Her eyes gazed at me, almost with alarm. “Why are you asking? You two don’t get along.”
“Precisely,” I answered.
I walked away from her without another word. She had something up her sleeve, I could feel it, and the fact that Vernon a source of contention brought the unmistakable realization that the common denominator was once again standing before me. How I’d allowed myself to get caught up in her was beyond me. Pussy was pussy, unless it was Cassie, and if I had known then what I knew now, I’d have passed Castillo’s up and never caused myself such headache.
The rest of the day I handled all of the errand running, making sure I could get out of the office and away from the bullshit that was surrounding me. I didn’t give a shit that it was well over one hundred degrees and that the errand running had me sweating like a fucking pig. It was a million times better than being cooped in that office, having to contain irritation while staring at paper after paper. When the work day finally ended and we secured for the weekend, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Nothing and no one was going to hold me back. Every asshole here at Twentynine would just have to wait until after the weekend when I was a married man with a clear head, ready to tackle all of their shit head on.
++++
When we pulled up at the house, Riley’s truck wasn’t in the driveway. Cassie and I would have the house all to ourselves which was a welcome sign for me. I wanted as much alone time with her as possible. I carried her into the house and back into our bedroom, laying her down and undressing her before I kissed up and down her beautiful, sun-kissed legs. She was smooth and enticing, and she pulled me up to meet her mouth as she overpowered me with her swirling tongue.
I felt my dick harden, then tingles coated my skin. I had been without her for so long that it was physically hurting, but I was afraid of taking her too far; afraid that it might trigger something for her and set her back, and I couldn’t bear to be the cause of that. I gently pulled back from her, then undressed my upper torso and laid down next to her.
“Why do you keep running from me?” she asked. The tone of her voice—the innocence mixed with her hurt in her eyes—sliced me in half.
“I’m not running, Blondie—”
“Yes, you are. We haven’t had sex since I was released, and it’s almost as if you’re afraid to touch me. As if I disgust you.”
My heart stopped. Her words, filled with such agony, were ripping me apart. I took her chin in my hands and turned her so that we met face to face.
“Let me tell you something. You are not fucking disgusting to me, and I don’t ever want to hear you say that again, you understand me?”
She didn’t respond. She held my gaze, staring at me as if she were waiting for me to crack and tell her what she had suspected.
“You are the best fucking thing that has ever happened to me, without a doubt. Nothing matters to me besides making you happy and keeping you happy. If that’s all I have left in this life, then that’s what I’m going to spend the rest of my time doing.”
A small tear ran down her face, prompting me to wipe it away with the pad of my thumb.
“We’ve been through a lot, Cassie, and as crazy as it is to think, we’ve only scratched the surface of what is to come, but I have to get through my own head, and I’m asking you to bear with me and help me get through it.”
She sniffled, then nodded her head before taking my face in her delicate little hands. “I just want to make sure you still love me the way you did before all of that shit happened. Because from where I’m sitting, I can’t understand how you can love me, but be physically unable to be with me.”
“Cassie, I love you more than I did before all of that shit happened.”
“Then how is it that you can’t be intimate with me? You can’t see yourself making love to me. Hell, you can’t even fuck me.”
The hurt was shining through her bright green eyes, stabbing me in the chest with every word she spoke. I was so caught up in my own head that I wasn’t seeing what all of this was doing to her. I hated that she felt as if the physical stuff was the glue that held us together because it wasn’t—it was more like the fucking icing on the cake. Somehow, I had to make her see that, to understand. And even more so, to be okay with it.
“You need to listen to me, Cassie. I stopped fucking you a while ago. Those days are over. When you took me, and loved me out on that beach, I loved you right back. I don’t ever want you to think of us as just fucking because that ship has sailed. I’m in love with you. In. Fucking. Love. With. You. And I’ll be damned if sex is the only thing that keeps us together. It’s a part of us, but it isn’t us.”
She lay quietly for a moment, taking everything in. “I just have a hard time figuring you out. Sex is what brought us together, and it’s a major factor in our relationship. You wanted to fuck me above all else—”
“Wanted. Past tense. Then I got to know you for the fucking awesome and amazing person that you are. And yes, I enjoy making love to you because that’s what it is, but it isn’t the end all for us. What Allen did to you ripped me to the fucking core, and I didn’t realize it until now. I want to sever that motherfucker’s balls off and suffocate him with them because he hurt us. I promise you, Cassie, if you’ll just bear with me, I will rid that dipshit from my mind, from us.”
A faint, almost nervous smile caressed her lips as she snuggled into me, her sweet vanilla scent lingering in the air, bringing a sense of calm over the two of us. I took down her bun, giving myself the space to run my fingers through her hair, when she stopped me.
“Are you going to tell me about Vernon?”
I knew that was coming. I had hoped she would hold off, but I saw that it wasn’t going to happen. “You don’t want to wait on this?”
She vehemently shook her head, letting me know that the time was here and now.
I blew out a breath, not wanting to dig into such bullshit at the moment. “Well, Vernon and I met while I was in the middle of my divorce from Evelyn. He had just checked in to the schoolhouse, and he seemed like a cool guy, so we let him roll with us. It was during the time that Castillo and I started sleeping together. What I didn’t fucking know was that she had been sleeping with him as well. So here we were, hanging out like fucking buds, not knowing that we were sleeping with the same fucking chick, but it didn’t take long for it to get out because she’s sloppy as shit. He had a problem with it, just as I did. He asked why I was sleeping with her if I was still married, and I let him know that I was in the middle of a divorce, but I didn’t want Leti anyway. He seemed all right with that.”
“Did you stop sleeping with her?”
“Yes, I was just sleeping with her in hopes that it would get back to Evelyn, so when my mission was accomplished, I was done, but my friendship with her somehow gave the impression that we were going to rekindle something, so she broke things off with Vernon, saying I was the person she was truly in love with. He distanced himself from all of us after that.”
“Were you in love with her?”
“Fuck no. And you already know that.”
Cassie’s eyes had me pinned, and I hated having to rehash this very embarrassing part of me, but it had to be done. I wanted to take the next step with her with a closet free of skeletons.
“Leti and I became platonic friends again, but she never let Vernon know that, and quite honestly, it wasn’t my fucking place to tell him shit. I didn’t owe the dude anything, but his hate for me grew. He was telling people that he loved her and shit. Whatever. He hasn’t liked me ever since. That’s why he’d be eager to rat me out the second he got anything on me.”
Cassie swallowed, and I felt her head shake against my chest. “Alex, can’t you see what she’s doing?”