Cole grabs my hands and pushes my arms up over my head, holding them tight to the mattress with one of his hands as the other closes over my throat.
“You’re not afraid enough, girl.”
“You don’t scare me.”
He does. In this moment, there’s something feral about him that makes my insides clench with primal terror, with the ancient experience of being a woman beneath a man, of being overpowered in every sense.
A grin spreads across his face. “You have no sense of self-preservation.”
“That’s a low blow,” I whisper.
“You have no idea how dirty I can play.” Suddenly he lets me go, sits up. “And you never will. These walls are too thin for those kinds of games.”
I sit up too, sense the change, grab his hand. “You don’t have to go.”
“I’m not gonna fuck you, Casey, no matter how you plead.”
I swallow, look him over. His hands are tightened into fists, his broad chest strains the material of the T-shirt. I want him so much it hurts.
“It’s okay,” I whisper.
He shrugs, but doesn’t pull back. His skin is warm on mine. “That’s the only thing you want. That’s all any chick ever wanted from me.”
Cole is like a wounded animal, lashing out at anyone who dares to approach him. I can’t lie to him. He’ll see right through me. I look down at my hand, holding his. There’s hope in that touch, because he hasn’t pushed me away.
“Talk to me,” I say. “Don’t leave. I didn’t know.”
The silence builds between us. I stroke my thumb back and forth over the back of his hand.
He sighs. “No one knew. No one asked. No one cared.”
“I care.”
“Why would you?” he scoffs. “You don’t know me.”
“I can’t know you if you don’t let me in.”
“I didn’t ask for any of this!” he growls.
“Neither did I,” I sneer. “Why the fuck are you being so stubborn? I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. You can either shut me out for the rest of my stay, or just drop the sucky attitude. You don’t need to talk if you don’t want to. I can’t force you. But I’m here, and I care.”
Cole pulls his hand out of mine and crosses his arms over his chest. “Why?”
I throw up my hands. “God! I don’t know why, all right? I just do. You’re here,” I say and slam a fist to my chest. “I haven’t talked to anyone about what happened, not since the trial. I have never, ever again thought about letting anyone know about how I feel, what I long for. I let you in, and it’s not because I was fucking desperate. It’s because despite what you think, you’re a good man.”
A whole slew of emotions run across his face, then he holds out his hands, taking a step back. “Just... no. Forget it.”
It’s all or nothing. I don’t have anything to lose. Shooting to my feet, I wrap my arms around his neck and hug him as if my life depended on it. I bury my face against his neck and breathe in his warm, musky scent, always with a tang of oil hidden beneath it.
“Don’t push me away,” I whisper. “Just... We can just be friends, Cole.”
He scoffs. “Friends? A friend I want to fuck so bad it hurts.”
A jolt shoots through me at his words. Stupid, stubborn man.
Letting him go, I do the only thing I can think of. It’s pure instinct. I sink to my knees and bow my head. “I’m yours to command.”
The silence is compact. I peek up at him. His chest heaves, his breaths rapid. Level with my eyes is the mouthwatering bulge of his hard cock. I squeeze my eyes shut and wait. For something. Anything.
Finally he lays his hand on my head, holds it there. “Casey,” he says, his voice broken, “you don’t know what you’re doing to me. I went here to kill it all. I never wanted to feel again, and...”
I fight to keep quiet. I want to assure him that he can trust me, but I’m already doing it. On my knees. All I can do is wait for him to accept my offer or reject it.
“Get up.”
I pant as if I’ve been running. I have no control over my body. My heavy heartbeats must be visible. Stumbling to my feet, I have a hard time meeting his gaze.
“What do you want?” I whisper.
“Do you mean it? Do you want me to command you?”
A shiver tears through me. I do. More than I’ve wanted anything in my life. “Yes, Cole.”
“Friends,” he says with a scoff. “I can’t be your friend, Casey. You’re ruining everything I’ve built.”
I can almost taste it, the sweet victory, but it’s still paired with the fear of rejection.
