Not for the trauma of the accident itself. Not for the vicious pain I’d been in afterward. Not for the realization that I’d never dance professionally again. Not for the way Rick had treated me, in the weeks after the accident. Not for the way he’d dumped me, so coldly, so callously, so indifferently. Not for what I’d discovered about him recently. Not for any of it.
I’d never cried about any of it.
I wasn’t a crier. I’d cried for a couple of hours after Dad died, and then I’d pulled it together to be the steady one in the family, the emotional rock my mom and sisters needed. I’d never truly grieved that, either.
Shit.
I’d never really dealt with any of it, had I?
But it all came out.
Naked, in the bed of a man I’d known a matter of…days? A week? A couple of weeks? I couldn’t remember. As a matter of fact, it was hard to think back to when I didn’t know him, which was even weirder.
I bawled.
Just…broke, totally.
He stayed curled around me, breathing evenly, deeply, slowly. Arms resting on my bare back, not scratching or patting or rubbing. Just there, as I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, until I was hoarse and snotty and drained of everything.
He reached somewhere, blindly, snagged a Kleenex—I heard the soft sound of the Kleenex leaving the box, and then he pressed it into my hand. Tucked it down between my hands and face. It was an odd, cute gesture and I almost laughed.
Almost.
I cleaned my nose, and kept the Kleenex clenched in my fist. He never said a word. Just held me through it all. Didn’t ask any questions. Didn’t tell me it would all be okay. He just…held me.
And that, out of everything that had happened since I showed up here last night, was the scariest thing of all. Because it was so deeply, particularly, exactly what I needed, and he just fucking knew.
I felt him slow. Release. Heard him snore.
Still holding me, still curled around me, his body between the whole world and me.
I turned, wriggled, twisted, and, accepted my place in this warm strange frightening little world—the little spoon. Accepted my place…
And hated both how right it felt, and how much I loved it and craved it, and hated how scared I was of feeling this way, hated that I was too afraid to do anything but be utterly paralyzed with fear.
When I woke again, I knew it was several hours later, judging by how stiff I was, and how disoriented, and by how much my soreness had receded.
I became aware, gradually, of Ink, still behind me, great chest at my back rising and falling with giant huffing breaths. Hot on my spine. Reassuringly steady.
He was hard, his cock standing ramrod stiff, and tucked between my buttocks.
I giggled, but under my breath. Ohhh my.
Flushed.
How easy would it be to just…slide him inside me?
Take him where I wanted him—deep. And how I wanted him—hard.
The urge to do exactly that was overpowering.
And that more than anything made me remember last night—how close he’d been to pouring all that hot wet cum inside me.
I’d wanted it.
But prudence had won—and he’d managed to control himself. I wasn’t sure anyone else could have, not with how close he’d been.
Finishing him the way I had—that’d been instinct. A need to give him the release he deserved, after all those mind-altering, drug-like, body-shattering orgasms.
He even tasted different. Better. More.
I would take him that away again in a heartbeat.
Considered it, right then.
But he stirred.
And I panicked. Couldn’t breathe for the sudden panic.
He’d want to talk. And if he talked, he’d get things out of me that I didn’t want to talk about.
I felt so conflicted at that moment. I wanted him desperately, hungrily, needily inside me, but I didn’t want to talk about the tears, the grief, the upset.
Thinking back on the past twelve hours I knew a few things for sure:
World? Rocked.
Pussy? Shattered.
Orgasms? Unforgettable.
Heart?
Ruined.
* * *
Fuck.
Fuck!
* * *
I wriggled out of his arms, carefully, silently. His breathing didn’t change. He didn’t move.
I stole down out of the loft. Found my clothes, strewn everywhere. Yanked my thong out of the tangled mess of my leggings, righted both, stuffed one leg and then the other into my underwear, tripped with them halfway on, because my leg was giving me hell.
