Forever Loved (Forever Lost Book 2) (13 page)

“Take off your clothes, Jellybean. I want to see the handprint I left on your butt this morning,” Leo’s voice chimed.

“You too, Hanna. It’s only fair you show off that beautiful body you’ve got under that dress.” Jamie’s deep tones echoed from beside him, and Hanna grinned as she released Cassie from her grasp. Both girls climbed up onto their knees and Cassie draped her long hair over her breasts, effectively covering them for the time being.

“As if he tells me what to do,” Hanna told Cassie, but she still slid out of her dress and started peeling off her underwear. Cassie loved how she was effortlessly following her husband’s order while still maintaining her independence, and enjoyed seeing their balanced relationship style. After leaving her life as a prostitute behind to be with Jamie, there hadn’t been anyone for Hanna but him—and vice versa. Cassie felt privileged to have Hanna’s attention on her again, and knew they wouldn’t do anything more than simply giving their lovers a good show, just like they’d done before. This time, though, there would be no sharing when it came to their men, and both women seemed to know without asking that their tryst wasn’t about to turn into a foursome.

Cassie halted her striptease when down to just her panties, and she took a moment to run a finger over her best friend’s small bump in awe. Hanna looked so beautiful, and truly glowed in pregnancy. Cassie was all of a sudden envious of her. She had everything she could’ve dreamed of without the pain or the heartache, and her own life suddenly felt very small in comparison to Hanna, Jamie, and their blossoming brood.

She wanted it too. In a sudden moment of realization, Cassie was suddenly broody. She wanted a baby with Leo, and was no longer scared to admit it. Cassie forced her attention away from Hanna’s rounded belly before her broodiness got the better of her. She focused instead on the full lips before her, and found herself staring at them with a need she hadn’t fulfilled in so very long.

Cassie hesitated before kissing them. Waiting was such sweet agony, but she didn’t move. She waited as long as she could bear, and was overjoyed when she then heard Leo’s voice waft over from the sofa.

“Go for it, love.” Even Hanna gasped at his command, and her eyes lit up as she realized just which route their relationship had taken. Cassie closed the small gap and took Hanna’s mouth with hers. Their tongues delved and their lips collided in a passionate display Cassie knew would already be arousing their observers. They kissed for so long she was panting and her lips were swollen when she finally pulled away, and she was glad to see that Hanna was in a similar state.

“Oh shit, sweetie. Don’t tell me you want this again, ’cause I’ll go there for sure.” Hanna’s voice was ragged and full of need, and the sound went right to Cassie’s core. “I’m horny like, all the time, and now you’ve got me remembering that night in Leo’s mansion. I want it again, but so much more. Can we?” Hanna’s soft tones drew Cassie in, and she let out a soft laugh. She looked over her shoulder at their two lovers with a smile, focusing on Leo in particular.

“How far?” The sound was quiet and timid, but she had to know Leo was on board with what was about to happen. She guessed she really had given her full submission to him, as the only thing holding her back from going for it with Hanna was Leo’s say-so. She craved his approval, and could tell by the salacious smile curling at his lips he was enjoying her need to obey him.

“I watched you two fool around on that recording hundreds of times. Now I get to see it for real.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Show me what you showed Jamie that night,” Leo said, and his command gave Cassie all the approval she needed to carry on. She delved back into her kissing session with Hanna without even hesitating.

After a few minutes of heavy petting, she felt Hanna’s hands on the hem of her panties, but before she could pull them down, her hand was yanked away. In her surprise, Cassie looked to Hanna, but it was Leo who answered her unspoken question. “I changed my mind.” He pulled Cassie to her feet.

She went to apologize to her friend, but saw the impressed look on Hanna’s face and thought better of it.

Despite his forceful way of putting a stop to their heavy petting, Hanna was clearly fascinated by his prowess, and Cassie watched as fire burned in her eyes when she regarded him. Jealousy speared in her gut, and she understood now why Leo had put a stop to their fun. Regardless of their history, she knew she wouldn’t share him with anyone either.

