Jesus. I’m already hard again and I haven’t even pictured her naked yet. I grit out a tight groan, and then I roll over to check the clock at my bedside table. Three in the morning. But it’s useless. I’m not going to get any more sleep until I relieve at least some of the pressure building inside me.
I shove the covers off. My cock is already hardening, getting stiffer with each breath I take, each memory that swims to the surface.
Cassidy in this very bedroom, naked and spread eagled. The taste of her navel when I dipped my tongue into it, running my hands along her soft, luscious curves. Digging my fingertips in just tightly enough to feel her wriggle beneath me, those glorious hips of hers rising off the bed to meet me, so soft it made me want to bite her.
The feeling of my teeth nipping at the ridge of her hipbone, when I gave into that urge and did bite her.
I wrap a fist around the hard length of my shaft, my eyes shut tight, so that I can remain more fully in that memory. Fantasy. Whatever you want to call it. I picture the way Cassidy’s chest heaves when she catches her breath. The way her nipple hardens when I roll my tongue across it, then suck it between my lips, teasing at her breast, toying with her.
I remember the deep, animal instinct that rose up in her when I kissed her, hard, her body pinned beneath mine on this bed. She kissed back every bit as hard as I gave her. And she rose up off the bed to meet me, hands fisted in my hair, when I pressed her down against the satin.
And, God, the sensation when she spread those soft, smooth thighs to let me slide between them…
If I concentrate, I can taste the soft folds of her pussy as she moaned and twisted against my sheets. I can feel the wet smoothness of her on my fingertips, when I slid them inside her, one at a time, until I had three knuckle deep in her tight, hot pussy. I curled them, stroked along her walls to draw those sounds I love out of her. The throaty, breathy sounds she makes when she’s utterly lost to the world.
And the feeling when I finally positioned my cock at her entrance, pushed into her an inch at a time, savoring the way she folded around me, her pussy tight and clenching with want, but so wet I glided in easily anyway. Being inside her had felt like coming back to a home I hadn’t even known existed.
Like finding peace again, after going through the hellish war my life has become these days.
I grit my teeth, move my fist harder, tighten my fingers in a cheap imitation of her pussy clenching around my cock. It’s not the same, of course. Nowhere near it. But for a brief instant, spread out on my bed, slicked with sweat despite the cool air and my naked body… It’s enough to drive the rest of it out of my head. The stress and the worry. The uncertainty of what comes next, where we go from here. How the fuck I’m going to fix this.
Because I have to. I have to fix this somehow, have to get her back. Win back her trust, if it’s the last thing I do. Even if she wants nothing to do with me again romantically—and she might not, I warn myself, you fucking idiot, you might have ruined it for good—I need to show her the truth. She deserves that much, at the very least.
She deserved it from the start, but I was too broken and blind to notice it. I was so focused on what I wanted, I didn’t stop to consider what she needed from me.
The orgasm, when it hits me, isn’t nearly as satisfying as I’d hoped. A groan, a tightening behind my solar plexus, and a soft, wet fall across my fist. I reach for tissues on my bedside table, clean myself up. Then I give up and pad all the way to the shower. If I thought this would help me sleep, I was wrong. I’m more awake than ever now.
More focused on exactly what I’ve lost.
But standing under the pouring water of the shower—set on the coldest temperature I can possibly stand at this hour in the morning—I make my mind up. One way or another, I’m telling Cassidy the truth. There will be consequences, I know. But it’s nothing I haven’t already been through before. If telling her pushes me right back into the hell I only just managed to climb out of, well then…
I gaze around the bathroom, with its simple, minimalist design. A design Sheryl would have hated. The exact style she always seethed about. Even though I had this apartment designed with one goal in mind: starting over fresh, starting over as my own person—there are still vestiges of her in it. Touches I added only because I knew they’d piss her off.
That’s not healthy. That’s not a complete break, not truly.
But what I have with Cassidy? That can be. So I owe it to Cass to walk back into that furnace one more time and claim my freedom once and for all. Even if it means losing this apartment, my livelihood. Everything I’ve worked for. She’s worth the risk.
Where we go after that will be her decision. Our future, if we have one, is up to her. But this? This is the step that’s up to me. And for once, I’m going to rise to the occasion.
22
Cassidy
I take a deep breath. Then another. It doesn’t completely clear the lump in my throat or chase the tears from my eyes, but it definitely helps.
Beside me, perched on her plush chair set next to the couch where I’m currently folded over my knees, my therapist watches me with a half-smile. “It’s normal to feel like this, Cassidy. Even though you’ve made your decision and are on the path to change, it’s completely normal to still have emotions about what you’ve chosen. To mourn the direction you decided not to take.”
I nod, because my throat feels too tight to speak again. I just got through talking about Lark. The breakup, the way I can’t stop checking my phone for messages from him, even though I told him I didn’t want him to contact me, so he’s only respecting my wishes. Some twisted part of me still wishes he’d ignore my rules. Push through the boundaries I set to chase me anyway, even though it’s exactly what I need to not be encouraging right now.
Beside me, my therapist shifts in her seat. “I’d like to talk about something a little different today, if that’s all right with you?”
