by C. L. Parker
“You know what they say,” Demi started. “The best way to get over a man is to move on to the next. Quinn is all about forward progression.” She shouldered him playfully. “But just like Daddy, his new flavor is top secret, too.”
“Oohh,” I said with a waggle of my brows. “Any clues on the identity of this secret lover?”
Quinn huffed. “Y’all want to talk secret lovers? Fine, let’s talk secret lovers.”
He was a little too quick to agree, looking at me as if I’d set something in motion that couldn’t and wouldn’t be stopped. I realized I found myself precariously standing in the middle of a trap before I had the opportunity to see the metaphorical net suspended overhead.
With a quirk of an eyebrow, Quinn yanked on the rope. “Miss Sassy Cassie, do you want to tell them or should I?”
He couldn’t have meant what I thought he meant. “Tell them what?”
“Oh, so you’re going to try to play stupid? Okay, let’s see… How should I say this?” Quinn cleared his throat. “Shaw and Cassidy, sitting in a tree. K-i-s-s-i-n-g,” he sang.
Nooooo! “Oh, God.” Those were the only two words I could get out of my mouth.
Demi gasped, loudly. “Shaw?”
“Shaw Matthews?” Sasha asked. Which was silly because how many other Shaws did we know?
“Fuck me,” I said, managing to find two more words.
Quinn laughed. “Oh, I’m sure he did, girl.”
My cheeks flamed red, that feeling of being caught in the act resurfacing yet again. “How did you know?”
Quinn laughed some more. So much that he could manage only one syllable, but that one syllable said plenty. “Shaw.”
“He told you?” I was outraged, ready to cut off his balls for cutting my legs out from under me.
My roommate got his laughter under control and sighed heavily. “Not really. I might have suggested I already knew. And he might have assumed you’d told me. So I might have let him.”
“You tricked him?” I ran my hands over my face. “Oh, my God, Quinn, you’re such an asshole. That was so underhanded and devious!”
“And brilliant,” Demi tacked on, high-fiving him.
Sasha gave me a cheeky grin. “And really not anything we didn’t already know.”
“You did not know.” It sounded more like a question than a statement of fact. Did they know? How could they have when we’d been so careful? Actually, I hadn’t thought we were trying to be careful so much as I’d thought no one was paying attention. Or maybe I simply hadn’t been thinking at all in lieu of letting my vagina make all the decisions for me, consequences be damned.
Sasha dipped her chin and smacked her lips sarcastically. “We have eyes to see the little looks you two give each other.”
“And ears to eavesdrop on not-so-private conversations,” Demi said, cupping her own as if to prove her point.
Quinn got überclose to the webcam, making his lips appear superbig. “And mouths to gossip with each other and compare notes,” he said before backing away again.
I was sure I must have looked like a codfish with its mouth agape. “Seriously? You need help. All three of you. And I need a restraining order because you’re all a bunch of stalkers.”
“Speaking of stalkers,” Demi said, pointing and looking over my shoulder.
Sasha’s smile was bright as the sun. “Hi, Shaw!” she said with a cheerful wave.
I turned to see him standing there, every bit as creepy as my intrusive friends, apparently listening in on my – what did Demi call it? – not-so-private conversation. Jesus, did no one respect personal boundaries anymore?
Shaw
My scalp was sore as shit and my balls were aching and in desperate need of a release. So I’d gone in search of Cassidy with every intention of getting my caveman on and throwing her over my shoulder to take her back upstairs so she could finish the job she’d begun before we were quite rudely interrupted.
Adjusting the still raging hard-on in my jeans, I groaned. Each step down the stairs looked awkward as hell. And every bit as painful as it actually was. You’d think the sound of another man’s voice would have been enough to put the deflate on my chubby little buddy, but Cassidy’s performance had been quite impressive. So impressive, I found it nearly impossible to erase from my mind the pleading look in her eyes as she’d begged for my cock in her mouth.
“Goddammit,” I groaned as the visual sent a renewed sense of urgency to my cock. Maybe the only way to make him simmer down would be to punch him in the head until he was unconscious.
Casey passed by at the bottom of the staircase as he headed toward the kitchen and glanced up at me. I straightened to my full height, the issue in my pants automatically disappearing when the testosterone-driven need to appear more threatening took the driver’s seat. My opponent pretty much matched me in height, so standing on the stairs would be my only chance to look down on him, which had alpha dog written all over it. Baring my canines might have been overkill, so I put that back into my bag of tricks.
I smirked, the sort of smirk that said, “I just had my cock in your girl’s mouth.” No, Cassidy hadn’t admitted he was her boyfriend, but she didn’t have to. Anyone could tell those two had a thing. Whether that was in the past or still a present issue I’d yet to figure out, but what I did know was that I was hell-bent on making sure it wouldn’t be a future one.
