Why would she? I release her hands and pull back, standing. I’m shaking now as I walk to the windows, trying to get my head straight. For years and years, this was my story, this was how I understood what happened back then. And now to learn it’s all wrong? I’m dizzy with the shock of it.
“But it had to be you. Who else would’ve done it?”
“Anyone,” she says earnestly. “Your friends. Your enemies. Everyone knew.”
“But everyone was too afraid to cross me. You were the only one that ever had the balls to speak up. It had to be you.”
“It wasn’t me.” She moves from the bed and stands. She’s in a pair of tiny shorts and that tiny fucking tank top and her skin glows in the early morning light. She looks like an angel and I can’t take my eyes off her. Every inch of her skin calls to me, from her lips to her shoulders to her knees and everything in between. It was like God made her to my exact specifications and I can barely keep from reaching out and touching her, kissing her, pushing her up against the wall and fucking her senseless.
“I don’t know what to think right now. If you didn’t get me kicked out of school then I’ve been hating you for no goddamn reason all this time.”
“I’m sorry,” she says and comes closer. “Not for that, but for running. I’m sorry for running, and for not trusting you. But I swear, Casso, I didn’t tell anyone about your tests. It wasn’t me.”
Her words are iron rods into my heart. I force myself away from the window and toward her, even if I’m having trouble reshaping my view of the world. “I’ve been such a damn fool,” I say, advancing fast, and she doesn’t have time to pull away as I grab her and yank her against my body. She feels soft, gorgeous, and my heart’s racing at the way her lips part. She’s sensual and perfect, and I feel her fingers dig into my back and a purr on her lips.
“What are we going to do?” she whispers, looking up into my eyes.
“We’re going to get answers, you and I. We’re going to find the truth. But for now, I need to do what I drove all the way out here to do, and I won’t leave before it’s finished.”
“What’s that?” she asks.
And I bury my mouth against hers, kissing her hard and deep, because no matter what happened in the past, no matter what happens in the future, there’s here and now, and in this room, she’s golden and gorgeous and I can’t resist her, I can’t walk away from her, and I have to taste her until I’ve had my fill.
Chapter 25
Olivia
His kiss lights a fire in my core and not in a million years did I think this would happen, that Casso would come to my father’s house and kiss me and make me feel like I’m glowing. I expected rage, rejection, blame, punishment: instead, I get his lips, his tongue, his arms around my body.
His hands move across my skin, up to my breasts, in through my hair. He grips tight and he kisses my neck, his lips like heaven on my throat. “Mine,” he purrs. “All mine, little Olivia. You can run all you want, but you are mine and you will obey. If you’re lucky and I choose to keep you, I swear it, you will never do something like this again.” His grip in my hair tightens. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I whisper as he squeezes my hips like he can’t get enough.
“Say it again.” He bites my shoulder and slowly tugs down my shorts. I’m wearing a pair of black panties, old and worn, and they barely cover my ample ass. He grips it with his free hand hard enough to nearly hurt.
“I won’t do anything like this again.”
He growls and bites my lower lip. He’s savage, he’s angry, and he’s taking it out on me.
He pulls my hair as he steers me to the bed, but instead of pushing me down, he pulls off my tank top. I’ve got on nothing beneath, only more skin and hard nipples. He licks my breasts and sucks them, groaning as he does it, and I feel his arousal like lightning and waves in a pond. I dig my hands into his back and he seems to love it as he pulls my hair tighter and finally shoves me down roughly.
I topple onto the bed. He yanks me to the edge and drops to his knees in supplication. He pulls down my panties, not bothering to tease me first, not bothering to wait. His eyes worship my bare, glistening pussy. This isn’t for my pleasure, this is for his hunger, and if it feels good, well, that’s only a byproduct of how badly he wants to consume me. I gasp and grab his hair as his mouth kisses up my inner thigh and his tongue laps along my lips, spreading me wide. I’m naked, exposed, and he’s there licking and sucking my clit like I’m the last woman on Earth, like I’m his everything. And if I close my eyes and pull his hair and feel his fingers slide inside my pussy, I can imagine that yes, yes, I’m his, all his, and he’s mine too.