Chapter Nineteen
Sterling Thorne lay in the narrow hospital bed, listening to the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor that counted out his existence in seconds. The air smelled of rubbing alcohol and industrial starch, a sharp contrast to the damp rot of the mine or the musky scent of the line shack.
His body was a map of violence. His knuckles were split and swollen, wrapped in gauze, a line of stitches ran along his hairline where he had hit the rock floor, and his ribs ached with every breath, a dull throbbing reminder of Travis Miller’s boots.
But the pain wasn’t what held him down. Sterling looked at his right wrist secured to the metal bed rail by a pair of stainless steel handcuffs.
The police officer posted outside the door had called it “procedure.” Until Cassidy gave her statement and the scene at the mine was processed, Sterling was a person of interest in a potential near homicide. He had almost beaten a man to death with his bare hands, and the law required restraint.
He tested the cuffs. The metal bit into his skin, cold and unforgiving.
The billionaire didn’t struggle or shout.
He simply lay there, staring at the ceiling tiles, calculating, trapped, and incapacitated.
And for the first time in his life, he didn’t care about the indignity; he only cared about her.
“Cassidy,” he whispered.
The door opened, and standing in the doorway was Cassidy West, looking like a war survivor. Her arm was in a sling, a butterfly bandage closed a cut on her cheek, and she was still wearing the torn flannel shirt and jeans from the mine that were stained with dirt and dried blood.
But she was alive.
She stepped into the room, and the door clicked shut behind her, sealing them in.
Stopping at the foot of the bed, she looked at the man who saved her. Her eyes swept over him, taking in the bruises, the bandages, and finally, the handcuffs. Her breath hitched.
“Sterling,” she said. Her voice was rough, cracked from screaming.
She moved to his side, reached out with her good hand, and touched the steel cuff.
“They chained you,” she whispered. “Like an animal.”
“It’s protocol,” Sterling said, his voice also raspy, “until they know if I’m a murderer or a savior.”
“You saved me,” Cassidy said. “You walked into the mine and you saved me.”
She looked at his face and gently traced the line of stitches on his forehead. Her fingers were warm and alive, and the contact sent a jolt through him that had nothing to do with pain.
“I failed you,” Sterling said. “I let him take you.”
“No,” Cassidy corrected him. “You came for me. You didn’t have backup; you just came.”
She leaned down and pressed her forehead against his chest, and he could feel her trembling.
“I thought he was going to kill you,” she sobbed. “I thought I was going to watch you die.”
“I’m hard to kill,” Sterling murmured. He tried to lift his hand to comfort her, but the chain snapped taut. The sound of the metal clinking against the rail made Cassidy look up at his bound wrist. Then she looked at his eyes.
A shift occurred at that moment. The fear in her gaze evaporated, replaced by something darker and fiercer. It was the look of a woman realizing that the predator who had claimed her was now caged for her.
“You can’t move,” she observed.
“Not much,” Sterling admitted.
Cassidy stood up straighter, wiped the tears from her cheeks, walked to the door, and locked it. The click of the lock was loud in the quiet room.
She turned back to him with a hunger in her eyes that mirrored his own. They had survived death, and now they needed to affirm life.
She walked to the side of the bed and put her hand on his chest, right over his heart.
“You’re mine,” she whispered with a wry smile. “Right now, you’re helpless…and you’re mine.”
As Sterling watched her, his pulse spiked on the monitor and the beeping accelerated.
“Is that so?” he challenged.
“Yes,” Cassidy said.
She climbed onto the hospital bed.
The mattress creaked under her weight as she straddled his hips, careful of their injuries. When she sat back, her thighs bracketed his waist.
She looked down at him. From this angle, she was the giant—the one in control.
“Touch me,” Sterling commanded.
Cassidy didn’t need to be told. Using her free arm, she ran her hand down his chest, over the bandages, to the waistband of his hospital pants.
She didn’t hesitate and shoved the fabric down.
Sterling hardened instantly and sprang free, thick and heavy, throbbing with a desperate need.
Cassidy gasped. She wrapped her fingers around him and squeezed.
“You’re alive,” she whispered. “You’re so alive.”
She began to stroke him with a firm, possessive touch. She used her thumb to rub the head of his cock, smearing the glistening pre-cum over the sensitive skin.
Sterling arched his back, straining against the cuffs. The metal dug into his wrist, biting deep, but he didn’t mind this type of pain.
“Cassidy,” he growled. “Fuck.”
She leaned forward and kissed his chest then licked the skin over his heart and moved lower.
She took him in her mouth, and it was a shock of wet heat that made Sterling’s vision white out. He bucked his hips, driving himself deeper into her throat.
She ran her tongue over the sensitive slit at the tip, lapping up more of the salty pre-cum that leaked from him.
She took his hard shaft into her mouth, her tongue swirling around the ridges of the purple head.
The suction was intense, a wet, hot vacuum that made his balls tighten against his scrotum.
She worked him with a frantic, desperate rhythm, her saliva coating his dick in slick lubrication.
“Yes,” Sterling hissed. “Take it.”
