first lamb to the slaughter

Day Two

Cassian wakes up with his face buried in Nesta’s hair.

For one disorienting, impossible second, his entire body is relaxed and languid. His mind stays soft and half-submerged in dreams, caught in the hazy place between sleep and waking where consequences do not exist yet. The storm is still raging on outside, rain pattering against the roof and wind battering against the walls, but for Cassian the world has narrowed to the warmth of her breath against his chest and the clean, devastating scent of her.

She smells like honeysuckle and sleep-warm skin. Like the vanilla body wash she always claimed was nothing special, even though it used to cling to his sheets for days and ruin his life accordingly.

His nose is full of her.

His lungs are full of her.

His arms, he realizes with a slow, catastrophic dawning, are full of her too.

He opens his eyes to find Nesta draped over him like she has spent the night slowly conquering his side of the bed and then, finding no resistance, decided to annex him too. One of her legs is tangled between his, her knee pressed high against his thigh. Her arm is thrown across his ribs, her hand curled loosely in the fabric of his T-shirt. She’s tucked against his shoulder, her cheek resting on his pec. Her breasts are soft and warm against his side, rising and falling with each quiet breath.

Cassian stares at the ceiling, hoping for some sort of divine intervention. He doesn’t find any, but instead notices a suspicious water stain in the far corner, drops of water falling down onto the floor in a slow drip, drip, drip.

He tries to stay still and not breathe too deeply. He tries not to think about the fact that Nesta feels so goddamn soft and perfect against him, or about the heat of her body sinking into his, or about the way her soft mouth is parted against his shirt, her breaths like a warm caress he can feel through the fabric. He certainly doesn’t think about the last time she woke up in his bed, before things went to hell, with her hair tangled across his pillow and her eyes still sleep-heavy, pretending she hadn’t stayed the night on purpose.

Instead, he thinks about the way her breasts are pressed against him.

“Fuck,” he breathes, barely even a sound. Nesta shifts and every muscle in his body locks. She makes a small noise against his chest, something between a sigh and a soft whine, and nestles closer.

—————

Nesta’s day had started with a man screaming at her about a refund for three books he had very obviously used and read — cracked spines, dog-eared corners, and one very clear coffee ring bleeding across the back cover — and it ended with a voicemail from her father that said, Nesta, honey, before you say anything, I want you to know it’s handled.

Nothing in the history of the world had ever been handled by her father, and he’d probably gotten himself into trouble yet again. She wouldn’t be surprised if she’d receive three more of his calls before the day was done.

Moreover, throughout the entire day, she’d been bothered by her baby sister Feyre. Forty-one texts by final count, escalating from have you called Dad back to you can’t ice him out forever to a single, devastating Elain agrees with me, he’ll use the money wisely this time, sent at 6:47 p.m. Nesta’d put her phone on Do Not Disturb after that, and had ended up at Rita’s at nine o’clock on a Thursday like a sad cliché, drinking a martini she couldn’t strictly afford — especially if her suspicions about her father were correct — glaring at the bottles behind the bar.

She was on olive number two when the stool beside her scraped back.

The man who sat down took up an unreasonable amount of space. He’d been built on a different scale than anyone she’d ever seen, with shoulders that belonged on some classical sculpture of a Roman warrior or Greek god. He had dark, curly hair that fell loose to his shoulders, and ink climbing out from under his rolled sleeves in sweeping black lines, whorls and edges that she assumed were culturally significant, before she made herself stop staring. He was looking at her openly, though, and his face was devastatingly handsome. He was beautiful. Damn him and damn her and her horrible day that simply wouldn’t end.

She focused on eating her olive, trying to ignore him.

“Rough day?” he asked, clearly not trying to ignore her.

She sighed deeply, figuring every effort to not acknowledge him would be futile. “Very original.”

“I’m only warming up, sweetheart.” He signaled the bartender. “Whatever she’s having, and a beer. On me.”

“I don’t let strangers buy me drinks.”

“Excellent.” He didn’t wave the bartender off. “Cassian.”

Nesta turned her head slowly, and gave him the look that had made grown men apologize for being in her vicinity before. He simply smiled like she was the first ray of warm sunshine after a long, dark winter.

He had his hand extended towards her and watched her, looking almost hopeful.

She held the his gaze a beat longer. The third martini arrived, frosted and perfect. Her father’s voice was still ringing in her ears and Feyre was probably drafting text number forty-two. The day had already gone to hell. What was another grave mistake anyway?

—————