Just This Once (Again) - Part Four: What If We’re Caught?

Some lines, once crossed, can’t be uncrossed.

In this chapter, Cassidy and Dean give in to everything they’ve been denying—again. But this time, it’s not just about heat or heartbreak. It’s about honesty. About finally saying what they were too afraid to before.

Secrets. Regret. A stolen night behind the house that changes everything.

And one impossible question:

What if we get caught?

Just This Once (Again)

Part Two: 

What If We’re Caught?

I feel the exact moment he gives in, his restraint snapping like a thread pulled too tight. He drives into me again, deeper this time, each thrust rougher, more urgent, like he’s been holding back for far too long. I gasp into his mouth, my back arching off the wall as my body tightens around him, hot and slick and aching.

“Fuck,” he groans, the sound ragged and low against my throat.

His hands grip my thighs, holding me open for him as he rocks into me again. And again. The rough rhythm sends shockwaves through me, each thrust hitting deep, dragging pleasure through every nerve ending like sparks catching fire.

I dig my nails into his shoulders, helpless to do anything but cling to him. The pressure builds fast, too fast. Every stroke feels like it’s meant to punish and worship all at once. Like he’s trying to erase the space between us and brand himself into my bones.

“You feel…” He can’t finish the sentence, just presses his forehead to mine, his breath hot and ragged. “So goddamn tight. So good.”

My hips move without thinking, chasing the friction, the stretch, the unbearable fullness. He groans again when I squeeze around him, his hand slipping between us to find my clit.

“Dean—” It leaves me on a gasp, half a plea, half a warning.

“Shhh,” he mutters, voice thick and wrecked. “I’ve got you. Let go for me.”

He circles me with practiced precision, and I do, my whole body tensing, then breaking apart around him. My climax rips through me, sharp and hot and blinding, stealing the breath from my lungs. I cry out, biting his shoulder to stay quiet, and he swears again as I pulse around him.

“That’s it,” he growls. “Fuck, Cassidy. You’re gonna kill me.”

He doesn’t slow down. He’s relentless now, thrusting harder, chasing his own climax like he’s seconds from falling. I watch his face as he unravels, jaw clenched, eyes dark and wild. And when he finally spills inside me, it’s with a broken groan and a shudder that runs all the way through his body into mine.

He keeps moving through it, grounding us both, until we’re nothing but tangled bodies and shaking breaths in the dark.

We don’t speak when it’s fully over.

Just breathing and skin and the silence of everything we didn’t mean to do, again.

Dean’s neck is slick with sweat beneath my hands. His heartbeat thunders under my fingertips, and mine tries to match it, uneven and frantic. My dress is bunched at my waist. His pants are open. My legs are still wrapped around him like I don’t know how to let go.

Maybe I don’t.

His forehead rests against mine, and for a moment, there’s nothing but the echo of what we just did.

He’s the first to move.

One arm stays locked under my thigh, holding me up like he never wants to let go. The other drifts to the small of my back, then up into my hair, fingers trembling like he doesn’t trust himself to speak. But he does anyway.

“I should take you home.” He mutters, still breathless.

“Take me home,” but what does that mean anymore?

Does he mean just for tonight? Or does he mean always?

I want to ask. I want to believe this meant more than a relapse.

But I don’t. Because the second he lets go, I already feel it slipping away.

The words are hoarse. Rough. Like they scrape his throat on the way out.

I nod.

But neither of us moves.

He finally lowers me to the ground, slow and careful, like he thinks I might break apart if he lets go too fast.

Maybe I will.

We fix our clothes in silence. He pulls his pants up and buckles his belt. I smooth my hands down my dress. But we don’t look at each other, until we’re walking toward his truck.

The ride is quiet at first.

The heater hums low, soft static behind the thump of my heart. I stare out the window, watching the houses blur past. He drives, with one hand on the wheel, the other fisted in his lap like it’s the only way to keep himself in check.

Halfway home, he pulls over.

I glance at him, surprised. “What are you—?”

“I can’t drop you off like this,” he says, jaw tight. “Like what we just did never happened.”

My throat goes dry.

He turns off the ignition and shifts to face me. “I know what this looks like. What it is. But I need you to know something.”

I brace for it, for him to say it was a mistake. That it can’t happen again.

He grips the steering wheel like he’s bracing for impact.

“I didn’t leave because I felt guilty,” he says, voice tight, eyes fixed on the road.

“I left because I wanted more.”

My breath catches.

He’s still staring at me. Still holding back. “That night… I thought it was grief. Or loneliness. I told myself we were both just broken and needed something familiar. But then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About you. About how it felt like more than a mistake. And that scared the hell out of me.”

I blink, trying to swallow past the knot in my throat.

“I didn’t reach out because I knew if I did, I wouldn’t be able to stay away.” He pauses. “And I didn’t want just a moment. I wanted all of you.”

I should say something. Anything. But all I can do is stare.

He sighs. “And I knew I couldn’t have that. So I disappeared. Not because I didn’t care, but because I did.”

His hand scrubs down his face, like the admission costs him something. And maybe it does.

My voice is soft. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you either.”

Not once.

Every time I shut my eyes, it’s not Ben I see.

“You looked at me like you were about to break… and kissed me like it would fix us both,” I say quietly. “Then you made that sound when I touched you. And your hands were shaking like… like you thought you’d never get another chance.”

He stills, every breath caught between us.

“Every night,” I whisper. “Every time I closed my eyes, it wasn’t Ben I saw. It was you. Your hands. Your mouth. The way you looked at me like I wasn’t supposed to be yours, but you wanted me anyway.”

Dean doesn’t breathe for a second.

“Cass—”

“We’re terrible people,” I say before he can finish. “This is wrong. It’s messy and complicated and if anyone knew—”

“I know.” His voice is barely above a whisper. “I think about it every time I look at Matt. Or Claire. Every time I see Ben’s mom.”

My heart twists.

“But I also know,” he adds, “that what’s between us isn’t just grief. Or lust. Or loneliness. It’s something I can’t stop feeling… no matter how hard I try.”

I look down at my hands, twisting in my lap. “So what do we do?”

He doesn’t answer right away.

“We keep pretending?” I ask. “We sneak around? Until one of us cracks under the guilt and the other gets left behind again?”

His jaw clenches. “I don’t want to pretend.”

“Then what?”

He reaches for my hand. Covers it with his like it’s instinct.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “But I can’t lose you too.”

I look at our hands. The same hands that held each other at a funeral. That trembled the night everything changed.

Then I look up at him. “Then don’t let go.”

He doesn’t.

He keeps holding on.

Until our breathing slows. Until the night settles again around us. Until the truck is the only thing tethering us to reality.

But the silence isn’t calm.

It’s loud and heavy and full of every word we’re too scared to say.

I stare out the window, counting breaths, wondering which one will be the last before I ruin this.

Before I ask what happens next.

Before he tells me it meant nothing.

To be continued… Come back tomorrow for Part Three.

Copyright © by LS Phoenix

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Published by LS Phoenix

New Hampshire, USA

https://linktr.ee/authorlsphoenix

First Edition: August 2025

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