I lean into him for support, my heart still racing, and try to drag myself back into work mode, back onto the set. All I can think about, though, is the man beside me. The fact that I can feel his heartbeat racing in tune with my own, everywhere our bodies touch.
8
Cassidy
After a long day at set, all I want to do is go home and collapse into bed. But we barely make it five steps past the studio door before Lark pins me against the brick wall of the parking lot and kisses me again, searing, invigorating.
“That was torture,” he murmurs, lips inches from mine. “Being so close to you all day, unable to touch you…”
I drape my arms over his shoulders, and I kiss him slowly. Languorously. Taking my time, now that I know we have all the time in the world. “You can touch me now,” I breathe when we break apart, and fire flashes in his gaze.
“Trust me, I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon.” A studio door opens nearby, and I glance over his shoulder. One of the models descends the staircase, still wearing my makeup on her eyes.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that. Or get used to having my own photo taken. I posed for that last, and I was so nervous, but Lark held my gaze the whole time, flashed me thumbs up and smiled whenever I hesitated or started to get shy.
By the end, the photographer told me I was a natural. But I don’t think so. I think I just had the support I needed to power through.
Lark follows my gaze to the girl, who’s followed out of the building by a few more members of the camera crew, hauling out equipment. “Come on.” He grabs my hand and practically pulls me through the parking lot behind him, laughing.
“Where are we going?” I demand, but he doesn’t answer. Not until we reach a BMW on the far side of the lot, the windows tinted. He unlocks it, and I pause, eyebrows lifted. “I should have known you’d have a bougie car,” I say.
“She’s not bougie, she’s vintage,” Lark protests. Then, to my confusion, he opens the back door.
“What are—” I start to ask. I don’t have time to finish. He grabs my waist and lifts me bodily, his mouth colliding with mine, his tongue parting my lips to wrestle with my own.
I’m so lost in the kiss, I almost don’t notice what he’s doing until he spins us around and lays me down in the backseat. Then he climbs in after and shuts the door.
I stifle a laugh, watching him. “Are we back in high school?” I tease.
“I can’t wait until we get home.” He reaches down to push the hem of my skirt up around my waist. I gasp as his fingers brush my upper thighs, hot and rough. “My cock is so fucking hard I’m going to lose it unless I have you.”
He punctuates those words with rough kisses on my stomach, pushing my shirt up and out of the way too. Then his lips press to my inner thighs, one after the other. Down to the backs of my knees, the edges of my calves. His tongue knows all the right spots to find to make me arch up against him, twist against the seat.
For all his talk about needing me, he sure takes his time teasing me, toying with me. His fingertips trace the edges of my panties, then he presses a thumb against my clit through them, trailing down to my pussy lips, smirking.
“I love how wet you get for me, Cassidy.”
My breath catches, and I reach down to try to pull him closer, on top of me. He’s lying along my leg, and I can feel the hard press of his cock against my thigh. But he won’t give me what I want, not yet.
“First I want you ready for me,” he says. And then his face is between my thighs, pushing, nudging them apart. His stubble grazes the soft skin there, rough and deliciously scratchy. He catches my panties in his teeth and drags them down, making my breath catch.
I run my hands through his hair, then bury them in it, in fists, as he starts to lick across my mound. His tongue flicks the edges of my clit, and I gasp, arching up off the seat. He cups his hands underneath me, squeezes my ass hard enough to make me groan with want.
And all the while, his tongue continues its slow exploration, tracing each lip of my pussy before he delves between them, lapping and sucking at me. Just when I think I’m going to lose my mind from desire, he finally arches up and pushes his own jeans down.
I reach to catch his boxers, pulling them off myself, and marveling at his length when his cock springs free. I always forget how thick he is.