“I will command you, then.” He puts a finger under my chin and tilts up my head, forcing me to look at him. “You will be mine for the rest of your stay here. You will never reveal to anyone what happens inside these walls. When your contract is fulfilled, you will leave and never look back. You will not look for me. You will not talk about me. Do you understand? You have five weeks left, five weeks when I will use your body, will make you ache and soar. Then you’re out of here.”
He might as well have punched me in the chest, the pain too hard to bear. At the same time I don’t think I’ve been so aroused in my life.
“Yes,” I whisper, while my insides scream with sorrow over what I will lose. “Use me.” At least I’ll have this, and there is no way I will forget. I will cherish the memory of these weeks for the rest of my life. I will never meet anyone like him again, and I’ll find a way to live with that. Here and now, though, I can’t deny myself this, no matter how much I’ll hurt later on.
“Take me in your mouth,” he growls. “Get me off.”
“Yes, sir,” I say, my hands shaking as I lift them to the waistband of his sweatpants. He is large, thick, and I open wide to accommodate his girth. Clutching my hair in a painful grip, he pushes deep, thrusts. I gag, tear up, fight my reflexes. Pushing deeper, he cuts off my airflow, making me fight to inhale as my chest aches with the increasing need to breathe.
“Don’t fight me.” His voice is different, dangerous. He pulls out enough that I can breathe and I inhale a deep, desperate breath. Then he thrusts inside again. “Touch yourself. Make yourself come, impaled on my cock. I want your fear, Casey, show me your pain.”
My throat clenches around his cock as I push a hand inside my pants, finding my soaked pussy. I don’t think Cole will hurt me for real, but my body reacts on pure survival instinct and I can’t tell what’s real or not, what’s a game and what’s real danger.
His fist tightens around my hair, making my scalp burn. My throat aches as he thrusts harder, deeper. I push my fingers inside my pussy, work my clit, slide back and forth. The insides of my thighs tingle and I tense until I feel like I’ll break.
I gasp. He thrusts. My moans turn guttural, raw and inhuman. Cole is silent, but his chest heaves and beads of sweat cover his skin.
“Come for me,” he gasps and shoves all the way in, uncaring that he stretches me beyond the point of pain.
I flick my fingers faster, my whole body aches with the need for air, and then I explode, twitching, losing all control as I come harder than I’ve ever done before. Cole jerks and hot spurts of his cum shoot down my throat. I swallow compulsively. I have no choice.
When he pulls out, my cheeks are wet with tears. I crumble, but he’s there before I fall to the floor. Scooping me up in his arms, he takes me to bed and cradles me to his chest as he pulls the comforter around us, tucking it tight.
“How are you doing?” he whispers, his breath hot on my cheek, his beard scratching my neck.
I turn, and he lets me. Facing him, chest to chest, I drink him in. Every beautiful feature of this amazing, mad man, then I lay my heart on my sleeve. “Kiss me,” I say. “Please.”
For a moment I think he’ll pull back, but then he cups his hand around the back of my head and pulls me to him. His lips are warm, soft, and demanding as he coaxes my mouth open. I gasp and cling to him as if my life depends on it, d
esperate to feel every hard angle, every patch of skin. He plunges his tongue into my mouth, battling mine, intruding, possessive, blowing my mind with his eagerness to taste every crevice.
Finally, he stills. My every nerve ending is on fire and all I feel is him. Yeah, leave in a few weeks, and then forget... it won’t work. I know it. I should break it off here and now. No one will ever compare to him. I know I’ll get hurt, and I’m throwing myself into the flames.
Chapter Seventeen
Cole
I shouldn’t sleep with her, as in spending the whole night snuggled up together. It forges an emotional bond and knowing this is only temporary crushes me, but I will crush her if we would try to continue anything beyond her return to civilization. I care enough to want her to get the fuck out of here and away from me. But I won’t refuse myself the feeling of cradling her warm, soft body to me. Only these few weeks.
