Chapter Nine
Quinton had an amazing day—and it was all thanks to Cassia.
It was one thing to click with someone sexually, and another to click with someone socially, and yet another to find someone so easy to talk to that it was effortless. But it was magic to connect with someone that way on every level.
He had that with Cass. He had all the cylinders firing. Just like he’d always wanted. Quinton had it in spades.
And it made him fucking yearn.
For more. For a chance. For the everything his parents apparently hadn’t had but both had wanted.
Everything, with Cassia.
Especially when she looked at him the way she’d been doing for the past hour—like she wanted to possess him. Heat and need had been radiating off her so brightly that Quinton had been sporting a hard-on most of that time, his mind absolutely alive with all the things he wanted to do to her and experience with her.
As good as the day had been, he was nearly ecstatic when they said their good-byes and made for his Rover.
Of course, they weren’t going anywhere fast. Not with a thousand other race fans pouring out of the lot at the same time. With each slow crawl toward the exit, Quinton could’ve sworn that the temperature in the vehicle ratcheted up. He was almost sure he could hear her galloping heart, and without question he could hear the shakiness of her exhales, the shifting of her clothing against the leather seat as she moved, and the bouncing of her foot against the carpet.
Baby girl was wound tight.
And all that unhelpful realization did was wind him even tighter.
Finally, finally, they pulled out onto the road, and within five minutes’ time, they were back on the highway, flying east towards Baltimore.
The tension in the car took on a physical presence, and neither of them said a goddamned thing. It was almost as if speaking or moving or even breathing would explode the whole thing to pieces, until all that was left was raw animal need.
Christ, Quinton had never felt this kind of high-voltage sexual energy before, and definitely not in an otherwise platonic situation. But he was right on the fucking edge, and no more than a hair’s breadth from falling over.
From the passenger’s seat came the thick sound of a swallow, and it immediately unleashed a memory in Quinton’s mind. Cassia, deep throating his cock while he sat on the edge of the Jacuzzi. She’d been aggressive and relentless and extreme, impaling herself on his length again and again, holding herself there until she had to gasp for breath. She’d shoved him hard and fast toward his orgasm until it had been irresistible.
Much like he was feeling right now.
“Master Quinton?” The soft words, spoken at barely more than a whisper, were like a crack of thunder inside the car. Master Quinton. He hadn’t needed the title to know where her mind and body were, but it licked fire over his skin to hear it nonetheless.
“Think carefully before you say another word, Cassia. Because I’m holding on by a very thin fucking thread over here.” His tone was harsher than he’d intended, but it was taking some serious effort to rein in his baser needs. Because, Jesus, he felt like a tiger pacing in a cage.
Silence followed, and Quinton heaved a breath.
Just twenty-five more minutes and they’d be back to her place.
“Master Quinton, please.”
Fucking hell.
Without giving it another thought, he jerked the wheel to the right, pulling off on the exit ramp they’d just come upon. After a long straightaway, the exit emptied into a big, mostly empty parking lot in front of a small brick rest stop. He parked, cut the engine, and stalked around to the passenger’s door. Wrenching it open, he leaned into the breach. “This isn’t how I wanted to do this, Cass.”
“I know, but I need it.” Slowly, she lifted her gaze to his, and her expression was pure, blatant hunger. “And you do, too.”
“Get out of the car,” he said, his brain planning and debating. An older couple came out of the building and made for their car further down the lot. “Not here.” Taking her by the arm, he pulled her along a side walkway that quickly fell into darkness as they moved away from the street lights lining the lot. Behind the rest stop, the sounds of the traffic were distant—as was the whole rest of the world. Or so it seemed. He boxed her in against a tall security fence, the kind that looked almost like prison bars, nothing but the moon through the trees casting any light. “You want to be fucked, Cassia? Where anyone might hear us? Where anyone might see us? Out here in the darkness?”
“Yes, Sir,” she said, her voice thick with lust. And, Jesus, the fact that she was right there with him in this was making Quinton insane.
“Yes, Sir, what?” he bit out, roughly tugging open the buttons on her jeans and shoving the pants down over her hips to hang at her knees.
“Yes, I want to get fucked. Right here. In the open. In the dark.”
“Take out my cock,” he said. Her hands went to work immediately, and so did his. While she freed him from the denim, he retrieved a condom from his wallet. He almost couldn’t open it, his hands shook so bad from the torture of her tight strokes around his length. “Grab onto the bar above you,” he said as he sheathed himself.
She did, and the picture of her hanging from the gritty metal, half naked in the shadowy darkness, the occasional sounds of cars and voices just footsteps away, destroyed every remaining vestige of his better judgment.
Quinton tugged her hips out away from the fence, bent his knees, and guided his cock between her legs. Her readiness was immediately apparent as his pumping knuckles met her wetness. Gripping her ass hard, he found her center and buried himself to the hilt. Her moan was as loud as his pleasured grunt as they collided, all desperate lust.
“Use your safeword if you need me to back off, Cassia. Come as often as you can. And be as loud as you dare,” he rasped, giving her a moment to adjust. “Understood?”
“Yes, Sir,” she said, her speech almost slurred with the thrill of what they were doing.
And then he let himself off the leash. With his fist gripping one of the metal bars for leverage, his hips flew against her, his pubic bone crashing into her clit on every thrust. The fence rattled from the force of the fuck, and the position caused her tight cunt to fist his cock on every in and out. He shoved his jeans down further and stepped closer, grinding himself deep, deeper, until he was riding her clit and making her scream out an orgasm into the cooling night air.
“Fuck, yes, Cassia.” He pulled out, but kept his hands on her hips to steady her. “Turn around.”
