16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

" I make a lot of money!"

"Made a lot of money," I corrected Cassie quietly. "You said you wouldn't even give two weeks if you were quitting."

Cassie quickly held an index finger so close to my face that she almost struck me with it.

As I flinched backward, she snapped at me, "Not now."

"You make a lot of money by taking your clothes off," Liam whined.

"It's just a body, Liam!" she exclaimed. "Who gives a shit?!"

"Just a body? Cas—"

" Stop!" Zoey exclaimed. "Cassie, no one gives a shit if you strip."

Liam chastised, "Zoey!" at the same time as Cassie began to say:

"Thank you, Zo—"

"But ya kept it a secret even when you heard through the goddamn grapevine that dancers are going missing, and now you're giving your brother a fucking. Aneurysm," she trilled. "You two need to can it for now. There's a lot going on."

Liam sank low into his chair, arms crossed over his chest while he chewed on the inside of his cheeks, and Cassie mimicked him.

I muttered down to Cassie, "That went well."

Her dark eyes rapidly shifted up to me, holding the smallest of smiles, but her lips remained irritatingly puckered as Zoey admonished me with:

"Don't get me started with you. Enabler."

I retorted, "What was I supposed to do? Out her? I was sworn to secrecy."

Liam's face contorted as if he had just now realized that I had, in fact, seen his sister working. I found myself making the same expression while I shifted my line of sight to anywhere but him.

"So…" Colton spoke slowly, and Cassie rolled her head to view him as he noted, "That was fun. Delaney?"

Cassie sighed. "Yeah. Knew her when I first started working there. She stopped coming in…I dunno, two months back? Maybe?"

He gave her a mournful frown. "Sorry. "

She shrugged. "'S'okay. Thanks."

"Did you two talk much?"

"No." Cassie shook her head. "But, um…there were other dancers that stopped coming in, too."

I heard Claire groan, "Oh, God," but I kept my eyes on Colton as I watched his brows flicker up and then lower back down.

"Figured. Do you have their names?"

Cassie's head bobbed backward. "All of them?"

"Um…yeah. All of them," Colton replied, matter of fact.

"I don't—I don't remember all of them. There's probably a girl or two each month that no-call-no-shows. I—it's been like that since I moved here in the summer. It's not like I kept track," she rattled back.

"Okay, okay." He held up a hand to stop her. "Anyone recent?"

"Yeah, um—Lacey Rhone? Harper Phillips. That's, ah…that's all I can remember for now."

"'Kay. What about them? Did you know them well?"

"Er…no."

Colton squinted. "Okay. What about…I dunno, rumors? Did they use?"

"No," she told him quickly.

"Spend a little too much time with clientele?"

"No."

"Ya sure about that?"

"Yeah!" she bit back. "I'm sure. Just because we're strippers doesn't mean we're prostitutes." Liam coughed loudly as she snapped, "The fuck kind of a question is that?"

"Easy," Colton replied. "That's not what I meant. Even if I did, I'm not gonna judge. Just asking if there was something common between them. Same people that come in to see them? Maybe those people are extra chatty? Maybe they frequent champagne rooms for privacy? Shit like that."

Cassie pondered that for a beat, appearing mildly downtrodden, until she said, "Not sure. Faces blend together, y'know? I normally just keep my head down and work."

Colton exhaled loudly. "Okay, let me make sure I have this straight. You moved here in the summer, so…you've been working there for upward of half a year?"

"Uh huh."

His face twisted. "And you don't know more? Nothing seemed off?"

"Look, I focus on my own shit at Gas Lamp," Cassie returned, exasperated. "You have some names. I can tell you what they look like, too. What—what exactly do you want from me? "

"What, do you think I have a magical database to search? Oh, here, let me pull this laptop outta my ass." Colton threw her vexed attitude right back and mimed reaching for his backside. Claire sighed heavily as he went through the motions of placing a very invisible computer on his lap and cracking it open. With either of his index fingers, he pretended to click on a keypad several times, mocking, "Beep-boop-bahp. Ah, yes. Thank goodness I had those dancers' names and absolutely nothing else! With my handy-dandy system here, I now know every person those women interacted with before they went missing, cross-checked them, and found the culprit!" He then gave us all an enthusiastic representation of jazz hands. "Yaaay!"

Claire whined, "Don't be an ass, Colt."

