Page 26 of The Last Call Home (The Timberbridge Brothers #5)
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cassian
At almost four in the morning, I finally pull into the lot behind The Honey Drop. The engine ticks like it’s just as tired as I am. I should’ve stayed the night. God knows I wanted to.
But Delilah has the shop to open, and I’ve developed this habit—okay, compulsion—of making sure she gets inside safely.
Every morning, before I even think about sleep, I come here.
Sometimes it’s just to see her car parked where it always is.
Other times, it’s to catch a glimpse of her unlocking the front door, her hair pulled back, her shoulders already carrying more than they should.
This morning?
I want more than a glimpse.
Malerick left, too. Didn’t even argue about it. Just said he’d see me soon and disappeared like it wasn’t killing him to do it. He could’ve stayed too. But Mal didn’t see the point of doing so. So he went back to his tiny apartment instead.
I still don’t understand. Why the hell would a man maintain a place that big, that remote, only to live somewhere else entirely? That’s not merely a preference. There’s a story behind it. Hopefully, I’ll earn the right to hear all about it soon.
But I can’t focus on that now. When we’re not wrecked from what just happened, from everything that has passed between us without a single goddamn lie.
Because we didn’t just fuck.
We shattered something. Or perhaps we cracked it open—finally, painfully, beautifully.
His mouth on mine—desperate, certain—wasn’t a question. It was a promise. One I didn’t realize I’d been craving since the day we burned it all down.
His hands slid over my chest, down my sides, rough palms against muscle, grounding me with each touch. He knew where to press. Where to pause. Where to dig in like he couldn’t decide whether to hold me together or tear me open.
And when I tugged him down—legs wrapping around his waist, back hitting the mattress with a grunt he swallowed in a kiss—it stopped being about memory.
It became need. Now. Us.
I remember the scrape of his stubble on my throat. The way he bit my lip and then kissed it like he regretted it. The heat of his body pinning me down, his cock grinding against mine until I lost track of everything but the way he groaned my name—my name—like it still meant something.
He fucked me like a man chasing redemption. Every thrust deep. Unrelenting. Like he needed to prove we weren’t broken. Like if he just stayed inside me long enough, it would erase all the nights we didn’t get.
And I let him.
Because this wasn’t just about wanting him. It was about letting him in. Letting myself be touched. Taken. Known.
Trusting him with the parts of me I’ve kept locked away, even from myself.
I held his hips as I pushed deeper, feeling him open to me, taking all of me—like he needed it just as bad. He wanted the surrender as much as the act itself. His name broke from my lips as I spilled inside him, my forehead pressed to his shoulder, my whole body shaking from the force of it.
And he stayed right there—wrapped around me, his breath warm against my neck—until he followed with a quiet, aching sound that twisted my chest. Like it cracked something open in him too.
We didn’t speak. Didn’t need to.
It wasn’t about dirty words or desperate gasps anymore.
It was the silence afterward. The way he touched my face like I was his and he didn’t quite know how to say it out loud. It was the way we breathed in sync. The way our bodies stayed tangled, not for heat, but for connection.
Tonight, it didn’t feel like I was breaking. It felt like the beginning. There’s a lot we still need to say—some of it ugly, most of it overdue—but this? This was a start.
At least for the two of us.
Now, I’m not heading home.
I park behind the bar and walk toward the back of The Honey Drop, where she always leaves her car.
It’s just past four in the morning, and the world is cloaked in that deep, inky quiet—where even sound feels hesitant to exist. The dark stretches around me, thick with stillness, like the night hasn’t decided to let go yet.
Her headlights slice through the dark, sweeping across the lot in a pale arc of light before settling as she pulls in.
By the time she throws the car into park, I’m already moving. I round the back of her car, my boots crunching over gravel, the cold biting through my shirt, but I barely register it. I reach her door just as the engine fades into silence.
She turns toward me, surprise flashing across her face for a heartbeat—eyes narrowing like she wasn’t expecting this. Me. But the moment passes, and her expression softens, like she’d been hoping for it all along.
