14. Cass
CASS
A ll I can see is him with his hands on her. I snapped. That wasn’t just anger—it was rage, pure and feral. Her scent was sharp with fear, laced with panic, and the look on her face—fuck, I’ll never forget it.
My Omega. Cornered. Touched without permission. I don’t remember moving. Just the roar in my ears, the taste of blood in my mouth, and the bone-deep instinct to destroy. No one gets to hurt her. No one.
I would have beat the fuck out of him if Quinn hadn’t been there, pumping our bond full of his calming energy. Though he was anything but calm and collected.
She leans in.
I don’t move.
I don’t even breathe.
Soft lips press against mine, tentative and warm. Gentle. Innocent, at first, but then she pulls me in and kisses me like she means it. It detonates inside me like a bomb.
Her scent is wrapping around me like velvet and sin, cinnamon-sweet and slick heavy, clinging to my skin and slipping down my throat like honey.
Her small frame presses against mine, short enough that she has to stand on her tiptoes to kiss me, which presses her body against me.
I feel all of her for the first time—the heat of her chest, the tremble in her breath, the way her fingers curl lightly in the front of my shirt like she’s afraid I’ll vanish if she lets go.
I can smell her fear and shock turning to arousal. The smell of slick invading me.
But I…I can’t move.
Because the part of me that wants to fuck and fight…the part that wants to kill that bastard is still roaring—still screaming for blood, for something to tear apart.
I force myself to pull back, pressing my palms to the brick on either side of her head, caging her in without touching, my breath ragged. I look down at her. Lips parted and cheeks pink. This close, her skin looks dewy and so soft.
I can see a faint dusting of freckles that march across the bridge of her nose. Her eyes stare up into mine, open and expressive with a million questions swimming around in them.
My cock feels harder than it’s ever been, pulsing against the seam of my jeans, burning with how close she is, how fucking sweet she smells.
And my brain is scrambling, arguing with itself, shouting every reason why I should shove her away and disappear.
That I’m too fucked up.
That she’s too good. Too sweet.
That she deserves better than this broken mess of a man who doesn’t know how to want something without ruining it. I stare at her for a few more breaths, not talking or kissing or touching. Just taking her in. I don’t think I’ve seen a more beautiful woman.
But then, she turns her head away, eyes downcast. Her cheeks flushing a deep red, eyes shuddering with the raw emotion that was there a minute ago.
I feel her pulling back, shrinking into herself moments before she speaks the very last words I want to hear right now.
“Sorry,” she whispers, barely audible. “I don’t know what came over me.”
And I know exactly what she’s thinking—that I don’t want her.
Fuck that.
She’s got it all wrong. Couldn’t be more wrong if she tried.
Not want her?
Not fucking possible.
Shouldn’t have her? Yeah. That one’s true.
“Sterling…” I start, but she won’t look at me. Her eyes bounce away, trying to erase this moment, bracing for rejection.
She moves to duck under my arm, trying to slip past me like this hasn’t cracked something wide open between us—but I stop her.
I bring my hand to the center of her chest, just over her heartbeat, and gently press her back against the wall. She stills. I keep my touch light, but there’s no mistaking the message: Don’t run. Not from me. Not from this.
My palm slides up, slow and steady, splaying over her chest, then curling along her throat. Her breath hitches. I wrap my fingers softly around her neck, thumb brushing along her jaw, guiding her until I’m cradling the side of her face in my hand.
And I tilt her face up.
Make her meet my eyes.
“Cass, it’s okay,” she whispers, voice wobbling. “We can just pret?—”
But I don’t let her finish.
I can’t.
Not when everything in me is screaming to show her just how wrong she is.
“You don’t get it, songbird?” My voice comes out rough, dark.
I press my hard length against her and a groan rolls out of me. She feels so fucking good. She sucks in a sharp breath, eyes widening, and fuck—I should not be this turned on.
Sterling swallows, but doesn’t meet my eyes. “Get what?”
“Look at me. Don’t hide from me.”
She does—but not without that defiant little lift of her chin.
And fuck, I love it. That fire in her. That bite. The way it slips out like she’s only just realizing she has it—like she doesn’t even know how unstoppable she could be if she leaned into it.
“You don’t get it,” I grit out, my voice rough. “Not wanting you is not fucking possible. Everything in me is demanding I claim you, keep you, fuck you until you smell so much like me no one will ever question who you belong to.”
“I don’t belong to anyone.” Her chin lifts defiantly.
