“Stop flirting with me, Cassie. It’ll go to my head.”
“Ha ha. You’re hilarious.”
Cassie Bailey was all long tanned legs and high full boobs and yards of shiny golden hair. He ached just to look at her, by which he meant his cock throbbed and his palms sweated and his heart, such as he had one, beat a hell of a lot faster. He knew it was just lust, but he couldn’t shake it. He’d been in whatever he was with Cassie Bailey since he had come to live with his cousin’s family, finally thrown out by his worthless old man, six years ago.
“Since your tits are spilling out of that top and your shorts barely cover your pubic hair, I take it you were delivering groceries to that asshole Reynolds.”
She shrugged, a little smile on her makeup-less face. Girls like his cousin Pat’s Rita slathered on the mascara and foundation and lipstick and didn’t look half as perfect, half as glowing, as Cassie did from just the effects of the wind and the sun. “I was delivering groceries, yeah…among other things.”
He took a deep breath. He was getting really good at controlling his emotions around her. He always had been around anyone else but she used to be able to push his buttons with the most casual of comments. He could hold it off now. Not that he didn’t feel as if his head might explode at the casual reference to her giving it to Reynolds.
Even though he knew she was lying.
“Reynolds must have the staying power of a rabbit, then, since you’ve barely been gone long enough to make the round trip out to his island.”
She glared at him, putting her hands on her hips, and he could feel his glance unwaveringly riveted to the tiny waist and strip of tanned skin at her navel. “Are you spying on me, Tommy O’Neal?”
He smiled. “Why would I waste my time doing that?”
“You tell me!” She huffed by him and he caught her elbow lightly, pulling her into the vee of his legs. Though she went unresistingly, she continued to glare at him. “What do you want, Tommy?”
Christ, what didn’t he want from her? But he wasn’t going to beg her for it. He had half the girls in the town sucking his dick whenever he felt like it. For whatever reason, girls had always been dragging him into bed with them at the slightest encouragement. He didn’t need Cassie Bailey.
But she was different. She always had been. Since that first day in town when he had gotten the crap beaten out of him for not allowing one of the older boys to take his lunch money and she had pushed through the crowd and stopped the fight, just a tall skinny girl with long blonde braids and more guts than he had ever seen in full-grown men. He had been fascinated by her as she toted him along to her father’s store and climbed on a stool to get the first-aid kit, scolding him to hold his head up so his nose wouldn’t bleed more than it had to. Fascinated and more than half in whatever with her from that very first moment.
Although he consoled himself through the years since that he must just want to get into her pants.
“Maybe I don’t like to see you throwing yourself away on an asshole like that, Cassie.”
“Funny. He said the same thing about you.”
So she had seen him. Tommy clamped his jaw shut, the better to keep from giving away how much that disturbed him. She watched him all the while, big blue eyes fastened on his face, until he said casually, “I’m surprised he even knows who I am.”
“I told him you said he was gay.”
He had tossed that out casually, just to needle her. It said enough about her inexperience with men that it seemed to bother her. He doubted Reynolds was gay, although that would be nice as far as he was concerned. He didn’t know what Reynolds’ deal was, why he didn’t take Cassie up on what she was obviously throwing his way. Maybe he was just a nice guy.
The asshole.
“He wanted to know if you wanted a date with him.”
Tommy laughed, which seemed to disappoint her. She scowled. “What? Do you?”
He tugged her closer in yet another repetition of this relentless dance of theirs. “I’m not exactly on the fence with my sexuality, Cassie. But if you want me to prove it to you, I’d be more than happy to.” He could feel her light breath at his neck as he leaned in to her to whisper that in her ear and he slid his hands carefully around her waist. His erection roared into force and he held the rest of himself rigid, knowing he had zero control where she was concerned. Zero control and absolute control, both at the same time. So while he was aching for her, he wouldn’t make any move on her. No real move on her anyway.
Like tugging that flimsy top down and taking one of her pearl-pink nipples in his mouth and sucking, hard. He knew they were pink only because she had flashed him once in anger and he had cherished the memory, sick fuck that he was.