Chapter 15 #2
“I've wanted to do that since the second I saw you,” Cassius murmurs, his voice a low rumble that sends shivers down my spine. “After putting my mouth on you at Mirage, it’s killed me not to touch and taste every inch of you. I didn’t kiss you today because I wasn’t sure you wanted it.
I gave you space after Wyatt because I thought you needed it.
Touching you is the only thing I think about.
Every ounce of my self-control is spent not touching you. ”
The realization that he's been holding back, is both overwhelming and exhilarating.
We sit there, entwined and exposed, the world outside his room, with all its dangers and uncertainties, fades away.
In its place is a fragile bubble of intimacy, a space where Cassius and I can be vulnerable, where the contradictions that define us somehow blend into something beautifully complicated.
“I was afraid,” he finally admits. “You make me weak and that’s not an emotion I know how to navigate.”
“Weak?” The word comes out as a whisper. There’s no way the man sitting next to me has ever felt true weakness.
“You underestimate my fondness for you.”
“People feel fondness for puppies,” I say. Cassius doesn’t even bother hiding his laugh.
“Is my Lindy girl suddenly feeling brave?”
“I wish, but I don’t know how to be this person,” I whisper. “The woman who came here wanted to be brave. I thought maybe I could find something in Vegas that would change me.”
Cassius’s mouth actually smiles this time, all the way to his eyes. “You found me, darling.”
The certainty in his smile clicks in my spine.
I think I can be that woman if he’s here.
Perhaps brave is me with him at my back.
The thought blooms and my smile starts to match his…
and then it frays and falls. The day will come when he isn’t there—when the heat of being chosen freezes over and his focus slides.
Everyone else’s always has. I count three breaths, press my ring to the duvet seam, and tell myself I can stand on my own if I have to.
When it comes to him, I don’t want to. And I’m lying—because without him, I’m not sure I’d stand at all.
Before I can answer, one of his phones rings on the dresser. It’s then I realize he has two phones, face up, side by side. He stands and answers the phone, his eyes never leaving mine. He doesn’t start with hello.
“I swear to God, Travis, I will kill you for this. It’s my wedding night.”
I don’t want to eavesdrop, so I stand and walk toward the ensuite master bath.
Cassius catches my wrist as I pass, halting me.
I look up to meet his waiting eyes. He lifts my hand to his lips, kisses my knuckles, then releases me.
Before I can step back, he leans in and brushes my cheek with his mouth.
“I’ll only be a moment,” he murmurs. His palm finds the pulse in my throat, “You can stay. I won’t be keeping things from my wife. ”
The word wife trips something bright in my chest, and I know the man on the phone heard it too.
Cassius clearly meant what he said about honesty, good, but it’s been a day of vows and ghosts and moral dilemmas.
My head is loud. I’m not ready to know anything else tonight.
“Shower,” I mouth, and he nods, kissing my cheek.
Cold hits when he steps away. I shut the door behind me in the bathroom, but don’t lock it. I strip quickly and turn the hot water as high as it’ll go. It burns, but I don’t turn it down. I’m rinsing my conditioner out when I hear the door open and click shut.
“Lindy girl,” Cassius says, presumably to let me know he’s here so he doesn’t scare me and cause me to break my neck slipping in the shower.
There’s no door on this shower. It’s a massive, tile walk-in.
You step in and then to the left, so under the showerheads I’m blocked from his view.
“I have to go to work. I wouldn’t, but it’s an emergency. ”
“Okay.” I’m not sure what to say. I start to cry before I can stop it.
I don’t want him to leave me here alone.
I never should’ve agreed to this idiotic marriage.
I rest my forehead against the tile for a fraction of a heartbeat before his arms are around me.
Arms with sleeves. Cassius’ mouth at my ear.
“I swear to you, there’s nowhere on this earth I’d rather be tonight than with you. I will be back the very second I can be.”
“Okay.” I don’t bother attempting to stop my tears. Cassius turns me to face him. “You have all your clothes on. Your suit is soaked.” I can’t help but smile at him, his shirt clinging to his perfect chest. He didn’t even remove his shoes.
“I can change my suit.” Cassius’ eyes remain locked on mine. If he’s struggling not to look at my naked body, he’s hiding it exceedingly well. He cups my cheek. “I shouldn’t be gone long, a day, maybe two.”
“Okay.”
“Please give me more than okay, Lindy darling. Please.”
“I don’t know what else to say. You told me you were a bad man.” My voice cracks. “I guess I should expect things like this.”
“I will never hurt you. Ever.” Cassius moves his hand to my chin and tilts up so that I have no choice except to look at him. “I will never lie to you. I will always be faithful to you. This marriage, you, means more to me than I even have words for.”
“Not lying isn’t the same as being honest.” The tile behind me is warm now. The water almost bearable. “I don’t even know what to ask.”
“I know that, and I promise there will come a time where we can talk through anything you want to know. I’ll tell you what to ask, explain without you asking, I’ll do whatever I have to so that you trust me.”
“But right now you have to go.”
“Yes.”
“You promise that you won’t lie, you won’t cheat?
” I hear how ridiculous it sounds the second it leaves my mouth.
He married me to shut me up. Spousal privilege, a neat little padlock under his thumb.
Not for my protection. For his. So why does my chest ache to hear his answer?
Why does the ring feel heavier when I picture him walking out that door to hands and mouths that aren’t mine?
Get a grip, Melinda. Breathe. Count the stitches on his cuff.
“I haven’t even looked at another woman since the day you texted me by accident.” His mouth curves, a small miracle. “I promise you, Lindy.”
“I promise too,” I say back. “I know you didn’t ask, but if you have to go then at least go knowing that I’ll never lie to you and I’ll always be faithful.