I take a deep breath and nod again. Different would be good. A distraction from Lark would be good.
“Last time you were here, we talked about recurring patterns in your life. For example, your difficulties in setting boundaries with Lark, and before him with Norman. Sometimes—not all the time, mind you—but sometimes these sorts of difficulties stem from childhood relationships. From the relationships you saw modeled between your parents growing up, or the way that your parents treated you. Does that sound like it might relate to you?”
My stomach sinks. Of course she’s hit directly on the only possible subject that could be worse to discuss than my tragedy of a love life. My parents.
More specifically, my mom.
“Um… Well, my dad wasn’t around. He left before I was born. I know his name, but…” I shrug. “I never wanted to meet him. I never really understood that urge. He abandoned me from the start, so why should I chase him?”
“I see.” My therapist makes a quick note, and I fight the urge to ask her what she’s writing. “And what about your mother?”
“Um… We don’t talk much anymore,” I admit, as I reach over to pluck another tissue from the box at my elbow and use it to daub at my eyes. At least my new waterproof mascara, which we’re launching widely next week, seems to be doing its job. There’s not a smudge out of place, despite my tearing up this whole session. I smile at the tissue for a moment, before I realize the therapist has asked another question.
“Why is that?”
“Well.” I clear my throat. Where to begin with Mom? “She can be… pushy. She has a really specific way she wants me to lead my life, and if I don’t live it that way…”
“What way is that, exactly?” The therapist nudges her glasses further up her nose.
I squint past her at the clock. Fifteen minutes left. I can get through this. I let out a sigh. This is what Becky meant, when she told me she was proud of me for doing the work. Confronting these emotions. Actually talking everything through.
It’s called work for a reason,
Becky told me this morning on the phone, when I called her on my drive over here, anxious about yet another session of getting my head poked around in.
“For one thing, she never had a job. Or at least, not one that lasted more than a month or two. She tended to live off of the guys she was dating. First my dad, and then when he split, there was a whole string of them… Most only lasted a couple years at a time, until Rick. They were actually married for five years. He was pretty well-off, so the divorce gave her a chunk of change to support herself for a bit until she met the next guy. She was always pushing me to date guys with money, telling me that working for yourself was a sucker’s game.”
“I see.” My therapist finally stops writing in her notebook to look at me. “So the relationship pattern you saw the most when you were growing up wasn’t perhaps the healthiest, would you say that’s accurate?”
I laugh. “That’s putting it lightly.” I chew on my lower lip for a moment. “I never wanted to be like her. As soon as I graduated, I started working on my business ideas, so I could support myself. It’s why, when I first met Norman, I didn’t want anything to do with him. I was convinced if I dated some rich guy, then… well, I’d wind up like Mom. She never seemed like she was dating these guys. It was more like she was… taking care of them. Doing everything for them, in exchange for access to their bank accounts. You know?”
“And you didn’t want that for yourself.”
“No.” I shake my head hard. “I wanted something real. But Norman…” I shrug. “He met Mom a couple times, and I think after that was when he got convinced that I was doing the same thing. Trying to use him. I tried to show him I wasn’t. I tried to show him how much I really cared, but we always wound up fighting about money anyway, about how my business wasn’t doing well, and without him I’d be out on the street, and shouldn’t I be more grateful and just give up that work and take care of him instead…” I squeeze my eyes shut.
“So, in trying to avoid the patterns you saw your mother falling into, you actually recreated them?” My therapist keeps her voice neutral, but I hear judgment in it anyway.
Or maybe that’s just me judging myself and projecting. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Does your mother ever act this way with you, or is it only with the men in her life?”
I press my lips together to stifle another laugh. “Oh, yeah. As soon as she realized Norman and I were together, suddenly she started calling me all the time, talking about how broke she was, how she couldn’t pay her rent, she was going to be evicted. I fell for that once or twice when I was fresh out of school, begged Norman to help me help her out. Until I visited and found out she wasn’t behind on rent at all; she’d just wanted extra cash to splurge on some designer shoes. And of course, when he found out, he blamed me for being soft and an easy target…”
“How long has it been since you last spoke to your mother?” My therapist peers at me over her glasses.
I shrug. “A couple of months.” My stomach tightens. “Actually, she tried to call me last week.” Right after my TV interview segment went life. It might be a coincidence, of course. Or it might mean she’s realized I’m finally starting to get successful in my own right, and she’s looking for an easy influx of cash again.
“And you avoided her call?”
“Is that bad?” I meet my therapist’s gaze, feeling guilty.
But she just smiles, reassuring. “It’s not about whether it’s good or bad, Cassidy. You have every right to set boundaries with other people, even—and perhaps especially—with relatives. If talking to your mother isn’t something you want to do right now, you don’t have to.”
“But…” My stomach knots even worse. “I mean, shouldn’t I? Isn’t that something you’re supposed to tell me to do as my therapist, to like face my fears and stand up for myself or something?”
She chuckles under her breath. “Is that what you want me to tell you to do, Cassidy? Is there something you’ve been wanting to say to your mother that you’ve held back?”
