Page 32 of Beg for You

I giggled at his antics, even as I shook my head, trying to deny the truth of his words.

There was movement from Cal’s direction, so I glanced back over. Cal’s client walked out. Gloria. The woman he was working on the first time I came in. The woman he’d kissed right in front of me. A woman I was pretty sure he’d slept with, probably more than once. An unhappy feeling slid through me. Suddenly, I didn’t know where to look. The urge to leave, to run out of there, was so strong I took a step back.

But I couldn’t look away as she moved around in front of him, planted her hand on his chest like she had the last time, and got up on her tiptoes. Cal’s head jerked back, denying her the kiss she was going after.

Gloria frowned. “You want to meet up later?”

Cal looked down at her. “No.”

She stepped back, a scowl on her face. “Whatever.” Then she walked to Dane, dumped some money on the counter, scowled at me as well, and strode out.

If I hadn’t been there, would he have seen her later? I mean, I wouldn’t have blamed him. Gloria was stunning, confident, so many things I wasn’t.

The thought didn’t really sit well. No, that was a lie. It did not sit well, not at all. In fact, I hated the idea of him with another woman. I had no right to feel that way. None. He could’ve been with Gloria every night or someone else, a whole host of women, since I’d met him.

But my mind and body rejected the idea so sharply and intensely, and in a way I wasn’t prepared for, that my spine straightened. My invisible barrier, the one I’d lived behind since the accident, flew up, and I had no control over it. I let it. I let it settle and surround me because I had to be careful. I couldn’t afford to form an attachment to this man. For obvious reasons. He certainly wouldn’t be suffering the same feelings for me from our two encounters.

Going all doe-eyed over Cal just because he was the first man to give me an orgasm really just highlighted how pathetic I was, how inexperienced.

I was stronger than that. I had to be.

He was staring at me, eyes narrowing, head tilting to the side like a giant predator, reading me—or trying to.

I kept my back straight, my chin high, refusing to turn into some gooey puddle just from the sight of him. I couldn’t let him get the upper hand. We had to be equal in this, this casual arrangement, for as long as it lasted. For my own good.

“Are you ready for me?” I asked.

His nostrils flared and my belly swooped when I realized how that might sound.

“More than ready,” he said, voice nothing but a low rumble.

I nodded and followed him to his little curtained-off room.

Thirty minutes later, my fingernails were digging into the leather seat I was on, trying my best to hold it together. The pain was excruciating. Cal was working on the worst of my scars. It was worth it, the pain. I told myself that over and over again, while I did my best to keep as still as I could. Every now and then Cal would smooth his hand over my side, murmuring praise, telling me how good I was doing.

I bit my lip and felt another hot tear slide down my cheek. The pain made me dizzy, scrambled my thoughts, but I refused to reach back and tap his leg, asking Cal to stop. This pain was the least I deserved. It meant I was alive. Unlike my big brother. This tattoo was for him as well, for his memory. I didn’t want to see his charred remains anymore when I closed my eyes. I wanted to see the gorgeous boy with blond hair and a wicked smile. The boy who had brought me pink roses from the garden every year for my birthday.

A sob burst past my lips, a combination of pain and anguish all rolled into one. The buzzing of the tattoo machine stopped instantly.

“Cassandra?” Cal rumbled my name, his voice full of concern.

I tried to stealthily wipe my eyes before I lifted my head.

“You’re crying,” he said, horror clear in his voice.

I shook my head and kept it down, my hair covering my face. “I’m okay.”

His stool squeaked and he moved around, crouching in front of me. Those big hands pushed my hair back from my face with a gentleness that should have been impossible for a man of his size. Going by the way his eyes widened, I could safely assume I was red and puffy.

“Fuck…P-Princess,” he said then slid his thumb over my lower lip. It came back streaked with red.

I jerked in surprise and licked where his thumb had just been, tasting blood.

“W-Why didn’t you…tell me to s-stop,” he growled out.

I’d never heard him struggle this much with his speech before. There were the pauses and clipped, short sentences, but he was stumbling over words now. The alarm on his face was real, and I wondered if he had some kind of speech impediment that worsened when he dropped his guard because I was pretty sure that’s what I was seeing.

“I’m okay. Really.” I wasn’t a crier. In fact, I hated showing emotion in front of anyone, so I did what I always did and tried to shove it down, lock it away. But when Cal curled his fingers around the side of my neck, gliding his thumb back and forth just in front of my ear, concern in his intense dark eyes, I couldn’t do it.