14. Elliot
— ? —
Elliot
The car ride home is quiet.
Cassie sits beside me, staring out the window, her hands folded in her lap. The adrenaline that carried her through the confrontation is fading, and I can see the exhaustion settling into her shoulders.
“You okay?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” She turns to look at me. “I just threw champagne in my husband’s face in front of a ballroom full of people.”
“Soon-to-be ex-husband.”
“Same thing.” She laughs, but it’s shaky. “Is it terrible that I don’t feel bad about it?”
“You felt good about it?”
“I felt... powerful.” She looks down at her hands. “For the first time in years. Like I was finally taking up space in my own life.”
“That’s not terrible.” I reach over, take her hand. “That’s healthy.”
“Is it?”
“It is.” I bring her fingers to my lips. “You were magnificent in there, Cassie. The way you handled him. The way you stood your ground. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I keep waiting for the guilt to hit.” She shakes her head. “Five years of marriage. I should feel something other than relief that it’s over.”
“Give it time. The complicated feelings will come.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then maybe the marriage wasn’t worth the guilt.” I squeeze her hand. “Either way, you don’t have to figure it out tonight.”
She’s quiet for the rest of the drive, but her fingers stay laced through mine.
When we pull into the garage, I expect her to go straight upstairs. Instead, she stops me in the elevator, pressing the button to hold the doors.
“Elliot.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.” Her eyes meet mine, dark and serious. “For tonight. For everything. For not trying to fight my battles for me.”
“I wanted to,” I admit. “When he stepped toward you, when I saw that look in his eyes. I wanted to break his hand.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Because you didn’t need me to.” I cup her face. “You’re stronger than you think, Cassie. Stronger than he ever let you believe.”
She rises on her toes and kisses me.
It starts soft, almost tentative. A thank you, a goodnight, a simple gesture of connection. But then her fingers curl into my shirt, and my hands slide into her hair, and suddenly we’re pressed against the elevator wall, the kiss deepening into something urgent and hungry.
“Upstairs,” she breathes against my mouth.
The elevator opens onto my floor and we stumble out still tangled in each other.
I crush my mouth to hers the second the door shuts behind us.
My hands are everywhere at once, tugging at her dress zipper while she claws at my jacket.
“Elliot,” she gasps against my lips, “hurry. I need you now.” I yank the zipper down and shove the fabric off her shoulders.
It hits the floor and I step back only long enough to see the black lace before I drag her back in.
My palms slide up her sides, over her breasts, squeezing hard.
She moans and reaches for my tie, yanking it loose with shaking fingers.
“I have wanted this too long,” I say, voice rough.
My mouth finds her neck, biting down as my hands keep moving, gripping her ass, pulling her tight against my hard cock.
She grinds on me instantly, hungry and impatient.
“Touch me,” she demands, unbuttoning my shirt fast. Her nails scrape my chest and I groan, shoving the shirt off my shoulders without breaking contact.
We stumble toward the bed, kissing deep, hands roaming everywhere.
I unhook her bra and toss it aside, sucking one nipple into my mouth right away.
She arches and pulls my hair. “Yes, harder,” she says.
I suck and bite lightly while my hands squeeze her ass again, lifting her so her thighs wrap around me.
“God, Cassie, your skin feels so good under my hands,” I murmur against her breast, licking the nipple before sucking it deeper.
She whimpers and grinds harder against my cock.
“Don’t stop, Elliot. Keep touching me like that.
” My fingers slip under the edge of her panties, stroking her wet folds.
She bucks into my hand. “You’re so wet already. Tell me what you want.”
“Your fingers inside me,” she pants, reaching down to stroke my cock through my pants.
I fumble with my belt one-handed while my other hand works her pussy, sliding two fingers in and out slowly at first. She moans loud.
“Faster. Please, Elliot, I can’t wait.” We kiss again, tongues tangling as I push her panties down her legs.
She kicks them off and grabs my cock the moment it springs free.
“Condom,” I mutter against her mouth, fumbling in the drawer.
She keeps stroking me, her hand pumping while I roll it on with one hand, the other still between her legs, fingers sliding through her wetness and circling her clit.
“You are soaked,” I tell her. She spreads wider.
“Then fuck me already. I need your cock in me.”
I push her back onto the bed and settle between her thighs, rubbing the head of my cock against her entrance.
She reaches up and pulls me down for another kiss, her hands never leaving my body, roaming my back and shoulders.
“I want to feel every inch,” she whispers.
I thrust in deep on the first stroke. She cries out and I do not pause, driving hard and fast from the start.
Her legs lock around my waist and her nails dig into my back.
“More,” she pants, meeting every thrust. I bite her neck and grip her hips, pounding into her while my free hand roams her body, pinching nipples, squeezing her thigh.
She reaches between us and rubs her clit, touching herself while I fuck her.
“I can’t stop touching you,” I growl, kissing her again, tongue deep.
She moans into my mouth and clenches around me.
“Talk to me,” she says between gasps. “Tell me how it feels.”