“Well… I mean.” I shift on the couch. “I guess I want to tell her about my company. I want her to be happy for me. I just don’t also want her to start begging me for money all the time again.”
“Could you tell her that upfront, so that you both have the same expectations going into a conversation?”
“What, ‘Oh hi, Mom, I’m not giving you any money, but I made some finally’?” I laugh. “You can’t just say that to your parent.”
“Why not?” The therapist arches an eyebrow.
I blink, thrown. “I mean…” To be honest, I’ve never thought about being that straightforward with my mother. Or with anyone, honestly. When I was a kid, anytime I was too honest about what I really thought with Mom, it tended to get me in trouble. If I didn’t like her current boyfriend, she’d tell me I had to suck it up and learn to like him because he was paying our bills. Hell, even if she asked for my opinion on a dress she was wearing, if I didn’t say it looked amazing, she’d accuse me of thinking she was fat and I was trying to make her feel insecure.
Talking to my mother has always been like navigating a field of landmines. So, after a while, I just stopped trying to cross the field.
“I guess I just figured she’d get too upset if I said that,” I reply, after a long pause.
“It’s understandable to want to avoid a situation that would upset both of you,” my therapist replies.
“So I shouldn’t call her back,” I say.
She laughs. “I can’t tell you the right answer, Cassidy, because there isn’t one. It’s a decision you’ll need to make for yourself, whether or not you want to open that door. But either way, you should know that you have every right to set boundaries with your mother. Boundaries that make you comfortable.” She glances over her shoulder, and then leans forward in her seat. “I’m afraid that’s all the time we have for today, but I think we made progress, don’t you?”
I smile and nod. But this session has left me feeling even more confused than ever. Could she be right? Do my relationships with guys stem from how I watched my mother behave as I was growing up?
If so, maybe I should call her. Just to try to untangle these messy feelings. After all, she only lives a couple hours away now. Opening the door a little bit isn’t going to be like before. She can’t barge in and take over my life again the way she has in the past.
My brow furrows as I trudge out of the office. My stomach is already in knots, but I’ve made my decision. By the time I reach the ground floor of the elevator, I’m at peace with it. I pull out my phone and scroll until I find my mother’s name on my missed calls.
She tried again last weekend, but she didn’t bother to leave a message. It seems she’s learned by now that I don’t usually listen to them. They’re always not-so-subtle requests for money, anyway.
I take a deep breath and square my shoulders. Then I hit dial.
Mom answers on the third ring. “Cass, honey! I’ve been trying to reach you for ages,” she coos, in a tone that tells me she’s already had at least one drink today.
I check the time on my phone just to be sure, but yep, it’s barely after 2pm on a Tuesday. I wince. “Hey, Mom. Sorry I haven’t called in a while. Things have been pretty busy here.”
“I’ll say!” she exclaims. “I was calling to tell you I saw that interview you did on TV. You were amazing, honey! I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I keep my tone level, cautious. Although I’ll admit, it does feel good to hear her say that.
“And let me guess,” Her voice turns a little teasing, “you haven’t even properly celebrated yet, have you?”
“Sure I have!” I retort. But then I think about it. Have I, really? I went to the spa with Becky the one day, and promptly made myself nervous again about five seconds later. Aside from that, I’ve spent all my time working. At least, all my time that I’ve not spent in therapy or trying my best to forget about Lark. “Kind of,” I add, and on the other end of the
line, my mother lets out a knowing sigh.
“Tell you what. Why don’t I come by? We can go out for a nice meal, maybe see a movie or something. My treat!”
My eyebrows shoot skyward. Whatever I’d expected to hear from my mom after that TV interview, it wasn’t this. Guilt settles heavily into my stomach. Maybe I’ve been unfair. Maybe I’m the one who’s been stuck in the past, remembering how my mother used to treat me when I was younger. Who knows, maybe she’s changing too. Turning over a new leaf, the same way that I’m trying to.
A smile drifts onto my face as I cross the parking lot toward my car, the phone tucked against my shoulder. “Yeah,” I say slowly. “I’d like that, Mom.”
“Great! Tonight work?”
I laugh. “You really want to drive all the way here tonight?” It’s at least two hours, if she manages to leave before rush hour, which I’m pretty sure at this rate, she’ll get stuck in.
“Of course! It’s been too long since we’ve had mother-daughter time. I’m on the way now, honey.”
“Okay. If you’re sure. Then let’s do it.” We talk for a few more minutes, making plans for where to meet in a few hours’ time. By the time I hang up, I have a genuine smile on my face. After a moment’s consideration, I shut my phone off. I’m feeling good right now, and I don’t want that bubble to burst if I get more work emails or something else flooding in.
Tonight, it’s all about me and Mom. And that’s all I need for right now. Something simple and good.
23
Lark
Her phone goes straight to voicemail. Again. I stare at it for a moment, wait all the way until the beep before I finally disconnect. What I have to tell Cassidy can’t be done over a goddamn answering machine.
I need to speak to her, face-to-face. I need to see her. I’ve waited to do this for long enough. Left her hanging in uncertainty for too long already.
Kiss Me Now Page 16