I open the door. She starts to shift, reaching for her bag, but I don’t give her the chance to finish. My hands find her waist as she steps out. She doesn’t resist. Doesn’t blink. Just rises into me like we’ve done this a thousand times before.
And I kiss her. My mouth captures hers, and she responds like she’s been waiting for it too—like maybe sleep never came, and she’s been running on the memory of last night just like I have. This isn’t a soft greeting, more like a hello I’ve been holding in my throat since she walked out that door.
Her hands fist the front of my jacket, pulling me closer, deepening it, grounding us both in the fire that’s still very much there. Not burned out. Not even close.
When I finally break the kiss, it’s only to breathe. My lips brush hers once more, slower now, and I whisper against her mouth, “Morning.”
She mumbles, “It’s a little early. You didn’t stay with him.”
“I could have.” I shrug. “But then I wouldn’t have seen you arrive. And I always do.”
That earns me a half-smile.“You do?”
“Of course I do. I check. Every morning. I need to know you’re safe.”
“You don’t have to. This is sleepy Birchwood Springs,” she says with a wave of her hand, brushing it off like I shouldn’t be concerned about her whereabouts.
I tilt my head, deadpan. “Lilah, I need you to understand something important. This town is not sleepy. This town is more like Sleepy Hollow.”
She snorts. “The scary movie?”
“No, the gory disaster that was supposed to be scary but ended up looking like it was directed by a haunted meat locker. That one.”
She laughs loudly. It doesn’t just echo in the space between us. It lands inside me, sparking something buried within my heart. It’s not just the sound. It’s the way her eyes crinkle, the way her shoulders relax like—for a breath—everything feels okay.
Suddenly, I feel it. That slow, impossible warmth breaking through the cold I’ve lived with for too long. This isn’t just some attraction to a beautiful woman, nor comfort, but hope. Maybe I’m not as far gone as I once thought. I could get something like this if I work really hard on me—on us.
Of course, I do the only thing that makes sense.
I kiss her again.
Because I’m not done tasting her. Because it’s four a.m. and the world is still too quiet, and she’s right here.
When I pull back, her lips are curved into that smirky, knows-too-much smile that makes my stomach twist in all the wrong-right ways.
“Are you aware you smell like him and sex?” she teases, coy and maddening and perfect.
“Is that a problem?” I arch a brow, though I don’t move away. My voice dips a little—just enough to let her feel it.
She tilts her head, considering. “Not unless you expect me to pretend it doesn’t turn me on.”
My breath catches, just a beat, and I have to ground myself with a hand on her waist. She’s warm and soft beneath my palm, and the air between us tightens in a way that has nothing to do with the hour.
“I hope you two fixed your problems,” she adds, quieter now, the teasing ebbing into something tangible. “And not just fucked them away.”
“It was a little of both,” I admit. No point pretending otherwise. “Rome wasn’t built in a day—and neither was the fucking mess that’s going on between me and Mal.”
She nods slowly, the edge of a smile still touching her mouth. “That’s a good start.”
“You know what else would be a good start?” I murmur, letting my fingers slide just slightly—up her back, down her spine, light but purposeful. Just enough to make her exhale on a hitched breath.
She shakes her head, biting her lip like she’s trying not to smile too wide.
“Come on,” I coax, brushing my nose against her jaw. “We could go across the street to my place. You and me. Maybe do some . . . healing of our own.”
That earns me a full laugh. The kind that makes her shoulders shake and her eyes flash like she’s way too awake for this hour.
“I’ll take that invitation another day,” she says, still laughing. “Go to sleep, Cass.”
I lean in, mouth brushing her ear, voice low and unapologetically wicked. “I’m holding you to that, Lilah.”
Then I kiss her one last time—slow, teasing, like a promise I fully intend to keep.
And as I walk backward toward the bar, watching her open the door to The Honey Drop, I know I’m already counting down the minutes to that “another day.”