“Feel that?” he murmurs, as I fold both hands around his base and stroke along his length, my thumbs tracing the thick vein that stands out along his shaft. “That’s how fucking hard I am for you, Cassidy. I can’t stop thinking about you, constantly…”
“I know the feeling,” I confess, and our eyes lock. He bends until our noses brush, our eyes inches apart. I feel him gently take my wrists, both of my wrists wrapped in one of his large hands. And he raises them up over my head and pins me back against the seat, before his lips feather across my cheekbone, my jawline. Down the edge of my neck.
At the same time, with his free hand, he spreads my legs. I raise them up, wrap them around his torso, and feel my hips lift off the seat, striving toward him.
He pauses just long enough to slide on a condom, and then I feel him at the entrance of my pussy, poised right there. I’m already soaking wet, but still he waits, his teeth grazing my neck, making me gasp.
“I want to fuck you now,” he says, his voice a barely repressed growl.
“Please,” I gasp. That’s all he needs. He pushes inside me in one smooth thrust, and I groan, arching up off the seat against him, savoring the feeling of his cock filling my tight pussy.
“Every time.” He leans back to look at me, paused there, his cock filling me up. “Every time, I forget how fucking good you feel, Cassidy.” He pulls back out of me, just a little, making me gasp in protest. But a second later he thrusts back into me, his hips perfectly angled so the slight curve at the tip of his cock drags against my inner wall, right over my G-spot. “God, your pussy is a fucking marvel.” He pulls out, thrusts back in again, and I make a little mewling sound, which makes him smirk, bending close again.
“I love those little sounds you make,” he tells me, his lips on my throat, my neck.
I let my head fall back, my back arching up. “I love how you get them out of me,” I tell him, which makes him smile against my neck, before he starts to thrust harder, faster. To really fuck me, the way only Lark ever has.
My hands are still pinned over my head, but I move my hips in time with his, thrusting against him, my clit brushing up against his pelvic bone with every deep thrust. Before long, I’m nearing the edge, breathing hard, and he’s grinning at me, knowing exactly what effect he has on me, almost better than I know it myself.
“That’s it, Cassidy,” he says, his voice a low thrum of command. “Come for me.”
I’m so near the edge he doesn’t need to tell me twice. I let out a cry, and he continues to thrust into me, fucking me so that the orgasm spikes through my veins, and the pleasure keeps coming, starts to build again as he pounds into me.
I lose track of time, of space. By the time Lark releases my hands to grab my hips, near his own edge, I’m close to coming again myself. I reach up to wrap my arms around him, my legs tightening around his torso. I dig my nails into the fine muscles of his back, and he pulls me up off the seat with the force of his thrusts.
“I want to feel you come,” I pant against his shoulder. “In me.”
It doesn’t take much more asking than that. Lark growls and reaches down to grip my ass hard with one hand, his other tight around my hip. He thrusts into me again, again, and his gaze flicks to mine. He lets out a groan that turns into my name as he finishes, deep in me, still thrusting his hips, and I arch up against him, tightening my pussy around him, trying to milk every last drop.
When he finally sags against me, both of us slick with sweat, a pleasant, relaxed sensation spreads through my whole body, tingling and numbing at once. He leans up to kiss me again, and I can taste my own sweat on his lips. Then he leans bac
k, smiling.
“Let’s go home,” he says, simple as that.
* * *
We wind up wrapped in sheets in his bed, an enormous pizza between us, and the cheesiest horror movie I have ever been subjected to playing on TV.
“They are not about to go toward that sound!” I protest, waving at the screen.
Beside me, Lark laughs and tucks me harder against his side. “It wouldn’t be a proper horror movie if humans didn’t act like they’d had their brains surgically removed,” he points out.
I elbow him playfully, and he leans over to tickle me in retribution, which makes me squirm away, although not before I grab another slice of pizza. “You’re the worst,” I tell him, then take an enormous bite. It makes a faint string of cheese melt down my chin, and Lark arches an eyebrow, watching me, amused.
“I’m the worst? You’re the one getting grease on my sheets.”
I flush, and glance down, worried he’s right, but he only laughs.
