Chapter 7
PIA
The song is done. And that’s what I want.
Or what I thought I wanted.
But now, we’ve stopped singing, and silence fills the room.
The pen lies on the table next to a piece of paper covered in my writing and doodles.
The sun outside has begun its descent, bringing a buttery-yellow evening glow to the room.
Cassie is drinking from a bottle of water.
And I have smoked all my cigarettes and drank more than my share of the minibar.
There’s nothing else for us to do but say goodbye. But neither of us say it. Neither of us moves.
I fiddle with a strand of hair like I have nothing better to do, and I know I should tell her to go. I should make out like I have somewhere to be, people to see, but I don’t.
The truth is, something tethered us together when we kissed. I can’t explain it, can’t name it, but I feel it. It’s like a thread attached to us both, and it’s stubborn and strong and long and I don’t have scissors sharp enough to cut it, and even if I did…
“You should go,” I blurt, fed up and frustrated with this stupid situation. She kissed me. She made me feel this way – all tied up in knots with the thread she wrapped around me when she cradled my face in the smooth palm of her hand – and it’s not okay.
“Oh,” she says, and it’s a short sigh of a word, but it’s also soft and musical and full of the air I loved feeling on my lips the moment before she pressed her mouth to mine.
I’m full of relief when she doesn’t move.
I’m full of fear as she continues to stare at me.
I realise then that she’s daring me to ask her again. To tell her to go again.
“It’s for the best,” I explain. To her. To myself.
Because if she keeps standing there, leaning her back against the cupboard opposite my bed, I’m going to rush over there, grab her by her hips and push her up on the wooden top so I can thrust my body between her thighs.
“What’s for the best?” she says so slowly and carefully, her voice doesn’t sound like her own.
“You should go,” I repeat, standing up. Her eyes track me as I take small steps over to her.
“Why do you want me to go?” she asks, a little more hurried, and sure enough, there’s a tremor of trepidation in her eyes.
“I didn’t say I wanted you to go,” I say, getting closer.
“Oh,” she says again. This time the note is a higher pitch.
“But you should,” I say and stop directly opposite her. She leans back, practically sitting on the unit without me even touching her. “You should go before I do something we both regret.”
Cassie shakes her head vehemently. “I would never.”
I frown at her. “You would never what?”
Her chin extends in a beautiful, brave, defiant angle. “I would never regret it. I would never regret you.”
And that is all the invitation I need.
I reach for her. Grab her. Squeeze whatever part of her body my hands land on.
It’s her waist, of that I’m pretty sure as I haul her against me.
Her body is warm under the linen smock blouse thing that’s hiding her curves from me, and I dig my fingertips into her flesh through the material.
It’s hard enough to hurt, I realise, when I hear a little whimper leave her lips, but I swallow it up with my mouth as I kiss her.
No, that’s not what I do. I kissed her earlier. This … This is a claiming.
When I tell people I can’t count how many lovers I’ve had, I’m rarely met with a good reaction.
Usually, there’s shock. Often, there’s judgement.
Sometimes, there’s envy. More than occasionally, there’s disgust. Now and then, it will get me a high five or a slap on the back, but even those make me feel a little nauseated.
What I don’t tell people about my countless number of lovers is just how disappointing most of them have been.
What I don’t tell people is that I do have a number that I haven’t forgotten, because I can count the number of lovers I have actually enjoyed sleeping with on two hands.
And already, I know Cassie Everard is going to make her way onto that depressingly short list.
She kisses like she’s the first person to discover what it’s like when lips meet, when mouths melt together, when tongues dance.
She’s all swallowed gasps of amazement, gentle sighs of satisfaction and rocking hips of eagerness.
I bet she doesn’t even know just how hot and supple her body is right now.
I bet she’s not aware of how she’s already fallen into the most perfect rhythm with her body, her pelvis chasing friction with mine.
I dare say Cassie has no fucking clue just how delicious she tastes, how floral and sweet her hair smells, and how perfect her body feels against mine.
She doesn’t know. But I do.
And that’s why I’m claiming her. For tonight. Or the next hour. Or however long she’ll give me.
She’s mine right now.
She is what I want.
“You should stop me,” I say into her neck. My lips were starting to hurt, and I have no doubt it was the same for her. I dig my fingernails deeper into her soft, soft waist. “You need to stop me.”
