Savage Love

by Bloom, Penelope

  We kissed like that for a little while longer, then he pulled the ice into his own mouth and leaned back, chewing it with a satisfied smirk on his face.

  “What was that?” I demanded. I started to stand, irritated that I hadn’t pulled away immediately from the kiss. Cassian gripped my hand, urging me back down to my knees.

  “Stay.”

  “I’m not going to be your punching bag.”

  “Maybe I was wrong. This morning, I mean.”

  “Continue…”

  “The things I said. I’m always so mad. At the world. At my dad. At you. Turns out, you’re the only one I can make bleed.”

  “Why can’t you see it doesn’t make sense? I’m the closest thing to what happened that you can still touch. That doesn’t make me guilty. Look at me, Cassian. Listen to me, for once. My mom was trapped in a burning room. She was seconds away from burning alive and I was seven years old. I’d breathed in so much smoke I could barely see.”

  His eyes fell. “And I would’ve done the same thing you did.”

  “What?”

  “I realize it now. You and me. My dad. We all made the same mistake. We risked our lives for fucking gestures. Pointless acts of heroism that don’t make a real difference. He died. She died. Both our lives got fucked up. And for what? So my dad could think he was a hero while he burned alive?”

  “No. You’re wrong. It’s not pointless. What really makes a person valuable? The things they say and think they’d do if it was life or death? Or is it the things they really do? Actions. Your dad died because he believed in something enough that no price was too high.”

  “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

  “It’s not. Words are cheap, Cassian. Of all people, you should know that. What really matters is what we do. What would you have thought of your dad if he didn’t try to save all of us?”

  “Me of all people? What the hell does that mean?” The ice in the tub clattered when Cassian shifted his position. I could hardly believe he seemed so coherent when his face was as swollen as it was.

  “It means you don’t scare me, because I know your words don’t tell the real story.”

  He draped his arm over the tub, leaning closer and locking his half-lidded eyes on me. “And what is the real story?”

  “That you probably did think you hated me at first. But it turned into something else. Something you didn’t want to admit you felt. So now you’re still trying to swallow your own lie. That you don’t care about me.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Try being honest for once. You tell me.”

  Cassian’s jaw worked silently while he watched me from the tub. Then he hooked his hands under my arms and lifted me into the freezing water.

  I gasped, planting my hands on his chest for balance. I had nowhere to go as my body adjusted to the shocking cold, and my legs wound up straddling him. “Asshole,” I breathed.

  “You want honesty?” He ran his thumb across my forehead, moving my hair away from my scar, where his eyes lingered. “I think this makes you more beautiful than all the girls at school. It means you know real pain. Real suffering. It means you are real. When I look around Parker, I just see a bunch of vapid idiots. People who think tragedy is their BFF not getting nominated for prom queen. Then there’s you.”

  “Beautiful?” I wanted to say something else. Something deeper and more meaningful. Especially something that would make me seem like I hadn’t picked the lowest hanging fruit in what he’d said and latched onto it just like one of the people he was talking about.

  He touched my face again, more tenderly than I thought he was capable of. “You asked for honesty. That’s honesty. Now how about you return the favor?”

  I sucked my lower lip between my teeth. “Could we have this conversation somewhere warmer?”

  He pulled me closer, then winced when my full weight went on his bruised body. “No. Seeing you cold and wet is bringing back fond memories.”

  I wanted to give him a dirty look for that, but I found myself smiling. “The truth is I don’t want to like you. I still don’t. But I feel connected to you. It’s like I know you’re always going to haunt me. Even if I found the perfect guy and settled down, you’d be the shadow in the corner of the room. The dark promise of some other future. Something more…”

  “Real,” he finished.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll never be the perfect guy. But I can be real. That much, I can promise. I also promise I’ll definitely haunt you if you ever try to be with someone else.”