She’s still gasping from the kiss, her swollen lips parted and glistening, her skin chafed from my beard. I didn’t go easy on her. I never seem to go easy on her. Knowing she enjoys every bit of it makes it fucking hard to hold back.
“Sleep.”
“I don’t think I can,” she pants.
“That wasn’t a question. Turn around. And don’t speak again until I give you permission.”
Her eyes light up, and a small, slightly wicked smile spreads across her face before she obeys me. I spend the rest of the night, floating in a state of not quite sleep. I dream of home. I dream of how I trash our little house in a fit of rage. My kids cry. I wake several times with a jerk, holding Casey tighter. I don’t deserve even a moment of peace, but she has broken through my walls, and I can’t resist her anymore. I need this. I need her. I need these weeks, then I’ll stow it away, and let it be a memory of someone I could have been.
When the alarm goes off, my eyes are warm, dry, and itchy from the lack of sleep. Casey turns toward me, stretches like a little cat and smiles. She parts her lips as if to speak, but then snaps them shut again, slamming a hand over her mouth, her eyes widening.
I grin. “Good girl. Stay.” Planting a kiss on her forehead, I jump up. Time to face the day. Casey hugs the comforter and pulls it in between her legs, displaying caramel-colored skin that contrasts deliciously to the white bed linen.
“You naughty girl,” I say and am rewarded with a smile that shoots straight to my groin. I exhale raggedly, fighting the urge to jump her. “You’re welcome to sit with us when we eat. That should go without saying, but I want to make it clear. I don’t want to have to nod and gesture and fuck-all. Just sit your ass on the chair, keep your head down, eat, work, shit and—” My cock twitches as she squirms and juts out her ass. I should slap her, but I’ll save it for later. “And inside these walls, you will do everything I tell you.”
She squeezes her lips together and circles her hand over her head in the shape of a halo. I scoff, then I leave for the bathroom while I can still walk.
The day feels uncharacteristically bright despite the near-constant darkness. I enjoy seeing the guys warming up to her and how she starts cracking the occasional joke. I don’t go to the trailer after dinner. I want it too much, and I loathe the sense of losing control. Instead I go with the guys and play a few rounds of very absentminded poker and drink a couple of bottles of beer.
When I get back everything is silent. The curtains are closed and there’s no sign of life. She’s there, though. Sitting on her bed with her legs crossed, she reads her book about the Native Americans again, a cup of tea next to her. She only has the little bedside lamp lit. The tranquility transfers to me and every thought I had about violating her body vanishes in an instant.
She raises her head and locks her dark eyes with mine.
“You can talk,” I say. “Lost interest in the Civil War?”
Casey chews on her lower lip and, when I take a closer look, I realize she’s sad.
“Hey.” I stroke back a lock of her hair and put it behind her ear. “What’s up?”
Shrugging, she holds up the book and then flips it over, letting it drop on the mattress. “It’s just that... I thought...”
“What did you think?”
“I thought I’d connect. But everything here—” she throws out her arms, “is just ravaged. It’s ruined.”
I frown and sit on the edge of the bed. “Did you really come here, to a pipeline construction, thinking you’d connect with some ancient spirits? If anything, they’ll have been scared off a long time ago.”
“But have you seen it? Do you think it’s right?”
“Right? I dunno. It’s progress. You drive a car, right? Warm your house? That racetrack you care so much about. Where do you think it all comes from? We need the oil, the pipeline.”
“I still think it’s wrong,” she whispers. “There has to be another way.”
I narrow my eyes. “Why did you come here to begin with?”
“I told you. I ran.”
“To a torn, barren land, to a company that ravages a culture you apparently hold dear?”
“No... I...”
“Yes?”
“I didn’t think it would be like this.”
“Casey. You’ve made it more than halfway. Hang in there. See it as a learning experience. I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for eventually.”
She frowns as she holds my gaze. I don’t know anymore if I’m talking about the workplace, or about us. Casey clears her throat. “You were gone a long while.”
