by Max Monroe
With a cocky grin, Thatch slid off his T-shirt and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans. His muscular chest and ripped arms shone beneath the spotlight, and the venue was filled with high-pitched screams. He danced. Britney sang. And by the end of the song, I was pretty sure the charming, sexy idiot had won over every female in attendance, including the pop princess.
“Rule number fifty. Never volunteer me to go on stage unless you want some serious paybacks,” was the first thing he said to me when he made it back to our seats.
I laughed. “Oh, get over yourself. You took your fucking shirt off. We both know you were enjoying every minute of that.”
He winked. “Don’t be jealous, honey. I’ll take my shirt and pants off for you tonight.”
“Cool the fucking ego,” I teased and playfully smacked his arm.
He grinned and wrapped his arms around my shoulders, tugging my back to his chest. “If you’re a good girl, Cass,” he whispered in my ear, “I’ll lick your cunt just the way you like.”
Crude? Yes.
But did it turn me on? Of course.
I looked up at him underneath my lashes and smiled. “Deal.”
We stayed in that position until Britney finished the show. As the venue started to clear out, Thatch grabbed my hand to lead me out of our aisle, but I couldn’t find the will to move my feet. I just stood there, looking around the half-filled room, while I tried like hell to wrap my mind around the night’s events.
I was overwhelmed, and it had nothing to do with Britney Spears or front-row seats or getting a video of Thatch crawling across a stage on a leash.
It was him. He was overwhelming me.
But not in a bad way.
It was in an all-consuming kind of way.
I just couldn’t believe he had done this. He’d changed his plans in L.A. to drive five hours to Vegas to cheer me up. And he hadn’t just shown up and taken me to dinner. No. He’d pulled some serious strings for tickets to a concert I had been dying to go to. A concert I had maybe mentioned to him once that I had been wanting to see.
But he’d remembered.
And he hadn’t hesitated to drop everything for me.
He tugged on my hand again, but he stopped and glanced back when he realized I wasn’t moving.
“You okay, honey?” he asked.
I shook my head.
He stepped toward me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong,” I answered truthfully. “I’m just overwhelmed by how right everything feels.”
Placing his fingers under my chin, he lifted my eyes to his. His eyes turned soft as his gaze locked with mine.
“Thank you for tonight. This was the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
He caressed the skin of my cheek with the stroke of his thumb. “When it comes to you, I have an endless supply of sweet, Cassie.”
“You’re sweet for me and only me?” I asked, without saying the words I really wanted to say.
Be mine. Only mine. No other women. Just me and you.
“Yes,” he answered without a second thought before tossing back, “You’re good for me and only me?”
I smiled and nodded, adding, “And your cock too.”
“When it comes to my cock, you can feel free to be bad.”
And then, right there, in the still-crowded venue at Planet Hollywood, Thatch lifted me into his arms and brushed his mouth against mine, taking my lips in a kiss that made me feel like we were the only two people in the room.
Clothes littered the space between the door and the bed as I pushed Cassie backward at a near run. Her hair, her smile, the smell of her skin—I hadn’t been able to get enough of any of it tonight.
Steps stuttered and stumbled as she tried to keep up with the unfair advantage of my long legs. A moan filled the air as I palmed the cheeks of her ass and lifted her feet right off the ground.
“Thatch,” she whispered, her voice nothing more than an aroused hum.
“Right here, honeys,” I answered, dropping her to the bed, whipping off her shirt, and speaking directly to her tits.
Cassie smiled and swatted at my face, and I did my best to dodge it as I laughed.
“Jesus Christ, can’t you be serious? Ever?” she huffed. I nuzzled at the sweet skin of her neck.
“You want me to be?” I whispered.
Her pause was brief and not at all nerve-racking because the more I was around her, the more I found I didn’t care what the answer was. Contentment for me was becoming synonymous with contentment for her. I didn’t understand it, but right then, with her tits in my face, I didn’t even try.
“No. I don’t want you to be serious.” Her eyes said, I just want you to be you.
Like an animal, I forced her weight into the bed by covering her with my own and licked a line from her jaw straight down the middle of her chest. I circled the perfect edge of her belly button, lapping at the jewelry there, and then tugged at the fabric of her jeans with my teeth.
Her hips jumped, and heat from the flames in her eyes singed my skin.
When I pulled at her pants again but didn’t unbutton them, she snapped. “Stop teasing me!”
I smiled into her skin, rubbing my lips back and forth as my gaze met hers. “Why, baby? Did something turn you on tonight?”
She nodded and licked her lips. “There was one thing I can’t get out of my head.”
“Tell me,” I demanded as a surge of new blood filled my already stiff cock.
“You on the ground.”
“Yeah.”
“On your knees.”
“Yeah.”
“With a collar around your neck—”
“Cass,” I warned, pulling her down the bed by the hips and slamming her to my cock. Her head shot back, and a gasp broke through the heavy, arousal-filled air.
“Fine. Just take off my pants, for fuck’s sake. No freak show necessary.”
Cognizant of her impatience, I ripped her pants and thong down her legs, shoved them open, and licked a path straight from her ass to her clit.
