Page 5

CHAPTER 4

ALWAYS THE brIDE

CASS

W ilder leans over me like a prince about to kiss me awake, brushing a lock of hair from my cheek.

“I never stopped loving you, you know,” he whispers. His breath is warm against my lips.

“Really?” I whisper back, my mouth slightly open, hoping he’ll take it.

“Never. And I never will. Not in a million years.”

The smell of smoke and fire invades my senses, a web of electricity crackling across my lips as he inches closer, and?—

My alarm blares from my phone. I gasp myself awake, shooting up so fast it feels like somebody nailed a spike into my temple.

I groan, one hand flying to the offending temple and the other batting blindly at my nightstand for the source of the harshest, loudest sound in the entire world. When I find it, I crack one eyelid and silence it before flopping back in bed.

I smell smoke and wonder why. Oh yeah, the bonfire. But I have no recollection of how I got in bed. We were burning Davis’s stuff. There was a pillow—no, a pile of pillows. Some clothes. Textbooks? And then I?—

I shoot out of bed again.

Wilder.

Wilder was here.

And I was naked in the backyard.

“Oh my God,” I whine, sliding back into bed and pulling the covers over my head as the worst of it comes back to me in flickers. “ Nonononono… ”

He’d carried me upstairs and put me to bed, leaning over me just like in the dream. I glance down at the silky white Bride kimono I’d been planning to torch, the word embroidered on the breast. Now it’s smudged with soot, ruined completely.

I like it so much better this way.

Muffled voices carry through my closed bedroom window, and I poke my head out of the covers, eyes shifting. Who the hell is here? And why are they here? My mouth is cardboard and my head’s pounding, but somehow I manage to sit up and slink out of bed, following the voices which I fully realize now are outside. There is much blinking and stumbling and handrail gripping, but by a miracle’s grace, I make it downstairs in search of ibuprofen and a gallon of water.

The daylight’s blinding as I step into the kitchen. The fridge feels a million miles away, but I teeter in that direction, grabbing a cup I left on the counter last night and filling it to the top. Greedily, I chug it, panting while I fill it up again. There’s ibuprofen in the junk drawer, and once I pop as many as I can without needing an ER visit or a fresh kidney, I dodder toward the back door, frowning.

When I get a good look outside, my eyes widen.

Jessa, I expect. My cousin Remy, I’m not shocked by.

But the sight of Wilder nearly drops me.

God, he’s gorgeous in his Roseville Fire Department gear—a navy baseball cap, navy tee with their logo on his rock hard chest. Matching Dickies that make his ass look like a goddamn renaissance sculpture. His hair is a little longer than it used to be on top, a little darker than the caramel I remember, now more of a dusty brown. His jaw is sharp and perfect beneath the shadow of twenty-four-hour stubble, his lips wide and dusky. I watch like a greedy, greedy girl as he picks up a box of Davis’s stuff, his biceps bulging, testing the integrity of his tee sleeves.

When he glances in my direction, I squeak and duck out of the window, the quick movement sending whatever was in my stomach into my esophagus. But it was too late. For my pride, at least.

He saw me.

“I, uh, think Cass is up,” he says before carrying on. It sounds like he’s smiling, that hot bastard.

“Shit,” I hiss, retying my stupid robe as I stand up. My hair is tangled, and my fingers comb uselessly through the mess, though lord knows they try. I smile, hoping I look at least a little cute before opening the door. “Uh, what’s with the party?” My voice is husky and thick, and the sun is blazing like an absolute asshole. I flinch against it as I step outside.

“Good morning, darling,” Jessa says. “Feeling alright?”

“I’ll live. What are you doing?”

Wilder comes back out from the garage, his gaze dragging down my body, catching on my chest. I realize instantly that my nipples have tightened and would love to blame it on the slight breeze or the silky fabric of my robe. But the truth is that my body remembers him.

It definitely remembers being naked in his arms last night.

I should fold my arms to hide them, but instead, I tighten my belt and stuff my hands in the tiny pockets.

