by Shea Godfrey
“What did you mean?”
“I was thinking about something else.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“Something else.” Finn’s eyes seemed to catch fire.
Casey pushed her plate to the side and leaned forward. “Was it about putting your money where your mouth is?”
“I think I’ll be putting my mouth there, too, just so you know.”
Casey pulled the corner of her lower lip between her teeth for just an instant. “Are you always this naughty? Because if you are, I’m not sure we should be—”
“Cassandra Marinos?”
“Yes?”
“The only thought I’ve been able to keep in my head since I kissed you this morning is the thought that involves…well…We just need to go now, that’s all there is to it.”
“Finnegan,” Casey said softly. “I want you, too.”
“Because I’m going to do things to you that…that I really can’t think about anymore, in such a public place, with someone’s grandparents sitting over there enjoying the eggs Benedict and talking about the Blue Man Group show they saw in Orlando.”
Casey laughed, but she was pushing from the booth before she even took another breath. By the time she stood, Finn was at the end of the table beside her and dropping cash onto the table.
* * *
Casey let out a hard breath with each firm stroke, Finn’s hands strong upon her hips. The sheets beneath her knees were soft and tangled and they called out to the reasonable part of her brain. They called out for good sense and quiet and the promise of dreams. The cock inside her filled her so deeply and so thoroughly, however, that she had stopped thinking completely. Her damp hair clung to her skin as Finn guided her movements, and Casey held her new lover’s face. Her mouth was open upon Finn’s as she looked into her eyes, but there were no words she might’ve spoken that would do justice to anything that was happening. As Finn thrust inside her, only her eyes spoke the truth.
She felt herself rising again and she cried out, pushing her hips forward as she leaned back for leverage, the leather of Finn’s harness rough against the skin of her inner thighs.
Finn’s right arm went about the small of her back and took hold of her. The bed was beneath her in a smooth move and Finn’s hips moved between her legs. Casey’s feet pushed upon the bed and she clawed at Finn’s back and shoulders, wanting to mark her, wanting something, anything, wanting everything, she no longer even knew.
Finn quickened her thrusts and Casey tried to breathe, loving Finn’s weight on top of her, pinning her down as Finn’s cock moved inside her and Finn’s tongue sparred with hers. A strong hand cupped her left breast and then closed, her hardened, full nipple caught with just the slightest touch of pain between Finn’s thumb and forefinger. The first shudder rolled through her in response and her hands fisted in Finn’s hair, the cry she tried to hold back caught in her throat. Her muscles shuddered and tightened as she came and her furious spasm caught Finn’s thrust at its apex.
Casey tried to hold it, all the power she felt inside, all the pleasure, Finn’s presence embedded so sweet and wild in the deepest, most intimate part of her…but it rolled through her and she cried out, unable to stop it.
Finn’s lower body pushed, her hips thrusting in rapid, tight strokes as she reached beneath and lifted Casey up, just enough. Casey clung to her, caught in the ebb of one wave and the feverish rise of yet another. She came again as Finn strained within her arms, Finn’s muscles taut as she let out a ragged cry against Casey’s neck.
Casey tightened her embrace and held on with all the strength she had left. There was only one thought she recognized, and she listened to it. Don’t let go.
* * *
Casey sat on Finn’s thighs, but a single button on her borrowed shirt fastened beneath her breasts. Her smile was more than pleased as she took hold of her hair and shook it back, combing her fingers through it as best she could. “You fucked up my hair as well, O’Connell.”
Finn returned Casey’s smile as she shifted against the pillows at her back.
Casey spoke softly in French, enjoying the feel of the words upon her tongue.
Finn’s lips reacted with an easy smile. “Oh, now I really only recognize that one thing.”
Casey chuckled and pulled herself closer along Finn’s thighs. She glanced across the bed at Finn’s black leather harness and the rather lovely dark blue cock it still held. She met Finn’s eyes. “I’d like to know where you learned to fuck like that, and if you tell me Paula the tennis pro, I will hunt her down and kill her on the spot, so please consider your answer carefully.”
“Boston University,” Finn answered and Casey laughed. “They concentrate extremely hard on the core skills.”
Casey’s amusement had a unique energy that Finn had not expected and it roused her in the quiet part of her thoughts that very few things in her life managed to touch. Casey reached up, her hand gentle as her thumb moved along Finn’s left cheekbone. “How’s your head, baby?”
“It’s good.”
Casey’s eyes narrowed as she analyzed the answer. “I can’t tell if you’re lying or not.”
Finn smiled. “It hurts.”
The knowledge was clearly taken in and registered for future use. “You just gave away a tell,” Casey whispered. “Have a care, Finnegan.”
Finn savored the moment and the heat of Casey’s body, the lovely weight upon her thighs and the touch against her cheek. Casey’s expression was curious, but it was open and her guard was down. She was more alive than Finn could ever remember seeing her, and she was confident and strong in her satisfaction.
They shared a new intimacy that Finn had only known in her fantasies, though by design and discipline, those had been few in number. She held an unfair advantage over Casey, and to take that further could lead to trouble for even the most ethical of dreamers. Sometimes, though, in the deepest dreams of her sleep, Casey would appear. Finn couldn’t help that.