Her pussy convulsed right in front of my eyes.
“Fuck, honey. Wait to do that until some part of me is in there,” I chastised with a smirk. Tongue, finger, cock, I didn’t care what she squeezed.
I pushed back from her and the bed and grabbed her phone from the back pocket of the pants I’d just stripped off her.
“Password?” I asked as I swiped to unlock it.
“Fuck off,” she told me with a smile, so I stepped forward, dropped to my knees in front of the bed and licked a circle around her clit. I filled her pussy with two thick fingers at the same time.
Her head shot back, and she moaned.
“Password,” I repeated again.
Her eyes were far less obstinate when they found mine, but I could tell it was a fight she didn’t want to give up.
It meant next to nothing, but goddamn, I wanted it. In and out I pumped, working the bud up top with my tongue until she couldn’t stop herself from bunching the white comforter in her hands.
“Password, Cassie.” This time, I said it as a command, and she broke, her pussy convulsing on my fingers as she did.
“It’s fucking CASS, you prick.” I smiled at her ability to be on the very brink of orgasm and insult me at the same time.
There wasn’t anyone else like her.
As for the password, I should have known.
Finally inside, I did my best to show her that sometimes it pays to do what someone else says. As the distinct beat of Britney Spears’ “Freakshow” filled the room, surprise made a bid to do the same in her eyes.
“Come on, honey,” I called, pulling her to the edge of the bed and settling her legs wide and to the sides so her glistening pussy shone in the dim lights.
“What are you doing?” she asked, and I winked.
“There may be no leash, but I can dance for you, honey.”
She smiled, and I literally lost myself in it. In her, in the ridi
culous moment, in everything we could be.
Oh yeah, baby. Tonight, you and I are going to dance.
“I can’t believe you’re coming to my parents’ house with me,” Cassie grumbled as we got into the cab waiting at the curb outside Portland International Airport. To be fair, I hadn’t told her I was coming until we were at the airport, through security, and I was following her to our gate. She’d thought I was flying home to New York.
A smile had become pretty much permanently affixed to my face after the weekend we’d had, and like always, her complaining only made me more cheerful. I was in a strange place, getting all of my jollies from a recipe book that suggested two cups of Cassie with a teaspoon of messing with her stirred in.
It was the weirdest fucking catalyst for happiness, but I embraced it. It meant more of her. More laughs. More sex. More everything I was finding I didn’t want to go a day without.
“Believe it because I am,” I advised. “If you didn’t want me to come, you should have told me before I got on the big metal bird and flew over nine hundred miles in a direction other than home.”
She scoffed indelicately, and I bit my lip so as not to laugh. “How the fuck do you know how many miles are between here and Las Vegas?”
I shrugged. “Miles are a number. I know numbers.”
“Okay, Chandler.”
“What’s the big deal, anyway?” I asked seriously, trying to get to the root of the issue.
“Meeting the parents? Hello? That’s a big deal.”
“I asked you to meet my parents,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, while I was wearing a T-shirt about my pussy. You knew I wasn’t going to go inside. You’re coming with me to stay over!”
“And?”
“And I’ve never brought a guy home before.”
I laughed and apparently angered her more by pointing out the obvious. “No kidding.”
“Excuse me?” Her stare was lethal. I glanced to the cab driver to see the whites of his eyes in the mirror, but they shot back to the road when I widened mine. No doubt this would be showing up in some New York Times bestselling book at some point. Cab driver turned romance novelist.
Actually, that sounded kind of interesting. I should pitch that idea to someone.
“You’ve never been in an actual relationship, honey. You told me that yourself. So I just assumed you’d never brought anyone home before.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” I mocked with a rise of my brows.
She slapped my dick.
“Fuck, Cass!” I said, pressing a hand to my crotch to stave off the burn.
Satisfaction turned her eyes downright mischievous. “Serves you right.”
Thankfully, since it’d been a fairly superficial blow, it only took me a few seconds to catch my breath. “So what do I need to know about…” I started to ask.
“About?”
“Insert your parents’ names here,” I explained.
“Oh. Diane and Greg.”
“Ah, Diane and Greg. And what do I need to know about them?”
“My mom is on the local news.”
“She commits that many crimes, huh?” I teased.
Her gaze turned out the window, and the corners of her lips turned up just slightly. She was close with her mom.
“She’s been with KTLJ for nineteen years. She has pretty middle-of-the-road political views, but she’s a lot more traditional than I am. Really into mission work. My dad is a doctor, but he’s retired now. He mostly just does volunteer work at the local shelters and kids’ group homes and stuff.”
“Wow, your parents sound very—”
“Philanthropic?” she offered, turning back to look right at me.
“Exactly. And like really fucking great people.”
“They are. They’ve always supported me, and I haven’t exactly been the easiest person to support.” Her face was warm with genuine familial affection.
“I know exactly how that feels,” I admitted honestly. I’d put my own parents through some serious bullshit in my lifetime.
Moments before I could ask what else I needed to know, Cassie’s smiling eyes turned from me to the window. “We’re here!” she declared, and for the first time since I’d decided to come along, I got a little nervous.
