From Ashes

“Phone.”

“What?”

“Phone, Cass, give me your phone.” He turned to look at me and his eyes were still flat.

I nodded and dug through my purse as I held his stare. “I know why you want it, and I’m not going to stop you. But, Gage, I just told you all of this; do you want to talk about it first?”

“No. When I can stop thinking about you and him, I’m go

G AGE

I SLID MY finger over the phone, and though I wanted to, I didn’t check the messages. Cassidy had been painfully honest with me, so I knew she hadn’t hidden one damn thing from me. Checking the messages would only be saying I didn’t trust her, and I did. I went to her recent calls, and though I knew she’d been avoiding everyone but this detective, it still felt like a blow to see his name as the top four of her recent calls. Next to each of them was a number. Three, five, two, six. It didn’t take more than a second to add them up. Sixteen. They’d called each other sixteen fuckin’ times in a matter of two days, which he was working the majority of, and one morning. My stomach churned and I pressed on his name. It only rang twice before he picked up.

“Cassidy.” He sighed, sounding relieved. “God, I’m glad you called.”

“Not Cassidy,” I responded.

It only took a few seconds for him to get it. “Gage,” he stated firmly.

“Yep.”

“So she’s there with you.”

“Yep.”

“And you’re calling, which means she’s told you about me.”

What pissed me off more was that he’d known about me and still kissed her, begged her to stay with him. “Told me absolutely everything about you, including how she felt about you.”

“Everything,” he said doubtfully.

“Everything, meaning I just had to listen to my fuckin’ world talk to me for an hour about a guy who knew about me and still fuckin’ kissed and had her up against a wall with her legs around him. She even told me how she helped you out with your clothes before you got in the shower. So yes, I know it all.”

“Jesus.”

“I don’t appreciate people touching what’s mine,” I said in a low warning tone.

He didn’t care or back down. “I’ve never met anyone like her. It didn’t take me more than a couple minutes to know I wanted her, and not just in my bed. Girls like her don’t just come around every day—in fact they don’t come around ever. You weren’t there for her when you should have been. I don’t give a fuck if she didn’t tell you where she went. I would have made it my mission to find her and not let her go again. You let her go two weeks without even calling her.”

“And you let her go four years without even checking up on her. You don’t know the first thing about me and Cass, and you and she didn’t know that Tyler and I were talking daily while she was there. I knew I freaked her out the night of the fight, so Ty and I agreed it was best if I waited for her to come around instead of pushing her. Since Tyler’s the one who took care of her all those years, I figured he knew best, and looks like we were right.”

Co

My hand gripped the railing on the wraparound porch and my head dropped. Hearing her say that had hurt more than anything else she’d told me. “She did,” I said, confirming it.

“Pushing her brought us together, and yeah, it may have ultimately sent her back to you, but it gave us a co

“Not go

Co

“I’m putting a ring on her finger. I’m marrying her. And I’m go

“Yeah, I got you.”

“Good-bye, Detective Green.” Without waiting for a response I ended the call and stormed back into the house.

Cassidy was on her knees, butt on her feet, and looking at me like she had earlier, like she was seeing the sun for the first time and afraid it was going to be taken away from her. I understood the look now; she hadn’t known then and didn’t know now how I was going to react to the Co

“Gage,” she whispered.

“You’re mine,” I informed her, in case she hadn’t figured that shit out yet. I set her butt on the edge of the counter and gripped the sides of her underwear to pull them down, letting my hands trail back up the insides of her thighs.

She nodded. “Forever.” Her voice was breathy as her arms went back onto the large granite island in the center of the kitchen and her head fell back.

“I talked to Co

“Figured that.”

Her head was still dropped back, so I let the hand that had been supporting her back slide up until it cupped her neck and forced her to look at me. “Are you mad about that?”

“No, I had a feeling something like that, or worse, was going to happen. But I’m confu—oh!” She gasped when I slid two fingers in, and had to work hard to keep her eyes open and on mine. “Confused. Aren’t you mad, why are you—oh God—um, why are you doing this?”

I smiled widely and leaned forward to suck on that spot she loved behind her ear before telling her, “Always told you I wanted to claim you, darlin’.” Cassidy burst out laughing, but the movement it caused, and where my fingers currently were, made the sound cut off, and she moaned deeply. “Plus, we gotta break in all the rooms of our home.”

She was biting her bottom lip and gri

“Anything,” I promised, but she gripped my wrist and pulled my hand away from her. “Anything but that.”

Laughing huskily, her hands went to the button on my jeans and she looked up at me from under her lashes before leaning toward my ear. “I want my turn. Lie down, Gage.”

I kept my eyes on her as I stepped out of my pants and hopped onto the island with her, lying down and letting my legs hang off the end. Before I could pick her up to place her on me, one hand was grabbing my base and her mouth and tongue were teasing the tip for torturous seconds before she took as much of me in as she could.

“Shit, Cassidy.” I groaned and raked my hands down my face before looking down at her, only to find her looking up at me again from under her eyelashes. Where the hell did this girl come from? I couldn’t take my eyes off what she was doing and cursed the fact that I was getting worked up way too fast and this would all be over too soon. Her hand, mouth, and tongue were working together perfectly and I felt like a damn middle schooler again.