She jumped and slapped a hand against her chest. “You scared the life out of me. Sneaking up on me like that.”
“I was hardly sneaking. What are you reading, anyway?” Moving past her I went to the refrigerator, casting more light into the room and pulled out the jug of iced water that Lily always kept filled. The cold air mixed with a lingering scent of something light and floral. It was her. Shaking my head of thoughts that shouldn’t be there, I closed the refrigerator door.
“Just something for work.” She sounded distracted and when I looked back over she was still reading.
“Interesting?”
Her head shot up. “Yes actually,” she flashed me a tight smile. “It’s all about getting to know country kids so you can be a better teacher.”
“Oh, come on, Cassidy, I apologized. I told you I worded it all wrong.”
Her eyes narrowed on me as she dropped her leg to the floor and put a finger to her lips. “Hmm, let me think your words were, ‘How on earth do you think you can teach country kids when you haven’t lived in Silver Peaks?’. That was it, wasn’t it?”
Groaning, with my eyes adjusting to the dim light, I pulled two glasses from the cabinet. “Those weren’t my exact words Cassidy, and you know they weren’t.” I poured water into both glasses and slammed one down on the table in front of her. “You should stay hydrated if you’re not getting enough sleep, and you and Lily drank two bottles of wine.”
“What were your exact words, then,” she snapped, turning her phone face down and ignoring the water.
She was so fucking exasperating, why couldn’t she just accept that I’d made a clumsy comment, and it wasn’t even aimed at her personally. And why the hell couldn’t she just drink the water so that I could watch her swallow, watch that delicious neck of hers stretch while she tipped her head back to drink.
“It doesn’t matter what my words were, Cassidy,” I sighed. “You’ve clearly made up your mind about me.”
Her gaze followed me as I walked around the table to pull out a chair, so when I sat down I made a show of stretching. Wearing only low slung pajama bottoms of course I was going to entice her to look at my body. But the truth was, I didn’t need her to look because for some reason I needed her toseeme the way no one else ever tried to. And damn that was scary, so it was mucheasier to act like my ego could give a shit. When I scratched one of my abs I heard a sharp inhale. Tiny and quiet as it was, it was there. She’d taken the bait.
“Are you going to tell me the truth now about what you’re reading?” I reached across the table and placed a finger on her upturned phone and dragged it closer.
Cassidy slammed a hand on top of mine. “Nothing that would interest you.”
“How do you know unless you let me read it.” I could easily have shrugged her hand off mine, but I liked having it there. I liked torturing us both.
“Because it’s not about horses, cows or hay.” Her fingers curled around the edge of my hand. “Let me have my phone back.”
Our hands touched, hers warm, mine unsure. The contact was fleeting, but it set something in motion. A flicker of something that wasn’t anger or banter. Something far more dangerous. Something that short-circuited my brain. I brushed it away, telling myself it didn’t matter but the skin on my hand burned where my gaze lingered.
“No, not until you tell me what you were reading.”
“What do you care?”
I shrugged. “Just want to know.” Whatever Cassidy was reading didn’t matter to me, but the fact she was engrossed in it did. I was curious as to why she’d been so lost in it she hadn’t heard me come down the stairs, across the foyer and into the kitchen. Why was I curious? Who the fuck knew. “Oh, and for your information I like more than horses, cows and hay.”
Cassidy’s tongue darted out and licked along the cupid’s bow of her top lip as her nostrils flared a little. After a couple of seconds of staring at me, she removed her hand and sat back in her chair.
“Fine, keep it then.”
Scrutinizing her so closely, I saw the goosebumps pebbling on her soft skin. The pale, fine hairs on her arms stood up and I wondered why. It wasn’t cold in the house, it was always temperate somehow, which was why I questioned why Lily insisted on having hundreds of throws around the place.
“You cold?” I asked.
“No.” She frowned and then instantly looked down at her tits.
That just drew my attention to them and my dick twitched in my sleep pants. It wasn’t so much morning wood; it was her. Always her. The way she looked half-furious, half-fierce, like a storm I never saw coming but kept walking into anyway. Whatever it was that had caused my middle-of-the-night stirring, there was enough movement for me to pull my chair closer to the table. My hand was still on her phone, and it was growing warmer under my touch. It was a stupid game I was playing with her, but I liked to push her buttons. Loved the back and forth and the way her earlobes went pink when she was angry. As much as she irritated me, it felt good being in her company because she challenged me in a way no woman ever had before.
I was a Miller brother, and we were popular amongst the girls in town. Seeing as Nash had been off the menu for a long time, even before Lily came back, Wilder and I were never short of company. Girls threw themselves at us, offering us whatever sort of relationship we were willing to have with them. That didn’t mean we were disrespectful to them. I, for one, always made it clear that it would never come to anything. Was pretty sure Wilder did, too, yet it didn’t seem to matter to them. Cassidy wasn’t like that, though, from the moment I’d fucked up on our date got up and walked out we’d barely had a decent conversation since.
“Why are you awake?” She asked me, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I don’t always sleep through, especially when I’ve had too much coffee the night before.” I hadn’t had coffee; I was irritated by our houseguest. Irritated and horny. But that was another issue I needed to deal with on another day. “What about you? What are you doing awake?”
“Too much going around my head.” She took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. “School stuff before your ego starts to think it might be you.”