He wanted to grab her hair, hold her head in place, and fuck her mouth, but he couldn’t. He pulled against the cuffs, and the chain rattled violently.
He was powerless and had to surrender to her.
Cassidy sensed his frustration, and it emboldened her. She sucked harder and used her one free hand to pump the base of his shaft while her mouth worked the head.
The tension built in the room, and the air became thick with the scent of sex and antiseptic. The heart monitor was racing now, a frantic staccato that matched the rhythm of her mouth.
Sterling was close to the edge.
“Cassidy,” he warned. “I’m going to—”
She pulled off of him and sat up to look at him, her lips wet, her eyes blown wide.
“Not yet,” she whispered and slid off the bottom of the bed. She unzipped her jeans and shimmied them off her legs.
Sterling, desperate with anticipation, watched intently as she prepared herself for him. He could see the wetness in the crotch of her panties where they had been pressed against her soft pussy.
Cassidy pushed them down, kicked them off, then climbed back on the bed and straddled her savior. She positioned her soaking wet pussy over his throbbing, rock-hard dick and sank down on him slowly at a calculated pace—the only way she could take in a dick that big and thick.
She looked down and watched his massive cock disappear inch by inch into her tight canal. The friction of her hot flesh against his skin was agonizingly good, and she impaled herself on him until he bottomed out against her pelvis.
She was tight and hot, and Sterling roared with his wavering, raspy voice. Her pussy clamped around his hard cock like a wet fist, stroking him.
Cassidy threw her head back and began to ride him, moving with a slow rhythm that rubbed every inch of him. She shifted her hips slightly forward so she could grind her swollen bud against his pelvis with a light, teasing friction. It felt like ecstasy.
“Look at me,” Sterling ordered.
She looked down, and their eyes locked.
“You did this,” he said. “You made me this way.”
“I know,” she said and picked up the pace, grinding on him a little faster but remaining gentle. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps. He could see her breasts bouncing as he looked down the neck of her flannel shirt.
Sterling fought the restraints and thrust his hips upward to meet hers, and the bed frame rattled.
“Quiet,” Cassidy gasped. “They’ll hear.”
“Let them hear,” Sterling growled. “Let them know who you belong to.”
He drove into her and hit her spot.
Cassidy bit her lip to keep from screaming and rode him harder, chasing the release. She needed it to wash away the blood and the fear.
“Come for me,” Sterling demanded. “Now.”
He bucked hard, and Cassidy unraveled. Her orgasm hit her with force, and she clamped down, shaking.
Sterling followed her instantly, spilling into her with a pulsing force that drained him completely.
He collapsed back against the pillows, chest heaving, the handcuffs digging into his raw skin.
Cassidy slumped forward and rested her head on his shoulder.
They lay there, sharing the silence, listening to the monitor slow down. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Eventually, Cassidy climbed off him and pulled his pants up, covering him. Then she put her panties and jeans back on one-handed and with the finesse of someone consciously preoccupied by the sexual rush of endorphins and dopamine.
She sat on the edge of the bed, holding his unbound hand.
“They’re going to release you,” she said. “They found the knife in the mine, and they took my statement about the kidnapping. Plus, a guy at the Lucky Horseshoe saw Travis grab me and told the cops I was defending myself with the bottle.”
“I know,” Sterling said. “My lawyers already confirmed it. It was clearly self-defense.”
He looked at her. The post-coital haze was fading, and the sharp, intelligent glint was returning to his eyes.
“We need to talk about the future,” he said.
Cassidy stiffened. “The debt? You said you paid it.”
“I did,” Sterling said. “The ranch is secure. But I’m talking about us.” He shifted, trying to get comfortable despite the restraints.
“I’m moving the headquarters,” he said.
“What?” Cassidy blinked. “What headquarters?”
“Thorne Global,” Sterling said. “I’m moving the corporate base of operations to Seattle. Or maybe we build a complex on the lower pasture.”
“You can’t be serious,” Cassidy said. “You operate out of Tokyo, New York, London.…”
“I operate where I choose,” Sterling said, “and I choose here. Besides, Seattle is just a 90-minute helicopter ride right over the Cascades.”
He squeezed her hand.
“I am done with the big cities, Cassidy. I am done with boardrooms that smell of recycled air and lies. I want to build something real, an empire, on solid ground.”
“But…the snow,” Cassidy stammered. “The isolation.”
“I have the helicopter,” Sterling said dryly. “And I have you.”
He looked at her with absolute certainty.
“I am planting a flag, Cassidy. I am taking over this valley, not to sell it, but to rule it…with you.”
Cassidy saw the ambition in his eyes but also saw the devotion. He wasn’t just staying for her, he was changing his entire world for her.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Okay?” Sterling asked.
“Okay,” she repeated, and a smile touched her lips. “But if you build an office on my pasture, you’re paying rent.”
Sterling laughed. It was a rusty laugh, but it was real.
“Negotiated,” he said.
He pulled against the cuffs one last time.
“Now,” he said. “Find that officer and tell him to get these damn things off me. I have an empire to build.”