Savage Love (Ash and Innocence 2)

“She won’t.” Cassian kissed my neck, drawing a gasp from me. “This is just for us.” His knee moved between my legs, reminding me that I’d only put on a long t-shirt over the panties I’d been sleeping in.

I writhed against Cassian. My hands dug into his broad back, soaking up his heat. “You make me feel so weak.”

“It’s not weakness. Letting me in is the harder path.”

I closed my eyes, letting his kisses dull my thoughts. He was right, in a way. It’d be easier to tell Zoe I was done with him and play keep away until I graduated. I’d still have my friend, and a good friend was for life. A good high school boyfriend, on the other hand, was far less likely to last long. And Cassian was about as far from the mold of a good boyfriend as you could get.

“I don’t want to regret this, Cassian.”

He took my chin in his hands and kissed my mouth. “The only thing worth regretting are the chances you don’t take.”

I let him take me there by the water. I gasped out into the darkness as he put himself inside me, even though I knew he wasn’t wearing protection. I dumbly trusted him to pull out, and that any number of things wouldn’t go wrong from being so careless.

But that was how I felt. I felt reckless. I felt like letting go.

Like I was in free fall and the ground was rushing up to meet me any moment.

Except there was a thrill in the fall, wasn’t there? It was better than being in a cage. Better than being pointed at and blamed. Better than being held hostage by unrealistic demands.

Falling was my escape, and Cassian was right there with me, holding on tight.

I flipped him over in the grass and rode on top of him, grinding my hips shamelessly until I got as much of him inside me as I could. I was so wet it was embarrassing, but he was breathing too hard and gripping me too firm for me to think we weren’t on the same page.

It wasn’t careful sex or thoughtful sex. Neither of us were playing a role to satisfy the other.

We were both wild and selfish. Grinding and gripping each other’s bodies in a hungry swirl of lust. My knees were raw from rubbing against the grass by the time he pulled himself out of me and turned me around on my knees, taking me from behind.

He groaned with pleasure, squeezing my hips and pounding himself into me again and again, driving my own ecstasy to new heights.

By the time he finally pulled himself out and I felt the warmth of his release on my lower back, I was exhausted. We both flopped to the ground and he let me lay on his chest. Distantly, I hoped neither of his parents happened to glance out the window and see our discarded clothes and naked bodies in the moonlight. I’d forgotten they had come back from their vacation until that moment, but I was too tired to care.

I ran my fingertip down his chest, just in front of where my head was nuzzled. “If you break my heart, I’ll never forgive you.”

“Know what’s different about you? I think you would. And that’s exactly why I’m never going to.”

I frowned, watching the silvery light dance on the water while I let his words marinate. In the end, I just hoped I wouldn’t need to find out.37CassianSchool was interesting. I’d pass Charli in the hall while she walked with Zoe and have to pretend I didn’t want to slam her against the lockers and take her mouth with mine. Even though I wanted the whole fucking school to know she was all mine, I had to wait. Charli was still trying to figure out how to break the news to Zoe, and my job was to give her time to find the right way. Meanwhile, I had to act like I wasn’t starting to lose my mind for her.

But I did what it took, because I meant what I’d said.

When Charli came back to Silver Falls, all I wanted was revenge. I wanted to lay her heart out on the table and dissect it, piece by piece. I wanted to pull every little string there was to pull until I’d dismantled her from the inside out.

I wanted to ruin her so thoroughly she could never be put back together.

Now I saw the truth. I was only directing the anger I felt at myself on her. It was displacement at its finest, and once my head was out of my ass, I saw that.

She was the girl I’d lost hours with playing in the forest as a kid. The one I’d both kicked ass for and gotten my ass kicked for. She had been my everything before I was awake enough to realize it.