by Mia Malone
“Cassandra,” Black snarled. “How about fucking telling me shit?”
“What shit?”
“Shit.”
She stared at him a few seconds, and then she shrugged.
“Whatever.”
When Cas started turning, Black exploded.
“Oh, no you don’t.” He turned her and put a hand around her jaw. “You should have told me.”
“Black,” his father barked. “Calm the hell down.”
“I should have told you what?” Cas asked.
“It didn’t occur to you that it might be good to tell me that you aren’t fucking married, Cas?”
At first, there was confusion written all over her, but understanding bled into her eyes only to be replaced with sadness.
“That’s who you think I am?” she whispered, and he let his hand fall down.
“Cas –”
“You think I’m the kind of woman who would sleep with someone while she’s married to someone else?”
He’d been angry for almost a year, and when he saw the look on her face, he also felt stupid. Perhaps he should have known what kind of woman she was. A small voice in his head whispered that he could have asked someone. His sister, or mother. Or her.
“What the hell was I supposed to think?” he muttered.
“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps not that I’m the kind of woman who sleeps around while she’s still married,” she hissed.
“I –”
“You damned moron,” Cas snarled and got up on her toes to glare at him. “While we’re on the topic of sharing things, Einar...” She gave him a hard shove in the chest which didn’t move him an inch, and he took hold of her hands. “How about you letting me know about your visits with the Wolves MC?”
“What the –”
“Yeah, Black,” she spat. “You’re coming her all pissed off about shit that is none of your fucking business when you should have shared what you apparently like to do.”
“Who I do is none of your goddamned business,” he countered and heard Ronnie set her beer down with a thud. “What do you know about them anyway?”
“I am friends with your sister and Joke, Black. I partied with them when your father got the all clear. We had a pretty fantastic time, and I met Doug Hanes. Got invited to their place and –”
“What the hell?” Black roared.
Cas was not going to anywhere near the gatherings with –
“Don’t worry, bub. You won’t run into me there. Sissy pulled me to the side and told me how Doug and his club likes to party. And how you like it there.” She put a finger in his face and hissed, “I had already been to see the doctor who watched my daughter grow up and asked him to get tested for STD’s. And when I heard about the Wolves, I went there again, just to be sure, and wasn’t that a bundle of joy?”
“What?” he rasped out.
“The look on his face, Black,” Cas said hoarsely. “God.”
She turned suddenly and marched right out of the bar, and he roared after her, “I don’t have any fucking STD’s!”
The door slammed shut, and he watched it.
How the hell had that situation escalated into this madness?
“Outside, Black.”
He turned and watched his father, and snarled, “I don’t have any damned diseases.”
“Outside.”
The bar was silent when they walked out, and even his goddamned mother refrained from sharing her view on what had happened, which was a first. Since she looked ready to scream at him, he ignored her.
“I don’t have any diseases,” he repeated as he faced Roddy.
“If you don’t cover up you might.”
“You taught me that early on, Dad, and I’ve not once in my life forgotten,” Black snarled. “Not a single fucking time until her, so don’t you give me that shit.”
Roddy narrowed his eyes while they glared at each other, but then his brows went up.
“Son. Your oldest?”
Well, shit. It was not a story Black had ever figured he’d share with his father, but what the hell. The old man wouldn’t just walk away from this goddamned situation.
“I was twenty-two, and you know how it was with me and Leeanne,” Black said, trying to stay calm and in control and mostly managing it. “We broke shit off so many times, and I’d done it again, only this time I meant it. Went out with the boys that night to celebrate. She was out of my life, and finally for good, so I was fucking happy. Ice went home with some chick, but moron that I am, I figured I owed her one night. Didn’t want it spread around that I celebrated dumping her ass by sleeping around. So, I had me a damned fantastic evening with my friends and got home drunk off my ass. Threw up and passed out. Woke up with her bouncing on my dick. Piss-drunk and twenty-fucking-two years old, Dad... I didn’t realize until it was too late that she hadn’t put a condom on. Not a story I wanted to be spread around, and neither did she, so we didn’t share any details.”
He looked away as he remembered that churning feeling in his belly when he pulled out and realized what she’d done. The look on her face told him it was deliberate, and then what shouldn’t fucking happen had become a reality.
The hand his father put on his shoulder felt heavy but reassuring.
“Ah, hell. Einar,” his dad said quietly. “That’s rape.”
“Nah,” Black said with a shrug. “We’d had so much make-up sex that year she couldn’t know that I didn’t want it, and I also didn’t say no. Don’t know how long she’d been on top of me, but it only took a couple more thrusts and then it was done.”
“You didn’t ask for it. Didn’t want it. She –”
“Don’t go there.”
“Son, you were two seconds away from getting a record deal.”
The thought of that still stung, but not as much as it had back then.
“Might have,” Black said. “Might not have gotten it. We’ll never know, and it wouldn’t have worked out anyway. A few weeks later, everything crashed down around Sissy. The asshole and his family pulled their shit, and I couldn’t leave you with all that and couldn’t leave Leeanne. So, yeah. I had some pretty fucking shitty options to choose from, but I picked the right ones. I have no regrets, Dad. None.”
