Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CASS
The half stupor of semi-consciousness peppered Cass with a barrage of mixed signals. Only the faintest grey-blue light trickled into the room, even with the curtains pulled wide, and crystalline flakes glittered on the other side of the glass. Her usually noisy street was quiet with the Christmas lull, making it seem like the outside world had disappeared.
It would have been a dreamy way to wake up if she wasn’t being strangled.
She yanked down the hem of her top from around her throat until she could take a full breath and kicked away the blankets where they had tangled in knots with her pyjama pants.
That’s why I don’t usually wear these to bed . She peeled open an eye. Why did I wear these to bed?
Pyjamas. Because she wanted to dance with fire and let him spend the night.
No. More than let. Wanted.
The space beside her was empty, but warm. Before she could sit up, she heard the toilet flush and taps run, followed by footsteps hurrying down the hall into her room.
Whether he’d stripped his hoodie before or after he fell asleep, she didn’t know. Goosebumps flecked his arms and chest, the s mooth plain of his torso disappearing below the waistband of his sweats slung low on his hips. He was shaking his hair out of his eyes, and his scowl morphed into a half-grin as he saw her.
Definitely dancing with fire. She rolled to her back to stare at the ceiling and remove his abs out of her eyeline.
“Jesus, my nipples could cut glass.” He dove back into bed and pulled the duvet up to his eyebrows. “Thank god you’re awake. I didn’t want to rifle through your shit. I need coffee.”
“Are you always this demanding in the morning?”
His voice came muffled from below the covers. “I’m demanding all the time. Besides, you owe me.”
“For what?”
“I’m sure there’s something. I need coffee to remember what that is.”
Cass felt the corners of her mouth curve up. “How long have you been awake?”
“Two minutes.”
Add caffeine addiction to the slim treasure chest of knowledge she knew about him. “Okay, coffee is on its way. How do you take it?”
“Black as my soul.”
Cass puttered around her kitchen, cleaning up the more obvious messes while the coffee brewed.
A few messages had come in. A rambling voice note from Libby and Stephen. A trio of texts from Jill. A Merry Christmas from Raina, with a picture of her beaming kids unwrapping the presents Cass had given them.
Nothing from her sister or brother, but they could still be busy with the kids and sleeping, respectively. An off-centre selfie from her parents with the caption, wish you were here!
If that was true, you would have invited me.
As the final drips sputtered from the filter, Josh shuffled out of the bedroom, wrestling with his hoodie, and plopped in front of her stack of movies.
“One soul-black coffee.” She handed him the cup and curled her fingers around her own, doctored heavily with hazelnut syrup and a splash of cream.
“I love LOTR marathons as much as the next nerd, but I’m guessing you’ve got something better than that.”
On second thought, maybe she wasn’t missing out on the California sun. Cass nodded, one leg tucked under her, her bad knee extended to rest on the coffee table. “I’m open to suggestion.”
Josh flipped through the movies stacked on end. He sat cross-legged, curled over the selection before him. Every so often he’d pause, take a case out to smirk at the cover, either shaking his head and replacing it, or stacking it off to the side. The hem of his oversized hoodie rode up enough to display the dimples at the base of his spine, and the overwhelming desire to kneel behind him and slide her hands over them danced across her mind.
Sexy Dimples . He had to have done it on purpose.
He grabbed two DVDs off his short-listed stack of over a dozen, hiding them behind his back. “Let’s start with these. Left or right?”
She tapped his right arm, and he brandished an early seventies French film with a flourish. She clapped her hands. “Oh, excellent! Subs, not dubs?”
“Obviously.”
“Left or right.” Josh kneeled in front of her, hands behind his back again.
Cass reclined against the cushions they’d dragged onto the floor and tapped her lips in exaggerated concentration. “Left.”
“My left or your left?”
She pressed her lips together, utterly failing to prevent herself from smiling, and nudged his left arm .
“Wait.” He twisted over his shoulder and switched his hands. “Perfect.”
“We’re just on the second movie, and you’re cheating already!”
“Are you going to put up a fight about it?”
Cass huffed. “No. That’s one of my favourite movies of the last ten years.”
