I was going to make her mine. Though the fear that she’d reject me was scary as hell. If she’d have me, if she’d give me just one chance to prove myself to her, I’d make damn sure she’d never regret it. Christ, I was willing to relinquish the title of partner at Striker Sports Entertainment, the same title my little ice queen and I had gone toe-to-toe over, because I knew it was the only way we could be together openly. I didn’t care. Cassidy Whalen was fucking worth it.
Yep, Shaw Matthews was on some new type of shit, all about becoming a better person, someone she might be proud to call hers. But the kicker was that I wasn’t going to make changes to make only her happy; I was going to do it to make myself happy. And there wasn’t a damn thing selfish about that.
First things first, I needed to check on Abby, who just happened to be the sweetest lady in the world and who was quickly changing my perspective on the whole parental thing. Jesus, this perma-grin thing was going to get painful after a while.
While I knew Abby had Thomas and Casey to look after her, I’d taken on that responsibility as well. It was a badge that a good son – adopted or not – wore with pride, after all. I was going to be that for her. I was going to make her proud, and I’d even try to get along with Casey because I knew it would make her happy. Not that I’d have to kiss his ass because, you know, sibling rivalry was a real thing and all, but still. We had something in common now. Something other than the fact that we’d had our cocks inside the same woman. Which made me growly to think about, so I smashed and banished the thought from my mind, never to be heard from again.
Cassidy was my girl, Abby was my mom, and nothing else fucking mattered. Period.
Except the fact that I was going to have to wake up Cassidy in order to get out from under her. Not that I wanted to – because, hell no, I didn’t – but I knew we couldn’t stay there like that forever and my help would be needed for whatever shit storm the hurricane had left behind, and I was all about pitching in. The problem was, I was suddenly a nervous wreck about waking her. What if she’d have the same reaction she had the morning after we’d spent the night together in Detroit? It had been fine then, but now I’d messed around and caught some feelings for her. Funny thing about feelings; they were some fragile motherfuckers, prone to hurt. Hence the reason I’d avoided them all my life.
Nah, I wasn’t going to go back behind that brick wall. If she flipped out, she flipped out. I’d deal with it and find some way to move past it. But I’d damn well respect her wishes. Either way, I couldn’t avoid the unavoidable.
Giving her a slight shake of my shoulder to nudge her awake, I kept my voice soft to avoid a total freak out. “Sweetness?”
Yeah, I called her “sweetness.” So what?
She stirred with a “Hmm?” and her hair fell over her face.
I brushed it away with my fingertips and tried again. “Sweetness, we need to get up.”
“No,” she mumbled in this pouty sort of way that made me want to flip her onto her back and kiss her hard.
“Aww,” I fucking aw’d like the girly man I’d apparently become. “Is someone still sleepy?”
Cassidy’s eyes remained closed, but she answered nonetheless. While snuggling in even closer, I might add. “No. I’m just really comfortable and don’t want to move.”
Fuck it; I wasn’t going to make her. Except damn it, I had to.
“I’d be perfectly content with letting you stay right here for the rest of forever, but the truth of the matter is that reality is right outside the door, and before long, your father will be as well.” I leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “Gotta tell ya, I do not want to be caught naked in bed with Duff Whalen’s baby girl when he comes knocking.”
Cassidy giggled. “He’s not going to do anything because he likes you.”
“Yeah? He likes me?” Admittedly, I found this new information a little hard to digest. I’d fallen overboard from the man’s boat, while brawling with a guy he’d considered a part of his own family, for Christ’s sake. Oh yeah, and I’d been screwing his daughter on the regular.
Cassidy nodded, her cheek doing this cute little smooshy thing against my chest. And she wasn’t freaking out. Not in the least.
“What about you? Do you like me, too?”
“Maybe a li’l,” she mumbled, and then this smile pushed at her cheeks that made the cute smooshy thing go away, but I couldn’t be sad about it because, yeah, she fucking liked me.
“Oh, maybe a li’l, huh?” I mimicked her, which made her giggle again, so of course she had to be punished for laughing at my pain.
While the fingers of one hand found her ribs, the tips of the other slipped beneath her arm to give her dainty armpit a tickle. Cassidy startled and bucked, those gorgeous green eyes of hers popping open while her pearly whites stole center stage with a hearty laugh accompanied by a snort that wasn’t anything near dainty.
Good God, but she was beautiful.
Seizing the opportunity, I rolled with her and assumed the dominating position overtop to continue my tickle siege. Cassidy laughed so hard, slapping at my shoulders and doing her best to push my hands away, to no avail. There was even a really close call between her knee and my boys, but I managed to dodge that unnatural disaster with a quick juke of my hips and some pretty fancy footwork that earned me the spot between her thighs. Eat your hearts out, every pro running back who ever existed.
My girl’s head was thrown back, her hair a tangled mess on the pillows, and tears of delight glistening at the corners of her eyes, and all I could think about was how much I wanted her to always look like that. It wasn’t until Cassidy began to show signs that she was having a hard time catching her breath that I eased up.