“Fuck it,” I whispered, and kicked the stupid thong off, sat down bare ass on the floor and put my leggings on sitting down like a little girl. Shrugged the shirt on hastily, braless, and shoved my thong and bra into my purse. Which was a tiny little clutch only big enough for a credit card wallet and phone, so needless to say the undergarments didn’t really fit.
With one last glance up at the loft, my heart aching, I let myself out.
I wasn’t even sure why I was running, only that it was an instinctual, gut-deep urge. I knew it was wrong. I knew I would regret it. I knew I was hurting Ink.
But the panic and the confusion and the aching emptiness left in the wake of finally crying out all my residual shit, coupled with the need for Ink, the clinging clenching wringing gutting churning blossoming swelling heart-bursting EVERYTHINGNESS—all the hurricane-wild confusion of feelings I had for and because of and about Ink… was just too much.
So, like a foolish, self-sabotaging, tail-between-the-still-very-sore legs puppy, I ran away.
Ink
I’d known the moment she woke up the second time. The instant her breathing changed, I’d woken up. I kept my breathing even, and hadn’t moved. Hadn’t even opened my eyes. She’d frozen, lying stock-still, not even breathing.
My erection had been painful, more painful than any hard-on I’d ever had in my life, and it had been stuffed between her butt cheeks. For a moment, she’d feathered back against me, and I’d thought for a heady, dizzy moment that she would slide me inside her.
But she hadn’t.
She’d wriggled away.
My heart had dropped out of my chest, stupidly disappointed. I mean, if she hadn’t let me come inside her in the heat of a mutual orgasm, she wasn’t going to in the light of day, having just woken up, and completely lucid.
Clearly, she wasn’t on birth control, which was a little odd to me, but none of my business, clearly.
I had been meaning to ask about it when we woke up. I’d been intending to make coffee and eggs for us, and talk on my porch, wrapped up in blankets.
Maybe go out for condoms.
I hadn’t expected her to run.
When she was off the ladder, I’d silently angled over to peer down, one eye open, watching. She’d fallen over, and then just sat down, visibly struggling, frustrated. In pain—her leg was bothering her.
She got dressed, sort of.
Then she stood there, at my door, hand on the latch. Struggling.
Shoulders heaving.
Conflicted—the war of emotions written in every line, angle, and curve of her lithe, athletic body. Run, stay, run, stay.
She ran.
And it fucking hurt.
I mean, I got it, to a degree, why she chose to run. But it fucking cut me open like a razor blade slicing open the tender inner skin of my wrist.
God. I could see how conflicted she was. Shit, the way she’d cried last night had been gut-wrenching to hear. She’d cried for so long, and for so many things. Cried herself hoarse, and empty. Cried herself to sleep. The pain in her leg was part of it—but I wasn’t sure how it fit in.
Dance, and the absence of it?
Lack of purpose, perhaps. She’d been a dancer her whole life, it had been her singular goal. To dance.
Now it was gone. She’d said so, and had made it clear she had no clu
e what the fuck she was going to do with her life.
So there was that.
Then there was us—the Cassie and Ink combo.
Such a beautiful thing, her and me.
The way we’d been together last night had been utterly glorious. We’d understood each other perfectly, without needing to be told.
She had fit around me as if the earth mother and sky father had formed us to be one, always.
God, the feel of her, bare around me, gasping, panting, needing, it was burned into my memory.
I still had a hard-on of utterly agonizing magnitude.
Despite my emotional turmoil, I let myself think of Cassie. She’d given me permission to do this, so I gave myself permission. Thought of her, last night. On her knees in front of me, ass lifted as I buried into her. Writhing, mewling as I pierced her, penetrating deep.
In my imagination, though, she begged me for more. Begged me to let go. To fuck her harder.
But I couldn’t even imagine that, and it somehow morphed into her mouth around me, like she’d done last night after I’d wrenched myself away from her. Unexpected, and incredible. Sudden wet hot suction around me, and I’d just lost it.