“Me, too,” he said, putting it into the DVD player. He sat beside her and held out his arm. “Are you hungry yet?”
She settled into the crook of his arm and let the scent of his sleep and the citrusy sandalwood that always clung to him wash over her.
“I’m starting to get hungry, but let’s watch this first.”
“Right or left?”
Josh chewed his mishmash of leftovers and gestured with his fork. “Wheft,” he said around a bite of mashed potatoes.
“Ooh!” Cass wiggled as she switched out the movies and hit play. She sunk into the couch, settling her plate back on her lap. “Historical costume design isn’t always my favourite, but what they did with this.” She kissed her fingertips. “Sublime.”
He wobbled his head as he chewed. “It’s alright,” he said finally.
“And to think I let this Philistine into my apartment,” she muttered under her breath, and Josh snickered. “It’s a visual masterpiece telling the story of what it is like to be a teenage girl in the public eye. It should be mandatory viewing for child actors.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. It completely inspired me to draw fan art for Tideways .”
A garbled choke erupted from Josh’s throat. “Hold up,” he said, eyes watering as he coughed before he managed to swallow his food. “You know Tideways ? ”
“Yep.” She motioned with her chin to her bookshelf in the corner. “Two editions.”
Josh hit pause on the movie and turned to look at her fully. “Do you still have your art?”
It had been years since she’d drawn it, but it was some of her favourite conceptual work, and she felt her cheeks warm with pride. She rifled through the desk where her sewing machine sat and passed a stack of loose papers to his outstretched hands.
“The movie adaptation was …” she paused, searching for the right words, shuffling through the colourful pages, “not an artistic choice I would have made. Tideways as a gritty western reboot? Please. It’s like they didn’t bother reading the book. Clearly, it should have been a candy-coloured eye-fest like this,” she finished, waving at the movie paused on the screen.
Josh leafed through pages and pages of colour block designs. “I couldn’t agree with you more,” he murmured.
“Wait. Give me a minute.” Cass closed her eyes and let an enormous smile spread across her features. “You just agreed with me.” She sighed for dramatic effect. “That was beautiful.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” he said, and slid the designs back into the folder. “Mind if I borrow these? I want to look at them when the light is better.”
Cass glowed. “Your wish is my command.”
He rolled his eyes and stashed the portfolio into his overnight back. He resettled himself on the couch beside her, tugging her down beside him. “Noted.”
“Left or right?”
She’d vetoed one movie, declaring she didn’t want to watch massacres on Christmas day, and tapped on his right shoulder.
“ Pride and Prejudice ? Really?” he asked.
“You’re the one who made the short list!”
Josh leaned against her legs, his fingers idly circling her ankle bone. A shiver raced up her body, but she didn’t move away. His usually smooth voice burred low. “I know what women like.”
Cass moved to take it out of his hand, her cheeks warming. “Stop it. Let’s pick something else.”
“Nope, not only is it an underrated cinematographic masterpiece,” he said, fending off her attempted movie theft and holding the case out of reach, “Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFadyen were my sexual awakenings. Well, at least one of them was.”
Tiny, delicate Kiera Knightly with the swan-like neck and fine lips. Nothing at all like her. Cass interlaced her fingers in her lap. “Weren’t you a late bloomer?”
Josh’s smile didn’t dim, but grew softer, and he dipped his head in a show of uncharacteristic shyness. “Actually, I was. I don’t think I looked at a girl until I was fifteen.”
Another tidbit of knowledge to add to her hoard. The thought of a nervous, awe-struck Josh who didn’t know his way around women triggered a surprising rush of affection. Cass pressed her lips together and rested against the blanket fort. “I thought you liked movies with ambiguous endings.”
“Sometimes you need a happily ever after.”
Cass itched to pick up her phone and dissect that comment with Libby for the next several hours, but Libby was having Christmas with a man who’d said unambiguously that he loved her and didn’t want to be away from her again. “Okay, I promise not to recite the whole thing to you.”
