Chapter 19
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“I still can’t get over it,” Cassandra said. “A code. An actual secret code.”
We’d met at sundown for dinner at this tiny cafe Cass said was patronized strictly by tourists, given its location—adjacent to the locals’ favorite hamburger joint.
She’d scanned the place as we walked in, and even though she saw no one she recognized, I’d asked for a table in the far corner, tucked behind a pony wall.
We sat side-by-side, and with the wall and the tablecloth keeping things private, I was working hard to relax, as best I could, into my last night with Cassandra Kelly.
“It’s wild,” I agreed. It really was incredible what we’d found today. But as fascinating as the coded journal was, the excitement I’d felt in that room hadn’t lasted even through the rest of the tour of the wing. The only thing that mattered was the fact that I was leaving.
Still, I kept up as happy a face as I could. So did Cassandra.
Luckily, we had a lot to talk about—and talking to Cass was easy.
Over dinner, we speculated about the diary, trying to guess who JEQ was, and most of all, what the book might say.
As it turns out, Seamus had a thing for codes and puzzles, and he’d offered to take the book home to crack it, but Jude had refused, saying he wanted to try first.
“Jude’s a competitive baby,” Cass said. “Of course he wants to be the one to figure it out.” She’d rolled her eyes, but I could see the indulgent love for her brother on her face too.
We discussed Cass’s dad, too—how Griff had tracked him down via his cell phone records. He’d been in Borneo on some kind of jungle trek. We talked about Persephone Books and my favorite castle in Ireland, and before we knew it, the waiter was dropping off our dessert—a perfect-looking crème br?lée.
“Apparently, my family has a huge amount of Irish heritage,” she said. “If you hadn’t noticed by our name.”
I smiled, enjoying her slipping a spoonful of sweet cream into her mouth.
“Also,”—she pointed the spoon at me—“our family is 25% more likely to have neanderthal heritage than other respondents.”
I nearly choked on my soda water. “Is that why you’re so short?”
She laughed, covering her mouth, which was full of sweet cream and candy shell.
My stomach jumped. I’d been walking a line all evening between trying to push off the crush of pain of knowing I was leaving and wanting to take her back to the hotel to fuck her silly—or make love to her slowly. Or both. Spending the entire night in bed with her felt like a fitting end.
Right now, as she licked a smear of cream from her upper lip, desire was winning.
“Find any secret relatives?” I asked. Distant second cousins sounded sufficiently unsexy enough to distract me, though I didn’t remove my hand from her thigh under the table.
I’d been holding her knee protectively all night, wanting to be touching her, knowing that when we walked outside, we wouldn’t be able to hold hands on the small chance someone might see us.
It was a minuscule chance, but it was still there, and the last thing we needed was to blow this on our very last day after managing to stay under the radar at Cass’s place of work.
“No one very close.” Cass took another bite and managed to get the whole spoonful in her mouth this time.
Even that made my dick twitch once more.
I picked up my spoon.
“But apparently you can check back anytime to see if anyone else has registered. So maybe it’s not yet on the secret relatives?” She laughed.
I’d never seen her so lighthearted. Was this how she was in the face of the end? Or was this what she was like when she was truly happy? Either way, it hurt my heart.
“How about you?” she asked. “You said you did one a while ago?”
“Yeah. I took one for the health markers.” I’d done it to see if I was at risk of Alzheimer’s, like my mom.
The test had confirmed what the doctors had said—triple the normal risk, which wasn’t huge in the first place.
It didn’t make me feel any better. I didn’t mention any of that—I didn’t want to drag her down.
“I got a slight probability of detached earlobes, 0.7% North African heritage, and discovered a whole branch of our family tree I don’t know that lives in my hometown, apparently. ”
She scraped at the bowl, her spoon clinking against mine. “Did you know I’ve never been to Seattle?”
“Really?”
“Really. And it’s where two of my favorite rom-coms were set: 10 Things I Hate About You, and of course the iconic Sleepless in Seattle.”
I paused with my spoon by my mouth. “Wait, you like rom-coms?”
“You know that!”
“I don’t.”
For a moment, her expression was confused. Then her brows straightened. “Right. I told you that when you were… what was it… shit-faced?”
I frowned. “That’s not fair then.”
“I know. You don’t remember. But you said—” She paused, her tone softening. “You said your mom reads romance novels, and I said she has good taste, and I confessed to you my love of rom-com movies.”