"I'm not—" Colton caught Claire's narrowed gaze, and he shifted his tone to one that was less grating. "I'm not trying to be. I just wanted more, that's all. I could'a gotten that from another quick trip to Gas Lamp myself."

She returned, "Didn't you kinda know who's responsible already? Friends of friends that you heard shit about?"

"First of all, none of them are friends. They were hardly even acquaintances, and they're nothing to me now. Fuckers." Colton spoke the last word under his breath with disgust, and he added, "And no. I don't. Remember—I said that they work separately. I knew one. I don't know other names 'cause he didn't know other names. I know trends. Vague locations. Cause and effect."

Claire's eyebrows rose. "You knew one?"

Colton went quiet, his gaze locked with Claire's, and he calmly stated, "He and the guy he teamed up with turned on each other."

Her jaw went slack. "You say that as if it was convenient."

"It was," he told her. "They're both dead."

We all blinked several times in succession, absorbing his words. He didn't elaborate further, and none of us pressed him to do so. There was no question, to me, that he was involved in their inevitable demise. However, whether he simply planted the seed or performed the act himself was left a mystery, for the brief veering of conversation was one that we didn't need to venture down.

Cassie questioned, "Can't you do a lot with a description of the two women I gave you?"

"Do what? Go to the police?" he replied with disbelieving eyes. "My dirty-ass record will get pulled up in no time, and then they'll really have questions for me."

Claire suggested, "You could call them anonymously?"

He gave her a pointed stare. "Would you call them anonymously? There's a man that y'all have a colorful history with who could have been involved in all of this that's now dead. There are still sedatives in that closet—I only snagged the one bottle—and we all know what that room looked like. I've got no idea what the cops know, but if they're anywhere near this, they're gonna think that's mighty skeptical. Considering all this shit, do you feel comfortable fuckin' breathing in a cop's direction, anonymous or not?"

She crossed her arms and grumbled back, "No."

"Cue my point." Colton focused back on Cassie. "Just names and descriptions of the girls does jack shit for me. I'm guessing the answer is no, but do you know anyone who could know more?"

"Like I said," Cassie replied, "I normally just keep my head down and work. I'm not really tight with any of the dancers. That's more Sky— oh." Realization dawned on her, and she murmured, "Sky."

"Sky?" Colton inquired.

"Friend from work," she replied. Colton shot her a pointed look, and she clarified, "Friendly friend from work. Social butterfly. If any of the dancers know anything, it's her."

"Good," he sighed. "Good, good-good." Reaching into the front of his jeans pocket, he pulled out a cell phone that one could only describe as a burner. It was similar to one I had used in the early 2000s—a flip phone that was designed long before touch screens were a standard. Colton flicked his wrist to open it, assumedly checking the time, and closed it with a satisfying smack! He asked Claire, "When does this place open?"

Claire looked to the table, tapping the screen of her own cell. It lit up her face in a blue-tinged light, and she replied:

"Ten minutes."

"Yeah, I should get outta here." He looked to Cassie. "What are the chances I can talk to your friend, like, soon? And not in a bar filled with people?"

Cassie shrugged. "I'll call her, then call you?"

He snapped his fingers, pointed at her, and smiled as he stated, "That. Claire?" Claire's tired eyes snapped to his, and he asked, "Be a peach. Text me her number?" She threw him a thumbs up with little enthusiasm as she picked up her phone. "Cool." His index finger moved to Zoey. "Zoey. Don't be dumb—"

Liam snapped, "Hey—"

Colton splayed his extended hand out wide. "Look through the damn laptop." Liam went quiet, and Colton continued, "Then burn it." Zoey gave him a short nod and an eye roll that said she already intended to do just that. He seemed to consider his thoughts before he stated, "And for the record, if you're thinking actual fire—I'll light the goddamn match."

He blurted the words out with a shocking amount of conviction.

Zoey's brows rose. "Are you into pyrotechnics now?"

A corner of his lip pulled up in the quickest of grins that was then gone in a flash. "For this, yeah. Later."

He hopped from his stool, and we all watched as he strolled across the bar to the entrance, unlocked the door, and left without a further word. The silence was heavy for only but a second, and Liam spoke again:

"You're quitting."

"I came to that conclusion myself, thank you," Cassie told him.

He nearly spat, "Good."

"Good?" she incredulously voiced. "Liam, I'm quitting my job, and I don't exactly have another one lined up. It's a necessity, but it's not good."

