The Bonds We Break (The Four #5) Page 20

  He looked at me in silence for a minute, and then he groaned. “This is so fucking awkward. I’m no good with words—just ask Winter.”

  “I think you’re doing alright,” I offered softly, earning me another small smile.

  “Okay. I guess this is the part where I say ‘welcome to the family.’” He affected some deep, unidentifiable accent, which made me laugh.

  “What accent was that supposed to be?”

  “Not sure, actually. It felt like we were in the mafia, so I was trying to get into the role.”

  “You are all so weird. What have I got myself into?” I muttered to myself, biting my lip to hide my own smile.

  “Yet you’re the one reading dodgy porn books.”

  “For fuck’s sake, why does everyone have to keep bringing that up?” There was no hiding my smile anymore.

  Caiden stood, grinning, and then he held out his hand to me.

  I took it, and he pulled me to my feet.

  It felt symbolic.

  It felt like a new beginning.

  Back inside the town hall a while later, the afternoon networking event was well under way in one of the function rooms. Well-dressed members of the Alstone elite mingled while waiters circulated with trays of champagne and canapés. Caiden disappeared off to talk to his dad, and I looked around, trying to spot Cassius, but I didn’t see him. I did, however, see my dad, who made a beeline for me as soon as I caught his eye.

  “Jessa. Thanks for coming.” He placed a hand lightly on my back, leaning down to kiss my cheek.

  “Of course.” I smiled. “How’s it going?”

  “Good, I think. We have a couple of potential orders, big ones at that, which I’ll follow up when I’m back in the office tomorrow.” He chatted to me about the business for a while, giving me a proud smile every time I chimed in with a suggestion or opinion.

  We were interrupted by Arlo Cavendish, Caiden and Weston’s dad, who gave me an apologetic smile, steering my dad aside, and I took my chance to escape. I hadn’t gone more than three steps when I was pulled back against a familiar, firm body, a tattooed arm sliding around my waist.

  “Where are you running off to?” Cassius murmured in my ear, following up his question with a soft kiss to the side of my head.

  “I was looking for you, actually.” Turning my head, I lifted my face for a kiss.

  He smiled against my lips. “Come with me.”

  With his arm around me, he led me over to where his parents were standing. Paul and Estella Drummond were part of the Alstone Holdings legacy, and although they were both extremely powerful and influential, there was a warmth and genuineness about them that had always made me feel completely at ease.

  “Mum, Dad. Meet Jessa De Witt.” Cassius waved his hand in my direction.

  “Were you out in the sun too long today, Cassius? We already know Jessa.” Paul raised a brow.

  “Poor boy. He’s sun-addled.” Estella shook her head at Paul.

  Cassius attempted to glare at them. “I know you know her. I wanted to introduce her officially.” He paused dramatically. “As my girlfriend.”

  Both of them gaped at us, although Estella was quick to hide her surprise, recovering with a genuine smile on her face. “Jessa. How lovely. We must have you both over for dinner soon. Does a day next week work?”

  I glanced at Cassius, who gave me a small nod. “That would be great. Thank you, Mrs. Drummond.”

  She laughed. “No need for formalities. Call me Stella.” Stepping closer, she placed a hand on my arm. “Forgive my surprise. It’s just that Cassius has never had a girlfriend before, and I was beginning to lose hope of it ever happening.”

  “He was always too busy sowing his wild oats,” Paul interjected with a smirk, and Estella elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Thanks for that, Dad,” Cassius mumbled.

  “Cass has a girlfriend.” Lena suddenly appeared at my side, and I didn’t miss the huge, exaggerated eye roll Cassius gave her.

  “They already know.”

  Her face fell. “I wanted to be here when you told them.”

  “Why?” He frowned, and everyone turned to look at her.

  She slipped her arm around me, and now I had both her and Cassius hugging me. It was nice. Really nice.

