18. Cassie
CASSIE
“Cassie,” Tor says behind me, a sharper note of warning in his tone, but I don’t stop.
I don’t know where to go. I’ve only been here once. I’m not that familiar with the property, and even if I ran to the closest neighbor for help, I don’t know how I would explain it.
“Goddammit,” he says, and then I hear him take off after me.
It’s too late to turn back now.
I’m running toward the dock where their pontoon boat is parked, but even if I got to it, it’s not like I can drive it away.
I think I could steer the boat, but I don’t know how to start it.
I’m sure there’s a key, but I don’t have it.
I wonder if I could be lucky enough to discover they left the key in the ignition, but I doubt that, and even if they did, I don’t think I have enough of a head start to get in the boat without Tor following me.
“Cassie, stop,” Tor calls from behind me, keeping his voice low but loud enough for me to hear. I’m sure he doesn’t want to attract the neighbors’ attention.
Maybe that means I should.
I don’t know, though. I’m afraid to make the wrong move. I may have already made a wrong move by running away from him, but calling for help would be an escalation I wouldn’t be able to walk back.
If running damages his trust, calling out to someone for help would break it. Damaged trust can be repaired, but broken trust is the end of the road for us.
And it’s likely no one would hear me, anyway.
Even more likely is that no one would come to help me even if they did hear.
Since the boat is a dead end, I think about veering left, but it’s so dark out here, and I can’t really see where I’m going.
As if to highlight the danger, my work sneaker hits a dip in the ground, and my ankle turns slightly.
I cry out sharply, startled more than hurt, but it causes my pace to slow enough for Tor to catch me.
I gasp as he grabs my bicep, locking his other arm around my waist from behind and yanking me back against him.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he demands.
I twist in his grasp. “Let me go.”
“No. Not until you tell me why the hell you’re running away from me.”
My heart pounds so hard, I hear it in my ears.
I can feel myself chickening out. I don’t want to test whether he would hurt me or not, so I tell him a partial truth I know will de-escalate him immediately.
“I can’t go inside. I can’t… go in that house.”
His tone is guarded, not fully trusting my words. “You were just in the house the other night.”
“Exactly.” I exhale sharply. “I can’t breathe thinking about it.”
“The other night or last summer?”
“The other night.”
It’s the right thing to say because he doesn’t let me go, but his grip eases immediately. He holds me close while my breathing returns to normal, both of us silent. Finally, he asks, “What did he say to you that night?”
I shake my head. “I don’t want to remember. I’m not sorry he’s gone, and I’m not sorry it’s because of me, but… I don’t understand how you can take the life of someone who didn’t do anything to you.”
He doesn’t answer right away, but after a moment, he says, “People are capable of all kinds of things, Cassie. There’s more than one motivation for doing something terrible.
You killed someone who had already harmed you.
I killed someone who was going to harm you.
I’m not sorry for the life I took, either.
What I did may have been ruthless, but it was the best way to protect you.
For once in your life, just let someone keep you safe. ”
I frown, shrugging to break free of his hold so I can turn to look at him. “I’ve never stopped anyone from protecting me. No one wants to!”
“I do,” he states, and my heart flutters.
“I’ll do anything to protect you, and I don’t know why you’d accept anything less.
If I had been your boyfriend last summer, I would have never left you alone to deal with all the shit you went through.
Russell didn’t stand by you for a second, and I don’t understand why you don’t see that.
He abandoned you the minute things got hard, even when the reason things got hard wasn’t your fault. ”
Old excuses come tumbling from my lips. “He didn’t handle things the way I would have liked, but it was hard for him, too.”
“Fuck him,” Tor says, and the quiet ferocity of the words—the depravity of saying something like that about someone who just died—cause my heart to sink.
Because I know it’s fucked up to say now, but I’ve had the same thought in the past when I was in the throes of pain, and I was there all alone—despite Russell claiming to love me.
And then he speaks again, and it’s as if he’s speaking directly to the monster buried deep inside me.
“If another man ever put his hands on what’s mine, I’d fucking kill him, and I wouldn’t feel a shred of remorse.
” He brushes a strand of hair away from my face tenderly, even while he says the worst things.
“If I’m your man and my brother rapes you, I kill him myself. You don’t have to do it.”