Cassie followed him out and down the hall to their bedroom without another word to Hanna or Jamie, but saw for herself how Jamie had already taken her place on the rug, ready to carry on in private just as she and Leo were.

Once they were alone, he pinned Cassie to the wall by her throat and kissed her roughly. “No one touches you but me, got it?” he demanded, and sunk his teeth into her bottom lip. She hissed at the pain, but didn’t pull away.

“Got it,” Cassie replied, and she pushed her hips against his. He was rock-hard beneath his clothes, and she was almost naked, drenched and ready for him to take what was his.

“Tell me you’re mine. Tell me I own you,” he groaned as he unbuttoned his pants and ripped off what remained of her clothing.

“All yours, baby. Always,” Cassie cried when he buried himself deep inside. She told him again and again while he showed her how crazy she’d made him with her little show with Hanna. Cassie liked knowing she could drive him so wild with desire for her, and she locked the feeling away so it could be called upon again and again. It felt amazing to have that affect over her powerful lover, and thanks to his lasciviousness, she soared once again in his arms.

Chapter Eleven

After saying farewell to their American visitors, life returned to normal, or at least the version of normal Cassie and Leo were beginning to create for themselves. He moved in permanently, and together they were working hard on their careers while enjoying all the downtime they could have together.

One afternoon while between productions, Cassie suddenly felt compelled to draw. The urge had come and gone over the past year or so, and it was always tinged with the memories of old that crept up on her while she offloaded her emotion onto the page. Through her art, she was somehow able to express herself in a way she’d never been able to with words. The good and the bad oozed out of her, and there had been numerous times when Cassie could barely control the subject or the way the drawings ended up.

Faces haunted her, portraits of those who demanded her attention even after they were long since out of her life. They never left her, only waited their turn to be drawn back to being or else torment her day and night. She fought it, but their ghosts frequently won, and she’d often find herself in floods of tears as she sketched the faces of those she’d much rather forget. There were more pictures in her portfolio than she could count, and along the way she’d even asked Siobhan to help her sort through them. The good, happier sketches were allowed to stay in a neatly arranged cabinet in her apartment, but the ones that came with a hundred sorrows and an agonizing heartache were boxed and stored at the far back of her office in the theater. Victor lived there now, as did Jonah. There were also the people she’d failed and the beautiful places she’d laid waste to in her mission to get home.

Cassie sometimes felt like she was keeping the memories of them alive by drawing them, and often feared what she’d created. It was almost as if her tormentors themselves could rise from the pages like a creature from the other side. Her Blue Period, it seemed, was far blacker than even Cassie was able to comprehend.

Leo came home to find her covered in charcoal from her dwindling pencil, with her head buried in the pad. Cassie was sketching Sandi. The little angel was happy, prancing around in a ballerina’s outfit, and this time Cassie was more than happy to show him that day’s work.

“Do you ever draw me?” he asked, flicking through her current sketchbook thoughtfully. There weren’t any of him in there, and there was a good reason. With a smile, she stood and walked over to a large wooden chest nestled in its spot beneath one of her huge windows.

“There are too many for one book,” she told him, and lifted the lid. Inside were hundreds more of her sketches, all of Leo. They were dated, and some went as far back as their first days together in New York. In a gesture she could never thank Hanna enough for, they’d been kept safe, awaiting her escape from that ivory tower in the desert. Her drawings were some of the few items she’d brought back to the UK with her, and despite all the baggage weighing on her shoulders back then, Cassie had known she had to keep them.

Leo lifted the top few out. He’d undoubtedly like some more than others, and wasn’t surprised to see his expression go from relaxed to scowling, and back again. If her drawings were anything, they were honest. In some he was smiling, in others his flirtatious grin was ever present, but in a few his frown remained, or a glower had hardened his stare. He didn’t deny that any of them were accurate, and she was glad that he took them for what they truly were—a way for Cassie to offload some of the demons from one shoulder, as well as the cherubs from the other.