  “Because I’m part of this family, too, and Jessa’s my friend. She might’ve needed me for moral support.”

  “We’re not that scary, are we?” Paul laughed.

  “You’re not, but have you met your son? I was worried he’d embarrass Jessa or scare her away.”

  Paul nodded. “Fair point. But I think we can all agree that everything went well. Cass has exceptional taste. Takes after his dad, of course.” He shot me a tiny wink. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to catch Thomas before he leaves.” Lifting a hand to catch the attention of someone behind me, he stepped aside, and when Lena moved away from me to speak to Estella, Cassius leaned down to kiss my cheek.

  “Was that okay?” His voice was soft in my ear.

  “Yeah.” I nodded, turning to press a kiss to his jaw. “Of course it was.”

  “Good.”

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and we both turned to see Caiden standing with Zayde and Weston. “Are you ready to leave?”

  “Yeah.” Cassius’ voice was relieved. “I’ve done enough networking for one afternoon.”

  “I’d done enough in the first ten minutes of being here.” Caiden shrugged at him, then turned to me, his gaze warm and open. “Jessa? Coming home with us?”

  I stared at him, a smile slowly spreading across my face, which grew wider when Zayde spoke up, looking directly at me. He only said one word, but it was enough, especially when I saw his lips tilt up at the corners. “Come.”

  “Yeah, come on. I wanna show you an idea I had for those buzzer cameras.” West threw me a grin as he slung his arm over Caiden’s shoulder.

  Cassius pulled me into him, ducking his head, and I could feel his smile against my neck.

  What else could I say?

  “Okay.”

  EPILOGUE 1

  ONE WEEK LATER

  Cassius threw his phone down on the sofa with a grin as I settled into place next to him after carefully placing the mug of tea I’d made him down on the coffee table. “Your brother always has the best memes.”

  “My brother? Austin? Sending memes?”

  “Yep.”

  “How is it that I didn’t know this? And also, why do you talk to my brother more than I do?”

  He tugged me into his lap. “No one can resist my charms, not even Austin.”

  “Okay, I suppose that’s true.” I kissed the side of his throat. “Mmm. You smell nice.” Breathing in, I trailed my nose up his neck, noticing the hitch in his breath as he tilted his head.

  “I’ll never get enough of you.” His hand slid up my thigh.

  “Did you forget we were here?”

  I jerked away from Cassius to see Weston grinning at me from the armchair, with Lena stretched out on the floor and leaning back on his legs, tapping at her phone screen.

  “No, I didn’t forget.” Shooting him a smile, I watched in satisfaction as he shook his head.

  “You’ve been spending too much time with Cass. He’s rubbing off on you.”

  “I’d like to rub one off on you right now,” Cassius murmured in my ear, and I reached up to cover his mouth. He licked my palm, and I made a noise of disgust, yanking my hand away.

  “Do you have to?”

  “Yep.” His voice was unrepentant.

  “Did I tell you about the time Cass licked my ear, right when we were in the middle of a serious mission?” West leaned forwards in his seat, his fingers sliding through Lena’s hair. “We’d managed to infiltrate this illegal dog-fight—”

  “Infiltrate? You make us sound like secret spies,” Cassius interrupted him.

  He rolled his eyes. “Spies are secret by nature. You can’t be a secret spy.”

  “You can.”

>   “You can’t.”

  “You can.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Okay, is someone going to tell me about this illegal dog-fight?” I cut in before the conversation could get out of hand. I noticed Lena smirking from behind her phone screen, so I stretched out my legs and nudged her calf with my toe. If I had to be involved in this conversation, then she did, too.

  She placed her phone down and gave me her full attention. “Yeah. It was your ex-best friend, Portia, who gave me the breakthrough in the end.”

  “Portia? What?”