He turned to her with a shrug. “If you’re not reciting it, then I will. From ‘I have fought against my better judgment, my family’s expectations, the inferiority of your birth’ to ‘You have bewitched me body and soul’,” he quoted. He hit play and leaned back beside her. “It was so faithful to the source material it didn’t do a lot adaptation-wise, but …”
Cass half listened to him listing why fans and academics alike would have revolted with anything less than a perfect retelling or a full Bridget Jones’s Diary-ing of the story, but she felt herself getting lost in his voice.
Being bewitched sounded about right.
A swashbuckling man with an unbuttoned shirt and a prim woman wearing heels in the jungle flickered across her screen.
Ridiculous, and unrealistic, but she loved it.
His arm was draped over her shoulders, fingers tracing leisurely circles over the soft material of her pyjamas. Even early as it was, she fought her eyelids from closing, settling into the easy rhythm of his breath and the beats of the movie she’d seen a hundred times before.
“How’d you meet Nick?”
It was the last question she had been expecting. Cass tipped her head back to look at the ceiling, thinking. “It was a few years ago. My sister needed me to pick up my niece after hockey practice, and he was coaching her team.”
Nick had been circling the end of the rink, his back turned as he gave instructions to the kids swarming him. When he’d turned his head and met her eyes, that brilliant smile had sent her hormones storming into a tidy formation. By the time she had realized he smiled at everyone like that, he’d burrowed deep under her skin.
“What do you even see in this guy?”
Libby had asked her the exact same thing, and she was no closer to an answer. “I don’t know.”
“Come on.”
“He was cute?—”
“ Was cute?” Josh jumped on her comment with feigned glee. “Has he been hideously maimed in a fire?”
Cass tsked. “Is cute. He could be really funny in a sarcastic way. Smart.” She grinned at him. “He has a nice truck.”
Josh gave her a look of pure disgust .
“I’m an Alberta girl,” she said with a shrug, and he swatted her thigh. His eyes lingered on the way her leg moved under the light contact, and she saw his throat work.
After a beat, he asked, “Are you in love with him?”
Correction. This was the last question she had been expecting.
Once, she might have said yes, or at least maybe. But if Nick texted her right now, she’d have no problem leaving him on read. She didn’t think she was over him fully, but it seemed less dangerous than it had months ago, and a feeling like relief unfurled in her chest. She shook her head. “I don’t think I even like him anymore.”
Josh kept his attention on the nearly silent screen, but Cass thought she saw a hint of a dimple appear on his cheek.
“Technically, it’s not Champagne,” she said, pouring the wine into the tumbler as he dealt the cards. “But it’s still festive.”
Josh covered his glass when she moved to pour some for him. “I’ll stick to water. Do you always have champagne on hand?”
“You never know when you might need to celebrate something. Even if it’s just …” she trailed off and pursed her lips. “Even if it’s just a really great day.”
“I’ll drink to that,” he said, raising his empty glass.
“You don’t … do you not drink?”
He shook his head, focussed on stacking the cards, and she frowned at her glass. It was cheap. It would lose the bubbles, but she and Libby could drink it in a couple days. She returned the bottle to the fridge and poured them glasses of sparkling fruit water.
Not Champagne, or even fake champagne, but good. Tart and breezy, it sparkled like starlit snow on her tongue. He took a sip, and she watched his mouth catch the drip that snuck over the edge of his glass.
She tore her eyes away to stare into her glass, watching the bubbles rise and pop. “Can I ask you a question?”
His shoulders tensed a fraction, but he nodded without looking up from the cards.
“Why did you leave law?”
“Oh,” he said, tension releasing. “It wasn’t for me.”
She wondered what he thought she was going to ask. “And you made the right choice?” she asked instead.
“Never once had I thought leaving law was the wrong move for me, but I disappointed a lot of people when I did.” He twisted his closed lips. “And don’t tell me I could always go back.”
“I don’t know you that well,” Cass said, “but I can’t imagine you anywhere other than film. You have too much vision. It’s incredible to watch you.”
“Same.” Josh studied his cards. “I’ve never worked with anyone like you. Melanie wanted us looking like we were cosplaying the fucking Power Rangers out there, and after seeing your designs, she completely changed direction.”
The dim lights would hide the pleased flush creeping up her cheeks, the warm glow flowing under her skin. She discarded, and Josh swiped up her rejected Ace.