Busting a right when I reached the first floor, I shouldered my metaphorical club for the time being and followed the sound of Cassidy’s voice. Beyond the all-wood foyer and old-world check-in desk, I traversed the length of the hall to find her sitting on an olive green couch in a den that had been closed off to the rest of the house. If I had to guess, and I did, I’d say this was a space dedicated to the Whalen family’s personal use. Though thanks to the sliding wooden door that she’d left cracked, I could hear the entire conversation she was having with her friends.
Well, our friends. I might have been closer to Landon and Chaz, but we were all tangled, what with Landon and Sasha being an item, finally, and Chaz and Demi having that sort of thing going on where they both liked each other but neither of them were doing anything about it.
It was a revealing conversation, with two very valuable nuggets of information being exposed. First, the jig was up on the affair we’d been having. Our friends now knew we’d been fucking. And, for whatever reason, I wasn’t mad about it. There was no question in my mind that we were going to keep doing what we were doing, so it was inevitable that those closest to us would find out about it sooner rather than later. I was okay with that. And I had no idea why that didn’t cause me to panic.
I also didn’t panic when Demi and Sasha ratted me out.
Cassidy slammed her laptop closed, abruptly disconnecting the Skype call with the rat finks and Quinn without so much as a goodbye. It was just as good a time as any to broach the second nugget.
Pushing the cracked door open, I stepped inside and closed it back behind me. “Your mom hurt herself? That’s why you left San Diego?”
Cassidy stood, busying herself with connecting her laptop to charge. “I told you that before. You thought I was lying?”
She was calm. A little too calm. I’d figured there’d be a lot of yelling and mud slinging between us when this conversation finally happened, but I didn’t feel like doing any of that. Maybe it was because the energy it would take to do it was percolating in my pants with all the unresolved sexual tension still arcing between us. Unresolved for me, at least. Jesus, she really needed to stop bending over furniture right in front of me.
“I thought you were running away from me.” She should run away from me. And maybe wear a chastity belt or something.
She stopped and turned toward me. “You said that before, too, and I told you I wasn’t. You, however, never answered any of my questions. Why are you here, Shaw?”
The caveman imagery popped into my head again, the weight of that proverbial club on my shoulder begging me to knock
her unconscious so I could steal her away. I’d gone in search of her to put an end to the raging boner in my pants, which was what had led me to the spot I now occupied. But I don’t think that was what she meant.
“Denver told me he’d offered you the contract first, but you turned it down and told him to give it to me instead.”
Cassidy shrugged. “So?”
My jaw ticked as I recalled my annoyance, and I wanted to punish her all over again. Not verbally. Not physically. Sexually. “So you’d just found out about my past. It looked like —”
I saw the proverbial lightbulb illuminate behind her eyes. “Like I was giving it to you?”
I wanted to give it to her. “Right.”
She put her hand on my chest to stop my forward momentum, which I hadn’t even been aware of. But she didn’t push me away. No, she raised that self-righteous chin and placed her hands on those curvy hips, so that her sweater tightened at the shoulders and accentuated her breasts. Her voice was low, sensual. “You should’ve known better.”
She was right.
“I’m too competitive to give anything away unless it will benefit me and my end goal. I’d won that contract fair and square and earned the right to rub it in your face, and would have if my family hadn’t needed me back here.”
Oh, she’d rubbed something in my face, all right. Or rather, I’d rubbed my face in something. The problem was that I’d been left unsatisfied. The denim cage imprisoning my engorged cock was only barely containing it.
“Some things are more important than a partnership. Even a partnership I’d worked so hard for. But that still doesn’t explain why you’re here.” Cassidy’s sweet breath was inches from my face.
She wanted an explanation? Fine, I’d give it to her. “I went through a lot to make sure nobody ever found out where I’d come from because I didn’t want anyone to pity me. I never took a handout, never asked for help, never depended on anyone to take care of me because I was determined to make my own way. And I was proud that I’d been able to do so. When it looked like you were making me your charity case, it was like you were tearing down everything I’d worked so hard for with one blow. I was pissed.”
“So you flew three thousand miles to tell me off?” That smart mouth of hers had been the puppeteer to my cock since the first day I’d met her. The effect was magnified times infinity now that I’d had her, and even more so in that instant because I’d been left unsatisfied moments earlier. Christ, everything that made me a man ached to be inside her.
“Yeah, I guess I did.” Hearing myself saying it out loud like that really made me sound like an idiot.
“Wow.” She took my hand, toying with my fingers in a way that was sensual and maybe a little too intimate, but I liked it. “That’s dedication to the cause.”
“I’m nothing if not dedicated.” It was the truth, though I don’t think either one of us was buying the excuse in this situation.
We were both silent then. The entire journey here, I’d thought of how this confrontation of sorts was going to go, and this was not it. Yelling, name-calling, bulging forehead veins, accusations, lots of swearing, and maybe even flying objects had been the expectation. But here we were, close yet not close enough, voices even, heads cool, and tempers calm. I didn’t want to tear her limb from limb. I wanted those limbs wrapped around me while I moved inside her.
“So do it.” Her fingers were now playing with the hair at the nape of my neck, making me even more insane. And hard.