  “Technically, it was James Granville who identified her, but Portia was instrumental in the whole thing.” Pulling up her legs, she wrapped her arms around her knees. “Ready for a story? It all started when I found out about these illegal dog-fights that were taking place in Alstone…”

  As she spoke, I curled into Cassius, soaking up his warmth and listening to the three of them weave a story that I wouldn’t have believed if they hadn’t been the ones to tell it. The whole time they talked, Cassius had his hand on me, stroking my hair, my leg, my sides. Constantly reminding me that he was here.

  I couldn’t ever remember being so content.

  A while later, when it had grown dark outside and I was starting to feel sleepy, Zayde wandered in to join us, followed closely by Winter and Caiden. They all sprawled around in the large lounge, relaxed, the conversation low and easy.

  “Austin gave me the big-brother talk.” Cassius suddenly broke the comfortable silence we’d both fallen into.

  “He what?” I twisted my head to stare up at my boyfriend.

  “Yeah, you know. The ‘don’t hurt my sister or I’ll be forced to tie concrete blocks to your ankles and throw you into the River Thames’ talk.”

  “He did not say that.” I narrowed my eyes at him.

  Cassius widened his eyes, full of attempted innocence, but I could read him too well. I saw the humour sparkling in them as he met my gaze. “Maybe I was paraphrasing.”

  “Misinterpreting, more like.”

  “Cass gave me that talk, too,” Weston said, and it was then that I realised that everyone else had also fallen silent and was listening to our conversation. “He said he’d cut my balls off if I hurt Lena.”

  “You keep saying you’re a lover, not a fighter, but you have such violent tendencies, Cass.” Winter shook her head in mock disappointment.

  “Wait, no. I said Z would cut his balls off,” Cassius protested.

  “So it was you who started that rumour? As if poor Zayde doesn’t have enough to deal with already, what with his serial killer stare and everything.” Winter darted a look at Zayde, who was clearly unimpressed. To my surprise, she untangled herself from Caiden and threw herself into his arms. “You know I don’t mean it.”

  Even more surprising, he hugged her back.

  “The words ‘poor’ and ‘Zayde’ don’t belong together in a sentence. He’s like the mysterious bad boy, with all that and his motorbike. He could probably have more girls than any of us ever had, if he could be bothered.” Cassius pointed at Zayde as he said “that,” and I assumed he meant his many tattoos and piercings and his general “keep away” vibes that he threw out.

  Zayde gave Caiden a casual shrug, and I scrutinised him. Yeah, there was an appeal to him, if you liked that sort of thing, but as for me, my type consisted of one man only, and he was currently trailing kisses down the side of my face.

  I smiled, turning my head up to capture his lips.

  The conversation turned to bikes, and then to cars, and then something about revs and torque, by which point I’d slyly opened my Kindle app on my phone and begun to read the fourth instalment in my elf fantasy series, keeping my screen tilted away from the others.

  “His weeping mushroom head stared up at her, angry and purple, seemingly throbbing with delicious anticipation. As she spread her legs, exposing the delicate moist petals of her flower—”

  “Cassius!” I buried my head in the sofa cushions to the sound of everyone’s laughter.

  Again.

  EPILOGUE 2

  ONE MONTH LATER

  “Want to make a bet?” I eyed my girlfriend as she lay spread out on my bed completely naked, like some kind of tempting buffet I wanted to feast on.

  “What kind of bet?” Jessa’s voice was breathy, her pupils huge, and a glance between her legs told me she was already wet and ready for me. Just the way I liked her.

  “Remember, don’t move your hands.”

  She nodded, her arms stretched above her head, her fingers just touching the headboard. I hadn’t restrained her. I couldn’t bring myself to, the thought of when I’d found her bound and helpless still too recent in my mind. In actual fact, I was 90 percent sure she would be all for me tying her up because she trusted me, but I guess that image of her inside my head would take a while to go away.

  “What kind of bet?” she said again, and I pushed all the negative thoughts from my mind.

  “A bet on how many letters of the alphabet it’ll take to make you come.” Leaning forwards, my arms on either side of her, I placed open-mouthed kisses across her collarbone.