“Kidding. Anyway, if we do stain them, more reason to get the maid service in tomorrow.” He shrugs and leans back on the bed, stretching out, unconcerned.
After a moment more of hesitation, still a little paranoid I’ve spilled pizza sauce on his sheets, even though he clearly doesn’t mind paying to get them cleaned, I follow his lead and nestle back up beside him, just in time for the last remaining virgin on screen to be eaten by a monster.
I groan. “See? I told her not to follow that noise! Why do the women always die first? Women definitely would be the smarter ones in an actual apocalypse.”
Lark snorts. “But then how else would we motivate our leading male to go save the day? Clearly the ladies are just there as props for his growth.” Heavy sarcasm drips from his tone.
I smirk at him. “Someone’s a closet feminist.”
“There’s nothing closet about it.” He wraps an arm around my waist and drags me even closer to him, until I’m practically in his lap, pizza and all. I protest, but he ignores me and kisses my neck, my shoulder. “Women are the better half of the species, I’ve long since accepted this. And I treat them as such.” With another wicked grin, he reaches around me to press his lips to mine.
I sink back against him, a pleasant warmth flooding my belly, all the way out to my limbs.
I’ve never done something like this with a guy. Just hung out in bed and watched cheesy movies. There’s something about Lark that not only excites me, but also makes me feel like I can relax around him. Truly be myself. I’ve never felt this way with another guy—certainly not with Norman, or any of the other people I dated briefly here and there.
I can’t help but wonder… maybe this time, things really will be different. In a good way.
9
Cassidy
The next day, Lark refuses to let me work. “You just spent weeks breaking your back to meet all those deadlines,” he tells me, in between nipping and licking his way down my body that morning.
It’s my new favorite way to wake up, I have to admit.
“Today, you’re taking some time off,” he insists. “Not just for yourself. For me too.” He winks. Then he pushes his face between my thighs, and that pretty much settles it.
After a long, slow, languorous wake-up—which involves several failed attempts to actually make it out of bed—we finally get dressed and head out of the apartment. Lark won’t tell me where he’s taking me, but there are some clues. For one, the big cooler of drinks he packs, along with a blanket. For another, the towels I spot rolled up in his trunk, beside which he tucks everything.
We live near the shore, but I never actually go to the beach much. I mean to, especially in summer, but it’s always such a production to do it—and I’m always so busy with work—that I rarely get around to it.
Which is why it surprises me when Lark drives us further up the coast than I’ve ventured before, past all the familiar and touristy beaches that I’m used to visiting.
“I’m taking you to my favorite spot,” is all he’ll tell me, whenever I ask.
The further we drive from the city, the fresher the air outside feels. I roll it down, and we both sing along, out of tune, to the songs playing on the radio. Every time I steal a glance over at him, I catch him doing the same to me, and we both laugh, hearts lighter than I think they’ve ever been. At least I know mine is.
When he rests his hand on the gear shift—because of course his fancy BMW is manual, and he goes on at length about how much better they are to drive and handle—I let my hand rest over his, and he turns his palm up, laces his fingers through mine.
His thumb strokes the back of my hand, and just that simple motion is enough to set off a fresh cascade of butterflies in my stomach.
By the time we turn off the road, I’m teasing him. “We’re lost aren’t we?”
“Have a little faith,” he fires back, before he pulls my hand up to his mouth and turns it upright, spreading my fingers to kiss my open palm. That touch. I feel heat all the way down into my belly, and hot between my thighs. I shift against the seat, trying not to let the flush creep up my neck to my face. And probably failing completely, to judge by the little smirk he aims in my direction.
Then I notice the road we’re winding down, and my lips part in surprise. The road winds down the edge of the cliffs at this part of the shoreline, growing narrower with every zig and zag. My stomach drops at the sight of the drop. But even more than that, at the bottom…
“Where is this?” I ask, my eyebrows climbing my forehead. I’ve lived here—or at least, within a short drive of here—my entire life, and I’ve never been to this part of the coast. The beach at the bottom is small, but beautiful. It’s cupped between two sheer cliff faces, a little slice of white sand that looks like the Caribbean. The water, I know, will be colder, but still, from here it’s a gorgeous, deep blue.