“Pia!” she exclaims, and it’s so loud, I pull back.
“What is it? Did I hurt you?”
“No,” she sighs and then levels her blue eyes on me. They’re a dark azure, like the ocean. “At least, not in a way I don’t like.”
Well … fuck.
“Cassie, you can’t say shit like that to me.” I still have my hands on her waist, although I’ve stopped burrowing my nails into her.
“Why?” she challenges, and it is a challenge. The arch in her left eyebrow. The pout on her lips. The sparkle in her eyes. “Does it turn you on to think about hurting me?”
I narrow my eyes on her, but her face is inscrutably innocent. “Is this some fucked-up shit about our rivalry? You think I want to inflict pain on you?”
“What? No!”
I lift my hands off of her. “Because, fan, I swear to God, Cassie—”
“Stop!” Cassie grabs hold of my arms and moves them so she can hold my hands between us.
“Pia, you have to believe me right now. I’m not thinking about the bands, yours or mine.
I’m not thinking about Stephan or Kevin or Martin or tomorrow.
I’m not even thinking about the song or about the music.
I’m thinking about you. So when I ask you if something is turning you on, I really do want to know if that something is turning you on. ”
I’m silenced, which never fucking happens. I stare at her bright eyes and the blonde hair that almost falls into them. Her little up-turned nose and her perfect pink lips. She’s so annoyingly captivating.
“Ask me again,” I say as slow and measured as I can, which is something of an achievement considering how hard breathing has just become.
Cassie makes an inexplicably dainty sound as she clears her throat. “I like it when you hurt me. Does that turn you on?”
In a split second, I drop her hands and grab her by the throat. My hand fits perfectly around her neck.
“Yes,” I tell her. “That turns me on.”
I feel tendons and muscles work under my skin as she tries to breathe deeper than is possible. “Good,” she has enough oxygen to say. “I want to turn you on.”
She has no fucking idea.
I ease up my grip a little as I use my hold on her to bring her back to my mouth.
This time, as our mouths clash again, already bruised lips pressing together, I use my other hand to lift up one of her legs and make space for one of my thighs to go between hers.
Like the good girl she is, she grips my leg hungrily and immediately starts to move against me.
Balancing more of my weight on my other leg, I lift my knee and press closer, into the heart of her.
She mumbles her desperate gratitude into my mouth, and I gobble it up like it’s my favourite food.
Speaking of food. I want to taste her. I want to eat her.
I want to devour her. So much so a part of me wants to spin us around and throw her on the bed, rip off those fucking dated flared jeans and tear to pieces whatever underwear she’s wearing – because of course, Cassie Everard is wearing underwear, unlike dirty-girl me – and dive straight into her cunt.
But I quieten that part of me down: I tell her to wait, to take her time, to enjoy this because something tells me that’s exactly what’s on offer if I’m just patient for once in my life.
“Oh God,” she gasps as she pushes me away.
“What’s wrong?” I demand, and it is a demand albeit a concerned one, even if it doesn’t exactly sound that way.
“I’m so…” She pauses and closes her eyes. “I was so close to … you know. I had to stop, or I was going to…”
I bite back my laugh, but not my smile. “And what’s wrong with that?”
Her eyes spring open. “Well, it’s so quick. It’s so…” Another trailing off, and yet I’m perfectly able to fill in her blanks.
“Who says it’s too quick for you to orgasm?” I emphasise the word she dare not speak.
“We’re only kissing,” she says, as if that will explain it.
I take a step nearer, bringing my face so close I know she can’t focus on it all, only my eyes, or better, my lips. “Oh, Cassie,” I purr. “You think if you come it will be over?”
She nods, her lips tucked into her mouth like she doesn’t trust herself to talk.
“You don’t know how wrong you are.” I put my hands back on the top curve of her hips, but this time I’m gentle. My touch is featherlight. “If I get my way, you are going to lose count of your orgasms tonight, my English rose. And Cassie?”
“Yeah?” Her voice is a quiver of air and noise.
“I always get what I want,” I say before slamming my mouth back down on hers, where I feel it belongs.
I decide I’ve been patient enough, so I spin us around, and keeping Cassie’s body in motion, I push her down onto the bed.
She flops onto the messy coverlet, limbs splayed, and a look of sweet shock on her face.
I give her next to no time to compose herself as I climb up on the bed with one of her legs between mine.