My eyes roll back into my head when he finds one breast and palms it, rolling my nipple to attention with his clever fingers. And only seconds after that, he's latched on, pulling the sensitive bud into the heat of his mouth. I come off the bed with a squeal, digging my fingernails into his back, clawing a trail from shoulder blade to the damp small of his back. He growls into my chest and uses just the edge of teeth on me.
"Kase," I whimper. "Kase, please..."
He continues his quest downward after teasing both my nipples thoroughly. The scrape of cold air on my skin is a keen sensation that rides the line between pain and pleasure. Every nerve ending I have is on fire, following the path of his lips down my stomach and between my thighs. I remember those days years ago when Kase would spend his afternoons in this position, making me cum over and over until I sobbed his name and begged him to push inside me. And he'd only oblige me after giving me a few additional orgasms. The man has endless patience and an inhumanly dexterous tongue.
My head arches back in an almost painful motion when his tongue strokes me, pulling my body into a taut line that ends with his mouth on my clit. He makes another soft growling sound against me, as if he likes what he's tasting. My thighs clench involuntarily and he slings my legs over his shoulders in an almost lazy motion.
"Oh God, Kase..."
He pulls me toward the precipice mercilessly, with none of the teasing he normally resorts to. Kase can drag the pleasurable torment out for hours without ever using his cock. But now he's got single-minded focus, dragging me into a violent, earth-shaking orgasm. If it didn't feel so damn good, I might tug his face up enough to ask him what the hell is going on.
He doesn't have long to wait. Lights explode behind my eyes only a few moments later, and my hips buck. He holds me fast as I try to fly upward off the bed, tongue never ceasing its pleasant assault on my body. He only eases off enough to slip two fingers into my core before he proceeds with more vigor than before.
Kase brings me to a chest-heaving, bone-melting climax twice more before whatever has been bothering him seems to abate. My vision swims alarmingly for a few seconds when he draws away from me, licking his lips. Good God, is he actually planning to fuck me unconscious?
It appears so, because he nudges my legs apart and settles between them.
"Kase, I..."
"Brooklyn," his voice is a ragged plea. For what, I'm not sure.
I ease my fingers between us and wrap my hand around his cock. It's been years since I've touched it, but its contours feel familiar to me.
I guide him to my entrance, a small moan escaping me when the head of him eases into me. His eyes shutter closed and he loses the battle against himself. He drags my hips flush with his and pushes all the way inside me.
There's a perfect, blissful moment before either of us move. With our bodies interlocked like this, it feels as though no time at all has passed. I'm once again a fifteen year old girl, besotted and nervous, having sex for the first time in a fumbling, eager rush. This is far from my first, but it might as well be, for how my body reacts. I've not had sex in years. An orgasm in even longer than that. But with Kase inside me, the layer of ice that protects my heart cracks and leaves me wide open and vulnerable.
When we finish some time later, it isn't just the pleasure that brings tears to my eyes. There's a fair amount of pain in there as well. Because with this union, I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I am never getting over Kase Cruz. All the men in the interim haven't made an impression on me, but one night in his bed and I'm back to hopelessly yearning for him. And the worst part? I know I can't have this.
One way or another, things are going to end. We'll either die together, crouched on the floor of this shabby little cabin, or we'll come out the other side and be forced back into our respective roles. Either way, I'm never going to have him. Never going to have this ever again.
I push him off of me and roll off the bed, stooping to retrieve the frilly white thing that Kase's aunt left here. I pull it on and sprint for the front door, my bare feet slapping against the unfinished wood as I go.
"Brooklyn-" Kase calls after me thickly. I ignore him. I have to get as far from him as I can. I have to erect whatever barriers I can. When this ends, I won't be destroyed again.
I'm grateful to find the rain has stopped when I hurl myself outside. The damp and a thick press of fog are inevitable, but I'm not soaked to the skin. Sometimes in northern Oregon, that’s all one can ask for.
I disappear into the gloom, ignoring his calls for me to return.
* * *
I love him.
You shouldn't,I argue stubbornly with myself, glaring out at the semi-circle of blue-gray water that I can spy through the fog.He doesn't love you. If he did, he'd understand. He wouldn't happily end your father.
The justification sounds pathetically weak, even to me. He has reasons to want daddy dead. I was only feet away when his father collapsed, bleeding out on the warehouse floor. No one knew if it was my father's bullet that had done the deed, but it might as well have been. Every man with him had come with the intention to kill Spades. To kill Kase.
But he's still my father. No matter how horrible he may be, he's the man who raised me. He's the man who tucked me in at night, who taught me how to read, how to throw a punch, who watched over me and protected me from the harsher aspects of the world until I was ready to face them. The world sees him as a monster–and he very well may be–but I can never look at him and see anything other than one of the two men in the world who mean the most to me.
I tug my knees closer to my chest, allowing the billowing white dress to cover my bare toes. Even without the rain pummeling this place, it's still below freezing by the lake. My breath plumes in the air before me, and I blow away the condensing cloud like cigar smoke. It's probably not wise to linger by the edge of a lake when I've only recently escaped death by hypothermia. But going to pieces in front of Kase was not an option.
I've already shed whatever tears I'm going to on the subject. The heat of my face and the stinging in my eyes have faded when Kase finally seeks me out. He finds me about six yards from the cabin, sitting at the end of the dock, staring at the ripping water below with morose fascination. A warm weight settles over my shoulders and the familiar smell of clove and leather entices my nose. I pull the jacket he's settled over my shoulders on more firmly though I don't look up at him.
He doesn't say anything, just nudges me gently aside so there's room for both of us at the end of the dock. He's barefoot, bare chested, and has to be freezing. But he dangles his feet over the water and idly dips a toe in.
"About as hospitable as I remember," he says with a small smile. "Uncle Rocco tossed us into the shallows to make us learn how to swim. It was fucking freezing then, too."
I finally turn my head to give him a look, wondering if he’s kidding. No. He’s completely serious. "That's awful!"