Shoot. That’s what she got for not paying attention to the game.
“What’s your dream?”
She blinked. “My dream?”
“Win an Oscar? Get out of film and become an accountant? What do you want?”
“Everyone wants to win an Oscar,” she snickered, “but this is my dream. Right now, working with you on SD?—”
“You’re saying working with me is a dream come true?” he asked, grinning.
“Honestly? Yes.”
He looked stunned, and she shrugged. “Working with creative people to make beautiful films,” she said simply. “I’d never heard of SD before we’d met. There’s a version of this story that is hard sci-fi or dystopian, and sure, I can see the blockbuster superhero version, but after reading your script, it just felt like you had something to say about their humanity. Same with Oblivion. ”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. “I think you’re the first person to say that,” he said quietly.
“Oh, please. I bet Stephen did.”
“Hearing you say it feels different.” He cleared his throat and narrowed his eyes at his cards. “Did your family support you going into costume?”
“My parents told me I could be anything I wanted when I grew up,” Cass said wryly. “They forgot to tell me that if anything I wanted wasn’t something that earned their attention, then I wouldn’t get any of it.”
Josh looked up. “What do you mean?”
“Typical middle child. The only thing I was ever good at was dance, and the minute I wasn’t going to be the best anymore, it was like they lost interest in me. I was never a great student. My older sister is hyper successful, then she got married to her hyper successful husband and brought home hyper cute grandkids for our mother to dote on. I was supposed to be the boy our dad always wanted, and when my brother came along, my dad had his favourite. It was just me in the middle, finding ways to make other people happy and trying to get their attention. The only thing I was ever good at in my family was seeing when things were about to go wrong and stopping drama before it started.”
Josh let out a chagrined chuckle. “Like how you talked me down when I was?—”
“Getting overwhelmed by all the pressure on your shoulders to pull this off?”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Force of habit.” Cass brushed it aside. “You had that vision in your head though, already. That’s why you were so fast to accept my su ggestions. Why didn’t you say anything to Melanie?”
Deep fissures furrowed his brow. “I’m not great at communicating what I need,” he bit off eventually, rearranging the cards in his hand. “That’s why I’ve always worked solo.”
“You can only get so far on your own.” Cass rubbed the frown lines between his eyes away. “And that’s why you need people like me around.”
“I can think of lots of reasons to keep you around,” he said. That sly look she knew so well spread over his face, dimples divotting his cheeks, and he held her gaze as he fanned his cards out between them. “For one, you’re an easy mark. Gin.”
Cassidy St. Claire, you are a damn fool.
The squeezing in her chest released a charge through her limbs, and she sat rooted to her seat. As Josh counted the points and scratched the point totals on the pad beside him, her heart decided, and left her brain completely out of the conversation.
“I never stood a chance, did I?” she murmured.
“You really didn’t,” he said, dealing another hand. The heat retreated from his gaze, a practiced look of nonchalance taking the place of the smirk as he studied his cards. “I could stay tonight, too. If you haven’t had enough of me yet.”
“No, I haven’t had enough.”
“It’ll feel a little funny at first, but you’ll get used to it.”
“Kinky.”
“No squirming.”
“I can’t help it if you make me squirm.”
“Josh …”
“Okay.” He closed his eyes and tilted his face up to hers. “Lay it on me.”
Josh sat on the edge of the tub, his flawless skin freshly washed and his hands gripping his knees, held wide to let her stand betwee n them. She’d cranked up the heat when she made him take off the hoodie to prevent smearing mishaps, and the lean planes of his torso glowed in the dimmed bathroom lights. His thick black hair was held back with glittery butterfly clips she’d picked out from the selection on her bathroom counter.
“Breathe in.” Cass misted the aromatherapy spritz, more for ambiance than anything else, and scooped a double finger full of the green goop. “Now, relax.”
“When did you get so bossy?”
She smoothed the mask over his forehead, down the bridge of nose, along the blade of his cheekbones. Her thumbs worked at the tense muscles of his jaw and smoothed down the column of his throat. His broad shoulders released a fraction, and he took a deep breath as she massaged his temples.
