21. Cassidy
TWENTY-ONE
CASSIDY
The first brush of her lips against mine is soft.
But the second I feel her mouth open under mine—just the slightest part, just the barest breath of a gasp—I lose whatever fucking thread of control I was clinging to.
I fist a hand in her hair, dragging her closer like I’m starving for oxygen, blood, or salvation. Who the fuck knows. But I know I need her—I need all of her. I kiss her harder, deeper, filthier, until she whimpers against my mouth and grips my shoulders.
She responds with teeth and tongue and that same fire I’ve been chasing since we were sixteen and she kissed me back in that house right before I told her to run, and she left me behind.
And now?
Now she’s here.
On me.
She swings a leg over mine, straddling me. Her thighs bracket my hips, and she sinks into my lap, all heat and pressure and her. I feel her everywhere. Against my chest, pressing into my wound, breathing into my mouth.
Her hips shift and I groan because I’ve been imagining this since the night I let her go.
But she’s here now.
And I’m not letting go.
My side burns from the wound, making my vision blur, but I don’t care. I’ll bleed through this bed if it means I get to keep kissing her. One hand grips her waist, while the other fists in her hair, holding her to me, demanding more.
“Bindi.” Her name breaks out of me like a prayer pulled from my throat with bloodied hands. It’s not a question, not a warning, it’s a fucking confession.
Her fingers tangle in my hair, nails dragging across my scalp in a way that makes my eyes roll back in my head.
My whole world narrows to this, her. Her heat, her breath, her taste. The feel of her thighs around me, her hips rolling ever so slightly against mine, her mouth pressing deeper into mine.
I’d let her devour me whole if it meant her mouth stayed on mine.
She pulls back just enough to breathe, her lips swollen, eyes locked on mine.
“I don’t know if this is smart, but I don’t want to stop.”
That’s all I need.
My hands roam almost without thinking. Her spine arches into me, and I feel more than hear the quiet moan that vibrates through her chest.
It’s the most beautiful fucking sound I’ve ever heard.
She breaks from my lips again, both of us gasping, but I don’t let her go far. I kiss a line along her jaw, chasing her skin, desperately. I find that spot just under her ear and bite down gently.
She whimpers, clutching my shoulders, and her voice breaks on my name—“ Cass ”—and it just about kills me.
I tug her shirt higher, not tearing it off yet, just needing more of her. My hand slides further up her back, greedy for every inch of skin.
She grabs my face again, pulling me into another kiss that feels like surrender and defiance all at once. Her hips grind down against me and a guttural sound tears from my throat at the friction and the sheer relief of it. We’ve both been holding this back for so long.
I pull my lips from hers, panting, and move to her neck, tasting the thin sheen of sweat there as my mouth trails down.
She tilts her head back to give me access while her hands roam.
One slides down my back, the other tracing the lines of muscle on my chest, careful around the bandage but fearless everywhere else.
Every place she touches, she leaves a trail of fire in her wake.
“Fuck, Cass . . .”
I crash my mouth to hers again, the kiss rough and unrelenting, and she meets me right there in the wreckage.
All the waiting, all the wanting—it’s over.
We’re past the point of no return.
And I don’t want to go back.
I slide my hand from her waist down to her thigh, then back up, slipping under the hem of her shirt at her side. Her stomach quivers under my palm. God, I want to feel all of her.
I fumble with the hem of her tank top, my fingers brushing the underside of her breast. She inhales sharply, breaking the kiss. Her forehead rests against mine as we both gasp for air.
Her eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, and we’re both trembling. My hand is still under her shirt, poised on the brink of going further. I give her a questioning look, silently asking permission for what I’m about to do, for everything that might follow.
The desperation.
The reverence .
The fucking worship.
My fingers pause, asking. No words, just that look. Can I?
She nods.
I tug her tank up and she raises her arms. I peel it off, dragging the fabric over her head and tossing it to the floor. She’s left bare, her chest rising fast like her lungs are trying to keep up with her heart.
“Jesus, Bindi . . .”
She actually giggles, low and breathy, as if my awe embarrasses her, but it quickly turns into a sigh as I run my hand up her back and then around to cup one of her breasts. She’s soft and perfect and a strangled groan claws out of my throat as her nipple hardens under my thumb.
Her lips press into mine again, any hint of shyness overridden by urgency. We kiss feverishly as I gently squeeze and tease, earning those sweet little whimpers from her that are driving me insane.
She rocks against me, and through my jeans I can feel the heat of her core pressing right against my cock.
If I fucking bust in my pants I’m going to off myself.
But it’s almost too much. My vision blurs at the edges, every nerve in my body begging for more of her—all of her.
I’ve waited twenty-two years to devour her . . .
The thought claws up before I can stop it.
“Has anyone else touched you like this?”
She freezes. Not much, just a flicker of stillness in her body, but I feel it. Her eyes open slowly. I already know the answer, but I want to hear it— need to hear it. Her lips part. “Yes.”
Rage coils low in my gut and I feel it bloom behind my ribs. Not at her, never at her. At the faceless hands that dared to touch what was never theirs, that thought they had a right to press into her skin, make her sigh, see her like this.
I lean in, dragging my mouth along the edge of her jaw, up to her ear. “I’m going to erase them. ”
She shudders in my arms, and I feel it everywhere.