Liam took in a long breath. "I know," he exhaled. "I know, I'm sorry. I'm still all…" He waved a hand in front of his forehead in a circular motion. "I can't think straight."

"Okay, um," Zoey spoke up, "Different subject—Cas, why don't you stay with us for a while? Considering everything?" She looked up to Liam, and he nodded emphatically .

Cassie squinted. "On the couch?"

Liam responded, "Yeah."

"I'd rather a bedroom," she grumbled.

"Well, I don't have another bedroom!" he quickly retorted. Liam reached up to pinch at the bridge of his nose and said, "Just—just—you can get a blow-up mattress or something if you really need it."

"Sure," she returned with a roll of her eyes, "with all the money I have from the job that I'm quitting."

"I'm sure you have plenty saved up from stripping," he snapped.

Zoey smacked his chest. "Liam!"

"Don't act all high-and-fucking-mighty," Cassie bit back. "You've joked about applying to work at strip clubs for years."

"Joking doesn't mean I actually did it, Cas!" he exclaimed.

Interrupting their sibling bickering once more, Zoey stated, "Don't pretend like you have anything against stripping, Lee, come on."

"I don't," he told her. "I have a problem with my little sister stripping."

"Yet you had no problem with it when I said I should apply at PT's," Zoey argued.

Liam replied through his teeth, "That's different. "

"Oh, why?" Cassie asked innocently. "Because I shouldn't be seen as a sexual object? I'm not a child, Liam. Plenty of men—and women, for that matter…"

The latter half of her last sentence made me choke on my spit, and Liam interrupted with a grimace:

"Ah, no-no, we aren't talking about this."

Cassie smirked, crossing her arms as she said, "You're the one that started it."

Zoey sighed loudly. "Topic at hand. You live alone, and your house is in the middle of nowhere. Stay with us, yes?"

Cassie's face twisted at the thought of an extended stay in her brother's living room. "I've gotten used to privacy."

Claire spoke in a mousy tone, "Erm— Jay?"

I glanced at her to see her blue gaze expectant, and I voiced, "Hmm?"

Claire tipped her head toward Cassie, and there was no doubt in my mind what the intent was behind her quiet call of my name. She was implying that I should offer for Cassie to stay with me.

"Oh," my voice went high as I quickly glanced at Cassie, and I looked back to Claire to find her gaze a silent, gentle plea to, ‘Do the right thing.'

Luke avoided making eye contact with anyone, as it was clear he didn't desire to insert himself in the middle.

Cassie cooed, "You do have an extra bedroom. "

"I do," I replied succinctly, knowing full well that Claire's old bedroom would be thoroughly unoccupied if Cassie were to be staying with me.

Zoey obliviously shrugged. "Problem solved—"

"Not problem solved," Liam interrupted, throwing a hand toward Cassie. "She's gonna drive Jay insane."

"I'll be on my best behavior," Cassie assured him wryly.

Liam groaned, "Cas."

"It's fine," I interrupted Liam rapidly. "Really, it's fine. Cas, you can stay with me."

Cassie smiled wide at me, not a trace of guilt or our shared secret written on her face as she noted, "Problem solved."

I was idly chopping a red bell pepper in the kitchen when the front door creaked open, and Liam appeared. His freckled face was worn, the stress from, well, everything written across it as he lugged a large, black suitcase across the threshold. The wheels hit the hardwood with a clack, and he grumbled:

"You packed your entire goddamn closet."

Cassie strolled in with a single white pillow under her arm, remarking as she walked past her brother, "Well, I don't know how long I'll be here. I'm not about to go to the laundromat three times per week."

"Fine," Liam acquiesced, shutting the door behind him. "Fine. I get it." He pointed toward Claire's old room. "Go bring—"

Cassie daintily grabbed the top of her luggage, extended the handle, and quipped, "I know where to go. It's not like I've never been here." She beamed in my direction. "Hi, Jay."

I waved with my knife-laden hand. "Hi, Cas."

"Whatcha cookin'?" she asked as she walked her suitcase across the living area.

As per all things in my life, I typically would have that planned out before I went chopping away. However, with the knowledge that Cassie was soon to be arriving with her brother, who was none the wiser regarding our closeness, I was terribly on edge. I checked her phone's location several times while waiting, and when they were just down the street, I decided that busying my hands would be the smartest course of action. The red of the bell pepper caught my eye before anything else in my fridge, and I began to slice without a second thought to its purpose.

