2. 2
“Cassie, you need to stop,” Elias said, swatting my hands away.
They were clumsily trying to undo his belt buckle for the umpteenth time.
I couldn’t keep my hands off him in the car, and he almost hit an orange cone on the highway fighting me off before I relented.
To retaliate, I played the dirtiest, sluttiest, horniest music I could find on my phone, hoping to change his mind.
He did not change his mind.
“Why can’t I touch you?” I asked, following him around the house while he was putting our things away.
“I don’t like having sex with drunk women when I’m sober.
It’s weird,” he said plainly, entering the armory to set our guns in there.
There were weapons stored around the house, but the guns we used today lived in this room when they weren’t on our person.
I stood in the doorway, supporting myself with the frame.
“I’m not some random drunk woman, I’m yours,” I whined.
Walking over to me, he held my face in his hands, kissing me softly on the lips. I leaned into his touch, trying to take more from him, but he held me back. “I want you and you’re not you right now. Dr. Cassia Hayes would never try to blow me while I was driving her shiny new car.”
I looked in his dark eyes, my vision soft around the edges. “She might.” I’d never been that adventurous before, but Elias wasn’t like anyone else. I often wasn’t myself around him, drunk or not.
“You’re falling all over the place,” he said. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s not happening.”
I wrapped my hands around him slowly, leaning into his chest. He returned the embrace, kissing the top of my head.
Not able to help myself, my hands moved to his waist, finding the front of his pants again.
He took his arms back, gripping my wrists and pulling them off of him, and pushing them into my own chest.
“Is that supposed to discourage me?” I asked. “You know I like being restrained.”
Surprise flashed over Elias’s face. Typically, I wasn’t that forthright when I spoke about our sex life. “Cassie,” he said, unable to hold back a smile. “You are being very bad and I need you to be good, please.”
“If I’m not, will you spank me?”
“You’re being very cute right now, but also very annoying,” he said, backing me out of the room. I shook his hands off my wrists. He could’ve held on, but he let me go free.
I turned away from him, and walked to the kitchen, helping myself to the whiskey in the freezer.
It was still early, I figured, and if he wasn’t going to entertain me, then I’d entertain my annoying self.
Setting an ice-filled glass on the counter, I tipped the bottle to give myself a nice, heavy-handed pour.
Elias passed by the kitchen in much more comfortable clothes, watching me as he walked to the living room.
“You’re going to feel that in the morning.
” I ignored him, and he kept going, plopping on the couch in front of the television.
Grabbing the controller off of the coffee table, he booted up the game he’d been playing.
I never pegged him to be much of a gamer, and he wasn’t, really, but he was still a man.
He wasn’t all guns and outdoor adventures, he liked to shoot stuff on a TV screen, too.
I debated on what I wanted to do, ultimately deciding to sit on the opposite side of the couch, pretending to ignore Elias some more.
I sipped my drink, watching him play. The game he’d been playing the past few weeks was a western, and his character explored the Great Plains robbing trains and riding horses.
It was like watching a movie, so I sat and watched him more often than not.
Unable to stay silent for long, I spoke when not much was happening on the screen.
“I’m sorry for being annoying,” I said, my voice small.
“It’s okay.” He was still amused, the corners of his mouth turning up.
I held out my glass to him and he took a drink, handing it back to me. I set it on the coffee table.
“You can sit closer if you’re done misbehaving,” he said, patting the space next to him.
I chose to lay down, putting a pillow against his side. He grabbed the blanket that was draped over the back of the couch, and wrapped me in it, effectively tucking me in. When he was finished, he set his arm on the edge of the pillow, just touching the top of my head.
“Did you mean it when you said I was being cute earlier?” I asked.
“Yes.” The sounds of his controller clicked by my head. “You’re always cute.”
“Thanks.” I was getting tired, the excitement of the day over.
“Do you want me to turn something on to watch?” He asked.
“No,” I shook my head. “I like watching you play.”
And that I did, until I closed my eyes.
Elias’s ringtone woke me up, and I could tell it hadn’t been long since I’d fallen asleep. If it had gotten too late, he would’ve corralled me into our bedroom. He didn’t have a strict bedtime that he followed, but he didn’t skimp on sleep when he was home, and he was an early riser.
“Correa,” he said, and I knew that it was work. “I don’t even know where her phone is right now. She’s plastered and asleep on the couch.”