“This is not like other facials I’ve had,” he said, slurring slightly.
“I’ll pretend that’s not an innuendo?—”
“It’s an innuendo.”
“But either way,” Cass said, unfazed, her fingertips pressing along the line of his collarbones, “that doesn’t speak well to your other facials. I’m not very good at this.”
“Disagree. You are very good at this.” His hands inched inwards until his fingers rested on the outside of her knees. “I’m feeling very relaxed. And a little tingly.”
Same. “There’s eucalyptus in the mask.”
“Don’t think it’s the eucalyptus making me tingly.”
Also, same . Cass swallowed and stepped out of range of his hands. “Wait right here.”
“For what?”
“For me to get my phone so I can get proof of this moment for blackmail.”
“Go ahead.” Josh stood and surveyed the results in the mirror. “I look sexy as fuck.”
“You are green and slimy. You look like Shrek.”
“Shrek is green and slimy and sexy as fuck. Your point? ”
How could Josh being smeared in green goop still make her heart rate speed up? A manic giggle escaped her throat and her own drying mask cracked around the edges. “I’ll try and keep my hands to myself for the next ten minutes.”
“Why fight it?”
She wasn’t sure if he was still joking. She didn’t think he was. Not with his usual playful smirk tucked away, with something darker behind his eyes. Cass ducked out of the bathroom and circled the living room while fanning her face. Josh trailed after her, fingers wiping at a green smear at the top of his pecs.
“A few more minutes, then dinner?” he asked.
“When are you leaving?” she blurted.
They’d watched movies all day, eaten, and the light of the short winter day had long disappeared from beyond the windows. They hadn’t planned an end for the evening. If he stayed, she would tip over into something she couldn’t climb out of. If he left, she might be able to claw back a semblance of whatever emotional control she had left.
She knew which she wanted, and she didn’t think she could have it.
He slowed, eyes narrowing. “Do you want me to leave?” he asked softly.
“No.” And that was the problem. Cass resumed her pacing. “Last night was great and today has been wonderful and I’ve had so much fun, and I don’t want it to end, and it’ll suck when it does and I just …” She dropped her waving hands and turned to face him. “I just want to be ready for it.”
A muscle in Josh’s jaw clenched, and he said nothing.
And now she was getting clingy. They were just hanging out, no matter what had happened yesterday, or what had been sparking between them for months. At least what had been sparking for her. Whatever games they had been playing. This was already in in territory she couldn’t handle. “You know, forget it. I?— ”
“This is really weird, talking to you with green stuff all over your face. Come with me.”
Josh leaned her butt against the bathroom counter, running the water until it turned hot, and steam rose in lazy wisps. “Unless you tell me there is a magic potion to get this shit off, I’m just going to use water.”
At her nod, he soaked the washcloth with hot water and wrung it out. He didn’t need to be standing as close as he was, gripping her chin to tilt it up with one hand and carefully washing her face clean with the other. Slow, gentle circles. The water beaded over her cheeks and down her throat. His heavy-lidded gaze roamed over her face. The steady strokes from his hands were firm but soothing, and she closed her eyes and let him take over.
“I don’t want to go,” he said after silent minutes.
“Oh. Okay.”
He swiped a final pass with the cloth and then stepped away to scrub at his own face like he was trying to remove a layer of skin.
“I like spending time with you, and you like spending time with me.” He paused, raising an eyebrow at her in question, and when she nodded, he continued, “I’m happy to eat more sweet potatoes and play a card game before going home, if that’s what you want. But I don’t think it is.” He swiped the last of the green from his face and dropped the cloth on the counter. His eyes burned dark, and he crowded into her jaw clenching as his breath tickled her lips. “Tell me I’m right.”
“Josh, I?—”
“I can feel your heart pounding. I can see your pulse in your throat, right here,” he said, tracing his finger down her neck, and her breath caught in her lungs. “Right now, I want nothing more than to slide my fingers in your pussy and see if you’re wet for me already. I think it’s been way too fucking long since I’ve been inside you, but if you’ve had enough, just say it.”
