Page 35 of Sin

“It’s a form I need to fill out and send in to get my voter registration.” Excitement fills his eyes, even more than when he was talking about getting ice cream. “In three weeks, I’ll be legal to vote.”

Three weeks until his birthday? That can’t be right.

I glance at the date on my watch.Fuck.

How can the date that I’ve been focused on for the last three years be so close and me not realize it?What in the hell have I been doing?

Driving Cassidy to and from school and teaching him how to drive. Getting in water fights with him and taking joy rides in Betty Jo. Going on fake tutoring sessions, that Mercer was right, were really poorly disguised dates, and then walking him to the door and dropping light, but life-changing kisses on his lips. Then, walking to the back of the house and watching Cassidy as he touches himself while he fully knows I’m there watching from the shadows.

That all ends on his birthday. It has to. In three weeks, Cassidy will be free of his legal chains to my father. He needs to be free from me too. I’m his stepbrother. I’m also my father’s son. Gideon’s tainted blood runs through me, my heart so full of hate and revenge, I’m willing to do anything to see my father burn. With Cassidy eighteen and no longer under my father’s legal thumb, I can finally turn in the evidence I’ve collected against him, proving what he did to my mother.

I will have revenge.

Cassidy deserves better than someone consumed by hatred. He is good and sweet and brilliant. I refuse to ruin him.

I know he won’t want to leave. Getting away from my father and distancing himself from the disappointment of being around his mother causes him will be easy choices, but I know he won’t want to leave me.

After the first night I watched Cassidy in his window, I recognized what I’d been hiding from myself for a very long time. Cassidy wants me. Cares for me. Now that I let myself see them, the clues are obvious. The way his eyes trail over my body, the blushes whenever I’m near. His smile whenever I walk into a room. I revel in them. I’m addicted to them. I’m going to have to kill them.

“We’re still going right?”

“What?” I ask, realizing Cassidy had been carrying on the conversation the whole time.

“We’re still going to Freedom Fest in Lexington, right?” He asks, his face hopeful, and at the same time scared, his life teaching him not to count on anything. “You said if I passed my driver’s test, you’d take me to my first concert.”

Fuck. Freedom Fest falls on his birthday. I really was burying everything that pointed to my time with him coming to an end.

“Yeah, we’re definitely going. I got us VIP passes.”

Cassidy looks at me like I hung the moon. Maybe it’s wrong, but I can’t help wanting that for a little longer. “I also booked a suite near the festival.”

At that, he blushes and suddenly looks nervous. “Is that okay?” I ask. “It’s on the top floor and over two thousand square feet. There should be plenty of room for the two of us.”

“No, that’s fine,” Cassidy says, his voice squeaking. He reaches out and places his hand on my arm. “It’s gonna be the best night of my life.”

I try to smile back at him, knowing it’s going to be one of the worst nights of mine.

Chapter 19

Cassidy

The flight to Lexington takes off, and I sit back in the comfortable leather seats, watching out the window as we ascend into the air.

“Never flown in first class before?”

I shake my head. “I’ve only flown to and from Bellmore and never like this.”

He gives me a sad little grin that I don’t quite know how to interpret, and then opens his iPad and turns on a show for us to watch. It’s about medical mysteries, and I know he picked it with me in mind, but it’s a blur to me. My mind is on other things.

I’m going to seduce Sin tonight.

I can’t push down the need he awakens in me any longer. Even the nights I spend touching myself as he watches from the dark aren’t enough anymore.

I need him to be more than just a shadow lover.

I’ve been planning it for over a month now. It’s why I think I was so obsessed over my driver’s exam. Because this other test I set for myself isn’t one I can study for or take a written exam on first. With no other way to prepare, I’ve watched plenty of pornand driven deep into articles on how to please a partner. I can only hope I’m a good student and I can please him.

Today was the last hurdle. Before our flight, I went to the drug store and picked up lube and condoms and packed them safely in my carry-on. Now, all I have to do is figure out exactly how to bring Sin to the point where he comes out of the shadows and touches me.

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