What’s so great about being civilized anyway? When I want her, I want her. Simple as that.
Cassie flicks her head toward where I still sit in the chair, my jeans on but my shirt off, still hiding in whatever corner she flung it. “What are you looking at?” she says, grinning as she zips her skirt.
“Just enjoying the show,” I say.
“Maybe I should sell tickets.”
“Will I get the boyfriend discount, at least?”
She twists her mouth and cocks her head. “I don’t know,” she says. “I’ve got a reputation to protect.”
“Very funny,” I say, shaking my head at how long ago that conversation about erasing Jamie’s debt seems.
“I like to think so,” she says. The kid did finally finish paying me back the rest of the principle, plus interest. But I told Tyler to put him on our blacklist—no loans, no bets—and to ask other guys in town he might borrow from to do the same, as a favor to me. If Jamie needs money, he can come to me personally, though with the rent he’s making on Cassie’s bedroom at their house now, he should be able to keep his head above water while he looks for a job. She moved into my place a couple weeks ago officially. My idea. Even though we’ve both had pretty negative experiences living with people, it’s weird how effortless it’s been so far to share each other’s space. Maybe because the past has been bad, now we can recognize good things when we see them, I don’t know. I don’t want to overthink it. I doesn’t matter to me why we’re so good together. It just matters that we are.
She sits on the edge of the desk as she puts on one high heel and I stand, handing her the other. It’s been about a month since the incident with Sebastian and her foot’s healed pretty well. My leg, too. We have no idea how Sebastian’s injuries turned out, and frankly, we don’t fucking care. The police took him into custody that night and he’s been in jail ever since, awaiting trial for aggravated assault and battery. He’s actually pleading not guilty. Cassie told the district attorney it didn’t surprise her. “He never thinks anything is his fault,” she said. “But all that counts is that the jury does. And after our testimony, there’s no way they won’t.” We think by the time the case starts their divorce will be final. Divorce usually takes months, sometimes years, but the lawyer working on it, a colleague of one of my fight night regulars, says she’s having the paperwork expedited, given the circumstances. But it’s all a technicality at this point. We both want the divorce to happen quickly, of course, but Cassie’s mine anyway and I’m hers. A legal document won’t make me love her more.
Cassie pulls her tank top on as she walks to the other side of the desk. She bends out of sight, then stands with my shirt “Not that I ever want you to get dressed,” she says, folding the shirt on the desk, then resting her hands on my bare chest, “but if we’re going to back to the bar, I think this place has a no shirt, no shoes, no service policy.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” I say, wrapping my hands around her waist and pulling her toward me. “We would never have a policy that discourages our customers from taking off their shirts at Altitude.”
She laughs and tucks her dark hair behind her ears. “Your bar, your rules, Mr. Cole.”
I kiss the top of her head. “I like that attitude, tiger,” I say. “You keep that up, I may just have to keep you around forever.”
“Forever?” she says, rubbing her hands across my tattooed arms. “That’s an awfully big word.” She stands on her tiptoes, tilting her face up at me, her eyes dancing, her lips parted. “But you know I like things big.”
I do. I know lots of things about her. That her hair smells like lemons, even if she hasn’t washed it that day. That sometimes, after she comes, she giggles. That being inside her mouth is like having my cock wrapped in warm silk. That she likes tomatoes but doesn’t like ketchup so she eats her French fries with mustard. She hates horror movies. She loves old country music. I know that when her dad died, she was afraid she would forget the sound of his voice, so sometimes she still falls asleep listening to old recordings of him reading fairytales that he made for her when she was a kid. That she’s a protective sister and a loyal friend, a person who believes in making things right, who takes chances, who will risk herself and her safety for the people she loves, and that I am one of those people.
And being here with her tonight, her skin warming mine though her thin tank top as I hold her against me, I know that I love her like I will never love anyone else, and that I will always love her, no matter what happens in our life, rich or poor, sick or in health, easy or hard.
***
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Acknowledgments