“Tight and hot and perfect,” I answer, slowing just enough to grind deep.
“Your pussy grips me so good. I want to stay inside you forever.” I flip her onto her stomach without pulling out, sliding back in from behind.
My hands never leave her, one on her hip, the other reaching around to rub her clit while I thrust. “You feel so fucking good,” I say.
She pushes back hard. “Do not stop, Elliot. Fuck me harder.” I bite her shoulder and speed up, both of us frantic, hands everywhere.
She turns her head for a messy kiss over her shoulder. “I’m close,” she moans. “Come with me.”
When she comes she screams my name and I follow right after, buried deep, pulsing inside the condom.
I ease out only to roll her back and kiss her hard again, hands still exploring.
We are both breathing heavy but already moving together once more, hungry and unable to let go.
“Round two,” she says with a smile, reaching for me again.
I grab another condom and we start all over, touching and kissing without pause.
***
Later, much later, we lie tangled in the sheets.
Her head rests on my chest, her breath warm against my skin. I’m tracing idle patterns on her back, watching the moonlight shift across the ceiling.
“Elliot?”
“Hmm?”
“What happens next?”
“Next as in tomorrow? Or next as in our lives?”
“Both. Either.” She props herself up on one elbow. “We’ve been so focused on the immediate crisis that we haven’t really talked about what this is.”
She’s right. We’ve been living in the moment, reacting to each day as it comes, not thinking about the future. It’s been easy, letting myself get swept up in her, but easy doesn’t last forever.
“What do you want it to be?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” She’s quiet for a moment. “A week ago, I was married. I had a job, a house, a life. Now I’m living with a man I barely knew existed a month ago, working for his company, sharing his bed. It’s a lot.”
“Too much?”
“Maybe.” She meets my eyes. “But not in a bad way. More like... overwhelming. Like I’m trying to drink from a fire hose.”
“We can slow down,” I offer. “If you need space.”
“No.” She cuts me off. “That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t want to slow down. I just want to... understand. What this means to you. What I mean to you.”
I consider the question. What does she mean to me?
A week ago, she was a fantasy. The woman I’d watched across a crowded room, married to a man who didn’t deserve her, out of reach and untouchable.
Now she’s in my bed. In my house. In my life. And the thought of her leaving, of going back to the way things were before, makes something in my chest clench painfully.
“You want the honest answer?” I say.
“Always.”
“The honest answer is that I don’t know what this is either. I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve never wanted someone the way I want you, never cared about someone the way I care about you. It scares the hell out of me.”
“You? Scared?”
“Terrified.” I sit up, pulling her with me. “I’ve spent my whole life being careful. Calculated. Keeping people at a distance so they can’t hurt me. And then you walked into my office and blew all of that to pieces.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“I think so.” I cup her face in my hands. “I think you might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Cassie. And I’m terrified that I’m going to fuck it up.”
Her eyes search mine. Whatever she’s looking for, she must find it, because her expression softens.
“Then let’s be terrified together,” she says. “Let’s figure it out as we go. No pressure. No expectations. Just... us. Seeing where this leads.”
“I can do that.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I kiss her, soft and slow. “One day at a time.”
“One day at a time,” she agrees.
We settle back into the pillows, her body curled against mine. Within minutes, her breathing evens out into sleep.
I can’t seem to sleep, so I just lie there in the dark, listening to her breathe, turning the night over in my head.
The divorce will be messy. Celine will fight. Charles will fight. There will be lawyers and court dates and endless complications.
But for the first time in my life, I’m not facing it alone.
And that makes all the difference.
***
The next morning, I wake alone, the sheets beside me already gone cold.
I find Cassie in the kitchen, wearing my shirt again, humming softly as bacon sizzles on the stove. She looks up when I walk in, and her smile makes my chest ache.
“Morning.”
“Morning.” I come up behind her, wrap my arms around her waist. “You made breakfast.”
“I woke up early. Couldn’t sleep.” She leans back into me. “Too much on my mind.”
“Good things or bad things?”
“Mostly good.” She nudges the hash browns around the pan. “I was thinking about Celine.”
“What about her?”
“She’s going to come back for her stuff eventually. The clothes, the jewelry, whatever she left behind when you kicked her out.” Cassie turns to face me, a mischievous glint in her eye. “I had an idea.”
“Oh?”
“The sprinklers in the front garden. You have them set on a timer, right?”
I’m starting to see where this is going. “I do.”
“What if they weren’t on a timer? What if they were on a motion sensor?”
I stare at her. Then I start to laugh.
“You want to booby trap the front yard so Celine gets sprayed if she shows up?”
“I prefer to think of it as a welcoming committee.” She grins. “She called me a whore. I think a little unexpected watering is fair payback.”
“You’re diabolical.”
“I prefer creative.” She stretches up to kiss my jaw. “So? Can we do it?”
“I’ll call the gardener today.”
Her laugh is bright and genuine, and I realize I’d do just about anything to hear that sound again.
This woman. This incredible, fierce, vengeful woman.
I’m completely, utterly gone for her.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.