Page 15 of Tripped By Love
Marco
I WON’T LET GO
“Don’t be afraid to fall.
I’m right here to catch you.
I won’t let you down.”
Performed by Rascal Flats
Written by Sellers / Robson
I could still smell her allover me. The scent of chocolate and sweetness from her kitchen that seemed to hover around her like a cloud. I could still feel the soft skin at her waist that my hand had slid over as I’d tucked her up against me, claiming her even when I knew better. When I knew it was dangerous to do so because I’d find it difficult to walk away and let her go…
And now she was daring me. Daring me to ask about her and the shitty excuse of a human being who’d just stormed out her door with a half-assed threat that I wasn’t even sure she’d realized. Not because she was clueless or rainbow-eyed like her brother had insinuated earlier, but because Cassidy couldn’t see how any man could desire her, want her for their own. She saw herself as a mother, a sister, a daughter, and a chef. She didn’t see herself as a woman to be worshipped.
I swallowed hard, trying to bury the hatred I felt for a man I’d never set eyes on before. Trying to hide the way her body had made mine come alive, tingling from the tips of my fingers down to my toes.
Maybe it was because I’d already had my emotions knocked off center with Jonas’s call. Maybe it was because I’d spent years denying every feeling I’d had for her. But her dare caused the words to rip from deep inside me like skin being torn apart by shrapnel.
“Why were you with him?”
Her eyes widened with one eyebrow arching in a perfectly delightful way. She hadn’t expected me to give in. To cave. To ask. She raised her chin again—the second time she’d done it—defying me to judge her. To deny her.
“I thought he didn’t see me as someone less than anyone else. As someone struggling every day to overcome her challenges. I thought he just saw a pretty woman he could screw, and I wanted that. To be just another pretty face,” she said.
I hated him more.
Hated him with a vengeance that would have had me picking him up by his collar and tossing him from the house if he’d still been there. Because I was damn sure he’d taken advantage of her. He’d seen through her to the tender spot she hid away, carved from her childhood challenges, and used it to sleep with her.I could guarantee he hadn’t seen her the way I did. Strong and brave. Whole. Unbroken. Because far from being less, Cassidy O’Neil’s challenges had made her more.
“You’re not just another pretty face,” I growled out, my voice deeper than I’d ever heard it in my entire life. But she took my words wrong. She thought I meant that she couldn’t escape her hypotonia and extra X-chromosome. She tried to back away, and I grabbed her wrist, capturing her, holding her close when I should have been walking away.
“You’ll never be just a pretty face, Cassidy. You can’t be. You’re so much more than that. You’re a beautiful, resilient human who outshines the rest of us. It’s us that are less. Not you.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, and I hated myself for them.
I closed mine to shut them out and said, “I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have?”
Her finger on my lips stopped the rest of my words.
“Don’t you dare take it back,” she said quietly, and I risked looking at her. There were tears there still, unshed, and she was blinking fast to hold them back, but there was also a look of awe on her face, as if I’d quoted Shakespeare or some goddamn sonnet. “Those are the best words anyone has ever said to me.”
I groaned. I couldn’t help it. I hated with every fiber of my being that no one had told her these things before. That everyone in her world saw her as needing help…fixing. I’d started working out with her once I’d heard from Brady that she was trying to increase her strength, but it wasn’t because I thought she needed to change. It was because I wanted her to see how much she could accomplish. How strong she already was.
Before I could really take in what she was about to do, she was hugging me, squeezing me so tight that it caused air to escape my lips. I hesitated, and then I wrapped her in my arms and hugged her back with the same vehemence. With a force that folded our limbs together until it was hard to know where hers left off and mine began.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d hugged someone.
Maliyah was good at patting me on the shoulder and kissing a cheek. Jonas was at the stage where men didn’t hug men. The last time I’d slept with a woman, it had been a fleeting, one night of passion where hugs weren’t on the list. Affection hadn’t been the purpose. So instead of breaking the hug when she loosened her grip, I held on, tightening my arms even more. She laughed softly, squeezing back again.
Then, I had to let her go. Not only because if I kept holding her, I’d want to do more than just hug her, but because I had a plane to catch. Hours’ worth of flight time and layovers before I’d arrive in Austin in the early morning.
So, I stepped away, and she let me.
“He’ll be back,” I said, returning us to the reason we’d been entwined to begin with.
She sighed, placing a hand on her forehead and rubbing. “The summer term doesn’t start for another week. I have time to figure it out.”
