Warmth trembled in my core as Casey went to his knees beside the bed. “You are not going there alone ever again.”
“Who would want to go with me? It’s not fun.”
Casey frowned. “We’ll work it out.”
“Guess it doesn’t matter much right now.” Damn it, I would have to figure out a lawyer for Dad. The harder I tried, the more things piled up with him.
Casey leaned forward and slid his arms around me in a hug. He laid his head on the pillow beside me.
“You’ll get a cranky neck.”
He huffed out a laugh. “You mean a crick in my neck?”
“Yeah, that.”
He grinned. “I’m already cranky. My neck might be, too.”
“I want to ask a stupid question, but I don’t want you to make fun of me,” I said in a rush. I was scared to say what was on my mind because I felt like it was a stupid kid kind of question, but I really wanted to know what he was thinking. “We just… I know you didn’t get off.”
“That’s not a question.” He kissed my cheek. “And I had a good time doing that with you. I’m not in a rush.” He said that like I’d given him a good thing by not knowing what the fuck I was doing and not being ready for his cock. That seemed weird, but I wasn’t going to question my good luck if he wasn’t pissed off about it.
I shrugged. “Are we together now?” The question opened up a hole in my chest that made me feel lost.
“Do you want to be?”
Prickles attacked my eyes and I blinked them fast. I didn’t want to cry in front of him. “I’m scared to be with someone.”
“What wouldn’t scare you?”
My mind blanked for a long time. Too long. He nudged his forehead against mine. “Seeing if we work first. I don’t want you to hate me and be stuck with me and be mad at me and… and….”
“Anyone who has you is lucky, not stuck.”
I leaned my head against his. “If you say so.”
“I do. Close your eyes and go to sleep.”
“Okay.”
“Goodnight, baby.”
I couldn’t help the chuckle that popped out of me. I bit at my lips. “Baby?”
“Sleep.”
He held me for a while longer, and I pretended to be asleep. He laughed as he moved his arms from around me, so maybe he knew. I cracked my eyelids to watch him fiddle with the lock on his way out, and then he closed the door after himself. I had to get up to double check the locks because even though I trusted him, some habits die hard. I was smiling when I climbed back between my blankets. Things were always a pile of suck with Dad, that wasn’t new. This strange excitement drumming through me, small like a heartbeat, was shiny and special. I wanted to keep it alive as long as I could. I lay down and thought about Casey touching me on repeat until I was hard and had to flip over and rut against the bed or die. My wrist twinged in counterpoint to the slowly unfurling pleasure in my body.
It was going to be a long night, but I didn’t even care.
8
Casey
My stubble was turning into more of a beard, but now that I had Angel, I thought I might just let it grow. The hair gave my face a softer appearance, which might make him more comfortable. My towel slipped down my hips as I smoothed my hands over the thick growth of hair on my jaw and then picked up my flat razor from the black-and-silver tile on top of the vanity. Steam rose from the sink and fogged the mirror as hot water ran into it, and I leaned forward. With a focus that wasn’t entirely necessary, since I’d done this so many times over the years, I precisely trimmed the lines from my sideburns downward so that when the beard grew in it would look sharp and not messy. I scraped another clean line underneath my chin. In my bedroom, CNN droned over Alexa, a boring background noise I considered necessary each morning to be informed for the day.
I wasn’t hearing a word about war, famine, or any other global problem. My attention was focused on one thing—one person.
If Angel was going to be my boy, I wanted him to have someone he could be proud of at his side. It made sense to keep to my workout routine, and everything else in my life, even though the thought of having him made me want to be lazy. There was a real temptation to sit around and dream up ways to play with him instead of doing anything useful.