“Finn?”
Finn pulled herself back.
Casey leaned forward and kissed her, holding her face with both hands. “You should say it,” she whispered and Finn found her eyes with an unexpected jolt of emotion. “Whatever it is, baby, just say it.” Casey’s hand pushed at Finn’s hair. “Are you going to confess?”
Finn blinked the unexpected words. “Confess to what?”
“If I open your closet, are there going to be a hundred pictures of me stuck to the inside of the door with Scotch tape?” Casey was trying hard not to smile. “Is there a shrine in here somewhere? Confess, O’Connell.”
Finn chuckled happily. “Yes, and there’s a scrapbook, too. When I flip through the pages it’s like slow-motion porn. It’s frustrating, but terribly hot all at the same time.”
“I knew it,” Casey said with laughter. “You have that look about you.”
“There’s a look for that?”
Casey kissed her again and, with a deft twist of her body, pulled them both onto the sheets. Finn landed between her legs for a moment and then she was rolled to the side, Casey certain of what she wanted as she broke away from their kiss. “All I ask”—Casey sat up and grabbed a pillow—“is that you light a candle once a week.”
Finn’s head was lifted from the mattress with exquisite tenderness and the pillow was slipped beneath her. Casey leaned over her, pulled at the sheet, and covered them both as she lay down along Finn’s body.
“Do I have to say a prayer?”
Casey looked at her with supreme skepticism, propped onto her right elbow. “Let’s not piss off someone with the power to smite things, all right, darling?” She combed her hair back with certain fingers. “And though I’m not all that sure what smiting entails, it is not a verb I wish to encounter in a sentence where I’m featured in a prominent manner.”
Finn laughed, thoroughly enchanted.
“I remember when the gods smote poor Samantha Drake,” Casey said in a rather pleasing Southern accent
. “It really was a shame.” She smiled down at Finn and Finn’s heart skipped within her chest. Casey’s expression lost its playful edge as she slipped her leg between Finn’s and leaned close. “And she was so good-looking.”
Finn held Casey’s eyes and remembered being inside her. She remembered the sweet and terrible aching, and the punishing pressure that had throbbed between her legs and begged for release. A knife like no other had danced along the tender edge of her swollen flesh. Each thrust had pushed her closer, each time she had buried her need in the woman she loved, the world beyond had ceased to exist.
“Finn.” Casey’s voice was quiet and her tone was a touch off balance. “Baby, don’t look at me like that.”
Casey’s fingers trembled—Finn could feel it. “Like what?”
Casey settled tightly against her body and pulled the sheet up as she dropped away from Finn’s line of sight. Her head felt good upon Finn’s chest, as if it belonged there. It was a cliché, Finn knew it, but she happily accepted it.
“I’m going to look for that shrine in the morning,” Casey warned her. “If you have any photos where the lighting is bad, or my ass isn’t presented in the most pleasing manner, you will be in serious trouble.”
Finn wrapped her arms about her. She had no desire to ever let go, but she tried not to hold on too tightly, either. “It’s in my wallet, actually, and there’s just that one extra-special black-and-white.”
For a few seconds there was nothing, and then Casey’s body shook with laughter. “If you think that bothers me, you haven’t been paying attention.”
Chapter Nineteen
Near Bergerac, the Dordogne, France
December 2009
“Oncle?”
Asher looked over his right shoulder and across the back of the divan.
Casey stood beneath the smooth oak wood arch, her soft silk pajamas catching the warm light from the kitchen somewhere behind him. Her hair was down and slightly tousled, the loose curls looking the same to him as they had when she was a child.
“Are you well?”
Her lovely voice fell somewhere in between a whisper and a quiet plea for company. This was the same, as well. “Yes, my Domino, I am very good.”
She smiled and padded across the plush carpet. She grabbed a blanket from one of the chairs and walked around the couch until she could step on the cushions. Asher chuckled and lifted his arm out of the way.
She tucked against his side. “Do you like my house?” She threw part of the blanket over his legs and smiled when his strong arm hugged her shoulders. She laid her head at the crook of his neck. “I’ll show you my boat tomorrow.”
Asher was surprised. “A boat?”
“Yes.”
“Good. A beautiful woman should have a boat.”
“Why is that?”
“Because it shows that she has resources, and a mind of her own.”
She laughed quietly. “I see.”
“It felt like snow, earlier today.”
“It did. Perhaps for Noel?”
“You have done very well for yourself, Domino. This place, it is beautiful, and the land, as well. I had not ever hoped for so much, years ago.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
They were quiet for a time, and Asher thought about their first apartment in Rouen.
He had never been so terrified in all his life, of that he was still certain. He had left home at sixteen and he had not looked back for almost a decade. He had called his sister, Amelie, over the years, and they would talk, for she had always been the closest thing he had to a mother. As Casey had slept on the foldout bed, so small and quiet, tucked beneath the blankets he had bought, he had thought he would die of his fear.