No one had ever accused her of thinking before she acted. A voice she wa s sure belonged to Libby whispered at her, you’ve done this before, you know where this is going . But Cass was beyond that. There was no turning back now. Not even if she wanted to.
But as much as it felt dangerous—reckless, even—it felt different . Not just a headlong dive into what her heart wanted. Need for him ached between her thighs, hummed between her ribs, and her last chance of turning back fell away.
“I don’t think I’ll ever have enough of you,” she said, and the energy in the room changed in a flash.
Josh surged toward her, his mouth taking her like he was starved. Maybe he was. Last night was a taste, a tease, frantic minutes stolen. Now, he gripped her neck to angle her head back, the edge of the counter cutting into her butt as he pushed against her. His loose lounge pants hid nothing, and she ground herself against his growing bulge, matching his frenzy.
The last twenty-four hours had been a dangerous dance. A test, to see if she could resist. Letting him touch her, inviting him over, even as she swore to herself she wouldn’t do exactly what she was doing right now.
She skated her hands along the ridges of his abdomen, down his clenching ass, and dug her fingers into the muscle. The man could have been cut from marble, if marble radiated heat and groaned every time she pressed her lips against the pulse hammering in his throat.
The grip in her hair tightened. “Fuck, Cass, I missed that mouth of yours.”
“Then let me put it on you.”
She licked the V where his hip met his thigh, and his knuckles whitened where he gripped the counter. His muscles coiled under his skin, warm and firm under her tongue, and she winced as she settled her knees on the hard tiles.
“Wait—”
“No more waiting,” she said, spitting into her hand to pump his shaft, but he pulled her back before she could wrap her lips around him.
He leaned over and ripped a towel off the rack. “Knees.”
She almost laughed, him thinking of her bad knee with his cock glistening a millimetre from her lips, but she dutifully knelt on the towel. “That’s so sweet. I?—”
“Nothing sweet about what I want that mouth to do.” He let go of the counter and gripped a handful of her hair. “Now, open wide.”
No more teasing. He’d already waited a day. She held his gaze as she opened just enough to take the tip, swirling her tongue as he let out a string of curses. Her tongue slid down the underside of his cock until he hit the back of her throat.
A harsh noise ripped from his throat, and his hips jerked forward. “You have no fucking idea how good you feel.”
If his spasming thrusts were any indication, she had a pretty good idea. Every time her fingers gripped his base or wandered over his skin, him shivering whenever she found an especially sensitive spot. Submitting to his wants felt like power. Making his breath catch and his words devolve into a string of obscenities felt like music. Finding something he craved, and giving it to him, felt like victory.
With the barest pressure, his thighs opened to grant her access, her fingers sliding down the cleft of his ass and over the tight ring of muscle, air whooshing from his lungs.
I know what you need, too , she thought as she flicked her tongue along his crown, and if you want it, it’s yours .
“Fucking hell. Just … god, Cass.”His hand slammed on the wall over her head as he came, cock jerking against her tongue until he spilled down her throat, his eyes blown dark, fixed on her the entire time.
He pulled her to her feet and crushed her mouth to his. She loved that he didn’t mind the taste of himself, wanted to kiss her, like his release was one more sense to share. She leaned into him as he sagged against the wall, spent, as he stroked her back, down her waist, over her hips.
“Do you know what I thought the first time I saw you? ”
Cass shook her head.
“That you looked like you were lit from within. You glowed. You were radiant. I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen,” he said, voice low, and trailed his lips along her neck. “Then I wanted to know what your lips felt like around my cock.”
Cass stifled a laugh. “I thought you said you’d been thinking about kissing me.”
“That came later.” He dipped his thumbs under the band of her pyjamas. “Now, I’ve been thinking about what you have on underneath these since last night,” he said, sliding his hand lower, and stopped, an animalistic gleam in his eyes. “Charms?”
“Yes?” she asked sweetly.
“Have you been sitting on that couch with me for hours with a bare pussy?”
It hadn’t been a conscious thought. Even though she had an entire drawer dedicated to matching undergarments that she selected every day, that morning she had just … decided not to put any on. She swallowed and nodded.