I suck in a breath, and then my body responds before my rational brain can function.
I throw my arms around his neck, my body pressing against his like a wild thing.
My lips find his, clumsy in my desperation, but he takes over immediately.
His strong arm wraps tighter around my waist as he kisses me, then his hands slide beneath my ass.
He lifts me, and I gasp against his mouth as my feet leave the ground, but I trust him to carry me.
I’m not sure where we’re going, though, so I break away from his mouth long enough to look.
Toward the dock.
I see the pontoon boat bobbing gently on the water and feel a flash of reluctance because my only memory on that boat is the night I was on it with Tim.
Well, and Tor. Tor was driving the boat, but I wasn’t focused on him that night.
I’m focused on him now.
And he’s focused on me.
Cradling his face in my hands, I press another kiss to the corner of his mouth as he kicks the gate open. He shifts my weight, making sure he has a secure grip on me, then he steps onto the boat.
I hear the gate bang shut and feel the movement of the water beneath us.
Tor carries me over to the bench seating, then he lays me down on my back.
It’s dark enough down by the water that when I look up at the sky, I can see so many stars.
My gaze catches on them as Tor unbuttons and unzips my black work pants, then drags them down my legs.
My attention snaps back to him when he slides his hand down inside my panties, cupping my pussy. I gasp softly, my head falling back, and then a whimper slips out of me as he spreads me open.
“This is mine now,” he rumbles, pressing a kiss against my mouth. “No one else touches it.”
His declaration of ownership makes my knees weak. I nod faintly, my eyes drifting closed as he teases my slit, applying just the right amount of pressure with his thumb. He sinks it inside me, and I sigh.
“These perfect fucking lips,” he murmurs, kissing, almost nibbling gently at my mouth. “I can’t get enough of them.”
My heart flutters, and my lips curve up in a smile I fail to suppress. Sometimes I drown in his depravity, but then he says something like that, and I feel lighter than air.
He brings his thumb back up to tease my clit, and his other hand hooks into the fabric of my panties so he can drag them down. I lift my ass so he can drag them past it, and he keeps fingering me while he takes the panties off.
But then he stops.
My heart is already racing, my body stimulated and needy. I’m not prepared to shift gears, so I’m a little shocked when Tor grabs the front of my shirt, using it to lift me off the bench and pull me close.
“Who’s Josh?” he murmurs.
Heart slamming forward in my chest, my eyes widen. “What? Nobody. A guy I work with.”
“He likes you.”
“He doesn’t like me,” I say adamantly. “Not like that. Just as a friend. Not even a friend—a coworker.”
“He didn’t like me being there to see you.”
I swallow. “That wasn’t… It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like?” he asks, still holding me suspended off the bench.
“He’s seen the pain your family has caused me.
Yeah, you might have picked up on him being a little protective, but it doesn’t come from a possessive place.
Just a human place. It’s empathy, not romantic interest. He wasn’t jealous.
He just didn’t want a guy who hurts some girl he works with hanging around to torture her.
He would act the same way about any girl he works with. He’s just a good guy.”
“Do you want a good guy?”
If somebody asked me that question at any other moment in my life, I would have said yes, but that is clearly not the right answer here unless I want to land Josh in hot water.
Logically, I even realize that if I’m looking over the list of Tor’s attributes, I couldn’t possibly put him on that list. Most people think Tor’s a good guy, just like they think Tim was a good guy. They’re wrong on both counts.
I obviously can’t say that, though. Even if he probably knows the answer, no one wants to be told they’re a bad person.
I know the stakes are high too, because just a minute ago, he was telling me how he would cheerfully murder any man who touched what’s his—and then claimed me as his territory in the next breath.
He could not have been clearer about his expectations here, as well as the potential consequences if I’m not on the same page.
My heart skips a beat, and I lick my lips, hoping I’m about to say the right thing. “I want you.”
He holds my gaze for a moment, searching, appraising. My explanation and response must satisfy him because he lets go. “Take your shirt off.”
Regarding him warily, I do—and I knock my hat off in the process.
I wasn’t planning on getting naked in front of anyone today, so I’m wearing a cheap black bra that doesn’t even slightly match the purple panties I was wearing.
Tor’s lips curve up appreciatively. “That, too.”