Chapter 14 Cass
Cass
My father told me to be good with him. He said it this morning at the kitchen table with that voice he uses when he’s laying down law.
Teague told me to be careful. Ledger told me to take several deep breaths, which coming from Ledger is practically a speech.
And then my father walked down the hallway and got into the shower with Ash and I sat at the table and listened to the muffled sounds of someone being taken care of through a closed door and I was good.
I was so good I deserve a fucking medal.
That was four hours ago. I’ve been good for four hours and five days, and I’m done.
Ash has been out with the horses all morning, mucking stalls and grooming Mabel and hauling feed bags that are half his body weight. He works hard for a man his size, doesn’t complain, doesn’t cut corners, just puts his head down and goes until his body tells him to stop.
I watched him from the barn door for about twenty minutes while I was supposed to be sorting tack. He’d stretch, arms over his head, and the flannel would ride up, and I’d see the bruises on his hips, and I’d have to go outside and stand in the wind for a while.
He came into the house around noon looking wrung out and happy, pink-cheeked and sweaty, and told my father he was going to lie down for a bit. That was twenty minutes ago. The house has been quiet since. Even Dad drove out to check on the north pasture and won’t be back for at least an hour.
My brothers left for errands ten minutes ago, leaving just me. Five days of restraint coil inside my body and I just can’t wait any longer.
I move through the hallway without trying to soften my footsteps.
When I reach my father's room, I find the door cracked open.
I push it wider. Ash lies curled on his side, drowning in one of my father's shirts.
The fabric has slipped from his shoulder, exposing his dark curls spilling across the pillow while he rests.
The mattress sinks beneath me as I lower myself to the edge.
Ash stirs under the disturbance. His eyes flutter open, warm and unfocused with sleep.
When he registers my presence, a smile spreads across his face before consciousness fully returns to him.
He looks at me with simple pleasure, as if waking to find me watching him completes something in his day.
"Cass," he says, his voice thick. "What time is it?"
"Doesn't matter."
"I should get up, I told your dad I'd help with the—"
I put my hand on his chest and press him flat on his back. His eyes go wide as his breath catches in his throat, and I watch the sleep burn off him in real time, replaced by liquid desire, his pupils expanding as he registers the weight of my hand on his chest.
"Cass."
"Yeah."
"What are you doing?"
"I've been waiting five days. I'm done waiting."
"Your dad said—"
"My dad's not here."
His breath quickens, shallow and fast against my skin while his fingers twist into the sheets beside him.
He angles his body toward mine despite the half-formed protest still lingering on his lips.
I watch his resistance crumble when his gaze falls to my mouth and locks there, pupils expanding even further.
I grab his ankles and drag him to the edge of the bed.
A surprised yelp escapes him, transforming into something breathless as I pull him upright onto my lap.
His thighs spread across mine, hands finding purchase on my shoulders.
His face hovers inches from mine, close enough that I feel the heat radiating from his skin.
The lightness of him surprises me, my single arm supporting his entire frame while my free hand traces the curve of his spine beneath the borrowed shirt.
"I was sleeping," he mumbles as his fingers curl into my shirt, his hips already shifting forward against mine in a way that tells me sleep is no longer a priority.
"You can sleep later."
He lets out a soft sound, already searching for my lips. Dad said not to compare Ash with anyone else but it’s hard not to when the last several men wanted nothing but our bodies. They didn’t spend time with us. They didn’t want us. They just wanted the thrill.
But Ash wants kisses.
And I’m more than happy to oblige.
I meet him halfway, thoroughly exploring his mouth the way I’ve been wanting to for five days, one hand on the back of his head and the other gripping his hip and pulling him down against me so he can feel how done I am with patience.
He gasps into my mouth and then moans, his hips rocking against mine, the friction making my vision narrow.
"Oh god," he breathes against my lips. "Cass, that's, you're—"
"Tell me to stop and I stop."
"Don't stop."
"Tell me if it's too much."
