Prologue
Past
Sweat drips down her damp skin as her lips part in a silent cry. With her long, sun-kissed hair fanned out, her skin flush with color, and her ice-blue eyes flared, she looks like a portrait of raw, youthful beauty.
His movements are deep, achingly thorough. His cock stretches her perfectly; his fingers tease her breasts in sinful strokes.
She fists the pillow under her head tighter, and when he grins down at her – that roguish curve of his mouth that she loves so much – she cups the side of his face with a hand and rises to kiss him.
He groans, and starts pumping his cock into her harder, which causes a burning pressure to rise in her.
His brows furrow a little. “Nia…” he whispers her name as his bright brown eyes run over her naked body.
She smiles and begins rocking her hips to match his thrusts. “Let go, Cass,” she says softly. “Come with me.” She bunches his short, unruly brown hair in a fist and presses her mouth to his.
He stiffens above her in an attempt to not raise his voice, then wraps his arms around her body before fucking her faster.
Her broken moans stifle against them with each pump of his hips, and when she comes – whentheycome – her back arches against the mattress, just as his shoulders shake, and his nails dig into her delicate skin.
“God, Nia.” He nuzzles against her neck. “That was so hot.”
She lets go of a breathless chuckle. “It always is, isn’t it?”
She’s never known a touch like his. Never known a kiss that wasn’t his. Never known a pleasure that wasn’t given to her by him. Cass is her world, just as she is his.
Inseparable – they’ve been unbreakable ever since they shook hands all those years ago as kids when he’d moved into the house next to hers. Sleepovers, movie nights, study sessions – they did it all together.
Alwaystogether.
Her first touch, first kiss, first sex – he’d been it all, just as she’d been his.
Like a mantel and flame, like a siren and sea, they went together; theyfittogether.
Rose and thrashed and thrived together.
Nia bites her lower lip as she runs her fingers over his smooth jaw. “We gotta complete that Economics assignment,” she says. It’s why she’d walked next door to his house in the first place. Well, at least that’s what she’d told herself an hour ago when she’d knocked on his door and his mom had answered it with a knowing smirk on her face.
Cass’s expression – that was relaxed and satiated just a moment ago – shifts to something dark. Something that makes her stomach tighten.
“What is it?” she asks reluctantly.
He swallows and averts his gaze from her, then abruptly gets to his feet before heading into the attached bathroom.
With her eyes on the wooden ceiling, and her heart in her throat, she focuses on the noises around her as she waits for him to come back out.
The sound of him flushing.
Of the faucet running.
A cabinet opening and closing.
Then…
His footsteps on the floor as he walks out.
Almost tentatively, she watches as he puts on his discarded jeans and t-shirt, then let go of a limp breath when he sits at the edge of the bed with his back to her.
“I’m…we’removing to New York next month,” he says. “Mom, Dad, and I.” A muscle ticks in his jaw as he tries to control the suffocating anxiousness he’s feeling right now.