"Uh," I hesitated. "Stir fry."

"It's early for dinner," she noted with a smile, "but I haven't eaten. "

Ambling past the kitchen table to me, Liam called out, "He's not cooking for you, Cas!"

All I heard was her soft laughter as she disappeared around the corner, and Liam stopped his steps when he reached the opposite end of the island. He looked to me apologetically, rubbing at his neck, and I set my knife down with purpose.

"I have no problem cooking for two, Liam."

His arm fell to his side. "I, ah, think I owe you on this one."

Guilt swarmed me. "Nah, you don't owe me a thing."

Liam murmured, "I know how Cas can be."

It was then, more than any other point, that I was tempted to come clean. To look Liam directly in his eyes, which were so like his sister's, and let the bomb drop. It may come with inevitable, metaphorical shrapnel…but it would be worth it. Our found family dynamic could shift, sure…but only slightly. I simply wouldn't allow the explosion of an admission to crumble everything that we all had to the ground, after all.

I couldn't do it, though.

His expression was so…so mentally tired that any prepared words that I had for him remained lodged in my throat. Concern over the potential peril regarding the two most important women in his life was so clearly shown on his face that it was palpable. It didn't seem fair for me to unload what was on my shoulders when I knew it would be directly transferred to his. And that's exactly where this confession would land— heavily on his shoulders because there was no chance in hell that he would immediately understand and be delighted at our seeing each other.

No matter how gently I worded it or how verbose I was about the care I had for Cassie, he was bound to twist the pertinent details into phrases such as:

I screwed your sister.

No, it wasn't just a one-time thing.

Yes, I'm going to happily continue sticking it to her.

Oh, and she fucking loves it.

No—I couldn't allow the burdensome, even betrayed thoughts that would come afterward to ruminate in his mind. Not now, when he was looking like a lost puppy—a rather large puppy who nearly looked down on me due to his stature, but a puppy nonetheless.

Instead, I made sure to catch his eye and truthfully said, "I'm glad she's here. This shit's messy." Liam gave me a smile that looked near-pained, and I rephrased, "More than messy—fuckin' nerve-wracking. I'm glad she's here." I stated the last sentence with more gumption, Liam seemed to soften a bit, and I joked, "Even if she does eat all of my food."

I casually picked up my knife, continuing to slice vertical strips from the pepper and concentrating on the rocking motion of the blade. Liam's quiet chuckle brought a small smile to my lips, and he yelled to Cassie:

"You're goin' to buy groceries tomorrow!

Her laughing, "Yeah, yeah," was muffled from beyond the walls of the bedroom.

Liam exhaled heavily, murmuring, "Thank you."

I slid the backside of the blade across the cutting board to move the cut pieces to the right-hand side, glanced up to see that his words were directed at me rather than his sister, and quickly shook my head.

"You don't need to thank me."

Liam hesitated as if he weren't quite sure what to say. I contemplated whether I wanted to dice the pepper strips before me, and he said:

"You're a good friend, Jay."

It was a shock that I didn't keel over—hands on my knees, gasping for breath as the gut punch of his gratefulness knocked the wind out of me. Instead, I swallowed, set my knife down with a clack against the granite, and steadied myself with both of my hands splayed out on the counter.

"I'm really not," I replied as casually as I could muster .

He rolled his eyes in return, clearly assuming that I was taking a stance of humility.

"Look, I'd stay, but I gotta get some studying in. I have an exam on Monday, and I'm behind," he told me with an apology in his voice.

Of course he did. He didn't speak of them much, but his studies kept him rather busy…and his mention of them made me recall the stress of obtaining a college education. The worry of learning and maintaining the knowledge—of putting your skills to the test by placing pencil to paper—of just wanting to be done so the constant weight of it all could be over. My experience wasn't comparable to Liam's, though. Not in the least. Not only had I gone through my college years by the time that I was Cassie's age rather than his more mature twenty-six, but I had little else to concern myself over.

I didn't have to worry about employment; Liam hopped around working contract construction jobs to make ends meet. I didn't have to pay rent. I didn't have a girlfriend who murdered her stalker. I didn't have a friend who was fucking my little sister behind my back.

You know. The little things.