“What about Victor? Do you draw him? And Jonah?” he asked, and Cassie shuddered. She’d barely been able to look at old photographs of Jonah, let alone his portraits, and she couldn’t even begin to talk about her art based on Victor. Those works were beyond dark, and if she could help it, the images she’d conceived while in the worst of her grief would never see the light of day again. She knew she should burn them, or throw them away. She’d tried, but had never been able to see it through. They were a part of her, whether she liked it or not.

“They’ve got a box each as well, but not here. I can’t see them, Leo. I can’t have them around to take me back to those scary places. I have to focus on the good, and those who give me happy memories.” Cassie smiled up at him.

“Like me?” he asked incredulously, as though he couldn’t believe her.

“Yes, exactly like you,” she replied, and then closed the lid on the faces of Leo’s past. They weren’t important; only the future could do her harm now, and she was sure each of them would do their best to make sure they had far happier than sad days ahead of them.

***

“I think it’s time we went to visit my family,” Cassie informed Leo over dinner at their new favorite restaurant, Giuseppe’s. Her love of Italian food had never ceased, and Leo knew the reason she so often chose this place for dinner was because it reminded her of Mrs. Brown’s restaurant in New York. That old dive had meant far more to her than just a place of work. Working there had provided Cassie with a new home, a fresh start, and a surrogate family she could rely on during her separation from Jonah.

Leo pulled his mind away from their Stateside past. He thought instead about her request for a trip to visit her family, and wasn’t at all surprised by it. He could understand her need to introduce him to her parents and brother at long last, but part of him was dubious. Leo wasn’t interested in winning over the parents who hadn’t been all that supportive or caring—at least as far as he’d seen. Her folks had seemed disinterested in her life and career every time he’d heard her on the phone with them. It was only her younger brother, Will, who cared at all. He was always the one to call her, and he’d even arranged a visit to London a couple months previous, but had to cancel when he’d been offered a job in a prestigious law firm after finishing university. Cassie had been pleased to hear his news, but she’d also been devastated that their trip had to be put on hold.

That conversation had been another hard one for Leo, and not because of his own disappointment, but because he hadn’t known how to comfort her. Having never had a close relationship with his own family, he’d always had a hard time associating those bonds with a loving connection, so wasn’t sure what was the right or wrong way. It wasn’t something Leo was used to. When he was ten years old, he’d lost his father in a car accident. He’d been devastated, but his mother had reacted to the news ten times worse. She’d sent Leo to boarding school rather than deal with being both a widow and a single mother, or so it’d seemed to him, and then taken her own life a year later. He never spoke of her, not even to Cassie, but knew her death had been the start of his retreat from emotional connections and meaningful relationships.

His schoolteachers had brought him up from then on, and of course the family nanny when he stayed with his aunt during the holidays. Leo had turned everything off that made him care about anyone other than himself. He’d then gone on to use that icy, emotionally devoid selfishness to drive him toward his personal successes. As soon as he’d been offered a scholarship in the States, Leo had known he was on the right path. He’d been so business-oriented that nothing held him back, not even the remnants of his family back home. His obsessive need to control everything took him far, and Leo knew it had caused him to become the cold-hearted man Cassie would eventually go on to meet.

Back then, he’d seen women as worth nothing but a quick bit of fun and a feast for the eyes, which was why he’d chosen to invest in the escort business as soon as he graduated. Drugs had been his chosen profession for years by that point, so he’d simply continued on and developed his reach further and in deeper pockets. The world had been his for the taking, and he’d taken every single thing he could get.

Leo had heard the rumors about him supposedly having an ex-girlfriend in England who’d broken his heart, but they weren’t true in the slightest. Perhaps his mother had broken it for him as a child, but he would never let himself think that much about what she’d done or how it’d affected him. The only other woman to have ever managed to both thaw and break his heart had been Cassie. The day Victor took her from him had been the worst day of his entire existence, and as he watched her sitting across from him over their meal, waiting patiently for his reply, he did what any other doting boyfriend would do. He agreed.

