Page 15 of Moonshine Kiss
“Don’t you ‘Now, Cass,’ me! You come into my house, insult my job, and accuse me of being a shitty friend?” She squirmed against me, and I was pretty sure she was trying to work a leg free to knee me in the balls. I crowded her, stilling her with my hips. I’d known Cassidy her whole life, and this was the most physical contact we’d ever had. It made my day a little worse.
“I’m pissed off,” I admitted, gritting my teeth. Holding her in place wasn’t easy. She was trained to take down 200-pound drunk assholes. If she really wanted to, she could have already handed me my balls. “Okay? You hurt me, Cass.”
She froze against me. “Ihurtyou? Oh, that’s rich.”
I felt her heart thumping in her chest against mine, felt the soft, subtle curves of her breasts pressing into my bare chest.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I needed to get some space between us right quick before my traitor dick—that didn’t give a good damn what Cassidy had or hadn’t done—got any harder against the flat of her belly.
Too late. I saw the second recognition flickered into her eyes. Her breath caught, her body stilled. I could see her pulse fluttering at the base of her neck.
“You gonna take a swing at me if I let you go?” I demanded, my voice was rough on the edges of the words.
She hesitated, then shook her head. I stepped back immediately, taking my chances.
What the hell was I doing?I was the good guy. I didn’t barge into women’s houses and pin them between appliances and hard-ons. I was polite. I said “ma’am.” I walked dates to their front doors without an agenda—though to be fair, more often than not I was invited inside.
It was Cassidy, I decided, shamelessly blaming her. She drove me fucking crazy. And I wasn’t about to walk through why that was. Not for the nine billionth time.
“I’m going home,” I announced, shooting a glance at her. Her eyes were pinned on the front of my sweatpants. “Come find me when you figure out how to fix this mess.”
I slammed her front door and then my own. Two doors between the mess of feelings I had tangled up around Cassidy. It still wasn’t enough.
8
Cassidy
The thudding on my front door was getting old, real old. It was just after 8 a.m. And I was working on my second visitor of the day.
“Cassidy Ann! You open this door right this second!”
I knew exactly who it was even before she started bellowing. Bowie was out for blood, and there was only one person he’d send my way to extract it.
I wrenched open the door, trying to fight my way out of the hoodie I’d pulled on backward.
Scarlett, my best friend, co-conspirator, and wingman, stormed inside with all the heat of a thousand Julys.
“I am so mad at you right now!”
I looked over Scarlett’s shoulder to the SUV idling in front of my house. Devlin, Scarlett’s live-in boyfriend, sent me a wave and mouthed “good luck” to me before pulling away from the curb.
Scarlett unwound a mile of blue and gold striped scarf from her neck and shrugged out of her parka. “You have five seconds exactly to earn my forgiveness,” she said, crossing her arms the same way Bowie had barely an hour before.
I had a feeling Scarlett at least wouldn’t be pushing me up against my fridge sporting hard wood.
“Coffee?” I offered. I was so damn tired.
“You’re forgiven,” Scarlett chirped, skipping her way back to my kitchen. She was as at home here as June or Bowie. Damn him.
Scarlett helped herself to the mug she’d made me with our high school graduation picture on it. “All right, sit ‘n’ spill.”
In the rest of the South, it was “sit a spell.” But in Bootleg Springs, where gossip flowed faster than the creeks to the lake, it was spill.
“Look,” I said, “the DNA results came back a few weeks ago. Connelly’s keeping everything under wraps so he could have more time with the investigation before the whole town turns into a circus over nothing.”
“Over nothing?” Scarlett snorted mid sugar dump. “It’s her blood.”
“That’s a good thing, Scar.” I sat down wearily on the same stool I hadn’t bothered pushing back in. “It was always going to be her blood. What’s more important is what they didn’t find.”