Thinking about this I came all over myself, gasping, the hard-on taken care of, but the need and the emotional ravaging no better. Worse, really.
I used Kleenex on the worst of the mess, clambered down the ladder and took a long shower. Thinking, wondering.
Should I let her go? Give her time to think? Go after her?
If I went after her, my need to talk things through would take over. I’d drag her truths out of her, and if Cassie hated anything, it was to have the things she’d kept buried dragged out of her. I think she was equal parts relieved and almost resentful for the way she’d broken down in my arms.
She’d needed it, but now that it was out, there was no putting it back.
Just like with me, and my sexuality.
It was loose, now.
There was no putting it back into the cage.
If I saw Cassie, I was worried I’d go feral. Become a caveman. Drag her back to my cave and fuck her senseless.
It wasn’t like me, this wild ravenous, possessive need. It was…almost abstract, a thing other than me. I’d cultivated this persona of untouchable reserve. Complete calm. Wisdom. Composure. Artistic expression, and being in touch emotionality. This other part, cut loose by Cassandra Goode, was all animal. Primal sexual drive. Mad need. Possessive male dominance.
It scared me.
Absolutely terrified me, if I was being honest. What was I supposed to do with it? How did I express it? I couldn’t let it loose. I couldn’t give in to it. Cassie wasn’t mine. She clearly didn’t want to be, judging by the way she’d left. Secretly, sneaking out.
I’d seen the conflict, but she’d still left rather than face me, rather than face what we’d done last night.
What we’d created, together.
Namely: us.
That sense of us had been conceived last night—I’d pulled out before coming, true. But it was a thing no less real and physical for all that. Us.
And she’d run away from that.
And, for once, I wasn’t content to let that stand.
I wasn’t going to just let it slide. Accept it. Tolerate it.
I deserved more. Even if it was her telling me she didn’t want me, didn’t want us, couldn’t handle us, that I was too much for her, that what we’d done was a mistake never to be repeated, I deserved her giving me that face to face.
But, I’d give her three days to figure that out herself. Three days to decide what to do, on her own. To find me, to talk to me.
The first day was hell. I had a full schedule, so that mitigated things, a bit. But it wasn’t enough to keep me from dwelling on Cassie. So, for the next day, I called the first half a dozen names on my wait list and filled in gaps, so I was booked back-to-back for twelve hours straight, with a single thirty-minute break for lunch.
It wasn’t enough.
I did the same for day three, and it took every ounce of control I had to not tear Ketchikan apart looking for Cassie.
Finally, well after midnight on the third day, I flopped onto my bed and resolved to go look for her the next morning.
Cassie
“Cassandra Danielle Goode. Get your ass out of that bed this instant. This has gone on long enough, young lady.” Mom was pissed. “I don’t know what happened, but I’ve allowed you three full days to wallow in whatever misery you’re in. I get it. I’ve been there, sweetheart.” Softer, now. Gentle.
I just grumbled under my breath and turned away from her. Faced the wall. The bed dipped as Mom sat beside me, and her hand brushed through my hair.
“Talk to me, honey. What’s going on? It’s not like you to lay in bed for three days.”
I ignored her.
“Cass.” Firmer. “Stop this. Stop being petulant. Put on your big girl panties and deal with it.”
“I’m not going to fit into my big girl panties in another week, Mom,” I groaned.
She just laughed. “Is that what all this is about? You got on the scale and it was a few pounds up?”
“A few pounds? Mom.” I finally sat up and turned to face her. “Try ten. TEN! I weigh one-fifteen, Mom.”
She just cackled. “Oh, the horror! What will you do?”
I glared at her. “What the hell, Mom?”
She touched my cheek. “Even with the ten extra pounds, Cass, you still have lower body fat than ninety percent of the rest of the female population on the planet.”
I wriggled. “You’re missing the point.”