Breathing hard and moving like she was drunk, she clumsily gave him her back and gripped the fence. “Please,” she whispered. “Please, please.”
He forced her to bend at the waist and then he drove his cock right back in. “God, that’s good, baby. You take me so good. Just feel me, Cassia.” Gripping the back of her shirt, he tugged it upwards as far as it could go, and then he folded the hem of it over her head so that it covered the top half of her face—playing with her senses, and pushing her just a little.
She cried out and ground herself backward into him, and that was all the reassurance Quinton needed that she was on board with where he was taking them. And knowing that she was good with it filled his balls with the need to move. His hips slapped against hers, the fence rang out a rhythmic clink, and Cassia babbled a nonstop stream of curses and pleas.
He hunched himself around her. “What do you see, little one?” he rasped against her shoulder. “Tell me what you see.”
When her words came, they were halting and gritty, breathy and uneven. “Us…us fucking. In the dark. So dark.”
“Yeah. Tell me more.” He curled his arms around her shoulders, bringing them closer still, stroking faster and staying deeper inside her cunt.
“You’re holding me…so t-tight, and it’s making all those muscles…pop out along your back and side, under your ink,” she said. “Oh, God. The way your ass clenches.” Her head fell against her arm, outstretched in front of her where she held onto the fence.
“More,” he said, driving punctuated thrusts into her as the picture she painted came to life, making him see them as she saw them. A savage need crawled down his spine, telling him he didn’t have much time left before he lost control.
“Oh, God, I’m gonna come again, Master.”
“More,” he growled, her lust-fogged mistake bringing out the most pronounced possessiveness he’d ever felt in his life, for a submissive only used the title Master alone for the one who owned her.
“And my wetness is…running down my thighs…and oh fuck I’m…c-coming!”
That was the end of Quinton. He drove deep as his orgasm nailed him in the back, and just as his body started to pulse with it, he withdrew, ripped off the condom, and shot his release over her ass in wet stripes. “Jesus fuck, Cassia. Now mine is too.” The sight of his come marking her, temporary as it was, filled him with utter carnal satisfaction.
And the need to make the claiming more permanent, too.
When his body stilled, he fell heavily atop her spine and pressed a kiss between her shoulder blades. “You okay, baby?”
“So much better than okay,” she said, her voice wrecked.
Heaving a deep breath, Quinton got himself upright again, and then he gently slipped the soft cotton of her sweater off her head. “Let me clean you up.” He tugged off his Henley and used it to dry her as best he could.
After she did up her jeans, she fell back in a well-used heap against the fence.
Long seconds dragged out as they just stared at one another. In that moment, when she’d just given him something so profound and amazing, Quinton knew he needed to lay how he was feeling on the line.
But then she yawned so big it made her laugh. “Sorry. I think you fucked me into oblivion.”
He grinned, feeling ten kinds of triumphant at the satisfaction and contentment rolling off of her. Because of him. “Well, I ain’t never gonna apologize for that.”
She shook her head. “And I won’t ever want you to.”
See? Perfection.
But talking could wait, because first, he needed to take care of her. “Come on, Cass.” He took her hand in his. “Let’s get you home.”
* * *
The next thing Cassia knew, Quinton was opening the door to the Rover and lifting her out of her seat. She came awake enough to protest, but he just shook his head and carried her to the top of the steps that led to her apartment door.
“I gotta get the key,” she said, fumbling for her purse.
“I found it before I woke you up.” Gently, he placed her on her feet, but kept one arm around her waist to steady her as he unlocked the door.
She stepped inside, and he hesitated at the threshold. But Cassia wasn’t having that, not after everything they’d shared, and everything she hoped they still might. She fisted her hands in the T-shirt he’d changed into at the rest stop, and looked him right in the eyes. “Stay.”
Soul-deep happiness flooded through her when he nodded and came in. They grabbed some water and headed back to her room, and then they took turns in the bathroom before meeting again at her bed, where she was pulling on a tank top and a pair of boxers.
“This okay?” she asked, looking down at herself.
“Whatever makes you comfortable, baby,” he said, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “You mind me naked?”
She gave him a look. One that stopped just this side of turning into an eye roll. “Is that a trick question?”
Quinton chuckled. “Get your sexy ass in bed, woman.”
Grinning, Cassia climbed in on her side, and he got in on the other. They met in the middle, and she was just about to burrow into all that naked muscle along his side when she looked back to her nightstand, where the mini-lamp she always slept with remained on.
“Leave it on if you want. It won’t bother me,” he said.
She read the sincerity on his face, and that meant the freaking world to her. But then she thought about how brave Quinton thought she was, and she remembered the colors he’d painted in her imagination with just his words, and Cass felt the excitement and hope that still flowed through her from the fact that she hadn’t gotten very anxious at all about what they’d done in that darkness on the side of the highway, even when he’d covered her eyes.
And for the first time in two years, she turned off that light and laid down in her bed. In the dark.
“You sure, baby?” he whispered.
And, damn, how amazing was it to have someone there with her in the darkness, helping her battle what she’d so long struggled to conquer on her own. “Yeah,” she said, shifting to lay her head on his shoulder and pressing herself into the delicious nook along the side of his body. “I’m sure.”
He kissed her hair. “Put your leg up on me. I want to feel more of you.”
She did, bringing her core up close against the hard muscle of his thigh.
“Yeah,” he said, tone utterly content.
Exactly how she felt, too.
With one exception. Tomorrow, when they woke up, it was finally time to lay it all out there. She wanted more, with Quinton. She maybe wanted everything with him. And it was time to be the brave woman he believed her to be and tell him.