  I swallowed. I was already shivering, and I didn’t know how Cassian wasn’t. The ice and water were seeping through my skin, making my bones feel cold. I tried to sit up, but the position was immediately suggestive, as my legs were spread over his hips and my shirt was clinging to my breasts, highlighting my hard nipples.

  “What?” I asked with a teasing edge to my voice. “Are you trying to say you want to be exclusive?”

  Cassian gripped me by the hips, pressing me down into himself.

  “Doesn’t cold water make it shrink?” I asked

  He used his hands to move me against himself, grinding into me. “Guess you’ll need to heat me up.”

  I gripped the slippery edge of the tub with one hand and planted the other on the wall. I wasn’t sure if it was the cold on my legs or the growing hardness between his legs—and mine—but my lungs didn’t seem to want to function. I closed my eyes, breathing harder as he urged me to move myself against him.

  “If you try to stop me from coming again, I’m never—”

  “Not this time,” he said. “I want you to come on me. I want to hear you moan my fucking name.”

  I shuddered. I hoped I wasn’t putting him in some kind of danger by pressing myself into him like this right after he got his ass kicked, but at least I was distracting him from the pain, right?

  Cassian gripped my breasts through my shirt and ran his thumb across my nipple as I drove my hips into him. I started to feel a growing heat spread from between my legs.

  “Come for me, Charli.”

  My eyebrows knitted together. I still didn’t want him to know how much I was liking it, even as ridiculous as that seemed—given that I was in a bathtub full of ice cubes and grinding on his cock at the moment. I tried to stifle a moan, but it slipped out anyway.

  He took a fistful of my shirt and tugged on it, urging me to move faster and harder. “Say my name.”

  I shook my head but didn’t stop working myself against him.

  “Say it.”

  “Cassian,” I whispered.

  “Again.”

  “Cassian.” His name came out of me like an exhalation at the same moment my body lit up. I tightened all over, scissoring my thighs around his waist and gripping his shoulders.

  When I stopped, I realized he was shivering. I reached behind us and unplugged the drain. “We should probably get you out of here.”

  He put his hand up to touch my chin, then thumbed my lip. “Your lips look a little blue.”

  I looked down at his bruised body. “So do your ribs. And face.”

  Cassian rolled his head to the side. “After the day I’ve had, I imagine my balls do, too.”

  We both laughed at that, which felt strange. Laughing with Cassian. Helping him out of the tub and drying him off. Letting him press a towel to me and peel off my wet shirt.

  It was all intimate

  Different.

  I couldn’t help feeling we’d turned a corner, and instead of looking into a whole new world with terrified eyes, it felt right.

  I felt like I was home for the first time since I’d moved back.

  It wasn’t the home I’d imagined by any stretch—but it was the kind of home I could get used to.

  * * *

  I popped a chicken nugget from the school cafeteria in my mouth and chewed. It was getting late enough in winter that we were starting to get some pleasant weather, and today was particularly nice. Zoe and Mar
ne sat with me in the courtyard beneath a tree.

  “What’s that face for?” Zoe pointed at me, smiling.

  I inspected one of the chicken nuggets from my tray. “It’s like they’re not bad, but they’re not good, either. Somehow, they taste depressing?”

  Marne nodded, as if I’d just stated a scientific fact. “It’s because they don’t use real chicken in any US school cafeterias. It’s all synthetic powders. Tree bark ground up and fertilizer shaped into various things.”

  Zoe rolled her eyes. “They’d never pass any kind of health regulations if that was true.”

  “Unless they owned the regulatory system, too.” Marne waited with raised eyebrows.

  Zoe and I both shared an amused look. I took another bite of my chicken nugget. “Well, my compliments go to the chefs then for what they’ve done with poop and tree bark. Given the circumstances, they did amazing.”

