Chapter 29 Cash
TWENTY-NINE
CASH
“I’ve always needed you.”
Those four little words struck me like bullets.
Piercing both flesh and soul.
Daisy Adair was right here in front of me.
Wearing my mother’s ring like it was always supposed to be there.
Drawing me into a fucking dream that I knew I couldn’t live.
A fantasy that I would be a monster to play out.
I knew better than giving into it. Knew better than touching her. Knew it’d only be a greater loss once she was gone.
The cavern her memory had left behind would grow so deep I would be completely swallowed by it.
Ruined.
But I’d never been able to refuse her, and the greed she provoked ran rampant through my being. Lust screaming like a beast through my veins and twisting my guts in possession.
My hand skimmed up her cheek and into the long length of her hair.
Fisting it, I tugged her head back, probably a little sharper than necessary, but she needed to know what she was playing with.
This storm that would forever rage inside me.
Volatile and explosive.
She gasped, and those cornflower eyes widened.
Trust striking in the mesmerizing blue flames.
“That what you want? You want me to touch you?” It rolled out of me like a threat.
Her fingers sank into my shoulders, and her lips parted on a shaky, “Yes. You are my fiancé, after all.”
There was a challenge to it. One I was a fool to heed.
I had her propped on the vanity in a flash, shock raking from her lungs as she was swept off her feet.
“Cash, you’re going to hurt yourself.”
There she was, offering all that care. Like I counted. Like I mattered.
My hands gripped onto the soft flare at the outside of her thighs, and my mouth dove into the delicate flesh at the front of her neck. “Just fine when I’m next to you, fiancée,” I rumbled back.
Stupid.
Playing this dangerous game.
But I didn’t know how to stop myself right then.
A surprised mewl rolled up her throat. Vibrating through me like a foolish invitation.
“You have any idea the ways I’ve imagined having you, Daisy? All these fuckin’ years picturing you showing up at my door so I could devour you the way I always wanted? And here you are…real and alive. Shining all that beauty you always did. My Little Wallflower.”
Grief wound with the last, and a flash of fear tightened every muscle in my body.
I needed to remember why she was here. That I was responsible for her.
But I knew with every fiber of my being there was no chance I’d allow that monster to get to her.
She was safe from him, but I wasn’t so sure she was safe from me.
Not right then when I felt myself splintering apart.
Every restraint I possessed crumbling at her words.
I exhaled a broken breath at her neck as my hands flexed on her thighs. “Don’t want to hurt you, Daisy. Never wanted to hurt you.”
Electric fingertips dragged up the back of my neck and into my hair. Both gentle and pleading. “You won’t. Why do you think I’m here? Because I know you, Cash. I know you better than anyone.”
“I’m not that same kid you once knew.”
I’d been telling her and telling her, but she still couldn’t comprehend it.
“It doesn’t matter. I know you. I know you,” she rushed into the air that whipped and stirred around us. A heatwave that blasted and ricocheted against the walls.
It didn’t matter that there were still a billion barriers between us. Obstacles we could never surmount.
I let my tongue run down the length of her neck.
Lips plucking as I went.
Tasting her delicious floral scent.
Woman like the sun and the air and new life that beat through the middle of me.
Her head tipped back farther, and her fingers curled in my hair.
“Cash.” My name coming from her mouth hit me like a prayer.
Like I could be more than the beast I’d become. More than bare strength and brutal barbarity.
But she didn’t know the darkness I held inside. Didn’t know the lengths that I’d gone.
She might have had some idea, but until you witnessed that type of ruthlessness, you could never grasp what it meant. It would only ever be a figment. Outside of true reality.
Because if she could?
She never would have asked me to stand for her children, and she sure as hell wouldn’t be begging me to touch her this way.
“Please,” she mumbled into the disorder.
“You need me to make you come, sweet girl? You need me to make you feel good?”
A needy sound dripped from her mouth. “I need it so badly I can’t think. I always did. But since I came here…”
I splayed my hands wider on her hips and tugged her to the edge of the counter. My hips wound between her legs. Heat radiated from her, compounding the greed that blazed a path through my insides.
“You don’t want to know the ways I’ve been dreaming about doing it,” I grumbled at the pulse point in her neck.
“The way I’ve been imagining peeling you out of your clothes so I could get to the goodness underneath.