“No more holding out on me.” He gripped the nape of her neck and walked her backwards into the dark of her bedroom, kissing her the whole time, until her knees buckled on the edge of her bed, and he toppled on top of her. The weight of his body on hers, solid, warm, the slow rolling of his hips against her sliced through any coherent thought.
He worked her clothes down over her hips, kissing every newly exposed inch of skin, sliding his fingers along her slick folds. “Fuck, I knew you’d be wet for me.”
The first swipe of his tongue sent a tremor cruising along every nerve ending, tension pulling dangerously at her seams. He pulled her hips into his face and buried himself between her thighs. Her insides tightened, coiling up her spine, until he pulled away.
The build of her orgasm vanished. “No,” she whined. “I was so close?— ”
“Do you remember yesterday when you rode my thigh until you came, and then made me watch you eat Christmas dinner while I sat there with a hard-on like a fucking joker?”
A needy sound escaped her lips. “What?”
“My cock was throbbing all night, watching you smile and laugh and thinking about what that mouth could be doing. Then you made me wait an entire day for you.” He licked the seam of her thighs, and she quivered. “An entire fucking day, Lucky Charms.”
Dawning horror washed over her. Feeling him all over her, and now to have it pulled away? “No.”
He stood, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, and smirked down at her. “I think you need to beg.”
“Please.”
“I’m going to need more than that.” He stopped her hands from taking off her shirt.
“I want you. Please.”
“What do you want, baby?”
She wanted his hands on her body, his mouth on hers. She wanted him to stay. To tell her he felt the same way she did, that this wasn’t round two of a one-night stand. Cass swallowed.
His eyes cut like flint, and he gripped the back of her head, forcing her gaze to him. “Say it.”
“I need you. Inside me.” She licked her lips, mouth suddenly dry. “Please.”
He bit her neck, and her knees turned to sand. “Where are your condoms?”
“I don’t have any,” she squeaked, her stomach dropping. “Are you telling me you don’t?”
His laugh reverberated through the short distance between them. “Of course I do. But I wanted to hear you sound so fucking needy for it.”
She was beyond needy for him. If he’d demanded she crawl across the floor to get to him, she’d do it forwards and backwards .
“Don’t move,” he ordered. Her hands ventured to pick up where he let off, to give herself the relief he was denying her, and he pulled her hands away. “You’re only touching yourself if I say you can.”
She nodded, her eyes heavy.
“Bend over, put your hands on the bed, and wait for me.”
There was no thought of disobeying, and she vibrated in anticipation while he left the room. She heard the foil ripping as he strode down the hall and her insides squeezed. He was behind her in a beat, yanking her hands overhead and wrapping them together.
“I said don’t move.” He wound the blue silk around her wrists once more and let go to roll on the condom. “You’ll take everything I give you.”
He gathered the scarf in his hand, pushing her down onto her elbows and swiping his cock along her length, teasing her clit. A fuse lit at her core, licked up her back and unfurled around her heart, and she lurched her hips back to chase the friction.
“Greedy, aren’t you,” he said. “When I feel you get close, I’m pulling out. You don’t come until I let you. Understand?”
He lined himself up and pushed into her. He pulled out, once again rubbing himself through her wetness, and a throaty sigh rushed out from her lungs.
“I told you, baby. Don’t move.” He curled around her again, caging her in so she couldn’t move, hand over her mouth, staying utterly still. Slowly, he pulled out only to thrust back in hard, and she choked on a moan. He slid the hand gripping her hip to stroke just north of her clit, and it took all her focus not to slide herself to chase his fingers. After she stayed still, he swiped his thumb lazily over her, and even as she shook, she bit down on her lip to hold back her cry.
“That’s better,” he said, and let go of her completely. “Get your vibe.”
Cass blinked, stunned. “What? ”
“Your vibrator. Get it.”
Cass crawled across her bed with the blue silk still binding her hands, feeling his eyes on her ass. She opened her nightstand drawer and held out the bunny, incongruously cheerful.
“Show me how you use it.”
Her insides tightened around nothing. For all the years she’d used toys, she’d never shared it with anyone before. She lay back on her bed, flicked it on, and held it to the perfect spot. Instantly, the pressure raced through her lower belly, and she arched her head back against her pillow.