She stared at me, into me, seeing me. As only a momma can. “Cassie-lassie.” She gathered me in her arms, held her to me. “Talk to me, baby. Talk to Momma.”
This was like sitting on Ink’s floor to put on my pants. Crying in a ball, surrounded by him.
And now, Mom?
Was I a child all over again?
“I messed up, Mom.”
“How?”
“Ink.” I swallowed.
“You messed up with Ink?” She stilled. “You’re not—”
“NO!” A little too loudly, because that had almost happened. “No, Mom. I’m not pregnant.”
“Thank god for that,” she breathed.
I pulled away to eye her. “What does that mean?”
She shrugged, unapologetic. “It means you are in absolutely no shape, mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, or financially, to be having a baby.” A pause. “For that matter, neither am I, if you must know.”
I laughed. “Yeah, you know what—you’re right about that.”
“So, then, what?”
I shrugged. “It’s just…a lot, Mom.”
“I can’t decipher that, Cass. You’re going to have to elaborate.”
I groaned. “I need a shower.”
She moved aside so I could climb off the bed—still dressed in the red yoga pants and tank top.
Mom sat on my bed while I got in the shower, and then she sat on the toilet lid. “So.”
I sighed. I shampooed, washed, lathered in conditioner.
Finally, I spoke over the shower noise. “I don’t know, Mom. I don’t know. He’s a lot. He and I…we had…we have…it’s…” I groaned again, rinsing conditioner out of my hair. “It’s just a lot. And I don’t know what to do. And I ran away because he scares me shitless, but not because of the way he thinks. I ran, and now he’s going to be hurt and angry because he has serious abandonment and rejection issues, and I played right into them in the worst possible way. But I’m scared. Emotionally. Of him. Of…possibility. Of—of everything being around him means for me. Mostly, that he knows I’m not—that I haven’t…”
“That you’re a train wreck of unresolved issues?” Mom suggested.
I laughed. “Wow, Mom. Thanks.” I laughed again, wryly. “But…yeah, I guess that’s accurate.”
She was silent as I rinsed off one more time, and then
shut the water off. Mom handed me a towel from around the back of the shower curtain, and I toweled off and wrapped it around me. Tucked it in place, and stepped out, around Mom. Brushed my teeth. Brushed my hair.
Mom watched, thoughtful.
Heedless of Mom still being in the room, I dropped the towel to get dressed—the six of us, Mom, my sisters, and I were not concerned with family modesty around each other, and we frequently changed in front of each other as the situation required. So this wasn’t an unusual or weird thing, for us.
When I turned to fish underwear out of my drawer, though, she gasped. “Cassandra! You…you’re bruised like crazy.”
I blinked, turning to glance at her, baffled. “I…what?”
She made a face, one I, for one, couldn’t quite read. “On your fanny.”
I laughed. “Fanny? Mom, come on. Join the twenty-first century, geez.”
I turned in circles, trying to see my butt, but of course I couldn’t, so I went back into the bathroom and craned my head to see my buttocks in the mirror.
Fingerprints.
Where Ink had gripped me, held me in place.
Where he’d held on to me for dear life, while desperately, with every ounce of his strength, holding back. I’d felt that restraint, as if that fine line of control had been all that separated me from being run over by a runaway freight train.
Buttocks, hips—I glanced down, and found fingerprints on my hipbones, around front, where he’d gripped me there, too. All over my hips and ass.
I giggled. Blushed.
What to tell Mom, though?
I left the bathroom, chewing on answers. She just waved a hand at me. “I’m an adult, Cassandra, and so are you. But I don’t need to know anything. Not about that.”
I bit my lip, holding back laughter. Hysterical laughter—not hysterical in the OMG that comedian is hysterical sense, but in the literal, archaic, original sense of the word. Close to madness, inappropriate laughter, I can’t control what I’m feeling anymore kind of hysteria.
She looked at me, and was fighting laughter of her own. “Well, I only need to know one thing.”
For A Goode Time Call... Page 16
