Chapter 6

Maya did not sleep in her own bed that night.

She told herself she would. She told herself she would walk straight past his door, lock herself inside the loft, and pretend the laundry room had never happened. She even made it as far as the stairwell before her body simply refused to climb.

At 11:09 p.m. she stood in front of Cass’s door again, still in the same trousers and blouse from the office, still feeling the slow, sticky evidence of him between her thighs every time she shifted her weight. She didn’t knock this time either. She just waited.

The door opened after eight seconds.

Cass looked at her for a long moment, eyes dark, expression unreadable. Then he stepped aside.

Maya walked in.

She didn’t speak. Neither did he. The silence between them was thick and familiar, the same silence that used to fill their old apartment after the worst fights—before one of them finally crossed the room and ended it with hands and mouths and the kind of sex that left bruises.

Cass locked the door.

Maya set her bag down by the wall and kicked off her heels. The movement made the residual ache between her legs flare, sharp and intimate. She felt his eyes on her the entire time.

“Shower,” he said quietly.

It wasn’t a question.

She walked past him toward the short hallway. She had never been deeper into his place than the living room floor, but her body somehow already knew the layout. The bathroom was the second door on the left—clean, minimal, smelling faintly of his soap. She stripped without looking in the mirror, stepped under the hot spray, and let the water beat against the faint bruises already forming on her hips.

She didn’t hear him come in.

She felt the shift in the air, the quiet click of the glass door, and then the solid heat of his body behind her. Cass’s hands settled on her waist, sliding up over her ribs until they cupped her breasts, thumbs brushing her nipples in slow, deliberate circles. He pressed a kiss to the wet curve of her shoulder, then higher, to the side of her neck, open-mouthed and lingering.

“You’re staying,” he murmured against her skin.

Maya’s head tipped back against his shoulder. “Just tonight.”

His soft, dark laugh vibrated through both of them. “Keep telling yourself that.”

He washed her slowly. Thoroughly. Hands moving over every inch of her like he was relearning the map. When his fingers slipped between her legs she was already slick again, and the sound he made was almost pained. He worked her with two fingers under the spray until her knees weakened, until she came with a quiet, broken gasp that echoed off the tile. Then he turned the water off, wrapped her in a towel, and led her to the bedroom without another word.

His bed was large, dark sheets, the faint scent of him rising from the pillow when she sank into it. Cass slid in behind her, pulled her back against his chest, and fitted one heavy thigh between hers. His arm settled over her waist, hand splayed possessively across her stomach.

For a long time they simply breathed.

Maya stared at the faint city glow through the window and tried to remember the last time she had fallen asleep with someone else’s heartbeat against her spine. Two years. Longer, if she was honest. Even toward the end, before she left, the nights had been more fighting than sleeping.

Cass’s mouth brushed the nape of her neck.

“Stop thinking,” he said softly.

“I can’t.”

“Then think about this.” His hand slid lower, cupping her between the legs, two fingers resting against the still-sensitive heat of her. Not moving. Just holding. Claiming. “You’re in my bed. You’re still full of me from earlier. And tomorrow you’re going to put on a skirt with nothing underneath because I told you to.”

Maya’s breath shuddered.

She fell asleep like that—his hand between her legs, his breath warm against her neck, the old pattern wrapping around her like a second skin she had never quite shed.

---

She woke to soft light and softer touches.

Cass’s mouth was moving down her spine in slow, open kisses. His hand stroked the inside of her thigh in lazy, almost tender sweeps. For three perfect minutes it was gentle. Almost sweet. The kind of morning sex they used to have on rare quiet Sundays before the world and their own sharp edges got in the way.

Maya arched into it with a sleepy sound, eyes still closed. Cass rolled her onto her back, settled between her thighs, and pushed into her in one long, slow stroke that made them both exhale shakily. He moved like he had all the time in the world—deep, rolling thrusts that stroked every sensitive place inside her. His forehead rested against hers. Their breath mixed. For those three minutes it almost felt like love.

Then something shifted.

