I smiled wide enough that I knew my teeth had to be glowing like Ross’s in that “The One with Ross’s Teeth” episode of Friends. “Yeah, man. No problem. See you soon.”
This time, I turned to go so he wouldn’t have to. Cassie stood watching me while Phil tangled the leash around her legs. She shook her head and winked when I blew her a kiss.
“Where’s Will? I need more man meat,” Dean pouted as I returned to the group and wrapped an arm around Cass’s shoulder.
“He’s working,” Georgia said with a frown.
“Oh!” Cassie said as though she’d just remembered. “What about Winnie? Did anyone invite her?”
Georgia nodded. “I did. She couldn’t get a sitter.”
From what Cassie had told me, Winnie seemed like another ballbuster of a woman. I was really looking forward to meeting her.
Always late to the party, Wes walked up right then. “Who couldn’t get a sitter?”
“Winnie,” Cassie told him. “You’d really like her, actually. She works with Will.”
Wes waved it off. “Last thing I need is a woman with a kid.”
Kline and I cringed in sympathy.
“That’s fucking awful,” Cassie snapped.
“Oh no, he didn’t,” Dean whispered dramatically.
“Seriously. Forget that, then. She deserves better than you,” Cassie scoffed, and Wes just shook his head, looking to the men, but not a single one of us was willing to go down with his ship.
Sorry, dude.
I had a woman to think about now.
One I very much hoped would reward me for my loyalty tonight.
Her eyes said she would.
Wild for wild, prank for prank.
As soon as I found someone to watch my goddamn pig, I was going to take that woman for a ride.
We looked radioactive as we tumbled through the door to our apartment that night. Cassie was wrapped around me like a glove, and I didn’t have any desire to come up for air.
I didn’t care if the apartment looked like a goddamn pride parade under a black light.
Phil barely made it through the opening before I shoved it shut with the weight of Cassie’s perfect body.
“God,” she moaned as I ate my way down the line of her throat with my teeth.
“No, baby. Thatch.”
Her fingers shot out and pinched my nipple ring with a rough tug. Thankfully, the state of my dick was too important to her right now.
Redistribution of blood flow made the move even more painful. When she licked the seam of my lips, it transitioned straight to pleasure.
I hiked her higher on the door and put my face directly between her tits. Her hands worked to loosen the waistband of my jersey shorts, pulling them and my boxer briefs free of my fully erect dick in one motion. I shoved it against her as soon as it was free, trapping her hand between us.
“You wet for me, baby?”
“I could be wetter,” she challenged, and I growled. Phil snorted relentlessly at my feet until finally climbing into my shorts and underwear at my ankles. Cassie looked down and cackled.
“This gives a whole new meaning to having an animal in your pants.”
I laughed as she pushed my shirt up and over my head, leaving me completely naked, save the pig and pants around my ankles.
She shoved off the door with her palms to get us moving, and I stumbled, nearly going down in a tangle of epic proportions. Squeals pierced my ears from her and Phil.
I laughed and righted myself before shuffling down the hall with her ass in my hands. She giggled and threw her hands in the air as I licked at her neck.
When we finally made it to the bed, I dumped her down with a flourish and stood back with my hands on my hips. Her eyes gleamed as they locked on my dick.
“You’ve got on way more clothes than I do,” I told her. “Way too many clothes.”
She smirked, sat up, and grabbed the hem of her tank top, pulling it up and over her head. I watched as her tits held until the last second and then bounced down, bare and pebbled and perfect.
My dick jumped.
“I could have sworn you were wearing a bra tonight,” I told her, reaching out to tweak one nipple with a finger and a thumb. She pushed her chest closer to me and moaned through a smile.
“It’s built in to the tank top,” she explained as I closed a nipple in my mouth.
“What?” I mumbled.
She laughed. “My bra. It’s built in to the tank top.”
A drop of precome leaked from the tip of my cock as I pictured my dick between her tits.
“Thatch!”
“What?” I said with a laugh. “Bras are blasphemous. Don’t ever mention them in this house again.”
“You brought it up!”