She shoved open the door and then turned back to me to put a hand on my arm. “Oh, one more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t curse in front of my parents at all. They fucking hate that.” She turned and scooted out the door and left me sputtering in the back seat.
My immobility didn’t last long, though, and I scrambled after her. “What?”
She booked it toward the door, but I chased her down in two long strides and turned her toward me. “What do you mean don’t curse?”
“I mean don’t curse,” she repeated, scrunching up her face in a fantastic display of you’re an idiot.
“Do you even know me at all?” I asked, and she laughed before patting me on the ass.
“I know you well, honey. Pull up your panties and be an adult.”
The door opened, and a well-dressed woman with perfectly placed chocolate hair, creamy skin, and familiar fiery blue eyes stepped out onto the stoop. Cassie dropped her bag and rushed forward into her arms.
I turned back to the waiting cab and paid the fare before scooping her bag up off the ground and walking in their direction.
Cassie’s mom took Cass’s face into her hands and looked her over the way only a mother could. Studying the changes since she’d last seen her daughter and logging every single one into the memory on her heart.
It was a biological impossibility, but it existed nonetheless. Every woman I’d ever known had two sets of memories: the ones they wanted to remember and the ones their heart wouldn’t let them forget. The first kind were chosen, mostly positive and personality building, but the second would live on forever, despite age and fatigue and life-stealing diseases like Dementia and Alzheimer’s. Coded on the heart like a hard drive, the feelings never vanished.
“Greg, Sean!” Diane called back into the house. “Cassie’s here!”
I arrived at Cassie’s back just as Diane turned back around. Her next words were mumbled. “And she brought a giant of a friend.” She glanced at Cassie. “No heads-up?”
“There was no heads-up to give. This strange man just followed me home.” Cassie shrugged. “He seemed pretty nice, though, and I doubt he could’ve gotten an ax through TSA, so I’m pretty sure we should all be safe this weekend.”
Diane scrutinized her daughter’s neutral expression for a beat until her mouth turned up at the corners. “You’re ridiculous.”
Cassie grinned. “Okay, so maybe I do know him, but I didn’t know he was going to make the trek to Portlandia until the last minute.”
I smiled and gently pulled Cassie out of the way so I could wrap her mom in a friendly hug. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Phillips,” I said into the top of her head before stepping back. “I’m Thatch.”
“Thatch?”
“Short for Thatcher, Mom,” Cassie explained.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you too, Thatcher.”
Like mother, like daughter, I thought.
“Come in, come in,” she buzzed after breaking out of her stupor.
All the feelings of home surrounded me as we stepped inside. The house was exactly like my parents’. Homey and comfortable for everyone except me. The doorways were a little too small, the ceilings a little too low, and every single aspect of it made me smile.
I’d gladly hunch for a house and people who felt this genuine right off the bat.
“Cassie!” Greg greeted as we stepped into the kitchen at the end of the hall.
“Hey, Dad,” she said with a smile as she jogged around the island to give him a hug.
“What’s all the noise?” I heard just as the last person I ever expected rounded the corner.
“Sean, Greg, honey,” Cassie’s mom called, “this is Thatch
er. Cassie’s…”
“Boyfriend,” I supplied when Cassie stayed silent.
Sean was the first to speak. “Huh. Look at that. You’re dating an actual giant.”
“Sean!” Diane chastised. I laughed.
“It’s okay,” I interjected with a shrug before speaking directly to Sean. “I saw a picture of you on her phone and thought you were an ex.” Whereas Cass was silk and curves etched in creamy white, her brother was the opposite—muscular, hard lines defined by dark, black skin.
She had only recently revealed to me that Sean was her adopted brother.
“You couldn’t see the family resemblance?” he deadpanned. Cassie was the first to laugh, and the sight of her at-ease face made a smile spread across mine.
As soon as the awkwardness broke, the conversation continued as though I wasn’t there. I just soaked it all in. Cassie chatted about her job, and her mom and dad talked about the mission trip they were planning on attending soon. Cassie tried to talk to Sean about football, but he directed her pretty sternly to move on.
It was the reunion of a family who loved each other deeply but didn’t get together nearly enough. It made me feel like I needed to visit my parents more often. The Phillips still had Sean at home, at least for now, but the only thing my parents had was me. I needed to do a better job.
“We still going out tonight, little S?” Cassie asked her brother with a pat to his face.
“Sure. Are you going to be embarrassing?”
“Most definitely,” I answered for her with a smile, earning me a punch to the bicep from her and a laugh from Sean.
“I figured. We’ll go to a place where I won’t know anyone.”
“Whoop it up,” Cassie shouted over both of us as we laughed. “I’m going to get ready.” I pushed off the counter, and she turned to me with a stern finger. “Don’t even think about following me, Thatcher.”
Her eyes weren’t angry at all, so I knew she was just pushing my buttons the way I loved to push hers.
“I’ll be up in just a second, honey. I’ll help you with your zipper.”
“I don’t have a zipper,” she remarked just as Sean said, “Ew. Sister.”