Page 22 of Captivated

“Piper,” I finally reach her, grabbing her arm so she spins around and I pin her up against her car.

“What do you want, Cash?” Those dark blue eyes peer up into mine, and in that moment, I don’t think—I just react.

Smashing my lips to hers, Piper lets out a shriek of surprise before she opens her mouth and lashes her tongue with mine, moaning with every stroke. One of my hands finds her hip, the other encircles the back of her neck, pulling her even closer to me while I take what I’ve wanted since the first moment I saw her. She’s hot and wet, inviting me to explore every inch of her mouth as her arms wrap around my neck and she closes the space between us, pressing our bodies together so the friction ignites even stronger than it already has been.

Moving her hips forward, we grind our bodies together shamelessly, letting every sound of pleasure coming from our kiss flow out into the crisp night air, while the world continues to spin around us.

There’s chemistry here—it’s undeniable, unbreakable—burning so hot that my dick grows painfully hard in just the few seconds I’ve been touching her.

“Cash,” she shoves me away, her hand coming up to cover her mouth, registering the shock she must feel from my actions and her honest gratification of the moment. But fuck if I wouldn’t do it all over again.

“Piper…,” I say while struggling to catch my breath. “Did you feel that? Is that what you wanted?” My voice is hoarse, but my eyes are locked on hers, reading her like a fucking book. Her chest is heaving, her eyes are wide, and she’s borderline furious but clearly turned on.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve kissing me like that,” she finally spits out, laced with contempt for me. But I see her eyes bounce back down to my lips, so I know she wants more. She can act mad all she wants, but she kissed me back. I felt that shit deep down in my bones.

“Well, you make me crazy... so full of pent up sexual frustration, I figured why not let some of it out?”

“You’re such an ass,” she shakes her head, trying to hide the smile peeking out from the corner of her lips.

“Not the first or last time I’ll hear that jab, sweetheart. But I think you secretly like that about me.”

“I don’t know what to think about you.”

“Well, let me help you figure that out. Give you more to think about.” I step into her bubble again and this time, kiss her more seductively as I feel her melt in my arms.

“I can’t want you, Cash….” She mumbles against my lips before our tongues tangle again for a few more seconds. “It’s all wrong…”

“I don’t want to want you either, Piper… but fuck, I can’t help it, woman. Now shut up and kiss me.”

Chapter 8

Piper

“Great! Now everyone find the dark red paint that is on your pallet and gather a few drops on your brush... we’re going to start the roof of the lighthouse.”

I demonstrate the shape and strokes needed to bring the top of the lighthouse structure to life as I stand at the front of the room, filled with members of the Sagewood Retirement Center that signed up for the first painting class that I’m teaching.

And boy—there must have been nothing else going on worthy of their time this evening, because this room is filled to the brim. Either that, or these old people just really love to paint. I settled on the lighthouse picture I’ve done a few times back home because it was always a hit and easy enough to start with for beginners, but some of these folks are showing me up with their skills.

“It’s hard not to flirt when I see a beautiful woman, especially as memorable as you.”

As I paint and try to refocus my mind for the thousandth time tonight, Cash’s attempt at an apology/flirting keeps ringing in my ears. And then the memory of his kiss hits me, and I swear I blush every single time.

It’s been a few days since the bar night when I smacked him in the face and caused a scene, the memory still bringing a smile to my face at the thought of his surprise from my actions.

But God, that felt good to put him in his place. No woman should be subjected to a date that a man didn’t really want in the first place—and as the result of a bet, no less. I don’t know Misty personally, but I’ve heard enough about her. And I don’t care how brazen you are, no one deserves to be treated like that. But giving Cash a Chlamydia diagnosis in front of her was just too much fun, the reminder making me chuckle quietly until more of his desperate attempt to apologize comes to life.

“You’re breathtaking, Piper. And maybe I didn’t show that in the most eloquent of ways, but it’s true.”

Why those words make my stomach flip, I’m not sure. And that’s what’s so frustrating about Cash Williams in the grand scheme of things—my reaction to him. He’s a man I should pay no attention to in the slightest. Heck, no man should be on my radar at all, let alone one who clearly has a reputation for his affliction for the opposite sex. I came here to hide without putting my life on hold while my parents handle the shit show back home that threatened my life.

“Piper… did you feel that? Is that what you wanted?”

There’s a pit in my stomach when I think about how I let him kiss me after I chastised him for his treatment of Misty. But I gave in, listened to my vagina instead of my brain, only further solidifying that something is seriously wrong with me because I have never been attracted to a man like Cash Williams in my life, and suddenly, he’s all I can think about. One moment, I want to ball tap him and lecture him about how disrespectful he is—and the next, I have dirty dreams that wake me up in a sweat, in which he shows me all the skills his reputation suggests he has perfected. And if his kiss in any indication, the man has skills in spades.

In the last eight years, I’ve only been with one man, the man I thought I was gonna marry until I realized I didn’t know him at all and he endangered my life. But Mason was never a crass, cocky, and confident man like Cash Williams has proven to be. He was sweet, the perfect boyfriend from the familiar circle of affluent families we associated ourselves with. We were the golden couple, betrothed from the moment we started dating, and I was okay with that, as long as Mason supported my dream to become a nurse. Most of the girls in our circle didn’t work by choice, but I had a dream, and I wasn’t going to give that up to be the doting house wife. Some people scoffed at the idea, but my parents and Mason saw nothing wrong with it.

Little did I know that part of his agreeable demeanor was so that my focus was elsewhere while he was living an entirely different life right under my nose—choices and decisions that came back to jeopardize my safety.

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