.
“It will be worse if you’re there.” Cassie’s voice was tinged with desperation, the voice of someone standing between a bomb and someone with a lit match.
I think we were the people with the lit match in that analogy but I couldn’t be sure.
“We’re not letting you take the heat alone,” Jagger said.
“I’m not worried about taking heat from Bram,” Cassie said.
We’d moved from the terrace to the kitchen, and Cassie was nursing a Coke while the rest of us drank beer around the island.
Fresh from the hot tub — and an orgasm — she was so fucking pretty my chest hurt. The ends of her hair were still damp, and her cheeks were flushed from the hot water, her lips swollen from Jagger’s and Vigo’s kisses.
She’d gone up for a robe after we got out of the hot tub and her tits were visible in the gap between the silk tied around her waist.
It had taken every ounce of self-restraint I’d had not to cross the hot tub and fuck her when she’d been spread out for Vigo. And here was the kicker: it was hard for me to imagine another time when I wouldn’t have done exactly that.
Yes, Cassie was a virgin. And yes, I wanted her to feel good her first time.
That was a given.
But I wasn’t worried about being able to give a woman pleasure. I knew how to do that. So why was I waiting? Why hadn’t I taken her when fucking her was the thing I most wanted to do?
Fuck if I knew.
You know.
I told the voice in my head to fuck off.
“It’s a bad precedent,” I said.
She looked confused. “What kind of precedent?”
“One that says we need you to fight our battles with Bram,” I said. “We don’t.”
“I don’t see why it matters. I’ll only be here for three months. I just need Bram to back off long enough for me to see this through.”
“Maybe we need something different.” She’d hit a nerve, because the truth was I was already thinking about how to get Cassie to stay longer than three months.
I had no idea what the fuck was wrong with me or why this girl — this virginal, sheltered, lonely girl — had me sweating it out like a drug addict in withdrawal when I’d only ever had one little taste of her in the tunnels.
She crossed her hands over her tits, her green eyes flashing. “What do you need?”
“We need to maintain our standing in Blackwell Falls,” Vigo said. “With Bram and everyone else in Southside. Having you fight our battles with Bram is going to make problems for us.”
“And you shouldn’t have to face it alone,” Jagger added. “The decision to let you play was ours. We knew what we were getting into.”
“I won’t get a word out if you’re there,” Cassie said. “Not once I tell him I lost to you.”
“So we fight,” Vigo said, cracking his knuckles. “There are worse ways to settle this.”
Jagger looked at him like he was insane. “Do you have a fucking death wish? We’re talking about Bram. He’ll cut off your balls and feed them to you as an appetizer for your dick.”
Vigo shrugged. “He can try.”
“We’ll wait outside,” I finally said.
“Outside…?”
“Outside the loft. You’ll go in, tell Bram about the Hunt, and we’ll come in when you’re done.”
She shook her head. “You shouldn’t be anywhere near there when he finds out.”
“We’re not running from Bram. We won you in the Hunt. He can’t change the rules just because you’re his sister. And I’m not some pussy who can’t fight for what’s mine.”
“I’m not yours just because I’m living here for the next three months.”
I stalked over to her and grabbed her face, pinching her cheeks together until her mouth puckered.
Then I did the thing I’d been dying to do. The thing I’d been trying not to do.
I kissed her.
And not just a kiss. I slammed my mouth down on hers, forcing her lips open with my tongue.
It was an invasion, and I held onto her face while I devoured her, my dick hard all over again, the temptation to lift her onto the island and fuck her then and there overwhelming.
She gasped when I pulled away, her chest rising and falling with her breath.
“You are most definitely ours, Cassie. We can either break that to Bram the easy way or the hard way. You want to do it easy and that’s fine. But we’re more than prepared to do it hard.”
“I want to do it easy,” she finally said.
“Good.” I let go of her face. “We’re only doing it this way for you, understand? Because in any other world we’d be telling Bram how it was and letting the chips fall.”
She stared up at me and I forced myself to step away before I kissed her again. Because I wanted to keep kissing her every bit as much as I wanted to fuck her and that was a bad sign.
A very bad sign.
I walked to the fridge. I needed a fucking beer after that kiss.
“Are you going to tell Bram about Travis Dorsey and the Russian? Jagger asked.
“No way,” Cassie said. “It’s going to be bad enough telling him about the Hunt. Besides, I don’t know anything yet. I want to look through my parents’ papers again.”
“Just don’t go doing anything without talking to us,” Jagger said. “The guy who hired Dorsey obviously meant business.”
“Yeah we don’t want you poking the bear,” Vigo said. “Unless we’re there to deal with the bear. Got it, mouse?”
I tried to ignore the cold sweep of dread over my body. When that didn’t work, I told myself it was because of Bram. Because dealing with Bram was going to be a shit show no matter how we cut it.
But I knew it was a lie.
It was about Cassie. About the fact that I would be dreaming about that kiss — that simple fucking kiss — in the kitchen for the next three days.
About the fact that I already didn’t want to let her go.