(Andy Grammer - I found you)
Tears still stung his eyes, and Dick was glad that with his casual surfer appearance most of the guys he passed from his fraternity to the Hearst computer labs assumed that his red-rimmed eyes were because he was high as fuck. He offered a half-amused smirk and shook his head in negation when they invited him to the wet tank top contest some of the Sororities were hosting outside Lilith House in protest over their attempt at banning Greek Life on campus.
Most of the guys at Hearst didn't know anything about the tragic Casablancas family history which happened last summer. His family lawyers had still spun a pretty plausible story about Cassidy's death being an accident, and mainstream media outlets were more interested in tracking down his dad than covering the suicide of a high school student.
Beaves…
Even now he still couldn't reconcile the little brother who'd been his shadow and followed him like a pet with the person who had done the things the whispers suggested.
How could someone that meek and sweet have blown up a plane and caused the crash that killed their classmates?
Logan had wanted to delve deep and talk things out, but after that encounter with his dad he couldn't sit still, in the last year he'd lost more than his heart could take.
His dad's theories about getting off wouldn't work, then again… all he had to prove was reasonable doubt.
He closed his eyes and shoved away the memory of Betina Marone, his fling during the summer before Senior year. Hells… he knew he'd been a prick, keeping her at a distance but still addicted to spending time with her.. letting her think it was nothing but a booty call but his time with her had been better than anything he'd had with anyone, and he'd known his dad would give him shit if he discovered him slumming it with an 03er. Dick hadn't been with as many girls as he liked to brag about but he was pretty sure she'd only been on the bus that day because of him.
He'd behaved like Madison.
He'd taken what he'd wanted from her... and even after she was gone he'd still played off her death to Veronica like it was nothing, even though the memorial posters of her warm familiar face made him feel like he was crumbling a little.
It was easier to pretend to be a vapid asshole, and he'd played that role to perfection.
Casablancas men didn't admit to needing anyone. They didn't talk about his mother, only the happy stuff, the Hallmark playboy moments. Until tonight no one had been a fly on the wall to their shitshow.
Handle your shit like a man. It was the lesson his father had taught them and probably the reason why a quiet kid who carried the scars of what Woody Goodman had done to him had never spoken up. When Dick glanced in the rear-view, every breath was an obvious cry for help.
Cassidy's cry for help. The brother he had failed. Anger brewed in his gut.
No….The son his father had failed and wouldn't even acknowledge.
He knew what he needed, he wouldn't freefall into grief like he had last summer. She barely had time to turn in her chair before Mac realized who was kissing her. His hands braced both sides of her face and he plundered her mouth as if he'd happily drown in the only source of water for miles after days in a desert. A groan escaped him when surprise turned into surrender and her hands were in his hair.
There's my girl…
"Hi" she breathed against his lips, her grey eyes wide.
"Hi back," he smiled then captured her mouth again. His hands eagerly plucking her up from the chair and wrapping her legs around his waist. Her hands clamped around his broad shoulders and he turned her back against the door. His heated stare burned like the sun, a flash of white teeth before he dipped his head and kissed the hollow of her throat. His tongue running over the delicate pulse of her throat as his teeth grazed the tender skin. "Tastes good."
She was the Nectar of the Gods… she smells of cinnamon and honey...
Guilt clawed into his chest as he pulled her against him, a white-hot punch of heat licking down to his cock as his fingers fumbled with the lock on the door handle. Cindy Mackenzie should be in his brothers' arms but she still made his blood burn. That first night together had doused them in gasoline and set them on fire.
They'd gone from one conversation to his lips on hers and igniting this craving for her which had been fucking him up for months. Cindy would never be someone he could deserve.
His brother would never get to go to college… he'd never get to find a good place like this… never get to see that life could have been better... The truth hurt.
Maybe Dick should have gone to see that bottle of whiskey with his name on it? He was helplessly furious with himself for the mistakes with his brother that he would never be able to change, because death was final. Only life gave you the opportunity for second chances. Closing his eyes against the typhoon of sadness he rested his forehead against hers.
"I'm sorry" his voice was rough, unsteady. Almost like he was unraveling inside. Sadness shadowed his blue eyes, a sorrow she was sure he'd only ever shown himself in the mirror. She was soft and gentle and safe… everything he wasn't.
"Are you mad at me?" Mac asked softly, nerves plucking at her belly. Who had told him? How had he found out so quickly?