Liam mumbled, "This shit has me so fuckin' distracted."

"I'm sorry, man. Which class?"

"Oh, um," he hesitated as if he weren't anticipating the question and gave me a grin as he recited, "The Youthful Mind and Children's Literature."

I immediately pictured his large body squat on a stool made for someone a third his size, enthusiastically reading an illustrated book to a horde of small children.

Elementary education would suit him.

Willing the thoughts of worry away, I found a smirk pulling at my mouth as I remarked, "Yeah, I'd help you study, but I don't think I'd do any good there."

His grin grew, and he waved me away as he stated, "Zo' made me flashcards. I should be fine."

I chuckled. "Flashcards, huh?"

A dimple formed on his right cheek. "Uh huh. And a checklist for all my shit to finish before graduation."

Nodding, I asked, "Next month?"

"Yup," he replied happily, popping the p.

Cassie interrupted our oddly pleasant conversation with, "Ya gonna chop anything but that pepper, or what?"

We each turned our heads to see her having crept up on us—barefoot and comfortable, she was leaning a shoulder against the wall at the edge of the kitchen. She had tied her hair back—pulled away from her face in a perfectly messy knot at the base of her neck. Arms crossed, her eyebrows rose as she looked at me with her typical challenging expression.

Liam quipped to me, "If she drives ya nuts, send her across the hall." Her eyes shot to the ceiling, and I didn't get a chance to say so much as, ‘I think I'll live,' or, ‘Ha. Okay,' because he followed it up with, "I'm outta here, Cas."

"Flashcards?" she asked knowingly.

"Flashcards," he confirmed. "You call your friend?"

Cassie shook her head. "Texted. She's busy. Maintenance at her apartment—it's a whole thing. She'll get back to me. I'll let you know."

He gave her a curt nod, saying, "'Kay, good." Walking toward the front door, he lifted a hand to waggle his fingers at her over his shoulder. "Later."

"Byeeee," she sang, splitting the word into two syllables, and when the door shut behind him, she asked, "You want me to grab you an onion or something?"

"We need to tell him," I groaned.

"I was assuming that we both still thought that now was a bad time."

"I do," I agreed. "I do. It would be bad. Like, the poor man's fucking brain would explode from being overwhelmed bad, but… God, Cas, he called me a good friend. "

Her warm eyes showed me sympathy. "You are a good—"

"No, the fuck I'm not," I argued. "I've stuck my cock inside of his litter sister, and he has no idea. I am not a good friend."

"To be fair," she returned lightly, "I wanted your cock."

I pressed my hands to my eyes, whining, "Cassie."

She giggled. "What?"

Sharply pointing at the entrance, I demanded, "Go lock the door before your brother comes back and hears you talking about my cock."

"Yes, sir," she mocked as she spun on her heel. I watched her nearly skip around the couch, past the kitchen table, and to the door. She flicked the deadbolt, and I felt a relieved breath leave me. She asked, "Can we stop talking about my brother now?"

In what came across as a quiet plea, I returned, "Can we tell him about us once we feel like we're not in crisis mode?"

Cassie flashed me a megawatt smile—one that blinded me and caused her nose to scrunch in the way I had long begun to adore—and she cooed:

"Yes, baby."

She said it casually. Offhandedly, as she traipsed her way to the pantry that resided to my left, beside the refrigerator. And though it had left her mouth in the most natural of ways, she had still said it as if she knew that the word would string me up by the ventricles. As if she knew that the endearment she had bestowed upon me would hang over me in a pink-tinged mist, run through my nostrils, flood my olfactory system with her trademark vanilla, and render me lovesick.

It did, of course, because the woman made me fucking weak.

And instead of mentally damning the way that she was so easily able to wipe the slate of my mind clean, I fell into it. Despite the horror of the reasoning for her being here and the entirety of my feelings surrounding her brother, which could simply be deemed as guilt-ridden and uncomfortable, I just found myself wanting her—cherishing the feeling to the point that I moved to meet her where she stood.

Eyeing the shelves, she inquired, "Did you want an onion? I like onion in a stir—"

It was clear that she had sensed my presence behind her, but it was when I reached for her face that she cut her sentence off mid-word. In one swift movement, she turned into my clasp of her jaw. I pulled to usher her lips to mine, and when Cassie began to close the distance between us, she caught my eye and froze. The altogether playful attitude that she had from the moment she walked through the door dissipated, and her brow furrowed as she placed a hand on the left side of my chest.