“We would have managed –”
“Yeah. I knew you would have managed, but you shouldn’t have to. And I was young but old enough to do what I did. Could have pushed Leeanne off me easily and I didn’t, so I created my son, no one else. In the end, I made the choice I had to make and got Lex out of it, and then Eirik and Dag. My boys are fantastic, and I had a good life. Still do.”
“But not an easy one.”
Black grinned then and muttered, “Life is easy for cheerleader-type girls like Cassandra and Desiree. Not for the rest of us.”
Their eyes met, and Black saw anger and frustration in his dad’s dark eyes, but also a weariness he didn’t like.
“You should probably talk to Cas,” Roddy said finally.
“No fucking way.”
That was a knee jerk response but also an honest one. He wasn’t going to talk to the damned woman ever again.
“But –”
“I have nothing to say to her.”
With those words, he walked off toward his home.
“Black.”
Crap. He knew that tone. That was not the dad-voice. It was the voice of the President of Thor MC.
“You will talk to her. I don’t want her to worry about her health.”
He turned, glared at Roddy, and snarled, “Is that an order?”
“If it has to be one, then yeah. For now, let’s call it fatherly advice.”
Fatherly advice his ass, Black thought as he stalked up to the small cabin where Cas would have gone. The light was on, and he hammered loudly on the door.
“What?” she snarled when she threw it open and had to step back to not get his fist in her face.
“Yeah, I’ve fucked women. Lots of them. I’m also not stupid, so I
always cover up. You, heat of the moment. Forgot. I have no fucking STD’s, so if you have them, you didn’t get them from me.”
There. He’d talked to her.
He was about to turn around and walk away when he heard a soft snort.
“What was that?” he asked silkily.
“Nothing.”
A blush crept up her cheeks, and she’d raised her chin defiantly.
“Cas,” he barked, tried to calm down and added, “What?”
Something flashed in her eyes and then she leaned forward slightly to put a damned annoying finger in his face.
“You weren’t the only one enjoying some carnal pleasures in the past year, but unlike you, I didn’t hump lots of them. The one I fucked did in no way give me anything.”
She’d slept with someone else? What the hell? It had been bad enough to imagine her having marital relations with her goddamned ex. But someone else?
Then her words registered. She thought he slept with lots of women, which he’d said he had done, but he’d meant over a goddamned lifetime, not in the past year which had been dried up like it hadn’t been since he first got himself some.
And in the past few months, he hadn’t slept with anyone at all which was a fucking record in abstinence on his part.
“I didn’t sleep with lots of them.”
She raised an annoying brow, and said coolly, “I heard quite a lot from Sissy about those parties you go to.”
He was going to kill his goddamned sister.
“Not gonna explain myself to you.”
“So, don’t.”
Exactly.
“I thought you were fucking married,” he heard himself say.
“So you said,” she retorted.
“Who the hell did you do?”
“That is none of your business.”
None of his business? His head had been messed up over her for almost a year and the only times he’d actually enjoyed coming was when he had been on his own entertaining goddamned fantasies about her. Which totally made her sexual habits his business, the way he saw it.
“Was he good, babe?” he snarled.
“You’re seriously asking me that?”
“Yeah, I went to parties with the Wolves, and I fucked other women. Not lots of them but plenty enough and I did not enjoy myself as much as I should have. So yeah, I’m asking you, babe. Was he good?”
She put both hands on his chest and pushed, which he hadn’t expected, and took a step backward. The door was promptly and loudly slammed in his face.
From inside he heard her yell, “I faked a goddamned orgasm, that’s how good he was, asshole!”
He marched straight into his own home and slammed his own door shut.
Then he poured himself a large whiskey, downed it and exhaled while the burn from the liquor calmed him down. With another long exhale, he poured one more shot and watched for a beat as the amber liquid swirled around the edges of the glass.
And everything inside him settled.
Cassandra was two houses away from him.
She wasn’t married and the one fucking fool she’d taken to her bed in the ten months they’d been apart had been such a loser she’d had to fake an orgasm.
Right.
He’d have her in his bed within hours. He snorted, tossed back the whiskey and adjusted his timeline to a more realistic view which was that she’d be in his bed the next night. He’d fucked up a little, but she would see his side of the story.
Life didn’t feel so godawful anymore, and he blew out air in a deep sigh.
The thought of her in his bed suddenly made his damned dick jump to attention, and he looked down on his crotch. He hadn’t felt like jacking off, and even less like sleeping with anyone, in a long time, but that had apparently changed.
“Seriously?” he muttered with a grin.
***
He woke up slowly and rock hard.
This morning, he didn’t scowl and take a cold shower. Instead, he slid his hand over his belly and took a firm grip of himself. The bed was warm, and he’d slept like a baby for once, so he smiled when he started moving his hand, slowly stroking from base to tip and down again, letting himself remember how it had felt when she put her hands on him.