Cass’s rhythm changed. The tenderness sharpened. His hand slid up to her throat, not squeezing, just resting there with enough pressure to tilt her head back. His next thrust was harder. Deeper. The one after that forced a broken sound out of her throat.

“There it is,” he murmured, eyes locked on hers. “That’s the sound I want.”

He fucked her harder. The soft morning light did nothing to gentle the way he took her—hips snapping, hand firm on her throat, the wet slap of skin filling the quiet bedroom. Maya’s nails dug into his shoulders. She came with a sharp cry that he swallowed with his mouth, and still he didn’t stop. He kept going until she was oversensitive and whimpering, until a second orgasm was dragged out of her almost against her will, until he finally buried himself deep and came with a low, guttural groan against her neck.

When it was over he stayed inside her, breathing hard, thumb stroking the side of her throat where his hand had been.

Maya stared at the ceiling, pulse still racing.

“This is how it used to be,” she whispered.

Cass lifted his head. His eyes were dark, almost sad for half a second before the expression vanished.

“I know.”

He pulled out slowly. The loss made her flinch. He looked down between her legs, watched the slow leak of him, and—again—pushed it back inside with two careful fingers. The gesture was becoming a ritual. A claim. A quiet refusal to let her leave clean.

“Stay,” he said.

Maya sat up, the sheet pooling around her waist. Marks were already blooming on her hips, her thighs, the side of her throat. She would have to wear high collars and long sleeves for days. She would have to explain nothing to anyone and still feel the secret of them every time fabric brushed skin.

“I have work,” she said.

Cass watched her gather her clothes from the night before in silence. When she was dressed he walked her to the door, still naked, still unmarked while she carried every evidence of him on her body. He caught her wrist before she could step into the hallway, pulled her back, and kissed her once—hard, deep, almost punishing.

“Skirt,” he reminded her against her mouth. “No underwear. I want to think about you sitting in meetings with me dripping out of you.”

Maya’s breath hitched.

She left without answering.

But at 8:14 a.m., standing in front of her closet, she pulled a black pencil skirt from the hanger and left every pair of underwear she owned neatly folded in the drawer.

---

The day was a slow, exquisite torture.

Every time Maya crossed her legs she felt the bare slide of her thighs and the lingering slickness he had left. Every time she shifted in her chair she felt the faint throb of bruises hidden under fabric. She took the elevator twice on purpose, hoping and dreading at the same time. He was never in it. The absence made her restless in a way that felt dangerously close to addiction.

At 1:22 p.m. her phone lit up.

**How wet are you right now?**

She stared at the message for a long time in the middle of a budget review. Then she typed with steady fingers.

**Enough.**

The reply was almost instant.

**Show me when you get home.**

Maya locked the phone and pressed her thighs together under the table until the ache sharpened into something almost like pain.

She lasted until 6:41 p.m.

When she stepped into the elevator on the ground floor to go up, Cass was already there—suit jacket open, sleeves rolled, eyes dark with the same hunger she felt coiling low in her belly. The doors closed. The elevator began to rise.

Neither of them spoke.

At twelve he followed her out. At her door he took the keys from her hand, unlocked it, and walked her inside with a hand on the back of her neck. The second the door shut he spun her, lifted her onto the kitchen counter, shoved the pencil skirt up around her waist, and groaned like he was in pain when he found her bare and already soaked.

“Good girl,” he rasped, and then he was inside her again—hard, deep, no preamble—fucking her on the counter with her heels still on and her blouse half-open and the city lights glittering through the window behind them.

Maya came twice before he let himself follow.

Afterward he carried her to her own bed, stripped them both properly, and pulled her back against his chest the same way he had the night before. His hand settled between her legs again, possessive and quiet.

“You’re sleeping here tonight,” he said into her hair.

It wasn’t a question.

Maya closed her eyes and felt the old pattern settle over them like a sheet they had never quite managed to burn.

“Just tonight,” she whispered.

Cass’s arm tightened around her.

“We’ll see.”

She fell asleep to the sound of his heartbeat and the terrible, addictive certainty that tomorrow she would say the same lie all over again.

And that neither of them would believe it.