I just stare down at her, those words so at odds with everything her body is telling me. I can smell her slick—thick and sweet. I can feel the way her scent curls around mine, our match undeniable, making my mouth water with the need to taste her.
The thought alone sends a groan rumbling low in my chest.
“Sterling…” I sigh, dropping my forehead to hers. I close my eyes, trying to drag air into my lungs, to dial back the storm raging inside me.
“I can smell you,” I whisper, my voice low and trembling with restraint. “I can smell how wet you are. How your pussy aches for me.”
She gasps, her breath catching, and her scent blooms around me as she perfumes—warm, sweet, dangerous.
“I know you liked it when I put that Alpha in his place,” I add, my nose brushing the soft skin beneath her ear. “I can still smell it on you. The want.”
She shudders, hands clenched at her sides.
“Cass…” My name is a moan on her lips.
“I can smell your slick, sweetheart,” I murmur. “Even through the suppressants.”
I move my hand from her face and let it slide slowly over her shoulder and down her arm. I take her hand, gently guiding it to the front of my jeans, where my cock is straining against the fabric—hot, hard, aching.
“Feel what you do to me,” I say, voice ragged. “I wake up like this. So fucking hard. And no matter how much I jerk off, it doesn’t go away.”
She brushes her palm against me—tentative, curious—and just that simple movement nearly undoes me.
Fuck.
Every instinct roars up, begging to be let loose.
“Cass,” she whispers, her voice trembling like her hand as it slips away from my cock and drifts up—slow and unsure—over the ridges of my abdomen. Her fingers fist in my shirt and tug me closer, and I swear I forget how to breathe.
She leans in, body pressed to mine, head tilted slightly—her soft breath ghosting over my lips.
“Then kiss me.”
It undoes me.
I crush my mouth to hers like I’ve been starving for this—because I have. I devour her. My tongue pushes past her lips and I taste her—cinnamon, vanilla, her—and it short-circuits everything in me.
She moans into my mouth, arching against me, and I lose the last shred of restraint I had left.
I take.
Fuck, I take everything.
My hands slide down her hips, gripping her curves with a desperation I can’t hide. I drag her against me until there’s no space between us, until her heat pulses through the thin barrier of her skirt and my pants like it was made for me. For us.
She gasps when she feels how hard I am, and the scent of her arousal punches through me like a wave—thick, sweet, overwhelming. Her slick deepens, the Omega in her responding to me.
The sudden need to mark her is overwhelming. But I won’t take the choice from her. I pull back from the kiss, my ragged breath mixing with hers. I bring my lips to her ear and gently suck on her skin there.
“Can I mark you?” the words a plea, like they’ve been torn from the center of me. I hardly recognize my own voice. I feel her whole body shudder and her roving hands still.
She nods—barely—but I feel it. Her breath stutters in her throat as I press my lips to the delicate slope of her neck. I drag my mouth along her pulse point, nuzzling deep into her scent, rubbing my cheek along her jawline, her throat, her shoulder.
I want to drown in this sensation for the rest of my life. I’m gone.
Lost to the way she smells, the way she melts into my touch, the way my instincts scream to bury myself inside her until she’s locked on my knot.
And God help me—I don’t want to fight it.
I scent-mark her, slow and deliberate, claiming every inch of exposed skin at the collar of her shirt, pressing my nose into the curve where her neck meets her shoulder, where she smells the sweetest.
My tongue flicks out, tasting her, dragging over the sensitive spot that makes her gasp. I suck hard at the base of her neck, marking her skin.
My Alpha is fucking ecstatic.
I don’t stop—won’t stop—until she is covered in me, until my scent clings to her like a brand.
By the time I pull back, I’m dizzy, drunk on the sensory overload of her skin, of the way she trembles beneath me, the way her hands grip at my arms, clinging like she never wants to let go. She brings her arms around my neck and pulls me down to her.
And then I’m kissing her again.
Hard.
Deep. Only vaguely aware of the rough bricks behind her and that we are very much in a public space. But then her tongue licks along my bottom lip and I can’t find it in me to care.
I swallow the small, needy noises she makes, the little gasps that send a sharp ache straight to my cock.
I run my hands from her shoulders to her waist, back up to her breasts, fingers teasing over the thin fabric of her shirt, feeling the way she arches into me, responsive and hungry.
“Do you want me to stop?” I whisper against her lips, my thumbs brushing over her nipples through her clothes, feeling them harden beneath my touch.
She shakes her head so fast and desperate that I groan.