Chapter 4

Maya lasted until 12:48 a.m.

She had spent the entire evening trying to outrun the memory of Cass’s fingers inside her against her own front door. After he left—after he had worked her with two thick fingers until she came so hard her knees gave out, then walked away without even taking his cock out—she had stood under a scalding shower until her skin turned pink. She had touched herself twice more. She had drunk two glasses of wine she didn’t taste. She had opened her laptop and stared at the same email for forty minutes without reading a single word.

Nothing helped.

Every time she closed her eyes she felt the phantom stretch of him. The way he had looked at her while she came—calm, almost clinical, like he was collecting evidence. The soft click of her door closing behind him had been louder than any slam.

By midnight the loft felt like a cage.

By 12:30 she was pacing.

By 12:48 she was barefoot in the hallway, wearing only an oversized black T-shirt that barely covered the tops of her thighs, hair still damp from the shower, heart slamming against her ribs so hard she could hear it.

She didn’t knock.

She raised her fist, hesitated for half a second, then let it fall against the wood of his door three times. Hard.

Silence.

Then footsteps.

The door opened.

Cass stood there in low-slung black sweatpants and nothing else. Bare chest. Bare feet. Hair slightly mussed like he’d been lying in bed staring at the ceiling the same way she had. His eyes dropped down her body in one slow, thorough sweep and something dark and satisfied settled over his face.

He didn’t speak.

He simply stepped back and left the door open.

Maya walked in.

The second the door clicked shut behind her, Cass moved.

He spun her, pinned her back against the wood with his entire body, and caught both of her wrists in one hand above her head. The other hand fisted in the hem of her T-shirt and yanked it up to her waist, exposing her completely.

No underwear.

Cass looked down between them, then back up to her face. His voice was low and rough and almost gentle.

“You came downstairs with nothing under this shirt.”

Maya’s breath was already shaking. “I—”

“Don’t.” He cut her off, pressing his hips forward so she could feel how hard he already was through the thin fabric of his sweatpants. “Don’t you dare open your mouth and tell me this is another mistake. You walked down a flight of stairs at one in the morning with your cunt bare, knowing exactly what would happen when I opened this door.”

Heat flooded her face. Her wrists flexed uselessly in his grip.

Cass leaned in until his mouth brushed the shell of her ear.

“Say it.”

“Say what?”

“Say you came looking for this.” His free hand slid between her legs without warning, two fingers dragging through the slick heat that had already gathered there. He made a low, dark sound when he felt how wet she was. “Say you came downstairs because you couldn’t stop thinking about how I left you last night. Dripping. Aching. Empty.”

Maya’s head dropped back against the door. A broken sound escaped her throat as he pushed those two fingers inside her in one slow, deliberate stroke.

“Cass—”

“Say it.”

She clenched around his fingers. Her hips tried to roll forward. He pinned them still with his body.

“I came looking for it,” she whispered.

The words tasted like surrender and gasoline at the same time.

Cass’s control snapped.

He pulled his fingers out, spun her around so her chest hit the door, and shoved the T-shirt the rest of the way up her body and over her head. The second it hit the floor he was on her—mouth open against the back of her neck, teeth scraping, one hand reaching around to cup her between the legs hard enough to make her gasp.

“You have no idea,” he growled against her skin, “how many times I thought about bending you over something and reminding you who this belongs to.”

He didn’t wait for an answer.

Cass yanked his sweatpants down just far enough to free his cock, kicked her feet apart, and thrust into her in one brutal stroke that punched the air from her lungs.

The sound Maya made was raw.

He didn’t give her time to adjust. He fucked her against the door like he was trying to drive her through it—deep, punishing, relentless. Every thrust forced a broken noise out of her throat. His hand stayed between her legs, two fingers framing the place where he stretched her open, feeling himself move inside her.

“This is what you came for,” he snarled against her ear. “Not soft. Not careful. You wanted me mean.”

“Yes—”

“Then take it.”

He pulled out almost all the way and slammed back in so hard the door rattled. Maya’s hands scrambled against the wood for something to hold onto. There was nothing. Only the overwhelming stretch of him, the wet slap of skin, the low, animal sounds he made every time he buried himself to the hilt.

Cass reached up, fisted a hand in her hair, and pulled her head back so her spine arched.

“Look at you,” he rasped. “Coming downstairs like a fucking offering. Bare under that shirt. Already soaked before I even touched you. You can lie to yourself all day, Maya, but your cunt doesn’t know how.”

She came with a broken cry, clenching around him so hard he cursed. He didn’t slow down. He fucked her through it, ruthless, until the overstimulation had her whimpering and trying to twist away. He simply pinned her harder and kept going.

When her legs started to shake he pulled out, spun her, and dropped them both to the floor.

The hardwood was cool against her bare back. Cass shoved her thighs wide, settled between them, and thrust back in to the root in one smooth, devastating motion. He braced himself over her on both hands and stared down at her face while he fucked her.

No tenderness.

Just possession.

“You’re going to feel me tomorrow,” he told her, voice low and wrecked. “Every time you sit down. Every time you cross your legs in that fancy little office. You’re going to remember how you showed up at my door at one in the morning and let me use you like this.”

Maya’s nails raked down his back. “Harder.”

He gave it to her.

The new angle let him grind against the spot that made her vision white out. She came again with a sob, thighs shaking around his hips. Cass’s rhythm turned erratic. He dropped down onto his forearms, buried his face in her neck, and fucked her through his own orgasm with short, brutal thrusts that forced every pulse of him as deep as he could get.

When it was over they stayed locked together on the floor, breathing hard. His cock twitched inside her with aftershocks. Maya could feel the warm slide of him starting to leak out around where they were still joined.

Cass lifted his head just enough to look at her.

His eyes were almost black.

“Still going to tell me this doesn’t mean anything?” he asked quietly.

Maya’s throat worked. She had no answer that wasn’t another lie.

He slowly pulled out. The loss made her flinch. Cass looked down between her spread legs, watched his cum drip out of her onto the hardwood, and dragged two fingers through the mess. Then he pushed it back inside her again—slow, deliberate, eyes locked on hers the entire time.

“Keep it,” he murmured. “I want you walking around tomorrow with me still inside you.”

Maya’s breath shuddered.

Cass stood, pulled his sweatpants up, and looked down at her still sprawled on his floor, thighs open, T-shirt nowhere in sight, his cum leaking out of her no matter how carefully he had tried to push it back in.

Something complicated and almost painful crossed his face for half a second.

Then it was gone.

He walked to the kitchen, filled a glass with water, and set it on the floor beside her head without a word. Then he disappeared down the short hallway toward what she assumed was his bedroom.

The door didn’t close all the way.

Maya lay on the hardwood for a long time, staring at the ceiling, feeling the ache and the mess and the terrible, addictive certainty that she was already in deeper than she had been two years ago.

Eventually she sat up, pulled the discarded T-shirt over her head, and left.

She didn’t look back.

But she felt his eyes on her the entire walk back up the stairs.