  I didn’t hear what either of them said, because I saw Cassian heading towards us. I hadn’t seen him at the house this morning—probably because I opted to walk to school extra early and do a little training before class started. I still wasn’t sure where we stood, exactly. Yesterday had been eventful, to make the understatement of the century. But knowing Cassian, I couldn’t take anything for granted. I was halfway expecting him to walk up to me and say something that was going to bring me to tears, so I mentally braced for it.

  He stopped beside me, looking down. “Come sit with us.”

  I swallowed. “I’m eating with my friends right now. I’m not going to just ditch them.”

  Cassian gave Zoe and Marne a passing look, as if they were bugs that had just splattered on his windshield. “Then bring your friends.”

  None of us seemed to know what to say, but Marne was the first to speak. “Sounds good. I’ve been curious what goes on at your super-secret table for some time now. Let’s go.”

  Zoe and I grabbed our things and stood.

  Cassian surprised me by planting a kiss on my mouth as soon as I stood and grabbing my ass. I felt my cheeks blazing red hot with embarrassment, because there were at least a hundred kids in the courtyard and more still who could probably see us through the windows of the cafeteria. I also knew none of the Greeks could so much as walk through a hall without drawing almost every pair of eyes.

  In other words, Cassian had just made it abundantly clear that I was his, whether I liked it or not.

  I let him lead me into the cafeteria, grateful he had his arm around me because my legs felt suddenly weak.

  Gage, Logan, Tristan, and Kennedy were all sitting at a table that was only made to be big enough for four people.

  Cassian stopped beside the table behind it and glared at two freshmen girls, who apparently figured out they were supposed to get up and go just from the look on his face. He gestured for us to all sit.

  I was painfully aware of how awkward it all felt as we scooted in to sit—Marne and Zoe with their back to the others and me and Cassian facing them.

  Gage and Logan turned around in their seats to face us, hanging their arms over Marne and Zoe’s backrest.

  Logan flicked his fingers up. “So we finally get a formal introduction to the girl who has had Cassian’s balls in a vice grip? I have to say, bravo. I’ve never seen him so pussy whipped.”

  Kennedy threw a balled-up napkin at the back of his head, then smiled at me. “You’ll get used to them all. Even Cassian can be nice when he puts his mind to it.”

  Up close, I was startled by how attractive they all were. Logan had a wild sort of careless beauty, with dark hair that bunched into soft curls around his tanned face. He had light brown eyes with strikingly thick eyelashes that I imagined more than a few girls had let themselves be seduced by.

  Gage looked like he had come straight out of the starring role of some 60s movie, with that clean shave and dirty blond hair he wore in a neat style. But just behind his classic good looks, there seemed to be the same hint of darkness I saw in all the Greeks. It was like walking through a beautiful park and seeing a cave hidden in the distance—one where the mouth gaped open in a black promise of something deeper and more disturbing.

  Tristan scrunched his forehead and looked between all of us. “Why are we acting like she won’t be the next girl Cassian dumps in a day?”

  “Fuck off, Blackwood.” Cassian put his arm around me and pulled me closer.

  I didn’t know what to say—or if I was supposed to say anything. I just felt strange. It was a little like being a morsel of meat tossed into a den of wolves. Cassian’s arm around me was his version of baring his teeth and growling at the others, letting them know I was already spoken for.

  Marne pursed her lips, clearly oblivious to the fact that she was supposed to feel out of place. “Charli doesn’t fit Cassian’s usual pattern. That’s why we can assume he’s more serious about her.”

  Gage squinted. “You say that like you’ve studied him.”

  “I study everyone. People are unpredictable, at least until you figure them out. That’s why I like to figure everyone out.”

  Logan tapped her shoulder. “What have you figured out about Gage? That he has a three-inch penis?”

  Marne shook her head. “On the contrary. Girls who claim to have hooked up with Gage seem to be highly interested in pursuing him afterwards. Unless he’s extremely talented in other ways, I’d say that’s unlikely to be true. His member is probably quite—”

  I reached across the table and pressed my hand over Marne’s mouth. “Sorry. Sometimes it’s best not to ask her questions.”