How her soft wail had felt when it slid down his throat.
How he’d wanted to come inside her but had pulled out in the last seconds because he’d realized he’d been bare.
Next time, they’d be in a bed. In his bed, which was big and sturdy.
He never brought women to his home, but she’d be there.
It built, and he moved his hand faster with a soft groan, but then it hit him like a freight train. His cock jerked, and he groaned again as he pushed his hips against his hand.
“Fuck,” he breathed out shakily.
He’d tried to make it last the night before, and it hadn’t worked then either. He hadn’t felt like fucking anyone for months and months, and now he was suddenly trigger happy like a goddamned youngster.
Right.
A cup of coffee on his back porch like he had almost every morning, a shower, and then he’d go wake Cas up.
They’d have breakfast together and talk about shit like the goddamned adults they were.
He watched the mountains and sucked back pitch-black coffee when he heard them.
“What in the fucking what is going on, Cas?” Ronnie murmured.
“He thought I was married,” Cas growled. “He thought I was a slut and I’m not. He thought I paid him back for helping Desi by sleeping with him. While I was married.” Ronnie snarled something but Cas went one, “Which means he thinks I’m whoring myself away for favors. What kind of man is he?”
“Honey –”
“I think I should leave,” Cas added quietly.
“Why would he think it was a pay for services-fuck?”
“I said thank you,” Cas choked out. “He’d given me the best sex in my entire life, and I just... you know. I felt good and sexy and happy. So, I said thank you.”
There was a long silence, and Black tried to get his stunned brain to unfreeze.
“I thought what we’d done was beautiful, and he shat all over it. I can’t even –” It sounded like someone kicked something and he suspected that it was Cas using her foot on the fence behind his house. Then she repeated, “I think I should leave.”
Hell no.
Black snuck back inside and started planning what to do while he pulled the rest of his clothes on. He had messed shit up a little bit more than he thought, so he’d have to play things differently, but she was not fucking leaving.
Then he went over the yard and into his parents’ kitchen.
“Mom,” he said. “I’m fifty-plus years old so you gotta know this’ll hurt some.” He watched her calmly raise her brows, pulled in a deep breath, and said, “I need your help.”
***
Cassandra
Gee put her arms around me that first morning and told me how happy she was that I’d come to help them out and how much they needed me. Roddy was still sleeping she said and added that she’d enjoy bringing him breakfast in bed. I’d planned a careful speech about leaving and just couldn’t do it. Not when she looked so sweet, and her smile was so happy. I pushed back a stupid flash of relief and reminded myself that I wanted to leave. I’d told Ronnie I would, and it hadn’t sounded like the big fat lie I suspected it was.
It didn’t matter because of the happiness in the older woman’s eyes, so I stayed, and took over management of the small hotel.
After a week in Rogan, my anger was down to a quiet simmering pissed-offness, and I had managed to avoid Black that whole time. Or, not avoid entirely because the stupid man showed up everywhere, but I had managed to not be alone with him, and if I absolutely had to respond to any of his endless queries into everything under the fucking sun, I kept my answers short. He was getting frustrated, but since we’d said what needed to be said – so was I.
He’d probably leave
, I decided. Or whatever because he was none of my business and I didn’t care where he decided to walk around for no reason at all. Or if he sat his ass down next to me when I had a couple of beers at the bar. So, whatever because I didn’t care.
Much.
Since the weather was warm, I decided to spend my lunch break outside and sat down to munch on a sandwich next to Ronnie in front off the bar. The sky was that deep blue color you only ever got high up in the mountains, so I tilted my head back and closed my eyes with a soft sigh of contentment.
Fantastic.
“Cas.”
My eyes flew open, and I stared right into black ones.
No, I realized. They just looked black, but in the sharp midday sun, I saw that the irises were actually a dark, dark blue. I hadn’t noticed before.
“What?” I snapped.
“Are you ready for it yet?”
“For what?”
“That talk we’re gonna have.”
We were going to have a talk? This was not something I had put in my calendar, and I had no plans to do so either, so I looked away.
“Babe,” Black said quietly. “I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you, so we’re gonna have that talk you and I, and we both know where it will end.”
“When was this decided?” I asked, heavy on the sarcasm
“Cassandra. This here,” He made a sweeping motion with his hand. “This might not be what you’re used to, and I’m probably not what you’re used to either, but I’m all out of patience and don’t fucking care anymore, so I’m not asking you. I’m telling you that we will...” He leaned forward until he was in my face. “Have. That. Talk.”
“What?” I breathed out, confusion sweeping through me like a whirlwind.
What I was used to? And he was all out of patience?
I hadn’t even been aware he had any.
“Yeah. You have today. Tonight, we’re gonna talk.”
Then the damned man walked away.
I tried to not look at his ass disappearing around the bar toward the garage and turned to Ronnie.
“What in the hell was that?”
She looked curiously at me, but her lips twitched.
“Been waiting for that, hon,” she said calmly. “He’s not gonna give up, and I don’t think you want him to. Why are you really so angry with him? He fucked other women but –”