34. MATTHEWS

MATTHEWS

T he stadium was quiet as the evening dragged on. I had come down for video footage of the stadium to fill the gaps in the piece and to filter underneath certain interviews. I checked the time on my phone and cursed. I’d missed dinner at the Nest, and my stomach was rumbling. I was searching for a restaurant other than Hilly’s on my phone when I heard the soft padding of feet. I followed the sound down the hall and found a long wall of windows that gave a view into a fully equipped workout center.

Pushing through the heavy door as quietly as I could, I wandered around the back side of the gym, watching Cael every step of the way.

Lean, tan muscle drenched in sweat. It pooled between his bare shoulder blades as he pushed himself at a grueling pace with the jump rope gripped between his hands. His gaze was straight ahead, completely lost in the moment as he bobbed his head to whatever music he was listening to. His biceps tightened as his pace quickened. Damp, blond hair stuck to his neck and temples. It took everything in my power not to stroll over there, but he seemed on edge about something, so I slid back on the desk and watched.

Cael hadn’t noticed me as he started to sing along to Moulin Rouge that pumped through his head phones. He was actually pretty good as the words rolled off his tongue in time with his quick footsteps over the rope.

I watched as the sweats he wore hung low over his hips and shifted with each strenuous jump he took. His face was scrunched tightly, and I could tell from his angle that it was bothering his shoulder, but he didn’t seem to have an off switch .

Wanting to ask what was wrong was like defusing a bomb with Cael. His demeanor was so different from the last time we had been here. Gone was the friendly, sweet boy with the bright smile and loud laugh.

The Cael in front of me was the one from his file.

The Cael beating himself into the ground five feet away was the one that was shown in all the news reports about the accident. The man I had been expecting to come face to face with when I arrived.

“Enjoying the show?” He asked breathlessly.

I hadn’t even realized he’d stopped until he looked up at me through the mirror across the room with a warm gaze that flooded my nervous system and turned my cheeks pink.

“I am,” I confessed. No sense in trying to hide it. “Do you jump rope to Moulin Rouge regularly?”

“It’s a good song, has a good tempo…” He whispered.

Goosebumps ran the length of my arms at the sound. I needed him in every way, and position, possible before leaving Harbor. I wanted to map every inch of Cael Cody with my tongue.

“God, I love it when you get nervous.” He licked his bottom lip and looked over his shoulder at me, tugging out the headphones from his ears.

“Why are you here so late?” I asked him, crossing my legs and gripping the edge of the table.

“Why are you?” Cael countered with a cheeky grin as he sauntered toward me.

“I was—” I stuttered slightly as his hand brushed my thigh. The smell of his cologne and sweat tangled together in the air, making me lean into him. “Getting B-reel for the production team,” I barely finished.

“I was fighting with my Dad.” He shrugged like it meant nothing, but his words weren’t as light as they usually were and it made concern flicker across my face. “Don’t do that, Plum. Look at me like you feel bad for me. It only makes me feel little .”

You’re still that boy .

I wanted to say it to him, whether or not I meant it. It felt like something he needed to hear, but maybe that was just my newfound knowledge of his past speaking out loud, not my logic.

“You are anything but little ,” I hooked my finger into the band of his sweatpants and dipped my hand inside, changing the mood with the soft caress of my fingertips over him.

“Brave.” He leaned into my touch as my thumb brushed over the tip of his cock. “We’re in public.” His breath stuttered and fanned over my cheek as my fingers wrapped tightly around him.

“I’ve been up and down the concourse three times tonight. There’s no one here but us,” I whispered back and pumped over his shaft until he grew impossibly hard in my palm. I kicked off my shoes as his fingers worked the button on my jeans, tugging them down off my hips and leaving me in my underwear and t-shirt.

It was just us now.

“You better hope you’re right, Plum.” He swooped forward before I could stop him, and his lips were on my neck, tracing a sloppy line to my jaw, but he paused, stopping himself before he reached my lips and lifted me from the desk into his arms. “Because I’m sick of sharing.”

A tiny yelp left my lips, heat surging through me at his strength as he walked me across the room to the wall directly across from the row of mirrors. He watched me carefully, gauging my reaction to his every touch with blown out pupils as the adrenaline from his workout coursed through his muscles.

“Stay,” he whispered as he lowered me to the ground.

I didn’t even flinch at the demand as he kissed a line down my arm to my wrist.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“Tying you up.” His eyes flickered up to mine through heavy lashes as his lips tickled the palm of my hand before he wrapped the black plastic jump rope around my wrist.

“Cael,” I warned. A shaky breath left my lips when I understood what he was doing, the rope wrapping around my second wrist gently and tugging them together in a tight bundle I couldn’t escape. “You can’t do that here,” I said to him.

“Sure I can, you didn’t place stipulations on our trade. I get to tie you up, that was the deal,” he all but purred. “Are you nervous?” He asked.

“No,” I lied as my heart raced.

Cael’s tongue pressed against his bottom lip as it curled into a devilish smirk.

“If you want to stop, Clem, we can,” he whispered.

“Scared of getting caught, Loverboy?” I bit back, my toes curling in my socks at the thought of someone walking in on us.

He lifted my hands over my head, his lips ghosting over mine but landing on my nose as he walked us backward until my back hit the wall. The muscles in his back tightened and flexed as he tossed the rope over the chin-up bar above my head.

As he tightened the rope so I couldn’t wiggle free, I laughed. “I can’t move my hands at all,” I huffed, the memory slipping from me without effort, and Cael paused for a second. His cocky persona cracking as he met my gaze with fire behind his beautiful, slate-blue eyes.

