Page 90 of Shattered Veil

“Shit.”

Her teeth at my neck, nipping in areas that she knew I loved, she asked, “My turn?”

“Bed,” I insisted.

She returned to my lips, nodding in response, and spoke against me:

“Lead the way.”

I obeyed, standing with her but ensuring that we stayed connected at the mouth. There was no stumbling. There was no rush. Though I felt like I needed her on a very real, physical level, there was no itch to race to the finish line. Desperation was present, certainly, but the remainder of my clothing was stripped before her with slow purpose. Her dainty bra that was hanging loose below her breasts was unclasped and fell to the floor, and after taking in her naked body as if I hadn’t just worshipped her on my knees, I closed the distance between us, and we fell to the mattress.

Chapter 17

She’s a fucking dream.

That’s all that I could think of while I drank my coffee at the kitchen table. That Cassie Cohen was a fucking dream. I reminisced of the night prior as the bitter tannins of black coffee pulled at the sides of my mouth.

We had moved in a fashion that blended the lines between sexual passion and aftercare. Stretched underneath me on her back, Cassie cradled the sides of my face, quietly demanding my attention while I pushed inside of her with utmost patience. Her legs had turned pliant, spread wide and gently bouncing with each flex of my hips, and I massaged the insides of her thighs with soft squeezes of my hands. Our foreheads touched. We whimpered in each other’s ears. She kissed me deeply, eventually wrapping all of her limbs around me in a full-body embrace, and we were simply connected motion. A beautiful rocking that evoked a high that enveloped us in the color of a sunset until she plead for us to roll, and then she was situated above me. I watched her come apart at the seams as she rode me, and she took me with her.

I could have stayed in that bed, stomach starved yet sated by her touch, until I wasted away. Nothing but skin and bone, I would still reach to her and smile as we begged each other for more.

We didn’t, of course. Instead, we rose. We dressed. I adoringly ordered her to, ‘Get out of my kitchen and sit,’ while I prepared our dinner, and she obliged—watching me with a slight grin from the dining table. She jokingly refused to sing my praises while we ate, yet she cleared her plate and helped herself to seconds. We had the chance to relax. My arm had casually draped over her shoulder while we watched television. I offered her a nightcap, and she accepted the glass of whiskey with joy. It was inevitable that we would eventually wander to bed, but we fought sleep as we lounged on the couch together, for sleeping meant a fast-forward to the next day. And among our blissful relaxation that I considered to be heaven rather than purgatory, Cassie had spoken to both Skylar and Colton.

They were slated to arrive at my apartment by ten o’clock in the morning—which meant that Luke, Claire, Liam, and Zoey would be joining us, as well—and with one peek over my shoulder at the oven’s clock, I noted that it was 9:30. I breathed in, let it out in a long exhale, and allowed myself to continually relive the night past rather than focusing on the present. My vision was unfocused as I stared ahead at nothing, and I felt my eyes go hooded and my lips stretch into a lopsided smirk as I blindly lifted my mug to my mouth.

“Hmm…you look lost in space.”

I glanced to the right to see Cassie having just stepped out of the bathroom. A dark grey towel wrapped around her chest and hanging down to her upper thighs, her hair sopping and slicked back, she was freshly showered and wearing a wry smile.

I finished giving her a thorough once over and returned, “Maybe I am.”

“But a good lost in space.” She walked toward me, halting when she was close enough for me to reach her. I brushed along the skin of her damp thighs with my right hand as I looked up to her, and she touched a single finger to the space between my eyebrows. She traced over the spots on my forehead that she had once told me contained worry wrinkles and ended where my hair was tucked behind my ear. “Is it pleasant up there?”

I smiled. “Mhm.”

Cassie hummed happily and looked down at my mug. “You made coffee?”

I nodded. Though I knew that Claire and Liam, the two more avid coffee aficionados, would bring their own fresh brew—they usually did whenever we met as a group at one another’s apartments for morning coffee—I had made my own. The pot was a simple drip, tucked away in a corner on the countertop in the kitchen, and I gestured to it with a tip of my head behind me.

“I did,” I told her.

Her brow furrowed at my cup. “You don’t normally drink it black.”

She was right. I didn’t. However, my headspace this morning had rendered me only able to pour and sit, and I truthfully didn’t mind the taste without my usual dash of milk and sugar.

I shrugged. “You remember how I like my coffee?”

Cassie chuckled back, “I’m observant.”

“Or ya like me and you took note.”

“Or I like you and I took note,” she said with a grin as she leaned down.

I twisted to face her fully, the drenched strands of her hair brushing my hand that had long abandoned my mug and now lay free on the tabletop. I grasped at a piece that left cold droplets in my palm and gave it a tug.

“I like you wet,” I murmured against her lips. “You’re pretty when you’re wet.”

I felt rather than saw her smile. “I like you dirty.”

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