” I don’t know why I make the vow now, soaking wet, but Cassius the look on his face makes it worth it.
I’ve never been so happy to have spoken words in my entire life.
If all I do from now until I die is make his eyes light up, I’ll have lived a blessed life.
He leans down and presses his lips to mine. It’s needy, but sweet. He steps backward out of the water. By the time I shut it off and reach for a towel, he’s gone.
The next morning Cassius still hasn’t returned.
I’m completely uncertain what to do in his house without him.
It’s Thursday so I should go to work. I called off on Tuesday and Wednesday, or rather, Cassius informed me that he took care of me having to be there.
I’m not sure if that applied to the entire week or not, and with him gone I have no reason to stay here.
I head downstairs in search of coffee. I carry my mug so the handle lines up with each grout line as I walk. Adrian and Logan are at the kitchen bar. Adrian’s cane leans against the counter.
“Good morning Melinda,” Adrian says.
“Good morning, Adrian.” I pour coffee and align the spoon with the edge of the saucer. “Good morning, Logan.”
“Hey, Melinda.”
“Do not, hey Melinda her,” Adrian snaps.
“I don’t mind, Adrian,” I say quickly.
“Cassius will,” Logan says without missing a beat.
“I apologize, Mrs. Ashenheart.” I want to correct Logan, tell him that I’ll talk to Cassius and that calling me Melinda is fine, but I don’t.
It’s because Adrian will just contradict me, not because I love the way Mrs. Ashenheart sounds in reference to me.
“It’s perfectly alright,” I say instead. “Is my car here?”
“Yes,” Adrian says. “Your things have been brought over.”
“All of them?” I picture my book stacks, my clear plastic bag of hair supplies, the cookbooks with my brother’s signature on the covers.
“Yes,” Logan answers. “I apologize they haven’t been unpacked yet. Cassius instructed us to wait until you could tell us where you want things to go.”
“I need to go to work,” I say instead of touching the mess that is all of my possessions in this house.
“Of course,” Logan says, already standing. “I’ll start your car and be in the garage when you’re ready, Mrs. Ashenheart.”
“Thank you, Logan,” I say and wait for him to down the last of his coffee and leave before turning back toward Adrian. “Why is he coming with me to work?”
“Someone will be with you at all times, when Cassius cannot be. Logan specifically was Cassius’ idea. He said you were fond of him. I can replace him if you prefer.”
“No. No, I like Logan. I just don’t understand why I need him.”
“Well, the simple answer is Cassius wants to keep you safe.”
“And the not simple answer?”
Adrian’s mouth twitches. “Is one my brother can give you himself.”
“Right.” I take my mug and head back upstairs to the room, his room, our room.
I drink my coffee alone, wishing Cassius was sitting on the edge of the bed next to me.
I smooth the duvet twice, then a third time because stopping at two is wrong.
I don’t know how to be this person. A woman who needs protection.
A wife who sits around hoping that her husband returns in one piece.
A woman who is in the dark in this world, his world.
He says he’ll enlighten me, but will he? And, if he does will I wish he hadn’t?
Logan, like he said, is waiting for me in my running car. The garage door waits, open. I get in the backseat, which is weird, but there are a lot of my files sitting on the front seat.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d need from the things we took from your place so I brought everything that looked like work,” Logan says once I’m seatbelted in.
“Thank you.” I smile at him through the rearview mirror. “You can call me Melinda.”
“Just not in the presence of any of the Ashenheart brothers.” Logan laughs.
“That’s probably wise.” I laugh too. There’s nothing else to do. This entire situation is surreal.
Logan keeps himself busy while I work. Victoria is already in my office when I arrive, her coffee and her stuff spread out on her side of my desk.
Whatever email got sent or phone call got made, everyone here thinks I spent the last two days sick.
I wait until lunch to tell Victoria the truth, well most of the truth.
“I wasn’t sick.”
“What?” Victoria asks. She closes her laptop and scoots her chair around the side of my desk.
“I got married.”
“You what?” Victoria yells loud enough that three people turn their heads. Logan shuts the door and stays on our side of it. Of course he does. “That explains the hunk,” she mutters. “How’d you clear that with management?”
“I didn’t.” It’s at that moment that I realize no one in management questioned Logan being here. “Logan?” I look at him. He doesn’t bother to hide his smirk.
“Mr. Ashenheart had it arranged prior,” Logan states. The way he says Mr. Ashenheart makes something crawl in my stomach. I wonder when he found the time since our wedding and being gone, but I refrain from asking.
“Mr. Ashenheart?” Victoria echoes.
“Yes,” I say, turning back to face her. “He owns a large security firm with his brothers. He takes safety very seriously.”
“I know the name,” Victoria whistles low, and again, Logan is laughing. Great. This is so far from funny. “Everyone in Vegas knows that name.”
“Well, Mr. Ashenheart, the second eldest, is now my husband.”
“How’d the hell you land that?”
“Luck,” I say, because there’s no version of the whole truth that I can say out loud. “That, and I texted him by mistake.” I tell her the sanitized story of Cassius. I leave out the blood. I leave out the ghosts and knives and vows in showers.
He doesn’t come home that night or the next morning.
He doesn’t text. He doesn’t call. He isn’t there when I return from work on Friday evening.
I’m going nuts. If he doesn’t come home this weekend I’ll truly lose it.
What am I supposed to do all day when I’m off and he’s not around?
It should mean nothing. We’re married on paper.
It isn’t real. But the silence threads under my skin and tugs. I text Victoria.
If my husband isn’t back after dinner, let’s go to Mirage.
Her reply is immediate.
Victoria:
Let’s go either way.