“Good,” he said. “ I don’t want you covering up ,” he whispered back under his breath like it was instinct. Like he had memorized every second of that night.

“Stop doing that,” I demanded and wiggled against the ropes, drunk on the dizzy lust but running from those feelings in our past.

“No.” Cael laughed. “I like how nervous it makes you to think about that day. It’s the only time I see her .”

He was talking about the weak, insecure, quiet Clementine. The one without real-world experience or a new attitude. He was talking about that little girl he used to know.

“She’s gone.” I shuddered as his fingers tickled down my arms and danced across my collarbone.

“She’s not gone.” He leaned in close, the smell of sweat and the remnants of his cologne filling my nose. “There’s nothing wrong with protecting her. We all do it, tuck vulnerable pieces of ourselves away,” he whispered in my ear. “But I promise not to hurt her.”

You already have .

I stared at him as he backed up, blue eyes burning into my skin. Swallowing tightly, I pushed aside the urge to fight him, to remind him of all the ways he had let that girl down, so I forced a smirk to my face and leaned into the sharp pain of the jump rope biting into my wrists.

“You talk too much,” I purred at him.

Cael narrowed his eyes, but a wild smile formed on his lips.

“Yeah, maybe I do.” His smile grew, his thick erection straining against his sweatpants as he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled my hips forward. The motion forced me to my tiptoes with my hands restrained. There wasn’t anywhere for me to go as Cael shoved down his sweat pants and stepped between my legs.

He wrapped my leg around his hip, lifting me off the ground and sliding past my underwear and into my entrance without warning.

“But you’re always soaking wet.” His eyes fluttered close as his hips rocked forward, and he filled me completely. “So I must be doing something right,” he hummed and dragged his teeth along my jaw as he started to find a pace that suited us both.

I intertwined my hands around the ropes and tightened my leg, pressing into his ass with my heel to keep him close as he thrust relentlessly into me. His fingers dug into my skin hard enough to form little crescent shapes with his fingernails as he buried his face into my neck.

Cael’s pace buckled out as his heart started to take over again. I could feel it in his kisses on my skin and the way his hips rocked to a more tender rhythm. Within moments, the heat building in my stomach was raging with every lick from his tongue and grasp of his fingers.

“Don’t stop,” I begged as he relaxed at the sound of my strangled whimpers in his ear.

He pulled back, chest glistening with sweat that coated his hard, tan muscles. It rolled down his neck in salty drops that I wanted on my tongue, but he was glazed over. I had lost him to the memories again.

“Don’t be gentle,” I warned him, but he didn’t listen. I was standing in front of him, begging for it, but all he could see and hear was her . “Quit fucking me like you know me, Cael, you don’t. ”

A growl vibrated from him, his expression shifting from a haunting, heartbreaking stare to something angry as he picked up the pace. We melted into one another as he shoved deeper and harder than before.

I didn’t need him to protect me anymore. I wanted the pain and all the pleasure that came with each brutal thrust. Cael sucked at my skin as I used what was left of my strength to lift and drop myself into his ragged thrusts. My aching walls throbbed around him, aching for release as the coil in my stomach wound so tight it was ready to snap.

“I don’t care who you think you are,” Cael growled breathlessly as his teeth found my ear. “You’ll always be mine.” His final thrust broke the walls down inside of me, and the pleasure crashed over my muscles like a tidal wave. My leg tightened around him, and my toes curled into the mat below. My nerves were shot, and my head was dizzy from the intense orgasm that filled me to the brim.

Cael stuttered in his step as his body tensed, and he fell over the edge shortly after me, his lips peppering my throat gently as he rocked himself through the downfall of pleasure.

His chest was ragged as he tried to catch his breath, his eyes trained on my lips. There would be nothing I could do if he decided that was his chance, but they flickered back to my eyes, and his jaw clenched tightly as he stepped forward and worked the knot loose on my wrists.

As Cael brought them down between us, his eyes widened at the marks the plastic had left. Even worse, he saw that stupid frayed pink friendship bracelet, limp and torn from me, in his palm.

He said nothing as he curled my fingers around it and brought the raised red skin to his lips, kissing it gently with his eyes closed. “Sorry,” he sighed and started on the other. “I didn’t think it was that tight.”

My breath hitched in my chest at the idea that, after all this time, the bracelet had finally broken and, stupidly enough, it nearly made me cry. I swallowed tightly, trying to control myself as he delicately cared for each wrist, blaming himself quietly, no doubt.

I hooked a finger under his chin and lifted his gaze to mine. "It didn’t hurt me, Cael.” I shook my head, ignoring the fact that he wasn’t talking about my skin. He was upset about the stupid pieces of thread. “I liked it, and you obviously needed an outlet.”

That dark look flickered across his face, unsure if he should believe me or if I was just trying to make him feel better. I rubbed my hand over his shoulder, the scars still pink from his surgery months before. It would be a little while longer before they faded into white, and the pain subsided enough for him to play baseball again.

“How bad is it?” I asked him under my breath.

“Are you asking as Mary or Clementine?” He swallowed tightly.

“I’m only Mary now.” I sighed. “Clementine never left her room, Cael. I became Mary because I was protecting myself, not to punish you.”

He let go of his breath and looked up from where my fingertips still traced the thin, delicate scar.

“Don’t lie to me.” Cael chuckled under his breath. “It’s not like I don’t deserve it.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes as he shook his head softly and he looked away from me.

“Maybe your mistake was thinking this was about you.”

“Why do you hate me so much?” Cael’s shoulders straightened like he was trying to hold himself together.

“I never hated you,” I said, so quietly that the sound of Cael trying to catch his breath was louder than my words. “I hate the way you make me feel, and I hate that you do it with such ease.”