Chapter 2

Three nights.

That was all it took for Maya’s carefully rebuilt walls to start cracking.

She lasted until 1:17 a.m. before the loft felt too small, too quiet, too full of the memory of his voice in the elevator. She pulled on a thin black tank top and soft shorts, bare feet silent on the stairs, and pushed open the heavy door to the rooftop.

The night air hit her like a slap—cool, sharp, smelling of rain that hadn’t fallen yet. The city stretched out below in glittering indifference. She walked to the far railing, wrapped her hands around the cool metal, and closed her eyes.

She didn’t hear him.

She felt him.

The shift in the air. The low heat of a body that had always known exactly how to find hers.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Cass’s voice came from the shadows near the wall, rough and low, like he’d been waiting.

Maya’s spine went rigid. She didn’t turn around.

“Go back downstairs.”

Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. He stopped right behind her, close enough that the heat of his chest brushed her shoulder blades through the thin fabric of her top.

“You came up here knowing I might be here,” he said. Not a question.

“I came up here to get away from you.”

A soft, humorless huff of breath against the back of her neck. “Liar.”

His hands settled on the railing on either side of hers, caging her in without touching. The move was so familiar it made her stomach drop. He used to do this when they fought—trap her with his body until she either shoved him away or climbed him.

Tonight she did neither.

Cass leaned in, mouth near her ear.

“You’ve been wet since the elevator, haven’t you?”

The words landed like a direct stroke between her legs. Maya’s fingers tightened on the metal until her knuckles ached.

“Fuck you.”

“That’s the plan.”

He finally touched her—one hand sliding under the hem of her tank top, palm flat and hot against the bare skin of her stomach. The contact was electric. Two years of nothing and suddenly his hand was on her like it had never left.

Maya’s breath stuttered.

Cass’s mouth brushed the side of her neck, not quite a kiss. “Tell me to stop.”

She didn’t.

His hand drifted lower, fingers slipping beneath the waistband of her shorts, then lower still, until he found the soaked heat of her. A low, broken sound left his throat when his fingers slid through her folds.

“Jesus Christ, Maya.” His voice was shredded. “You’re dripping.”

She should have shoved him off. She should have walked away. Instead her hips rolled forward into his hand like her body had been waiting for exactly this.

Cass growled against her neck and pushed two fingers inside her without warning—thick, deep, ruthless. Maya’s head dropped forward with a sharp gasp. He curled them, pressed hard against the spot that had always made her see stars, and started fucking her with his hand right there against the railing.

“Missed this cunt,” he rasped. “Missed how greedy it gets for me.”

She was already shaking. Already close. Two years of nothing and three days of tension and now his fingers were working her like he still owned the map of her body. He added a third finger, stretched her, and she moaned—loud, broken, unrestrained.

“That’s it,” he said against her ear. “Let the whole fucking building hear you.”

Maya’s orgasm slammed into her so hard her knees buckled. Cass held her up with an arm around her waist, fingers still buried deep, working her through it until she was whimpering and oversensitive.

The second she could breathe again he spun her around, shoved her shorts down her thighs, and lifted her onto the wide concrete ledge of the railing. Cool air hit her bare, soaked skin. He stepped between her spread legs, already yanking his own pants open.

His cock sprang free—thick, hard, the head already glistening. Exactly as she remembered. Exactly as she’d tried to forget.

Cass looked her dead in the eyes as he dragged the head of his cock through her folds, coating himself in her.

“Last chance,” he said, voice dark. “Tell me no.”

Maya’s answer was to hook her legs around his hips and pull him in.

He thrust home in one deep, brutal stroke.

The sound that tore out of her was raw. He filled her completely—stretched her, claimed her, forced every empty place to remember him. Cass’s forehead dropped against hers for one second, both of them breathing hard, and then he started fucking her like he was trying to climb inside her skin.

Hard. Deep. Angry.

The railing bit into the backs of her thighs. His hands gripped her ass hard enough to bruise. Every thrust punched a broken sound out of her throat. He didn’t kiss her. He just watched her face while he wrecked her, eyes black with something that looked a lot like hatred and a lot like hunger.

“Still so fucking tight,” he snarled. “Still takes me like you were made for it.”

Maya’s nails dug into his shoulders. “Harder.”

He gave it to her. The wet slap of skin on skin echoed across the empty rooftop. She came again with a cry she couldn’t swallow, clenching around him so hard he cursed. Cass’s rhythm turned punishing. He buried himself to the hilt, hips stuttering, and came with a guttural groan—hot, thick pulses flooding her deep.

No condom. No warning. Just him claiming the deepest part of her like he still had the right.

They stayed locked together, panting, his cock still twitching inside her. Cass’s forehead rested against hers. His hands were still gripping her like he might never let go.

Maya’s voice came out hoarse.

“This doesn’t mean anything.”

Cass slowly pulled out. She felt the warm slide of his cum leaking out of her and down her thigh. He looked down between them, watched it happen, then dragged two fingers through the mess and pushed it back inside her.

“Keep saying that,” he murmured, eyes locked on hers. “Maybe one of us will start believing it.”

He stepped back, tucked himself away, and left her sitting on the railing with her shorts around one ankle and his cum dripping out of her.

The rooftop door clicked shut behind him.

Maya stayed there a long time, staring at the city lights, feeling the ache between her legs and the hollow place in her chest that had just been ripped wide open again.

Three nights.

And she was already ruined.