Sophie Littlefield - Rebirth

“I said let go.”

Dor hooked a leg across her and then he was on top of her, pinning her. He rested his weight on his elbows, he wasn’t hurting her-but she could feel his arousal and it made her catch her breath.

“You had no right,” he whispered softly, his breath soft on her face. “Everything you do, everything you’ve ever done, it was someone else who paid your way. You take things, Cass. You came in the Box, you came in my home and you started taking. Smoke paid for you then and he kept paying.”

No, Cass wanted to say, you’re wrong, but his weight on her chest kept her silent. He didn’t sound angry. But he was wrong. She wasn’t like that. What about all the years when things were taken from her? What about the things she gave away, over and over and over again? Her body, her hopes, her pride?

“Maybe this is the perfect place for you,” Dor continued. His voice was soft, controlled, emotionless. “Rebuilders are big on taking what’s not theirs. Just like they took Sammi. They took my daughter and they’ll regret it, I’ll make sure of that. But you, you’ll fit right in here, Cass.”

She struggled under him, pushing at his chest with the flat of her hand. But he just seized her hands and pinned them to the mattress above her head. She pushed against his calves with her feet, grunting with effort, and he hushed her again.

“You want me off of you?”

“Yes.”

“Right now?”

“Ye-”

But he lowered himself against her, very lightly, his physical control exquisite. He brushed against her and her legs opened automatically, treacherously, and Cass realized she didn’t want him gone at all. She-her body, her willful unrestrainable body-wanted him pressed against her, smothering her, taking the breath from her. Entering, stroking, seizing, pummeling, pounding, crushing, drilling, defiling, befouling her. She wanted him and he knew it.

“See?” he said sharply, his anger showing at last and now it was her turn to shush him, because no one could see, no one could know what she had wrought between them. It didn’t matter that they were pretending to be a couple, that everyone expected them to be together-no, no one could know about her detestable hungers, her faithless betraying core. “How could you do this to him?” he continued, his body rigid above her, unmoving; he had pulled away from her so that the only contact between them was his hands on her hands, his thighs on her thighs, he kept himself apart from her, he’d captured her but he would go no further. “How could you do this to Smoke? ”

Now it was Dor who had no right. No right to say that name, no right to call him up from her bitter heart. Smoke was gone because Smoke had left her and Smoke had put aside her carefully built and given love as though it was nothing. It was for Cass to know and no other; it was for Cass to grieve, and no other.

“How dare you judge me,” Cass snapped, and for a flashing brief second Dor looked contrite.

“I didn’t mean-”

“You don’t get to judge me,” Cass repeated, but she knew what he saw when he looked at her-he saw the girl whose bed didn’t get cold between men, the girl who’d do it in the back of a truck or up against a propane tank or in a gas station bathroom, the girl who didn’t say no to the things nice girls didn’t do, the girl who gave it up and spread it wide and swallowed. The girl who’d find her own cab home and didn’t mind if you passed out after or came over with a six-pack and a hard-on.

She knew what he saw when he looked at her: he saw her . The real Cass Dollar, the one who’d been gone for a while, banished by the long hard climb to-and through-sobriety, dealt a devastating blow by her love for Smoke. Cass had dared to hope that old self was dead. But no. Dor saw it, he knew it, and now she couldn’t deny it, not even to herself.

“Fine,” he said, breathing with difficulty. He was impossibly hard when he brushed against her, he had to be using all his strength not to take her. Say what you will but Cass Dollar was magic with a man, the old Cass Dollar, they might regret it later, they might kick her out before they got their pants back on but in the moment they never said no.

They never said no.

And that was Cass Dollar’s only power.

She bared her teeth and lunged for him, managing to graze his jaw before he jerked away. “So get off me,” she taunted. “If you’re so concerned about Smoke, get off me and neither of us’ll tell him. Our little secret .”

She spat the word out-and Dor did pull back. How he managed to lift himself off her, propped above her on the strength of his arms, his abs, sweating with the strain of it-only touching her hands, the outside of her legs where his knees were pressed to the mattress. She laughed-the demon from last night; this was how it had ended then, with her laughing maniacally and how it had spurred him, how he had driven himself into her.

“Go ahead,” she said, “get angry, only it’s not me keeping you here, is it? You’re free to get off me, only…”

Only no man ever did, and her genius lay in that bitter drink she used to go back for, again and again. She took them to her and in the moment of her triumph, when they crashed into her and lost themselves, was that tiny second where she was suspended between this life and what might have been, and she felt-

– something. She felt something, wanted perhaps, or loved, or even just connected. Who knew? It was not a thing you could judge because you only understood it when you were in it and then it was over, lost except for the longing, a dream that slips away while you come awake.

“You can’t,” she panted. “You think you’re so noble treating me like a slut but who’s on top of me now? You’re like a dog, no better than an animal.”

She lifted her hips and ground them against him and he moaned, deep in his throat, as though he was in pain, as though she was ripping his entrails from him. Her legs were strong, and she pushed against him so hard he had to release her hands to avoid losing his balance, and she seized his ass and pulled him greedily against her. “Kiss me,” she muttered, and when he wasn’t fast enough she grabbed the back of his head and pulled her to him, pulled his hair and bit his lips and knocked her teeth against his and he let go then, didn’t he, a torrent unleashed, a flood bursting its bounds. His mouth was on hers and he was inside her, his arms around her everywhere. All over her body as he drove deep and shuddering. She wrapped her legs around him tight, she met every thrust with her own. She urged him faster she took him harder. His hands found their way into her hair and they pulled hard they yanked her head back and his mouth was on her throat, for a moment she thought he’d tear it open, bleed her out while he fucked her and that was the thought that triggered her laughter one last time but he slammed his hand over her mouth and kept it there while he emptied himself into her and she realized she wasn’t laughing at all but losing herself in a chasm wider than any she’d ever known and she shut her eyes and bit down hard and tasted salt and blood and later, when the last wave rocked her like a rag doll she wondered if this time maybe maybe maybe she wouldn’t have to wake up at all.

CASS WOKE IN RUTHIE’S BED, WHERE SHE’D retreated as soon as the thing of the night before was over.

She opened her eyes without moving and saw that Dor was at the table with Lester, dressed, his hair wet, reading a paperback book. How had she slept through everything-the sounds of people waking, dressing, making coffee?

Dor turned a page. He lifted his mug to his lips. Set it down.