  “What?” The word came out on a moan. Her back arched as I lowered my head to take one of her nipples into my mouth, and my cock jerked against the sheets.

  Fuck. I’d always thought that I wanted variety, but sex with the girl I loved was incomparable. Nothing even came close.

  “Alphabet, baby.” Releasing her nipple, I turned my attention to the other one, her shuddering breaths going straight to my hard dick. But this wasn’t about me, so I ignored my neglected cock for now.

  Kissing and licking my way down her body, I stopped right above where she wanted me, blowing a breath over her wetness. “Ready?” She shuddered, raising her head to stare down at me, her cheeks flushed and her full lips red from where she’d been biting them in an attempt to stay quiet.

  “Yes,” she panted, losing the battle to keep her arms above her head, her hand coming down and gripping a handful of my hair. “Please. Just…”

  I got the hint.

  “No more talking. But…” I slid my finger between her legs, coating it in her arousal before I pushed it inside.

  The moan that fell from her lips was so erotic that my dick fucking throbbed.

  I reminded myself again that this wasn’t about me. This was all about the girl I loved.

  “How many letters?” I pushed another finger inside, curling it.

  She gasped. “Uh. Fourteen.”

  “Do you know what you’re betting?” Raising my head, I looked into her eyes, all unfocused and glassy. Yeah, she had no idea.

  “N-no,” she managed as I lowered my head, my tongue dragging across her clit in one slow, smooth movement. Another shuddering gasp escaped her at the first touch of my tongue.

  “Get ready.” Removing my fingers, I licked a long line down her soaked pussy, then brought my hand back down, easing two fingers back inside her. My mouth closed over her clit, and I began.

  By the time my tongue got to D, she was clamping her thighs on either side of my head.

  As I reached H, she was writhing on the bed, sexy as fuck moans falling from her mouth.

  When I hit L, she fell apart, her whole body shaking against me as she called out my name over and over again.

  “Cass. Come here.” Her rasped words, combined with the tug on my hair, had me moving up her body to rest my head next to hers, my arms automatically wrapping around her.

  I held her tightly, and it was weirdly easy to ignore my erection.

  “I love you.” The words came out so easily.

  “I love you, too.” She placed a soft kiss to my chest. “Did I win the bet?”

  “No, sorry, baby. You guessed fourteen, and it was twelve letters.”

  “But you didn’t bet against me,” she pointed out, her lips smiling against my skin as she tracked more kisses across my chest.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  My brai
n went more or less offline as her hand came down to wrap around my cock. Then, when she slid down the bed and her mouth replaced her hand, there was no way I could think anymore.

  Much, much later, when we’d both recovered and cleaned up, she curled up against me in her favourite position with her head on my chest and her arm slung across me, while I lay on my back with my arm curled around her.

  “I’ll never get enough of you,” I murmured into her hair.

  “Mmm. Same,” she said, all soft and sleepy, and it tugged at something inside me. I loved this woman so much.

  “Good.” My arms tightened around her. “You need to get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.”

  “Why?” Her voice had suddenly lost its sleepy tone.

  “You’ll have to wait and see. Sleep now.”

  Stroking my hands over her back, I thought of the surprise that waited on the driveway. Her Mercedes, but not…thanks to a bit of help from my boys.

  Instead of its original grey, its colour now matched the other cars parked outside.

  A perfectly flawless matte black.

  I listened to Jessa’s soft breaths evening out as she drifted into sleep, and I smiled.

  What did I say? All the best love stories start with an epic blowjob.

  Mine did.

  THE END

  Thank You

  Thank you so much for reading Cassius and Jessa’s story! Want a bonus epilogue? Download it now from http://bit.ly/cassjessa

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  You can also see Lena and Cassius in Raine and Carter’s standalone story, Trick Me Twice. Get it now at http://mybook.to/tmt