But Amelie had taught him kindness above all, and a fierce independence that had shaped his life. Take no shit from anyone, Asher. You will be your own man. A proud man, a good man. And if those bastards try and keep you down? If they try to crush you? Hurt them where it counts. He wasn’t sure if she would actually approve of his profession, but he thought she would not mind it so much, when she was alone with her thoughts. She would smile in satisfaction.
He had been so afraid during those first years, of being caught, or of reaching for too much, for Casey would have no place without him. She would have no one.
“I was terrified of being caught,” he said at last. “Oh, it was terrible. Only small jobs made sense to me, until you were much older, but not then. Do you remember when I worked at that restaurant, in Rouen? It was a long time ago.”
“You would bring home toasted bread and milk.”
Asher smiled. “Yes. On wages.”
Casey tipped her head back. “That Noel, it was my first, and you brought me my sweet little Magda.”
Asher smiled, though the name caused his blood to give a push of brutal memory. Casey did not remember where the name came from, but he did. “That cat was almost the death of me. She would pounce at my legs in the morning and then run away. I know for certain, at least once I was given a heart attack. I was afraid I would fall on her and crush her, and then you would never forgive me. My God, for sure I thought she would find a corner and giggle very tiny evil cat giggles, mocking me.”
Casey laughed and tucked against him farther.
“You have a new Magda?”
“I’ve been calling her Maggie this time,” Casey informed him. “She’s still in bed. She loves to sleep beneath the covers.”
Asher gave a small, satisfied grunt of acceptance. “And why is there no beautiful woman sleeping beneath your covers? When will you find your love, Domino?”
Casey groaned and then turned her face against his shirt, laughing. “You are terrible.”
“No!” Asher laughed with her. “You are too wonderful, Domino, to be alone.”
“And so they come and stay, and then what? They will move my books about, and they will pin me down and take away my freedom. They will want me to change who I am, and most cannot be trusted with the truth of what I do, but yet they want the life that I lead as a result of it. A woman of resources, remember? Or they have not read a book in years and they think my love of them is quaint, or an affectation. But I do not lack for company, Oncle, I assure you. I am not lacking in companionship when I want it.”
Asher sighed. “What about when you need it? When you need someone there for you?”
Casey was quiet and he waited a long time for her response. “I’ve not found that yet, no. I don’t think I will.”
“Why not?”
“I think I need a tall woman. A woman who might make me laugh.”
Asher was surprised by the statement. “I met a tall woman in Paris, but a few weeks ago, now.”
“Did you fall in love with her?”
Asher gave a gentle hiss. “No, Domino. She is your age, perhaps, and she is wild and strong.” He considered the truth of things. “And broken, too. She has nothing to lose.”
Casey tipped her head back. “Oncle?”
“A woman like that…she has all the freedom she will ever need. Too much,” he whispered. “Perhaps too much freedom.” He leaned away just a bit and met her eyes. “Too much freedom can make you careless, and extremely dangerous, as well. Remember that, Domino. Sometimes, it is good to be tied to someone. It makes you brave, and it makes you wise. Or at least, wiser than you were before. It is always better to fight for someone, rather than something.”
Her eyes were filled with thought. She was trying to figure out where he was leading.
“But she is like you, maybe, a little bit. She leaves weeping women in her wake and does not look back.”
Casey’s brow went up and her eyes were filled with surprise. “What?”
“Yes, like you…but…”
“But what?”
He could hear her interest and curiosity. “But she is caught between two worlds. The world of men and the world of women.” He turned his gaze back to the wide windows and found the trees
beyond the pool. “What do you call such a woman?”
“Butch?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“You’re saying, you met a tall butch woman in Paris?”
Asher smiled but did not look at her. “Yes, I did. Paris welcomes everyone into her bed, we know this.”
Casey clicked her tongue. “That’s not what I meant, Oncle, and you know it.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not trying to…make you a date?”
“I think you would say, fix me up.” Casey eyes were bright and quick.
“No.” Asher sighed and settled back into the couch a bit farther. “I would not do that, fix you up. I would not presume such.”
“Oh my God.” Casey laughed.
Asher stared and her humor faded at his expression. “She is dangerous, Domino. That is not what I am doing.”
“Okay,” she whispered. Her eyes told him she saw him as no one else ever had. “But?”
Asher eased off from his warning—he couldn’t help it. “But she is…she is like a Van Gogh. Thick ropes of brilliant color, smoothed by a sable brush. She is magnifique. Raw emotion that spills everywhere and screams out to the world, only it is in such a quiet voice.”
Casey set her head upon his shoulder once more. “You should have been an artist, Oncle.”
Asher considered her words. “You are right.”
“I know.”
“Would you like crepes before you go back to bed?”
“Yes…I love you, Oncle.”
“I love you, too.”
It was a terribly long time before she spoke again and Asher thought she had fallen asleep, which satisfied.
“She sounds rather lovely,” Casey whispered.
His memories spiraled back in time as she fell asleep, and he was awake when the snow began to fall, fat, thick flakes that would never last once the sun came up.
Chapter Twenty
San Francisco
Present day
“My God, is this a first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?” Casey turned, the red clothbound book held with reverence as she looked across the loft.