“Hey, I am not,” I said.
“Okay, apparently she’s not,” he said into the receiver. “Parsons was trying to call you, where is your phone?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, but I didn’t get up to find it. I was too comfortable to move.
“Well, I guess we don’t know where it is, you wanna just tell me?”
I reached for his phone, but I missed. Elias put it on speaker for me.
“-first foreign assignment,” Parsons said. I had only caught the end of what he was saying.
“Can you repeat that, Jordan?” I asked, my voice scratchy with sleep.
“You’ve been given your first foreign assignment. Both of you will fly out Monday,” he said.
“Where are we going?” asked Elias.
“You’ll be briefed before you leave. You’re to report to HQ at nine on Sunday morning.”
“That’s not a lot of notice to tell someone they’re leaving the country,” I muttered.
“Never is, Cassie,” Jordan said. “All I can say right now, is that it will be cold.”
“That’s fine,” I said dismissively. “I’m from the U.P.”
“Colder than Michigan, especially in May,” he added.
“Is this an assignment together, or am I traveling as her security?” Elias asked, cutting in again.
“This is strictly work for Cassie, you are only going because, well, you demanded it,” Jordan answered.
Elias sighed, his hand going to his face. “Thank God.”
“Shouldn’t be anything too crazy, and you’ll keep in contact with me while you’re there, of course,” said Jordan.
“How’s Clay?” I asked. It had been a month or two since I’d last seen either of them, but I enjoyed their company. The mental recovery from Baker and Pryor had been difficult, and I didn’t make time for friends often.
“Upset that I’m working at ten on a Friday night, but other than that he’s good.”
“Can we get dinner again? That was fun.” I closed my eyes, snuggling back into the pillow.
“We can talk about that later, Parsons,” Elias said, more softly than he was speaking before. “I think she’s going back to sleep.”
Elias hadn’t closed the curtains, so the sun woke me up before my headache did.
He was breathing softly behind me, and he was so hot it was almost smothering.
I had to get out of bed, but my head was throbbing, and the room wasn’t exactly standing still.
A bottled water sat on the side table, courtesy of Elias, as well as two Tylenol.
I took them, and drank half of the water before hoisting myself up.
Ungracefully, I stumbled to the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face and brush my teeth.
I’d awoken Elias on my journey, and he turned over to watch me exit the bathroom. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Like shit,” I mumbled. “What time is it?”
He glanced at his watch. “Just after seven.”
“Ugh,” I groaned. He’d worn a t-shirt and shorts to bed, though he usually slept in the nude. “Why are you so well-dressed?”
“I was afraid you’d attack me if I wasn’t covered up,” he said. “You were pretty relentless.”
My hand moved to my hair to scratch at my scalp, a nervous habit. “Sorry about that,” I said, feeling a little shy now as I remembered how truly relentless I was.
“I’m not mad, but trying to undress me on the interstate was very uncool of you.”
“Oh my God,” I said, sitting down on the bed. “I am so embarrassing.”
His hand reached up to rub my back. “I don’t think so. Trying to hook up at the company party was far more embarrassing than last night.”
I whipped my head around to look at him and regretted it immediately. My headache surged and the room spun, and all I could see was the stupid grin on Elias’s face. “I hate when you bring that up.”
“And I hate that I love to push your buttons.”
“Did you change my clothes?” I asked, looking down. I was wearing an old t-shirt and my underwear now, and I didn’t remember dressing myself.
“Oh no, that was all you,” he said. “When I woke you up, you made a big show of taking off your pants, and then you tripped over them. You weren’t done though, you flung your blouse at my head, then your bra, and you stumbled to the dresser to grab a shirt.
I’m impressed that it’s not inside-out and backwards, honestly. ”
“Is that it?” I asked.
“Not really. You tried to rip my clothes off again but you gave up and fell asleep.”
I sighed. “Why do you put up with me?”
“You know the answer to that, pretty girl,” he said, his hand snaking around to my breast to give it a gentle squeeze.
I shoved his hand off me. “Are you going for a run?”
“Of course,” he answered. “You want to join me?”
“Hell, no.” Even if I wasn’t hungover, it was rare that I joined him. I was convinced that he was trying to break world records with the speed he chose. “I’m sleeping until you get back.”