40
***Hayes***
It was sort of anti-climactic but we both went back to watching her show. It shouldn’t have been as comfortable as it was. We barely knew each other and we’d spent most of our time together fighting. Yet when she rested her head on my shoulder and her soft breaths warmed my neck, it felt like that was where she was supposed to be. We both ignored my dick and just cuddled under the ugliest blanket I’d ever seen.
Halfway through a scene of two women arguing over the way one of them copied a hairstyle it occurred to me that I’d nevercuddledanyone. I wasn’t sure I’d ever even said the word out loud. I shook my head at how far I’d stumbled away from my norm.
“What?” Cassidy rested her hand over my heart and yawned. “You don’t think she meant to copy the hairstyle?”
I smiled down at her. “I think they all stole each other’s whole heads. I can’t tell any of them apart.”
She laughed. “What? You’re trying to tell me that you don’t go for the girls who do their makeup just like that?”
“I never really thought about it before.” I ran a fingertip from her cheek to her chin and then down her throat. “I like looking at you a lot more than them.”
She nestled her face back into my neck and I felt the lightest brush of her lips on my skin. “Thank you.”
When she realized she’d forgotten to change to the show about the wedding surprise she grunted and made a lot of annoyed sounds when it took longer than she wanted it to get the other show on. I quickly understood that I was more of a housewives show kind of guy than whatever the wedding show was.
“Why’d he wait until the wedding ceremony to end it? That’s fucking dramatic. He let all those people show up for nothing.”
Cassidy groaned. “I know. It’s so embarrassing. Not just for her. He looks like an ass. She cheated but he chose to waste all that money and time to humiliate her instead of just dumping her cheating ass when he found out.”
I winced as the woman on TV ran down the aisle crying. “Can you imagine the family dinner the week after? Everyone sitting around, awkwardly waiting for someone else to just mention it so they can get it out of the way but no one has the stomach to do it.”
“Now it would be me coming home to Aunt Jolene and she would not have an issue with just saying anything and everything. When my dad was still alive it would’ve been awkward as hell. Anything he thought was remotely feminine, even emotions, would make him clam up. He would’ve been so terrified that I’d mention it myself that he probably would’ve skipped the thing all together.”
I ran my hand up and down her side and sighed. “At my family dinner our dad would be drunk and shouting about it to noone in particular. Probably about how it would affect the family image.”
“Gross.” She shifted so she was sitting up and staring at me. “It was like that when I went to dinner at Coach Carrington’s house. Jax’s dad was really great half of the time but he was like my dad with Jax’s little sister. She’s super artsy and she’d find these random pieces of clothing around the house and cut them up until they were what she wanted. I was always jealous because she looked so pretty and I never knew anything about clothes. I thought she looked amazing. But Coach Carrington would go off about how horrible she looked and how she was going to make people think their family was poor.
“The good thing about my dad being my dad was that I didn’t learn to care about things like that until I was older. Dad never gave a shit what I wore or told me to be more ladylike. I didn’t understand how Blaire wearing her clothes the way she wanted could make the family look bad.” She trailed off and then spoke much quieter. “And then the real world happened and I’ve been inadequate ever since.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. I don’t even know why I was talking about that. Doesn’t matter. Let’s keep watching.” She pushed play and even turned the show up.
None of it stopped me from watching her, though. When I couldn’t keep my opinion to myself anymore I leaned down and spoke against her ear. “I don’t find you inadequate in any way.”
Her breath caught and she went still. A few seconds passed before she blew out a long breath and climbed out of my lap. I thought I’d somehow fucked everything up until she extended her hand to me. She didn’t say anything as she took my hand and pulled me down a hallway and into her bedroom. As soon as we were inside with the door shut she dropped my hand and walked to the center of the room.
The overhead light was off but there was a pink lamp that cast the room in a reddish haze. There was music playing from her laptop across the room, something with a slow rhythm, something that sounded suspiciously like country music.
She shot the laptop a nervous look and shrugged one shoulder. “When in Rome.”
I leaned against her door and felt a thrill run up my spine when she gripped the bottom of her top. I was too scared of breaking the spell to say anything so I just watched.
Cassidy slowly pulled her shirt over her head and let it drop to the floor at her feet. I balled my hands into fists to keep from reaching for her. The way the lamp made her nipples glow and cast a shadow across her stomach was mouth watering. She slowly bent as she drew her shorts down her long legs and when she stood back up she was completely bare. More shadows hid the V between her thighs.
She reached up and worked her hair free until it was curling down her back. Then she stared at me with a challenging expression. “Say it again.”
I pushed off the door but stopped a few feet in front of her. I knew what she wanted and I had no problem giving it to her because it was the truth. “I don’t find you inadequate in any way.”
She shuddered and walked forward until she was pressed against me. “Do you want to know a secret?”
More than fucking anything. I wanted all of her secrets. I nodded once because I didn’t trust myself to move more than that without dragging her to the bed.
“I’m fucking terrified of you. When you say things like that it makes me think things I have no business thinking. I don’t want to be the fool again but I don’t know if I can change what’s going to happen at this point. And tonight, I don’t want to care. I want to kiss you and touch you without being so worried abouteverything else. I just want to feel adequate for a while. With you.”