“Sure, Jellybean. When do you want to go?” he replied, and he adored the sweet smile she afforded him in return. He wondered if she’d expected him to say no, but there was no way he’d ever let her down again. His own family might be disjointed and cold, but that didn’t mean he had to push hers away. The only member of the Solomon family tree he could stand to have around was his cousin, Brian, and that was only because the burly man was well connected in the city and had helped get him get set up. That, and because he had already proven himself to be one hell of a number-two. Leo wouldn’t even go as far to say he considered Brian a friend, perhaps more of an employee he regarded above all others because of blood.

But, Cassie wanted her family in her life again, and that meant he would at least make the effort to try. He would go and be the respectable gentleman—or the fiercely loyal protector. Whichever one she needed, he’d be, and either way he silently vowed to her that he wouldn’t make a fuss.

Cassie smiled that stunning, shy, happy smile she only ever saved for him. She was truly radiant. Beautiful. That look was what gave his life meaning. There were many things that made her happy now, and Leo knew it wasn’t all his doing, but he took pride in it. The sweet, innocent smile belonged to him—not the theater or her friends. That smile wasn’t even thanks to her independence and freedom. It was only for Leo. A gift she didn’t even know she was giving him, and that made him love it even more.

***

Cassie realized without a shadow of doubt that she was madly in love with the man sitting opposite her. She’d known right from the moment Leo had come back into her life that they could get this far if they tried hard enough, and she’d gladly proven herself right. They’d fought each other and learned hard lessons along the way, but they’d gotten through so much together that she couldn’t ever imagine a world in which Leonardo Solomon no longer lay beside her at night, or kissed her good morning the following day.

The waiter came and deposited a fresh glass of wine and a beer to their table, interrupting her train of thought, and Cassie looked around at the quaint Italian restaurant they’d found just a few weeks before. A middle-aged woman seemed to run the place, accompanied by her family and other employees, and Cassie felt right at home. She hadn’t seen or heard from her old boss, Mrs. Brown, in a long time, thanks to her being technologically challenged, and she missed her terribly. Hanna gave her updates during their web-chats, but other than that she felt completely detached from the world she’d once loved so much.

Even Hanna had moved on with her life in a myriad of ways, and Cassie couldn’t blame her. She and Jamie had been a huge part of Cassie’s world in New York, but now they were about to have baby number two and he was running Leo’s American empire. Cassie wasn’t allowed entry into the States after being extradited, not even for a holiday, and hated that she couldn’t just jump on a flight and see her best friend and her family. Even though they’d visited not long ago, the euphoria was always short-lived once the routine returned.

“Next week is Will’s birthday, maybe we can go down for the weekend as a surprise?” she asked, thinking how lovely it would be to see him. After all the chaos, it’d be nice going for a normal family trip, and Cassie couldn’t deny it’d been a long time since her last visit.

Her baby brother had been the one person who’d truly stuck by her. He’d even offered her legal advice regarding her strange inheritance from Victor, and the necessary change of persona. All of it was in his limited experience, but he’d tried hard to make her transition easier, and she was eternally grateful. Will had been the one to greet her at the airport when Cassie had returned to the UK, and he’d been the one to hold her tight when the tears and depression had hit night after night in those first days back. He’d been her rock when she hadn’t wanted anything to cling to, and had pulled her back from the edge countless times. She owed her brother a debt worth far more than money or power, yet he’d never once asked her to give him a thing in return.

She thought back to their days before Leo, before Victor, before Jonah. Growing up, Cassie had been close with all her family. Her parents had been proud of her for going off to London to follow her dreams. They’d supported her marriage with Jonah and were over the moon when they’d been offered the move to Broadway. In the same small village in rural Cornwall where she’d lived her entire childhood, everybody knew everyone else’s business, and of course that was fine when things were going well. Her mother had actually used the word “scandal” to categorize Cassie’s ordeal, and she knew she’d never forget how much distance that one word had put between them. There was so much she’d left unsaid, and at the time she hadn’t wanted to rock the boat, but Cassie wished they’d supported her better. Now that she was stronger than ever and healing more and more everyday thanks to Leo’s presence, she could see things so much clearer, and couldn’t deny her pain at having been discarded so easily. Despite their selfishness, though, they were still her parents, and there was no denying the fact they would always have a free pass no matter how hurt or upset she might be.