I closed my eyes. Just for a second to catch up with the conversation we were apparently still having. “Do what?”
Cassidy leaned closer, whispering in my ear, “Tell me off.”
Her breath on my neck, I could feel the tingly goosebumps rising to the surface to hijack my flesh. That tingling sensation traveled the nervous system superhighway to find a permanent residence inside my too-tight jeans, shacking up with my balls and cock as roommates. Goddammit, the woman was too close, too fuckable.
Once again, I hadn’t realized I’d been positioning myself, positioning her. Cassidy’s back was pressed to yet another wall. Or was it a bookcase? Maybe it was the corner of a wall and bookcase. Either way, my hands on each side of her would make damn sure she wouldn’t escape, not that she was trying to. When Cassidy’s grip tightened on the front of my shirt and her soft lips brushed my neck, it dawned on me that maybe the whole setup hadn’t been me at all; it had been her.
“I’d rather get you off,” I said, inhaling the soft scent of her hair. Jesus, the pulse of my cock was as thick as the anticipation in the air.
Her teeth tugged at my earlobe in time with the tug of her fingers on my hair. “You did that already. Twice.”
I grinned because yeah, she was obviously good to go again. “Third time’s a charm.”
I pushed my knee between hers, forcing her legs to part so my confined cock could make contact with the warmth of her center. Fuck me, but I could feel her all the way through my fucking jeans. By some cosmic chance, we’d somehow found ourselves back in the same position as earlier. Maybe this time the universe would see fit to allow a happy ending for me.
“We can’t. Not here.” Cassidy arched her back, rubbing herself on me. She didn’t mean a fucking word of what she’d said, and that was just fine by me.
“Why? Are you afraid your boyfriend will catch us?”
Her hands went to my ass, kneading me and pulling me closer. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Someone should probably tell him that.”
Before she could say anything more, I kissed her. I didn’t want to talk about Lobster Casey. I didn’t want to talk about Quinn, Sasha, Demi, Denver, or that fucking contract. I didn’t want to talk at all. It was my turn to get a little come action, but I saw no reason why I couldn’t get Cassidy off again while I was at it. Yeah, I was that fucking generous.
The forward roll of my hips lifted her up to ride my thighs while my mouth got busy at her neck. The metal of my zipper against my cock was like making out with a washboard, but it was a good sort of pain when it brought her that much pleasure. Cassidy held on, her fingers digging into my shoulders, her hips moving in time with mine as she used me for her own gratification.
Her heavy breathing was at my ear, a small moan like a plea she was trying desperately to keep quiet. I palmed her thighs, moving my hands higher to the cheeks of her ass to bring her closer. The new angle must have been much more preferable because Cassidy’s undulation became so wild that I had to brace one hand on the wall behind her to steady us both.
My mouth latched on to her neck and I sucked at her skin. Cassidy yanked away, denying me the mark I’d attempted, which only made me want it more. It was stupid. I knew it was, but I’d seen the way her little boyfriend looked at her. He still wanted her, but she was mine. And to prove it, I was going to make her come so hard she screamed, right under the very same roof where he was doing who the fuck cared what as long as he heard her.
“Shaw…” Her whisper was followed by a moan. “I’m going to —”
“I know,” I told her. “I want to hear you.”
She kissed me, her hips pressing forward and with even more purpose. I met her grind with an urgency of my own, needing her to get off so I could finally let the ache in my loins go. I didn’t give a damn about the chafing, I didn’t care who might walk in, I didn’t even mind the fact that we were both still wearing all of our clothes and this was going to be a very messy situation by the time we were done. I just wanted to fucking come already.
Cassidy’s moan started low, but she was still kissing me, and I’d meant it when I’d said I wanted to hear her. So I pulled back from the kiss, nearly jizzing all over myself when I saw the look on her face. Her eyes were closed, bottom lip caught between her teeth, brow smoothed as her head fell back and she continued to ride me. And then the grip that she had on my shoulders tightened to a painful sting when she pulled me to her, burying her face against my neck and ear as she came so hard I
could feel the wetness seep through her leggings and the thick material of my jeans.
The best sight in the entire world was that of a woman achieving orgasm because I’d fucking done that for her. And then Cassidy slowly opened those shamrock greens to look at me and made me rethink all of that. It wasn’t any woman. It was this woman.
Fuck.
“Your turn,” she said with a mischievous, albeit very satisfied, smile.
“Goddamn right, it is,” I told her.
Planting my feet, I pinned her to the corner between the wall and bookcase, and then tilted her body at an angle that was favorable for my stroke. A stroke that would hopefully be less mosh-and-slam and more bump-and-grind on my highly sensitive man parts.
Oh, my God, but she felt so good. I was all ready to shoot my load before she started kissing my neck, but then she did that little suckle thing and I thought for a second she might actually be trying to mark me, which made my fucking dick even harder because, yeah, someone was going to notice that. With any luck, that someone would be Lobster Casey, and he’d have to put two and two together, inevitably figuring out that me plus Cassidy equaled he’d never be fucking her again.