“What did I say to that?”
“You asked me if Top Gun was a rom-com.”
For the second time that night, I nearly choked. “I didn’t say that.”
“You did.”
I looked at Cassandra, at the wave of her hair touching her chin. Kelly McGillis. That’s why I’d said it.
“What?” she asked. “Is my hair sticking up?” She smoothed her hands over her head.
“No,” I said. “I just wish I had that memory, too.”
“I don’t,” she said. “That one’s just for me.”
It was Cassandra’s idea to go to the spas once we got back to the hotel. “They’re closed now, but I happen to know someone with the key.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay in the room?” I asked as we slipped in the back door of the hotel, hand in hand.
“Trust me, you’ll like them.”
Due to our wrangling of schedules, Lila had been the one to tour the spas during the review. I’d seen them in photos, but this was my first time experiencing them myself.
We entered via the service access door, where Cassandra flipped on the lights.
They were low and atmospheric, and I knew from the photos there were different colors for the eight interconnected rooms. Music began streaming from the speakers; a Lo-Fi beat that sounded like the kind of thing they played in a sultry European club.
The spas had been installed early last year—possibly the one thing the man after Cass’s Mom, George, had done right, though it was Shannon Kelly who’d planned them years before. Along with the golf course, they were the reason the hotel still had the numbers it did.
“Griff had Gus keep all the rooms powered up until midnight tonight,” she said as she pointed me to the change rooms.
Cassandra insisted we change separately
“What about the cameras?”
“I told Griff to get Gus to turn them off, unless he wanted to see his sister’s bare ass in every pool.
My dick twitched at even the thought of her being naked.
Ten minutes later, we reconvened, showered and wearing the fluffy white hotel robes provided. “Ready?” Cassandra asked.
“I was born ready,” I said.
As she unbelted her robe and inched it open, I made a sound close to a groan. When she slipped it off her shoulders, tossing it on a nearby bench, it was more like a growl.
“I changed my mind,” I said, slipping off my robe. “This was a very good idea.”
She winked, then strode in front of me toward the first room, a cavernous space that looked like an ice cave, filled with steaming water. Benches lined the circular pool and low blue lights lit it up, so it looked cold, but felt hot.
She walked down the sloping floor, the water rising up to her knees, and then her thighs.
I made myself stay out of the water until she was all the way in. I didn’t know how else to keep my hands off her.
Her back was to me, and she trailed her fingers in the water, deep enough now that the water lapped at her ass.
My dick swelled, not quite hard, but no longer benignly soft, either.
Music filled the air around us, the beat pulsing just low and steady enough to feel like it was running through my veins.
“You look like a Viking goddess,” I said.
She turned around and sucked in air. “And you look like a god.”
That sent a fire to my limbs. I couldn’t stay away any longer. I walked into the water like a crocodile after a stork. When I reached her, I trailed my wet fingers down her body, from the sides of her neck down her collar, and over the soft peaks of her tits.
Then I kneeled and cupped them in my hands, a feast I’d been dying to taste.
She gasped as I took a nipple in my mouth, breathing in sharper and sharper jags as I sucked and teased it into a hard point.
“You’re perfect,” I said before taking the other one with my tongue, swirling its already-hardened peak. “I could spend all night on your perfect tits,” I said, massaging and sucking and tugging on the nipples until she placed her hands on my shoulders and pushed me away.
“Not yet,” she said. “Let’s see more first.”
The next room was a steam room, a long oval with pink lights and spurting jets overhead. They came up under the wide, bleacher-style benches too. Cassandra climbed to the top and sat down, while I watched her from the bottom, my cock in my hand.
“I’m coming after you, Cassandra,” I said as a rush of desire hit my cock, making my balls strain with need. I didn’t want to come, not yet. I wanted to make this night last; to make it all about her. To lavish her with attention like I’d fantasized about from the beginning.
I took the benches like giant steps, kneeling before her.
“On your back, Cassandra” The bench was wide enough that she could lie all the way back, her legs still over the edge, on the step below. She propped herself back on her elbows and I pushed her knees open.
“This,” I said, drawing my tongue up the length of her slit, “is mine.”
She moaned as I pulled my mouth away. I stroked her opening with my middle and forefinger, teasing at the entrance before plunging inside, turning and angling my fingers the way I knew made her shudder.