A kid surely wasn't in either of their plans but they were here now. They were from different worlds, he'd turned hers upside down, she hadn't had it easy like half the kids who went here, and she was a million miles from the kinds of society girls in the 09er world who acted like everyone should bow at their feet just for breathing the same air as them. Her heart fluttered like the wings of a hummingbird, it was funny how the butterflies in her stomach echoed in sympathy.
It could just the pregnancy hormones but it was possible that she was a little bit in love with Dick Casablancas.
"No, baby, never at you" he said so quietly she wasn't even sure she heard the words but she was relieved, brushing the blond hair from his forehead. That she'd thought his mood had anything to do with her ached in him.
How could he explain that she felt like the only solid ground in a lifetime of sinking sands?
Her phone vibrated against the table, probably Parker checking in for the hundredth time since this afternoon.
"God I need this…" he muttered. You... I need you Cindy, and I don't deserve it. He thought mournfully kissing along down her jaw sending another quake down her spine as his lips moved to her collarbone. Disapproval lined his face when she glanced at the desk.
"Don't answer it," He rasped raking his gaze over her body. His hands curled around her hips possessively, his fingers looping into the belt loops of her jeans, tugging her body flush against his.
"Dick, shouldn't we talk-?" she panted into his mouth. Wallace was right, they did need to take lessons in communicating. Because Love wasn't a choice and they had to figure this thing out before he stole something even more vital from her.
"No, I can't go there. That's a conversation I just can't have tonight," he said tipping her chin upwards. "I just need to feel what's mine" his eyes pleading quietly for no protests and captured her lips in a desperate gluttonous kiss.
Her thighs trembled as his skillful invasion of her mouth made her toes curl. Emotion clogging her throat as his hands delved under her shirt and cupped her breasts, he twisted and rested her ass on the adjacent desk. Pleasure tinted with splatters of pain as he caught the pebbling nipples in between his fingers. He growled pulling off her shirt and she looked at him nervously as she felt him thicken in his jeans.
"Enjoying the view?" she asked.
"I am actually," he said in a low husky voice, sliding her bra off slim shoulders. "Jesus you are hotter than the Eta Carinae."
"I'd tell you how sexy you are, but I'm sure you are already aware" she admitted biting her lower lip, the smug smile on his face told her he knew it just fine.
"You remember the first time I had you in here like this?" he asked staring at her swollen lips.
Her pulse skittered at the memory, yeah she remembered. Dick had been furious with her ditching him the morning after their unexpected hookup.
Thanks Tequila...
He paid some Junior who ran a buy-your-next-test site to hack into her computer the afternoon after their hook-up and asked her if she'd enjoyed her walk of shame from his penthouse, then informed her cockily that he'd enjoyed some footage of their get together but she'd left out the good parts.
She often had the I.T lab late in the afternoon to herself and between the party atmosphere in the dorms and Parkers often busy schedule, and love of awful British boybands… it had become a bit of a sanctuary.
She had done her best to ignore him but when he invoiced her a bill for laundering his bedsheets and asked if she'd any other suggestions since clips of the cctv footage 'were missing all the good bits'. He'd heckled her for a few days while she had gone out of her way to try and avoid him... and then somehow their adolescent bickering and arguing had escalated to her furiously snapping at him and yanking her shirt off on facetime just to shut him up.
"Oh God" she shuddered, mortified at the memory, her body thrumming with tension his gaze was hot and hungry.
He'd confronted her right here in the computer lab and called her a heartless tease before they ravenously stripped one another naked and screwed like they were possessed. Was that sexy? It had felt frenzied at the time like their bodies had been starving and they were going to feast until they couldn't take anymore.
"I need more of that," he said, the carnal tone lacing his words going straight for her core as his hands reached for her black jeans, flicking the button open with his clever fingers and yanked them down her legs.
"Then you showed up at the hotel pool to tell me you never wanted to see me again… how you were so disgusted with yourself but before you'd finished you ended up riding me in the steam room?" he said sucking her earlobe between his teeth. Best. Sex. Ever... He didn't want to talk, he just wanted to be in control, to be buried deep in the one thing he knew his dad couldn't ruin for him.
"Then you threatened to take a chainsaw to my nuts if I told anyone" he chuckled, his fingers skimming the tips of her green underwear and she gasped as he slipped a finger into her wet heat. "Spread your legs for me baby…" he smirked coyly as her hips wiggled with need.
So goddamn tight…