"You okay?"

Through all of her thought-clearing haze, I still knew that I wasn't. It was a fact that none of us were—we were simply putting on brave faces to muster through it all because there was no other viable option—and I didn't care to delve into that. Though I appreciated her ability to see through me, and her questioning of my well-being made warmth flood beneath where her palm laid, I knew that I would be a song set on repeat, replaying my anxious melody time and again.

There was no use for that.

I finished her previous motion for her, leaning forward to give her a soft kiss. She hummed into it, but when we separated, her eyes were still tinged with a gentle worry. I answered her question with another:

"Are you?"

"Touché."

"I'm as fine as I can be," I told her.

Cassie nodded. "Me too."

My thumb traced along her jawline. "I like you here. "

Her lips quirked up. "Me too." She tightened her hand on my chest into a fist, grasped my shirt, and gave it a tug. Eyes darting to my lips, she whispered, "Come back."

I sealed my lips on hers with the quiet insistence that I had intended before. Our touches on each other were smooth and quiet, hers moving to my waist to beckon me closer and mine cradling her face, and our mouths remained closed—sweet and slow, yet burning with a forward motion.

Sweet and slow quickly turned hot and feverish. Tongues clashing, her nails beneath my shirt and digging into my lower back, and my hands gripping a shelf behind her, our bodies were flush—only separated by the thin layers of clothing between us. A rough flex of my hips pinned her to the shelving, and Cassie's breath hitched as the canned goods clunked and clattered.

And it wasn't that I was a caveman who simply wanted her here and now.

I mean…I was. But that wasn't the entirety of it.

There was just something about the way that we melded together. Something about the way that she grabbed me just as tightly as I did her. Something about the way that our respective movements carried the fluidity of water—no matter whether I was gentle and patient or progressing to rough and ragged, Cassie was there to meet me halfway. She mirrored me with enthusiasm. With a well-read return of my emotions in her eyes.

It drove me manic.

I kissed her neck; she kissed mine. I bit, sucked, and licked; so did she. I moaned quietly in her ear; her soft noises brought me to insanity. She led me to unabashed hedonism—and though it truly was so much more than seeking pleasure with Cassie, it didn't matter that we weren't whispering sweet nothings to each other to profess our adoration in this exact moment. We could see it. Feel it around us without having to utter the words, and I think it was because of that that we were able to progress rapidly into the comfort of absolute filth.

She wrapped a leg around my backside, squeezed her hand that had wound its way into my hair, and we gyrated in time together.

"I can feel your cock through your jeans," she nearly purred.

I dragged my tongue over her pulse point. "See what you do to me?"

"Mmm."

Her touch left me only to pull her top off, returning to yank mine overhead, and I assisted her with greedy hands. The bralette she wore was baby blue, the lace sheer to the point that I could make out the outline of her areolas, and the sight alone made me let out a quiet:

"Jesus, Cas."

The material scratched at my fingertips, her breast filling my palm as I kneaded her through the fabric.

She exhaled, "Ah," and I swallowed the noise by crashing my mouth to hers.

I tugged the thin straps down her arms, letting them hang loose by her biceps, and I broke our kiss to shift my lips back to her neck. Her shoulder. Down her chest that had begun to heave and over the lace. I nudged it with my nose to reach her nipple, taking it into my mouth. She let out a whimpering, "Jay," as I ran my tongue where I so pleased, and my vocal cords rumbled as I eagerly shifted to repeat the actions on the right side of her. Her fingers had tangled in my hair once more, but I felt one of them leave me—tracing its way down my abdomen to reach the waistband of my jeans.

With much self-control—self-control that I didn't think I had when it came to Cassie—I shifted my hips away.

"Mmm-mm," I hummed in disapproval against her chest, "my turn."

She let out a pleased sigh, bringing her hand back to my scalp, and she yanked my face to hers to kiss me with purpose. Our tongues touched twice, our hips ground together once more, and she pulled away from me to breathe:

"Take me to bed?"

I wanted to. Shit, I wanted to. I wanted to abandon the menial task of preparing our early dinner, throw her flat on her back, and get lost in her until we were forced to take pause for food or water. And I would. My thoughts had flashed back to our previous intimate acts, though—her nearly collapsing on me in front of her fireplace and the way her thighs shook in her shower—and there was a different desire that was ripe in my mind.

