Page 144 of Off The Ice

“No, Cassie.” Liam spun. “ He doesn’t get to do this! He doesn’t get to want you when it’s convenient for him. That’s not how love works.”

“It wasn’t your call to make.”

“Are you seriously telling me you would’ve taken the guy back?” His face dropped. “Did you?”

“No, I didn’t!” I said, crossing my arms. “But it would’ve been nice to know that I had the option if I needed it.”

“Screw that, Cassie.” He fumed. “You don’t need that asshole as a safety net or whatever the hell you think you needed him for. He’s a dick, and the best thing he ever did for you was let you go.”

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, furious. “If you don’t want me to be with him, then tell me who you think I’m supposed to be with.”

“No one!” Liam shouted. “I don’t want you to be with anyone! And I sure as hell don’t want you to think of me as just your friend’s brother!”

It was my turn to walk away because I couldn’t bear to let him see the look on my face at that moment.

“Wait,” he said. “Cassie, I’m sorry.”

But I kept walking. I didn’t know what was happening between us and I was scared. I was scared of how I felt about him, scared of not knowing how he felt about me. Scared of losing it all the way I seemed to lose everything.

“I’m fine,” I told him, “I’m tired.”

“Don’t do that,” he said, voice right behind me.

“Do what?” I asked.

“Don’t pretend you’re not pissed when I’m the one who screwed up. Yougetto be mad, and you don’t have to worry that I’m going to walk away just because you’re upset with me.”

I froze. How did he know? How did healwaysseem to understand what I was feeling and thinking and worrying about? How had he managed to cut through the surface of everything I was without even trying?

For my whole life, I’d wanted to be seen and understood and noticed, and here was the most beautiful man I’d ever met looking at me like I wasn’t some puzzle he had to learn but some innate thing he’d always known.

“So yell at me,” he continued, staring down at me with eyes so soft I could melt. “Scream at me. Hit me if you want. I can take it.”

“I don’t want to hit you,” I whispered.

“No?” he asked, bridging the gap between us, until we were chest to chest. “So what do you want, Cassie?”

For a second, something flickered in his eyes—like he wasscaredof the answer I might give.

I let myself look at him, at this face that had become so familiar to me, and before I could stop myself from doing something that had the potential to ruin everything, I surged forward, grabbing hold of him like a life raft in the sea, and I pulled his lips to mine.

For a horrible, agonizing moment, he stilled. Like a statue beneath my touch, Liam froze, and I was convinced my worst fears had come true. I’d ruined everything. I’d made assumptions that were wrong, and now I had destroyed the one good thing I had going for me.

Face flaming in shame, I moved to rip my lips off of his, to apologize, and run immediately to the closest place I could change my name and identity.

But then, he was pulling me in. Impossibly closer and, oh God. He was kissing me back.

I whimpered against his lips, and he groaned, fingers lacing through my hair as if he wanted me the way I wanted him.

I couldn’t handle it, couldn’t get enough oxygen to my lungs as every fiber of me was overwhelmed with the feeling of him.

I pulled away, looking up at him to try and make sense of what was happening. He stared down at me, green eyes wide and glazed over as if he didn’t know where he was or how he’d gotten here.

Somehow, I understood the feeling.

“You kissed me,” he stated as if he hadn’t processed it yet.

“You kissed me back,” I said, letting a finger come up to touch the lips that had just been on his.

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