Chapter 7

It happened on a Thursday.

Maya would remember that later—the ordinary cruelty of it being a Thursday, the way the week had been building toward something neither of them wanted to name. Four nights in a row she had fallen asleep in his bed or he in hers. Four mornings of soft hands that turned vicious. Four days of walking through the world with secret bruises under her clothes and the slow, filthy knowledge that she was still carrying him inside her long after he left.

They had stopped pretending it was temporary.

They simply refused to talk about what it actually was.

That night she came back to the building later than usual, brain still buzzing from a client dinner that had run long. The elevator was empty. She rode it to twelve with her forehead resting against the cool steel wall, already aching in anticipation. When the doors opened she walked straight to his door instead of her own. She didn’t question it anymore. Her body had stopped asking permission days ago.

Cass opened before she could knock, like he’d been listening for her steps.

He looked at her for a long second—tired eyes, open collar, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw—then pulled her inside by the front of her blouse and kissed her like he’d been starving for it. The door slammed. Her bag hit the floor. His hands were already under her skirt, finding her bare and wet, and the sound he made against her mouth was almost relieved.

They didn’t make it to the bedroom.

Cass lifted her onto the back of the couch, shoved the skirt up, and thrust into her in one deep, perfect stroke that made them both groan. It was fast and raw and familiar by now—the way he gripped her thighs hard enough to add new marks, the way she locked her ankles behind his back and pulled him deeper, the wet sounds of him fucking into her filling the quiet loft. Maya’s head fell back. Her hands fisted in his shirt. Every thrust stroked the place inside her that made stars burst behind her eyes.

She was already close.

Cass leaned in, forehead against hers, breath hot and uneven.

“Missed this cunt all day,” he rasped. “Sat through three meetings thinking about how you walked around with nothing under that skirt. Thinking about how wet you’d be when I finally got back inside you.”

Maya’s answer was a broken moan.

He fucked her harder. The couch creaked. Her blouse came open under his hands. He mouthed at her throat, her collarbone, the upper curve of her breast, leaving the kind of marks she would have to cover again tomorrow. The pressure built fast and mean, coiling low in her belly until she was shaking with it.

And then the words slipped out.

Soft. Unplanned. Almost lost under the sound of skin on skin.

“I missed this.”

Cass froze.

Completely.

His hips locked deep inside her. His hands went still on her thighs. For one endless second the only sound in the loft was their ragged breathing and the distant city noise through the windows.

Maya’s eyes opened.

Cass was staring at her like she had reached into his chest and twisted something vital. The hunger was still there, but underneath it was something rawer. Something that looked a lot like the same fear she felt clawing up her own throat.

“Say it again,” he said, voice low and dangerous.

“Cass—”

“Say it again.”

She swallowed. Her cunt clenched around him involuntarily, and they both felt it.

“I missed this,” she whispered.

The sound that left him was almost pained.

Then he moved.

He pulled out, dragged her off the couch, and pushed her down onto the rug on her hands and knees. The second she was in position he thrust back in to the hilt, so hard and deep that her arms nearly gave out. One hand fisted in her hair, yanking her head back. The other gripped her hip hard enough to bruise bone.

“Again,” he snarled, and started fucking her like he was trying to carve the words into her body.

Maya sobbed the sentence into the rug. “I missed this—”

“Louder.”

“I missed this—”

“All of it,” he demanded, slamming into her so hard the impact forced the air from her lungs. “Not just the cock. Say what you actually mean.”

Tears stung her eyes. Shame and heat and something dangerously close to grief tangled together until she couldn’t tell them apart. The old pattern was right there—the same brutal honesty they used to reach only when they were already destroying each other.

“I missed you,” she choked out. “I missed you—Cass—please—”

He made a broken, animal sound and fucked her through it.

There was nothing soft left. Nothing careful. He took her like he was punishing them both for every day of the two years they had spent apart, for every night she had left him, for every time either of them had pretended this was only sex. Maya came with a raw cry that cracked in the middle, thighs shaking, arms collapsing until her cheek pressed against the rug. Cass followed almost immediately, burying himself as deep as he could get and flooding her in long, pulsing waves while his hand stayed locked in her hair.

When it was over he stayed folded over her back for a long time, breathing hard against her spine. His cock twitched inside her with aftershocks. Neither of them spoke.

Eventually he pulled out.

The loss felt more violent than usual.

Maya stayed on her knees on the rug, cheek against the floor, skirt still rucked up around her waist, feeling the warm slow slide of him leaking out of her. She heard him stand. Heard the quiet sound of him fixing his clothes. Heard his footsteps move away toward the kitchen.

She waited for the glass of water.

It didn’t come.

When she finally pushed herself up and looked, Cass was standing at the window with his back to her, hands braced on the sill, shoulders rigid. The city lights painted him in cold silver. He looked unreachable.

Maya’s stomach dropped.

She fixed her clothes with shaking hands. Smoothed her skirt. Buttoned her blouse over the fresh marks on her throat. Every movement felt loud in the silence he was pouring into the room.

“Cass.”

He didn’t turn.

“You should go,” he said quietly.

The words landed like a slap.

Maya stared at the line of his back. “What?”

“You should go.” His voice was flat. Controlled. The same voice he had used two years ago in the worst moments—before the screaming, before the door-slamming, before the sex that always followed like a wound they kept reopening. “It’s late.”

Something cold and sharp opened behind her ribs.

She wanted to cross the room and force him to look at her. She wanted to demand an explanation for the way he had just fucked the truth out of her and then gone ice-cold the second he heard it. She wanted to tell him he didn’t get to do this—didn’t get to make her say it and then punish her for the saying.

Instead she picked up her bag.

Her hands were steady. Her voice was not.

“You’re doing it again.”

Cass’s shoulders tensed, but he still didn’t turn.

“Go home, Maya.”

She stood there for another three seconds, tasting blood where she had bitten the inside of her cheek. Then she walked to the door, unlocked it, and stepped into the hallway without looking back.

The door shut behind her with a soft, final click.

Maya made it all the way to her own loft, all the way inside, all the way to the closed bathroom door before her legs gave out. She slid down onto the cold tile, skirt still damp between her thighs, throat aching with the words she had finally said and the silence he had given her in return.

She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes until colors burst behind them.

I missed this.

I missed you.

And he had looked at her like the truth was the one thing he couldn’t bear to keep.

Outside, the city kept glittering, indifferent.

Inside, the old pattern finished settling into place—only this time Maya was the one who had walked away first.

And she had no idea if either of them would survive it a second time.