  Gage pulled my hand away. “Let her finish.”

  “Massive,” Marne said with a grin.

  Gage gave Logan a punch on the shoulder. “How about that, fucker? And what have you learned about Logan?”

  “He seems to have a particular interest in girls who have troubled pasts. Particularly, girls who need some kind of protection. Abby Gyles, for example, made no secret of the fact that her older brother was abusive toward her. Or Harriet from last semester, who—”

  “That’s enough,” Logan said, all the humor gone from his voice.

  Tristan laughed. “Bummed that she didn’t determine you have a huge cock?”

  Logan snatched up his food and left the table. Gage watched after him, then nodded his head. “He’s definitely moping because she didn’t mention his cock.”

  “It’s probably very large, too,” Marne said. “Generally speaking, the larger the man, the larger the penis. A penis that would be massive on a five foot tall guy might only be biologically average for someone as tall as Logan.”

  I put my palm over my forehead. “Marne. I’m officially banning you from saying the word penis for the rest of the lunch period.”

  Marne shrugged. “Cock is a fair substitute. For example, Tristan’s cock is probably—”

  This time Kennedy cleared her throat, cutting off Marne. “I’m going to lure a bunch of bears to your house at night if you finish that sentence.”

  Marne raised an eyebrow. “Threat taken.”

  Clint and two guys from the swim team walked up to our table. Clint folded his arms, looking toward Cassian.

  I tried to catch his eyes and shake my head, but he wasn’t paying attention to me.

  “Taking her hostage?” Clint asked.

  Cassian took his arm off me and stood, probably reminding Clint and his friends how ridiculously big he was. “You’ve got more balls than I gave you credit for to be standing here.”

  “What did you do to her?” Clint asked. “Huh?” He finally looked past Cassian toward me. “Is he hurting you?”

  “What? No, Clint. I—” I swallowed, conscious of not only everyone at the table watching me, but specifically of Zoe. I just didn’t think this was the ideal time or place to try to reiterate that there was nothing between us anymore. I didn’t want to throw it in his face in front of an audience. “Maybe we can talk about it later?”

  Cassian shot me a look over his shoulder. “You c
an say it in front of me.”

  I felt trapped sitting at the table with everyone looming over me, so I scooted out and stood. “No. I can say it to him in private at a better time. Later.”

  Cassian looked like he was ready to explode. I didn’t just think he wasn’t used to being challenged; I knew he wasn’t. “We’ll talk about it.”

  Clint jabbed his finger at Cassian’s chest. “If I find out you’ve been hurting her, I don’t care who you are. I’ll—”

  Cassian cut him off, grabbing a fistful of Clint’s shirt and lifting him a few inches off the ground with one bulging arm. “You’ll what?”

  Clint’s friends were shitty wingmen, because all they did was exchange worried looks and take a half step back.

  “Cassian stop it. Now.”

  He opened his fist, letting Clint fall back to his feet. “This isn’t done,” Clint said.

  “You just made sure of that, dumbass.” Cassian watched them go, then tried to get me to follow him.

  I shook off his arm. I lowered my voice, because I was pissed, but I still didn’t want to yell at him in front of his friends or mine. “If you want this to work, you need to learn to control yourself.”

  “He was asking for it.”

  “And sometimes you don’t have to give people what they ask for.”

  Cassian laughed dryly. “And sometimes you do.”

  “I’m serious, Cassian. I’m still working on forgiving you for what you did to Clint the first time. I’m not even sure I should. If you hurt him again…”

  “It sounds like you still have a thing for him.”

  “I don’t have to like somebody to hope you don’t murder them. Did that ever occur to you?”

  “No.”

  I sighed angrily, then decided I needed some space. I left him standing there, which regrettably left Zoe and Marne in the middle of the wolf pack at the same time. I could apologize later, but all I knew was I needed to get away from Cassian before I hit him in front of the whole school.