Laughing, I pushed up off the bed, sadly away from her tits, and pulled a squealing Phil from between my legs. He took off running as soon as he hit the floor, but he was the last priority on my list right now.
Making quick work of the fabric around my ankles, I shoved it all down and off at the same time as my shoes and socks, and put my knees to the bed on each side of Cassie’s hips.
“I think you’re forgetting something.” She laughed, gesturing to her still-fastened pants with a jerk of her head. But I shook mine as I climbed to straddle her, skimming my way up her body until my dick lined up with her chest.
“Don’t worry, honey,” I told her. “I’ll get to those eventually.”
“Thatch—”
“Unbutton them, baby. Touch yourself while I fuck your tits for a minute.”
Her chest heaved, and my pupils dilated. Goddamn.
“Do whatever you want,” I instructed, the game coming to me in an instant. “Slow and steady or hard and fast, work that clit and pump that pussy however you want until you come.”
Her eyes flared, and she licked her lips.
“I’ll fuck your tits until you get there. It’s up to you how long I get.”
She reached out quickly and pumped my dick twice and hard.
I looked over my shoulder as she reached between my legs and undid her pants, shoved them and her panties to her thighs and pushed her finger into her pussy to gather moisture.
When she brought it back out and started working it, I looked back to her.
Her eyes gleamed as she grabbed my ass and pulled me to her tits. “Come on, baby. I’ll go slow.”
I licked a path between her tits and straight down to her pussy, where I lapped at the top to tickle her clit.
She shivered and shoved at my head, breathing heavy with exhaustion.
“I’m gonna make you touch yourself every fucking time.”
She laughed and swatted at me.
“Licking your finger clean after you came on it was the hottest thing I’ve ever fucking done.”
Her smile curved all the way to her sleepy eyes. “Okay,” she admitted. “That was pretty hot.”
Climbing back up her body, I pressed a soft kiss to her lips and then fell to my side beside her, settling into my palm with an elbow in my pillow.
Cassie patted affectionately at my cheek, so I grabbed her wrist, fell to my back, and pulled her over on top of me. Her eyes moved from mine like a river, curving down my jaw to my neck, and then pooling on the tattoo across my chest. “What’s this one for?”
“The tattoo?” I asked, and she nodded, settling her chin on my chest and bringing her gaze back to my eyes.
“Mi Vida Loca,” I recited. “It means ‘my crazy life.’ I got it when I was twenty-seven. When it first hit me that I’d done it. That I’d succeeded in all kinds of things, and I was in complete control of my destiny. I never expected any of this. The success, the drive. I’m pretty sure everyone thought I’d be doing something menial or nothing at all.”
“You were that wild?”
“Yes. But it was more a lack of focus.”
She laughed and looked down at my chest contemplatively, tracing each letter slowly. “Yeah, I can relate to that.”
She skimmed her fingers across my chest and over to the praying Mary on my arm. “What about this one?”
“That one is for Margo. Well, it’s about her, anyway. I got it a couple of years after she passed, from Frankie, right after he opened the shop. I think it was sort of cathartic for both of us to put ink to skin to embody all the things we hoped she’d found in heaven that she’d yet to find on earth.”
“Like what?” she whispered.
I ran a thumb under her eye and twisted her hair between two fingers. “Peace. Contentment. She was still so young and restless. Searching for everything and coming up with nothing.”
Her nod was unhurried, and her eyes studied mine. I was sure she was looking for some kind of sign that I was over it all, but to me, I never even had to think about it anymore.
I’d never be over the way it happened, but all I felt was Cassie. She didn’t leave any room for anything else.
She tapped the word “Trust” on my chest. “Why trust?”
“Because it’s the only thing I really need.”
“The only thing you need to what?”
“To live,” I answered simply. “I don’t need to know what’s going to happen, or how it’s going to happen, or even the why. I just want to know that whoever’s making it happen cares about me enough to give me that freedom.”
“Mmm,” she acknowledged.
She settled like she might fall asleep, so I tapped her on the nose, my heart in my throat. I wanted her to know something that I hadn’t bothered to tell anyone yet. “You missed one.”