I shrug, feigning a nonchalance I don’t feel. “Got my workmates. We have our poker nights.”
“Bet I won’t be invited to those.”
“Bet you’re quite right about that. Trust me, you wouldn’t want to. Just because you’re getting along better with a few of them won’t mean they’re your friends. They all still want to get in your pants.”
Casey sighs. “All... but you.”
I clench my jaw. She fucking knows my story. How hard can it be? “I’m revoking your permission to speak. Make me some tea.”
Without looking at her again, I go to run a shower, hot and cleansing. Ancient holy ground, a little girl—pretending to be a woman—playing poker with the guys, rough welding with smoldering hot seams, a huge snake of a pipeline running through the landscape, my ex-wife, my children, a trashed home, faceless women who didn’t care about me and whose names I never learned. It all runs through my fucked-up mind at a nauseating pace.
When I come back out, a towel wrapped around my waist, there’s a steaming cup of Earl Grey awaiting me on the counter in the little kitchenette. Casey is back on the bed, reading. I make quick work, pulling on sweatpants and a T-shirt before I grab a book of my own and go sit next to her on the bed, fluffing up the second pillow to make myself comfortable as I stretch out my legs and lean against the wall.
“Thanks for the tea.”
She looks me over. “Are we gonna read and drink tea? How... couple-y.”
“Is that sarcasm I hear?”
“Mmm, no, not really. I don’t know. I’m not used to cozy.” She pokes a finger in my side. “It’s weird.”
I jerk and grab her hand. Holding it, feeling oddly protective of this young woman who stumbled into my life, I frown. “Me neither, to be honest. But I think I need it.”
My life the last few years has been a fucking roller coaster, spiraling nowhere but down. It’s been a long time since I just... lived in the moment.
Casey puts the book away and lays her head on my chest. “I can live with cozy.”
I smile and pick up my book. “Then snuggle in, little one.”
She yawns, smiles, and then lays her head on my shoulder. I read, but I won’t remember a word. Her warmth seeps through the fabric of my T-shirt and spreads through my chest.
I wake, my neck aching from the uncomfortable position. Casey has fallen asleep on my chest, and apparently I slept too. The little light is still shining and I know something has changed. There is peace here, with her. We have no
future. I will never subject her to the devil in me. It doesn’t stop me from wanting this.
* * *
Command me, she said.
For the first time in my adult life, I don’t take it as an incentive to fuck a woman until she screams. We work, we eat, read, and sleep. It’s been a very long time since I looked forward to going home after work the way I do now.
* * *
Casey hands me a steaming hot cup of tea. We’re only a couple of days into this new life, but we already have our little routines. Inside these walls we build our own reality. Outside, life continues like it always has.
“How many children do you have?”
She asks it out of the blue, and my stomach clenches. This is why I don’t talk to people. Questions.
I fight my initial response to sneer at her. “Two.”
“How old are they?”
Fuck’s sake! Stab of pain. Inhale. Exhale. Like always. “Eight and ten.”
“Oh. Boys? Girls?”
“One of each. Alicia and Sage.”
I wait. I doubt she’s done.
“You never talk about them.”
I put my cup down and pull a hand over my beard, smoothing it, buying time. I have no desire to talk about this. Not now. Not ever.
“Not much to say.”
“What happened?”
“Their mom thinks I’m an unfit dad.”
“But... She can’t—what did you do? You have rights. As their dad.”
“I fucking know that. I’m an unfit fucking parent. They’re better off without me.”
“That’s not true, Cole.”
“You don’t know anything, Casey. I don’t know what you think of me. This—” I throw out my arms, “this is a bubble. It’s a cut-off piece of the world where everyone can escape their demons.”
“But—”
“I was a drunk. I lost my job. Sandra told me to fuck off. I was drunk in front of my fucking kids, Casey! I frightened them. I scared their mom enough for her to get a restraining order. I moved out. Couldn’t pay my bills. Slept on couches. I forgot what day it was. I forgot their birthd—fuck!”
Commanding Casey Page 14