“Do you like what you see?”
“Never seen anything more beautiful than you like this.” Josh crawled between her legs, nibbling at her breasts, stroking himself, until he pulled the vibrator away before her orgasm could build.“How’d that feel, baby?”
“Like you’re making me suffer,” she pouted, and he had the nerve to chuckle against her skin.
“Like you made me suffer yesterday.” He plunged into her, hard, and she sucked in a breath as he pulled her legs over his shoulders one at a time. With a sinful smile, he locked her legs against his chest with one arm and pressed the vibrator to the exact spot she’d shown him. Her body jerked, clenching around him, and Josh let out his own strangled curse. “Jesus Christ, I think you were made for me.”
A rush swept through her chest, and she closed her eyes. “Yes.”
He unmoored her. Hard, measured strokes that bottomed out every time he crashed into her. His skin glistened with his exertion, fevered, slick and hot under her hands. The sound of their breaths and their bodies coming together. Time shattered to a halt, and her orgasm wound until she crashed under him.
“You are a goddess,” he said, kissing her ankles, her breasts, her cheeks, as the last of her release swept through her. She gasped as he pulled out, turning her back flush to his chest, and slowly pushed back inside her .
“Josh,” she whispered, struggling to stay upright. “I’m?—”
“Going to take everything I give you,” he finished. “I want you to watch yourself come.”
He positioned them in front of her bedroom’s floor-length mirror, putting her on full display, bound hands wrapped behind his neck. Once upon a time this would have made her shy, conscious of jiggles and stretch marks. But he made her feel worshipped, and she revelled in him seeing all of her.
One hand snaked around her waist, palming a breast and squeezing her nipple, the other hand bringing the vibrator back to her centre. She cried out, almost in agony, but he resumed his work, and she felt the flutters begin again.
“Look at you. So beautiful,” he growled in her ear, until she came one last time, limp and spent. He pushed her face down, burying himself, driving her into the bed until he unravelled over her.
His gasping breaths warmed the nape of her neck, his heartbeat pounding against her back as he let loose a quiet rush of obscenities. Her skin, her hair, her softness. How she smelled spicy and sweet. How he wanted to stay inside her forever.
All too soon, he pushed onto his elbows, withdrawing from her. He ran a hand over her hips, down her thighs and back up, before rolling her onto her back to bury his face in her cleavage.
“Mmphl,” he said, and Cass giggled.
“I’d agree, but I have no idea what you said.”
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to do anything else ever again.” He tugged at the scarf, freeing her hands, and the silk fluttered to her bed. His kissed where the scarf had bound her. “Told you I would unwrap you like a present.”
She fingered the beautiful silk. “So, that’s why you bought this?”
“No, but you inspired me.”
She let her fingers sweep over the sharp blade of his cheekbones, the angle of his jaw, the sweet dimples, and squirmed with pleasur e. His fierce attack tamed; the edges worn down. It felt like he was about to purr.
He consumed all her senses, too. Golden. Warm. Citrusy. Salty. Firm. Urgent. She wanted to be consumed by him. Then the dark, sated expression on his face faded, and he leaned in until his lips met hers.
It wasn’t their first kiss, his mouth whispering over hers, their tongues tasting each other. But this was different. Softer. Slower. The weight of his body pressed her into the mattress. His teeth tugged at her lower lip, loosening a sigh that he covered with his mouth. Her hands followed the hard muscles coiled on his back, feeling the shiver of his skin match the frenetic butterflies in her chest.
It wasn’t their first kiss, but no other kiss had divided her life into Before and After.
He drew back far enough to focus his gaze on her widened eyes, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “Be right back, beautiful.”
He disappeared from her room before she was fully aware of what was happening. Cass blinked as she heard the water running in the bathroom, and moments later he returned, his sweatpants back on and a warm cloth in his hand.
“Want to finish the movie?” he asked, pulling on his tee shirt, grinning as his head popped out the neck hole. “I could eat more. I’m starving.”
What just happened? She thought … there had been something. A moment.
A moment that had already passed. Cass stared at the cloth he held out to her, already cooling.
“Sure.”