"Not yet. I want you standing." Before she could so much as respond, I told her, "I have a feeling that your legs always go weak when you come."

A devilish smile came to her lips, her tone even huskier than normal as she replied, "Only when it's good."

"Good," I rasped, reaching for her leg that had wound its way around my right hip and ushering it to the floor. I grabbed her face—roughly, just on the edge of her jawline—and ensured that her eyes were on me. Her gaze was hooded with lust as I whispered, "I'm gonna eat you until your fucking knees buckle."

Her head fell back to the shelves, and she moaned a delighted, "Shit, Jay. "

I planted a kiss on the center of her throat and felt her inhale on my lips.

"Shhh," I shushed her between peppered kisses as I worked my way down the center of her body. "The walls are thin in this place, Darlin'."

I sank to my knees, holding her waist in both of my hands, and the silver jewelry in her navel came into my line of sight. I dragged my tongue across it, the balls' cold, erotic sensory on my tastebuds, and the metal clacked against my teeth in a way that made my eyes briefly roll to the back of my head.

Though her skin jumped beneath my touch, Cassie quieted herself, her ahs and mmms turning to sensual murmurs that pleasantly tickled my eardrums.

I smiled as I hooked my fingers into the waistband of her black leggings, my dick straining against the zipper of my jeans at the reminder that she was sexually obedient. Our eyes locked as I tugged at the fabric, her gaze remained slow-blinking while she leaned on my shoulders, and I disrobed her from the waist down. I sat on my heels, Cassie's breath shaking as I made my way to the space between her thighs, and I licked along the crevasse that led me from her leg to her hip. Her back arched, her hands that always found their way into my hair squeezing at the roots; her head rested back against the shelving again as she panted to the ceiling, and I gently placed my mouth over her clit.

I won't distort reality and say that she was like the essence of honey or the scent of a rare flower. There was a slight salty twang from sweat in the crease of her thighs, and she tasted how a woman should taste. She tasted like pussy. Really fucking good pussy. I made no attempt to stifle my moans, but thankfully, I was so buried in her that my noises were muffled. I dug my fingers into the sides of her pelvis, matching the rhythm of her rocking with insistent squeezes, and encouraged her to ride my face to her heart's content.

Her movement against me had begun slow—all soft flexes of her hips, smooth brushes of her pussy on my tongue, and little calls of my name and the occasional baby between gasps of air. I watched the rise and fall of her breasts increase in speed as she quickened her motions to a more furious pace, and she looked down to view me—jaw slack and brow furrowed. Her shoulders hunched. The muscles in her abdomen flexed. I hummed against her, and when her legs began to vibrate, I wrapped my arms around her ass and thighs.

Cassie whispered a strained, "Fuck." I breathed her in, though I was nearly suffocating, and she mewled, "Yes." Her pleading affirmative was a hoarse chant with every exhale, turning louder as she approached her release, and she inevitably brought one of her own hands to her mouth to quiet herself.

Cries of ecstasy were subdued by her palm. Her torso curled over me. The gentle shaking of her thighs turned near violent, I tightened my grip to support her weight, and her knees gave out. I felt her repetitive spasms on my mouth as she rode through her orgasm, and when her body finally went entirely weak, she murmured:

"Let me down."

I kissed between her thighs softly as I loosened my hold around her. She sank to my lap, and her sated eyes met mine for only a second before her mouth was on me. Arms thrown around my neck, her skin burned into my naked chest, and I returned her kiss with enthusiasm—embracing her with a squeeze around her back and shoulders. Cassie snaked a hand between us, reaching to palm my cock through my jeans, and I cursed on an exhale:

"Shit."

Her teeth at my neck, nipping in areas that she knew I loved, she asked, "My turn?"

"Bed," I insisted.

She returned to my lips, nodding in response, and spoke against me:

"Lead the way. "

I obeyed, standing with her but ensuring that we stayed connected at the mouth. There was no stumbling. There was no rush. Though I felt like I needed her on a very real, physical level, there was no itch to race to the finish line. Desperation was present, certainly, but the remainder of my clothing was stripped before her with slow purpose. Her dainty bra that was hanging loose below her breasts was unclasped and fell to the floor, and after taking in her naked body as if I hadn't just worshipped her on my knees, I closed the distance between us, and we fell to the mattress.