“No, no, no, I’m okay.” She somehow managed to turn her head to see that he’d finally gotten his phone free, and also somehow managed to slap it out of his grasp with her free hand. “Really, don’t! God, no! I’m okay. But something’s caught, I think it’s my sleeve.”
She was right. The button at the end of her jacket sleeve had gotten wedged into the crook of a forked branch. Rio wrestled with it but then finally yanked it free, and she was immediately able to roll over and push herself up into a semi-sitting position.
“I’m okay,” she repeated, although it was more than clear from a quick scan that she’d torn the right knee out of her jeans, and yeah, she was definitely scraped and bleeding under the ripped denim.
It was nothing, however, compared to what he’d imagined.
“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” He wasn’t a hospital corpsman like Thomas King, but like all SEALs he’d had his share of field training. She was peering down to assess the damage to her knee, so he pulled her head up, hands on either side of her face so he could see her eyes in the dim light. Head injuries scared the living crap out of him.
“I’m sure,” she whispered, her brown eyes wide and alert—no sign of shock—soft lips parted slightly in surprise as she gazed back at him.
And he fucking did it. It was stupid as shit, but Rio kissed her. He damn well knew there were words, multiple, that needed to be said first, but in that moment he couldn’t remember a single one of them.
He just leaned in and inhaled her, pulling her closer when she didn’t resist—and she absolutely didn’t. Her mouth was soft and warm and so freaking perfect—because she was kissing him back just as enthusiastically, wrapping her arms up and around his neck, like even though she professed her okayness, she too was hyperaware of how very not okay she might well have been.
That motherfucker had missed hitting her by centimeters.
But here, grounded in reality, she was alive and healthy—and kissing him back.
Except then she wasn’t.
“No!” She pushed herself away from him, scrambling both out of the brush and onto her feet. “No, no! No!”
“Whoa, whoa, Casey, wait—” Rio followed her, tripping over a root and damn near face-planting on the pavement before he caught himself.
She was still backing up, the look on her face one of pure horror. “No! Nope! Nope! You’re Dave’s boyfriend! This is not okay!”
She was really upset—understandably so. She was incredibly loyal—to Dave, to her brother. And this was not the way Rio had wanted to tell her the truth, but he hadn’t given himself any other options when he’d gone nonverbal. So okay, talk, Rosetti. Use your words.
“Yeah, it is,” he said. “Okay. Really, it is. Because—”
“There is literally nothing you can say that makes any of this okay!”
“—I’m not Dave’s boyfriend. I’m not Luc. I’m... not who you think I am.”
Chapter Sixteen
Luc wasn’t... Luc...?
Casey heard the words coming out of Luc-who-wasn’t-Luc’s mouth—a stupidly delicious mouth she’d just soundly, stupidly, and yes, hardcore evilly kissed back, what was wrong with her?—but those words did not compute.
“I’m Luc’s cousin,” he told her, standing there in Werewolf’s poorly lit parking lot, in this weird, unworldly aftermath of nearly getting runover—by both some rando in a car and by her unrestrained, inappropriate, out-of-control desire.
But yeah, she already knew that he had a cousin with the exact same name and... wait. What?
He was still talking. “I’ve been pretending to be Luc. My name’s really Mario. Rosetti.”
Luc wasn’t Luc, he was... “Mario,” she repeated.
Oh, for god’s sake, she was unbelievably gullible. Two cousins, both named Luc...? God damn it.
“Yeah, no, sorry, that’s not really accurate either. No one calls me that anymore. I mean, even my grandma finally gave up a few years ago. I’m, you know, Rio.”
He wasn’t Luc, he was Mario who was really Rio, which implied there was a Luc out there who wasn’t Rio, except it was Dave himself who had told her that they were one and the same, that Luc was his teammate and that Rio was Luc’s Navy SEAL nickname and... God, Dave had lied to her. Why would Dave lie? To her?
Rio-Not-Luc was still talking at her, pretty much nonstop. “Dave and I are teammates. We’re friends. Good friends. I do, you know, love him...? But we’re not, um, boyfriends. I, uh, tend to not have boyfriends. I’m... kinda... extremely not gay. I mean, not so far, anyway, and chances are if it’s not Dave, it’s not gonna be anyone and... Yeah, not a good time to make a joke, but... Look, I know this is a lot, but we really need to get out of here. Because that car...? I didn’t get the plate; it was covered in mud and, hey, are you sure you’re okay?”
Luc stepped closer—shit, he wasn’t Luc, but whoever the fuck he was, Mario, Rio, the Navy-SEAL-in-the-moon, his stupidly pretty eyes and his ass-hat of a much-too-handsome face were filled with his concern. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head? Maybe when you fell?”