"It's not too much, it's—"
I pull the shirt over his head. My mouth finds his collarbone, traces along his shoulder, and lingers at the curve of his neck where the skin tastes like salt and hay dust. Purple-blue marks from my father and brothers bloom across his skin like bruised flowers.
A hunger rises in me to claim every unmarked inch until ownership becomes undeniable.
When my teeth sink into the tender junction between neck and shoulder, he cries out.
His fingers tangle in my hair, pulling with surprising strength.
"Harder," he whispers, voice cracking around the edges. "Cass, harder, please."
I lift him, his legs wrapping around my waist, ankles locking behind my back while I carry him to the wall. I press against him, grinding just slow enough to draw out a sound so raw and desperate it echoes through the empty house.
My hand slides between our bodies, working open his jeans and when my fingers wrap around him, his head falls back against the wall. His eyes flutter closed, lips parting on a silent gasp that pulls all the air from my lungs.
"Look at me," I tell him. I want everything about this man, his lips, his body, his attention. With just the two of us in this house, I want everything he has to give.
Those dark eyes find mine, Ash tugging his bottom lip between his teeth.
Dad was wrong about me needing to be careful, because this man isn't fragile.
He's a live wire. He's meeting me at every point, pushing into my hand, grinding against my hips, asking for more before I've finished giving him what I already started.
“Bed,” I murmur against his lips, not even sure why I brought him over here to begin with. My thoughts are all over the place. I just need to be inside of him, to feel him truly wrapped around me. I need…
Focus, I tell myself as I lay him down on the mattress and strip his jeans off and then mine. Finding a packet of lube on the nightstand, a chuckle rumbles through my chest as I realize he's already open and slick from this morning.
Still, I work him with my fingers just enough to be sure, Ash already pushing back against my hand, impatient and greedy, making sounds that are going straight to the base of my spine.
"Cass, please, I'm ready, just—"
"I know you're ready." I pull my fingers out and line up and push into him.
His hands reach behind him to grab the headboard, his back arching off the mattress, the sound that comes out of him loud and raw and broken in the middle where his breath runs out.
I hold there, fully inside him, giving him a second to adjust, and the feel of him around me tests every remaining thread of control I have.
He feels like fucking heaven.
"You okay?" I ask, my voice coming out rough.
"Move, Cass, please move, you're so—" He can't finish the sentence because I pull back and drive in again and whatever he was going to say dissolves into a moan that shakes the headboard.
I surrender to raw instinct, unable to restrain myself after enduring five days of patient observation. My hips drive forward with more force while his fingers blanch against the wooden headboard. His body rises to meet each thrust, spine arching in perfect counterpoint to my rhythm.
Desperate sounds escape his throat, my name becomes a prayer between gasps for breath.
"Please" and "right there" tumble from his lips until coherent speech dissolves into primal moans that reverberate through the bedroom walls.
Each time I angle deeper, his voice breaks higher, words fragmenting as pleasure overwhelms his capacity for language.
"Fuck, you feel incredible," I tell him, satisfaction rolling through me. I had no fucking clue he’d feel this good. "You're taking all of me, gorgeous, every inch, you're so good."
"Don't stop, don't stop, Cass, I'm so close—"
"Come for me. Let me see you."
He comes violently against me, his back arching up from the mattress as his hands wrench the headboard. His body pulses around me in waves, pulling me deeper into the undertow until I surrender completely. I bury myself inside him and finish with his name trapped between my clenched teeth.
Heat envelops us while our breathing gradually steadies, the aftershocks rippling through our connected bodies for several long moments.
His fingers finally release their death grip on the headboard, his arms falling heavily to the mattress while I remain inside him, my forehead pressed against his sweat-slicked chest, listening to his thundering heartbeat.
His hand drifts toward my neck but slides away before reaching me, landing on the sheets with the palm turned upward.
I raise my head slowly and find his eyes open, staring at nothing.
The warm brown irises have disappeared, swallowed by black pupils that reflect nothing back to me, a sloppy smile on his lips taking over his entire face.
His chest rises and falls in shallow movements, like a body functioning on biological imperative while the consciousness has fled elsewhere.