Before she had a chance to come down completely, I took advantage of our position and pushed inside her. Yeah, my cock was fucking hard as all get out and even if morning wood wasn’t a thing, we were both still naked and rolling around together, and that tended to do shit to a man.
Cassidy gasped at the unexpected intrusion, but not in protest. All that hee-hee–ha-ha’ing was replaced by a moan that made me want to come on the spot. Holy fuck, but I loved this woman.
“What’s wrong?” Cassidy asked.
It wasn’t until then that I realized I’d stopped moving and was just staring at her. Raging hard-on inside a beautiful woman aside, my befuddlement suddenly made sense in a nonsensical way. I loved her?
“Baby? Are you okay?” Cassidy’s brow was furrowed with concern while her nails brushed through the hair just behind my temple in an endearing sort of way.
She fucking called me “baby”… and I suddenly felt like the Grinch on Christmas morning, my heart swelling to three times its size.
“Yeah. Leg cramp,” I lied. An absurd kind of lie, at that. But I didn’t want to press my luck on the whole “Cassidy not freaking out” thing, and balls deep inside the woman of my dreams wasn’t the proper time to blurt out something I needed to evaluate further. I’d never loved anyone other than myself. Did I even know what it meant?
Faking the shake off of the cramp, I found my stroke again and settled on the pace she seemed to favor from last night. Deep and purposeful with a grind that brought us as close as any two human beings could physically be without wearing each other’s skin. But I’d flay myself alive, too, if she’d wanted that.
Christ, she felt so good around my cock – warm and tight yet soft at the same time. It was all too much and I was going to come way too early like this. Easily fixed, I flipped us over so that Cassidy was on top, a move she clearly hadn’t been prepared for. Then again, I’d been throwing us both for a few loops this morning already, so what difference did another make?
Cassidy giggled at my abruptness, the walls of her pussy constricting my cock with each contraction of her abdomen. My brain started concocting all kinds of ways to make her do it over and over again, but it wasn’t necessary because my girl was riding me, her fingernails were digging into my chest, the tips of her hai
r were tickling my face, and her fucking gorgeous breasts were full and round with hardened peaks that begged to be palmed and plucked. It occurred to me then that it didn’t matter which position we were in, who was in control, or whether I was all up in my feelings or not. She just did things to me that no other woman before her had ever done. And I’d been with a lot of women.
Cassidy Whalen was special. Cassidy Whalen was… the one.
So I let her have her way with me because, truth be known, she always had. And though she was wrapped around my cock at the moment, I was wrapped around her little pinky. Yeah, I fucking loved her. Now if I could just figure out a way to tell her.
CHAPTER 16
Casey
I was an asshole.
As I stood there under the shower with the water beating down on top of my head, I realized it didn’t matter how far I turned the knob to the left because I could Bugs Bunny it and bathe in a pot over a blaze and it still wouldn’t be hot enough to wash my asshole-ishness away. Maybe I should just set myself on fire. Or better yet, tie myself to a stake at the heart of a pyre in the middle of town, with angry waving pitchforks all around me, and let the masses torch me to death while I am forced to look Mia in the eye.
I’d used her. Plain and simple. Mia. Sweet, innocent Mia.
She hadn’t deserved the way I’d treated her last night. She’d simply been caught in the cross fire of the great Casey and Cassidy tragedy. Or maybe it was the cease-fire. Because things between Cassidy and me had definitely come to an abrupt halt. Though that had happened a really long time ago, so maybe it wasn’t quite as abrupt as I’d liked to believe. I’d just been clinging to something that was no longer there.
I think maybe we both had. Me more than her.
I hadn’t ever been with anyone other than Cassidy, hadn’t even considered it, really. But Mia? Mia had come into town with the wind change, and she’d been like a breath of fresh air despite the near-constant breeze from the sea. All that innocence about her in the midst of a seemingly untainted environment. Those doe eyes, a natural beauty that needed no makeup to cover up who she really was, hair that flowed about her face like the waves that danced on the ocean’s top under calm weather, and the body of a mermaid. She was every seaman’s dream come true. And I’d ruined her.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t had an inkling about her attraction to me. I’d known it was there, had seen it in the subtle hints. The way she leaned in ever so slightly to be closer. The way she looked at me like I’d hung the moon. The things she’d said; her choice of words were so intimate, familiar yet not, at the same time. She’d been unbelievably cool to talk to, and for the time I’d held Mia’s attention, I truthfully hadn’t thought about Cassidy. And hadn’t that been the nitty-gritty of why Cassidy had been upset with me?
Damn. Hadn’t seen that one coming, though I didn’t have to strain my brain trying to figure out why that was either.