“I found it when I was a teenager,” he explains, as we reach the last loop of road. There’s not even a parking lot, really. Just a small gravel turnaround, with no marked signs. He parks at the very end of the road and turns to meet my gaze. “The summer after my dad died, I used to come here all the time to think.”
“Oh, I didn’t… I’m so sorry, Lark.” I squeeze his hand.
He just smiles. “It was a long time ago. I still miss him, but…” He squeezes back. “Whenever I would come here, and lie on the sand just watching the waves…” He glances away from me again, out over the water. “I used to feel connected to him again, you know? To something bigger than myself.”
I follow his gaze, out over the sea. The waves are big—this beach would be a surfer’s dream. But I’m glad we have it all to ourselves. It feels like we’ve escaped to a private world, just the two of us, and here, we can be anyone we want to be. Here, whatever this is growing between us doesn’t need to be complicated or messy. We can just… be.
“I can see that,” I murmur, and Lark flashes me a smile.
“Come on.” He steps out and crosses to open my door before I can even reach for it. I laugh when he does—I’m not used to guys treating me like this, opening doors for me. But he insists. He also insists on carrying everything, despite me offering to help with the umbrella at least, multiple times.
I trail him down to the shoreline, and together we lay out the blanket, and he digs the umbrella into the sand while I open the cooler. “Champagne?” I laugh. “Is that a beach drink?”
“It is when you have something to celebrate,” he replies, after he’s finished aligning the umbrella to give us the best shade. He drops down beside me, and pops the cork to pour us both glasses. He even brought proper champagne flutes, albeit the plastic kind, I assume so we don’t break glass here on the beach.
When he’s finished, he holds out my glass, and raises his own.
“What are we celebrating?” I ask, my eyes sparkling with amusement.
“Easy.” He taps his glass against mine. “Us finding each other. You’re easily the best thing to happen to me in years, Cassidy.
I want you to know that.”
My heart skips. I conceal my pleased flush with a long sip of champagne. It’s delicious, the bubbles tickling my nose on the way down. Then I dig my toes into the sand and glance out over the water. The waves are big today, wild and cascading. But the sound those big waves make is relaxing, more than anything. A crash and shush, over and over, that would lull me to sleep in a heartbeat if I let it.
“Did you used to come here with Sheryl?” I ask, because I’m an idiot, and apparently I can’t just let myself enjoy good moments.
Lark glances over at me, his eyes unreadable in the reflected sunlight off the water. “No,” he says, after a quiet pause. “I’ve never brought anyone else here. I wanted to keep it to myself; it’s always been my private place to think.”
Holding his gaze, my heartbeat quickens. “Why bring me, then?”
He sets his champagne aside. Then he reaches out to take mine, and tucks it into the sand, before he leans in to cup my chin, drawing my face toward his, until we’re mere inches apart, his breath a tickle over my lips. “Because I want you to know me. And because I want to know you, too, Cassidy. All of you. I don’t want any secrets between us anymore.”
“Neither do I.” My eyes jump back and forth between us. “What you see with me is what you get.”
“And you’re mine,” he breathes. It’s not a question. A statement, one that sends a thrill through me.
“Yes,” I murmur, because it feels like I should answer him anyway. We’re so close. Another centimeter and our lips would touch. I tilt my face up, but he doesn’t kiss me. Not yet.
“Just as I’m yours. I promise, Cassidy.” Only then does he kiss me, slow and sensuous. Before, our kisses had been searing fire, electricity. This one is more like lava, a slow burn that spreads throughout my entire body. I wind my hands through his hair, and for a moment, we’re the only two people in the world, here in our private bubble. Here where nothing can touch us.
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