“Every touch. Every kiss. Every fucking ghost of them still clinging to your skin . . . I’ll wipe them out. I’ll kiss you so deep you forget what it felt like to be wanted by anyone else. I’ll fuck you so good their names won’t even taste right on your tongue.”
Her breath hitches.
“I don’t care who they were, they don’t exist now. Not here. Not with us. You hear me, Firefly? They never happened.”
Her fingers curl against my chest, digging in like she doesn’t know whether to push me away or hold on tighter.
I drag my lips down her throat. “Only me now.” And then, like a vow I’ve carved into my bones, I add, “I’ll ruin you for anyone who isn’t me.”
I grab her hips and lift her, flipping her onto her back like she weighs nothing.
She lets out a soft, startled gasp as her back hits the mattress.
Her hair fans out against the pillow, lips parted, chest rising fast. Climbing over her, I slot my body between her legs, bracing myself on either side of her head. Our eyes lock.
“Mine.”
Her pupils dilate and she nods once. Barely.
I kiss lower, across the swell of her chest, my stubble catching on her skin.
One hand pushes her jeans down over her hips, dragging the fabric with desperation. I want her bare. I want her open. I want every fucking inch of her.
She lifts her hips to help me, and I growl into her mouth as the denim peels away, revealing more tatted porcelain skin.
“Mine.”
Another bite. Another bruise. Another mark.
I slide my hands up her thighs, spreading her wider beneath me. My mouth is ghosting over her ribs now, licking the sensitive skin just beneath the curve of her hips, working my way down like worship.
“Mine,” I growl again, sinking my teeth into the soft flesh at her side. She lets out a beautiful sound.
I soothe the spot with my flattened tongue, then move lower.
Over her stomach.
Her thighs.
Kissing. Biting. Claiming.
Every inch I touch, I say it.
“Mine.”
I don’t know if she hears it anymore or feels it, but I need her to know. Need her to carry it with her when I’m not there. When the world tries to touch her again, I want her skin to remember me .
My hands grip the meat of her thighs as I press another kiss against the inside of one, then bite harder. She cries out, hips bucking, fingers tangling in the sheets. I leave that mark deeper—darker. One she’ll see tomorrow and maybe the next day, and she’ll know who put it there.
“God . . . Please . . .”
“That’s not who you should be praying to, Firefly,” I rasp, kissing just above her wet cunt that looks so fucking beautiful. “Say who your real god is.”
Her hips twitch and her head tips back.
“Cass . . .”
“Mine.”
My hands tremble as I hook my fingers in her panties. I’ve done a thousand filthy things to her in my head—fantasies, memories, dreams with her name still bleeding off my lips when I wake . . . but this? This is real .
And it’s my first time.
Not just with her.
With anyone .
I peel the last barrier off her, opening her to me in every way, and I— Fuck , I can’t breathe.
My heart’s in my throat, my cock’s hard enough it hurts, my mouth is dry, and my hands are sweating.
She’s already wet, dripping, and it short-circuits something in my brain. She’s like this because of me.
And I don’t want to mess this up.
But I need her. I need this.
So I steady myself—hands wrapped around her thighs, my body lowered. Kneeling at my altar, I pull her legs off of the bed slightly to give me better access. My mouth meets her soaked cunt, and the first taste is enough to make me moan into her folds.
She jolts, gasping my name, her hips bucking as I hold her down, my lips and tongue finding rhythm.
I’m clumsy at first—too rough, then too soft.
I pull back, just a breath, my pulse is a war drum in my ears, and my hands keep tightening on her thighs like they’ll anchor me.
“Tell me what you like. I’ve never done this before, Binx. Teach me.”
She nods as her hand finds my hair, guiding me. And I listen. I adjust. I try again. Diving in again, my tongue makes long strokes against her clit as my hand moves up, swirling in her arousal, before sinking a single finger inside of her.
This is what I’ve seen. Does she like this?
“Cass . . . Slower . . . Not so much at once.”
I pause, lifting my eyes.
She’s flushed and beautiful, chest rising in quick little gasps. Her pussy clenches against my fingers. Fuck , I wish it was my cock. I want to be inside her. Not now, but soon.
I adjust, pull back slightly, and reset my rhythm, tongue and fingers working together this time, more focused. Watching her. Listening.
“Yeah . . . like that,” she breathes, hips tilting just a little, encouraging me. “That’s good. Just . . . don’t rush.”
She’s not mocking me, not judging. She’s with me. She wants this, wants me—even if I’m learning her inch by inch. I home in on the spot she reacts to most, keeping my rhythm. Keeping steady. Her thighs start to tremble, muscles tight and twitching as her hand clenches in my hair.
“That spot. Stay right there—don’t stop.”
I don’t.
Her back arches, her body jerks, and a sound tears from her throat, raw and wrecked. She’s shaking in my hands— shaking —and I feel her coming apart.
Because of me.
This isn’t about sex—it never was. It’s about her letting me touch her like this. Letting me ruin her for anyone else. Letting me give her something no one else has.
It guts me.
Because I don’t deserve it. I’ve done nothing in this life to earn her trust, her body, her fucking breathless sounds in the dark. And yet here she is, falling apart on my hands, on my tongue, because of me.
And I swear to God, I’ll bleed for that.
I’ll spend every waking moment proving I was worth this. I’ll kill for the right to keep her like this. I’ll burn down the world just to give her more of what I saw in her face a second ago—need, wreckage, and surrender.
Because no one’s ever given me something this pure.
And I’ve never wanted to destroy anything more carefully.