Every night, lying on that couch thinking about you in my bed.
Wanting to consume you in the same way as you’ve been consuming my thoughts. ”
I shouldn’t admit it, but maybe I needed her to know. Maybe I needed her to know she was slowly driving me out of my mind and pushing me toward complete devastation.
“I’ve been doing exactly the same. For years. Since the day you left me.”
My chest squeezed in a fit of regret, and a groan rolled up from the depths. From that sacred place that had forever been reserved for her. The place that only she could fill that was crying out for her to take up residency.
But I couldn’t allow her to go there.
This was temporary.
All of it.
And still I was rumbling, “You were thinkin’ about me when you were touching yourself that night, weren’t you, Little Wallflower? Wanting me to climb into that bed with you. Wanting me to take you.”
Could feel the rush of redness race across her flesh, that bit of shyness peeking out before she lifted her chin with all that sweet ferocity she’d always reserved for me. “Yes. How could I not when I woke up and you were right there? Like I was waking up to a perfect dream.”
A gluttonous chuckle rolled out.
Possession pounding through my insides, so close to obliterating everything else.
Decimating all rationale and logic.
“If you knew the number of times I had my hand wrapped around my cock imagining it was your pretty little mouth, you’d go running. Imagining I was buried in the tight clutch of your cunt.” I rumbled it up and down her neck.
Shock slipped off her tongue at the deep, desperate words. “The only place I would be running is to you.”
Fuck. Me.
A growl rolled up my throat, and my mouth roved, diving down her chest and peppering kisses along the delicate, delicious flesh, avoiding her mouth because I knew if I went there, there would be no going back.
I yanked the strap of her tank down to reveal a white, lace-covered breast.
Her rosy nipple was pebbled and peaked beneath the see-through fabric.
Made the mistake of glancing up at her face when I did. Taking her in, propped on my counter. Her hair a mess from my fist in it. Cornflower eyes wild and her plump lips parted.
Raw, unbridled desire carved into her expression.
Woman so gorgeous my lungs felt like they were going to fail. But it was the thrashing of my soul at having her in front of me this way that should have warned me I was pushing things too far.
I needed to stop before this thing completely spiraled out of control.
But there was no heeding it. My words falling free and fast. “The number of times I had to stop myself from going to you. From finding you across time and space and miles. From seeking the one single thing in this horrible world that promised there was still goodness. Your face and this heart and this beautiful spirit. You are the fucking sun, but I knew seeing you would only burn my eyes. But I’m going to stand in it for a little while, Little Wallflower.
Going to protect it so one day you can fully shine.
So you can go on showering the earth in all that beauty and grace. ”
Gentle fingers came out to trace my face, and her eyes creased at the sides. “You were my beauty, too.”
My teeth gritted against her words. I couldn’t contemplate what she said.
So instead, I focused on giving her the one thing I could right then.
Pleasure.
I let the pad of my thumb swirl around her hard, peaked nipple.
My cock was just as hard. Straining painfully at my jeans in a bid to get closer.
Hungry to rip her out of those leggings and sink into the sweet heat underneath.
She arched into my touch, and a tiny moan slipped from her tongue.
Energy zapped and flashed through the room. She squirmed on the counter. “Please, Cash. I need you.”
“Look at you. I’ve barely even touched you, and you’re already wanting to come apart.”
“I’ve been waiting for so long. Been alone for so long. Aching for you.”
If only she knew how profoundly her statement applied to me.
“Wanted to crawl across the country to find you.” I had no power to keep the admission from flooding out.
“And it was me who crawled to you,” she whispered into the lapping stir of the small room. The room that felt like it was enclosing on all sides. Boxing us in and forcing us together.
“Now I’m going to watch you bloom. Watch you flourish. You’re going to have the power, Daisy. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
Those were the promises I could make. I shunned the rest that were trying to get free.
Ones that were nothing but lies and betrayals.
Lies my heart kept telling me.
That she was mine and she was always going to be.
Her pants were shallow and harsh as I continued to swirl my thumb around her perfect tit, her chest heaving deeper into my touch like she could disappear right into me.
I had to be careful, or she would.
Careful, or she would completely consume and invade.
She whimpered when I stepped back, then it turned to a needy wheeze when I gathered the waist of her leggings in my hands and began to peel them down her legs.
I hissed between clenched teeth at the sight of her.