So unlike any woman I’d ever known before, Mia had hung on my every word. I’d thought it was about nothing more than gathering the information she’d needed for her research, but more often than not, she’d put her pen and paper down, rested her chin in her hand, and just listened to me. She’d made me feel important, more than the other half of a whole. Not like I wasn’t complete unless I had Cassidy Whalen on my arm, but like I was a man with his own story to tell. I think it had surprised even me. I think it had changed the way I started to see myself.
But that hadn’t stopped me from trying to salvage what I could of my relationship with Cassidy. We’d been together our entire lives and I’d always believed we’d be together until our dying days. So when Cassidy had caught me with Mia in the crow’s nest, a place that had been ours, I’d felt the sudden guilt of having another woman there. And I could see the disappointment written all over Cassidy’s face. She was jealous. And that had confused me even more.
I’d seen her with that bastard on the playground, of all places. The playground we’d frequented as kids. My Cassidy was in the arms of another man. She was in the arms of a man she’d supposedly despised. Not only that, but she was riding him. Everything I’d thought I’d known had come crashing down around me in that moment.
It should have been me. Me, the man who’d been waiting for her to live her dreams and eventually come back into my arms, where she belonged. But it wasn’t. And she’d left me in that crow’s nest with a cock as hard as the devil’s and a very wicked seed looking to make a break from the fiery pits of hell. You’d think Cassidy breaking my fucking heart would’ve made my erection deflate like an anvil popping a balloon, but it hadn’t. And I’d needed to relieve the pressure.
Mia had been all too willing to play Cassidy’s understudy. But somewhere in the middle of the phenomenal sex we’d had, something had changed. I saw Mia. I saw Mia seeing me. She’d wanted it, wanted me. And that had been more than I could handle with a wound as fresh as the one left behind in my heart from Cassidy. What made matters worse was that being with Mia had felt right. How could that have been?
Stepping out of my guest room at the Whalen House, I heard the voices of our parents down below. For whatever reason, I really didn’t feel like facing them yet, so I went to the crow’s nest to look out and survey the damage left in the wake of Hurricane Ayla. She’d finally blown past sometime in the middle of the night, and as far as I knew, everyone in the house was okay. Though I’d really hated leaving Mia alone to ride it out, I knew I couldn’t be with her after what I’d done.
The hallway was dark, but there was a faint light coming from under the door of one room. Mia’s room. She was up. My conscience pushed and shoved at my morality, refusing to allow me to avoid the talk I needed to have with her. I owed her one hell of an apology, and though I knew I’d never be able to come up with the flowery words to give her the one she deserved, I supposed a half-assed one would be better than none at all. Stalling wouldn’t be right, and the longer I waited, the worse I would feel. Manning up, I decided to get it over with.
The floor outside her room creaked under my weight as I stepped forward to meet whatever awaited me on the other side. She’d be completely within her right to refuse my apology, even justified if she decided to throw a lamp at my head. And I’d stand there and take it like a man because whatever it took to make her feel better, she’d have it.
Not wanting to clue in the rest of the house on the massacre that was about to go down, though I’d deserve their admonishment as well, I rapped lightly on the door with one knuckle.
“Come in!” I heard her call from inside. Selfishly, I was glad she was soft-spoken by nature.
My hand shook as I lifted it and gave the doorknob a turn. Damn. I was nervous. That was a first for me. Then again, I’d only ever had to beg for forgiveness from Cassidy, and I’d always known she’d eventually give it after some groveling. With Mia, I couldn’t be so sure.
Other than the glow of the white light coming from the screen before Mia, the room was mostly dark when I went inside. Of course it would be when the electricity had been knocked out somewhere in the middle of Hurricane Ayla. There was just enough illumination to see that the sheets were still a crumpled mess on the bed, and I wondered if her tears had stained the pillows. Jesus, but that mental image was a punch to the chest. Yep, I was an asshole, all right.
But you couldn’t tell it by looking at Mia.
She was sitting cross-legged in the chair before the desk, looking for the entire world like a coed student trying desperately to finish up a term paper right before class. The oversized T-shirt, yoga pants, and messy bun didn’t do anything to distract from her beauty. That was Mia. She was fucking gorgeous without even having to try.
“Good morning.” Mia didn’t look at me, and I really couldn’t blame her. She just kept hammering away at the keyboard of the laptop in front of her. It was her tool of the trade, which was probably the only reason she hadn’t chucked it across the room at me.
“Mornin’. You’re up early,” I said
. Because stating the obvious seemed like the best way to baby step it into the daunting conversation to come.
“You mean I’m up late,” she countered, obviously having been awake all night.
“You haven’t been to bed?” Fuck, that was because of me. I really was worse than an asshole. I was the whole ass.
“Well, when inspiration strikes, you have to go with it or risk losing it forever.”
The glow from the laptop was harsh on her normally angelic face and I could see the dark rings under her eyes. “You look tired.” Again, I was baby stepping it.
Her eyebrows lifted, but she still didn’t turn away from the screen. “Do I? Because I don’t feel tired.” She gave a halfhearted laugh. “Besides, it’s kind of hard to sleep with a hurricane in full force right outside the window.”