“We figured we’d help clean up since Jenny’s due back today,” Remy answers, dumping a few boxes into Wilder’s arms. Luckily, he catches them. God knows he’s not looking at Remy.

“Thoughtful. Thank you. I…erm, do I need to issue an apology to the fire department for my indecent exposure last night?”

Remy laughs. “Oh, I don’t think any of them need an apology.”

Wilder’s eyes darken. “They didn’t see anything.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.”

“Trust me,” he promises. “They didn’t see anything . Not if they want their eyes to stay in their sockets.”

A little shiver works its way down my spine at the tone of his voice. “Alright. Well, how can I help?”

“I think you’re best utilized in the kitchen,” Jessa chimes in, “eating the donuts and drinking the coffee we brought.”

“We’re almost through,” Remy adds, “and me and Wilder have to leave in a second for practice before the game. Plus, I have a feeling if you try to carry anything, you’re gonna end up puking, and we don’t have time to clean that up too.”

“Listen—once not too long ago, I cleaned your nasty ass bathroom so Jessa didn’t have to stay in a hovel, Remington,” I remind him. “You owe me a little biohazard cleanup.”

“And I appreciate that, Cassidy,” he says. “It landed me a duchess.”

I snort a laugh. “You should appreciate it because it was fucking disgusting and I will be forever unclean. Fine. I’ll make myself scarce. Thanks for taking care of me last night,” I say to Jessa and Wilder, but I’m looking at him.

I can’t remember what happened last night or what was said, not really. Only that he was very, very hot and I very much wished we were naked. Or, I guess that he was also naked.

It has been a hot minute since I felt the urge. Hell, I haven’t even masturbated since the whole ordeal with Davis and the wedding that never was, caught in a sexual liminal space where nothing turns me on. My poor clitoris is as dead as a doornail, and I wonder absently if mouth-to-mouth would bring it back to life. Frankly, I hadn’t been hot for Davis since wedding planning got intense a year ago. I figured it was nerves.

Guess he was just cheating on me.

But the way I could walk across the yard right now and ravage Wilder is a compulsion so powerful, it leaves me wondering if I’d ever really been attracted to Davis.

The corner of Wilder’s lips ticks up, and he nods once. Headlights still blazing, I turn to head back inside.

I spot the donuts on the island immediately, despite missing them earlier, and sit on a barstool, flipping open the box. Half of them are raspberry filled, and one is in my mouth before I can think twice, the tart jam bursting out of it and onto my tongue. I groan, my eyes rolling back in my head.

Four obscene bites later, it’s gone and I’ve loaded another.

By the time I finish the third, I realize I might have blacked out. My index finger is knuckle deep in my mouth when Jessa walks in.

One of her brows rises. “I see you found them.”

“You got my favorite. I fucking love you.”

She chuckles, taking a seat next to me. “I fucking love you too.”

It’s so funny to hear her say things like that in that lovely proper accent of hers.

“Get it all cleaned up?” I pick up a glazed donut and take a normal, non-pornographic bite.

“I think so. You’ll have to explain the fence to your mother, but the boys shoveled out the char and logs and all, and everything else is packed back in the garage for now. Perhaps some of it we could go through for donations? Surely we don’t have to burn all of it, do we?”

I shrug. “I mean, we don’t have to, but I’d love to.”

“Did it make you feel better?”

“Immensely.”

“Well, then, whatever you wish,” she says in such a way that I’m certain she has plenty more to say.

I swallow a bite and set the donut on a little napkin. “Why do I feel like there’s a but coming?”

She shakes her head. “No but. If burning his things makes you feel better, then that’s what we’ll do. So if you are , in fact, feeling better, then I suppose we should plan another bonfire.”

“I don’t know that I can claim I’m feeling better this morning with the headache I have.”

“Well, you were very, very drunk.”

“I was so very drunk. Like, burn your house down, your ex-boyfriend saw you naked drunk.”

She picks up a strawberry-iced donut with sprinkles and nods at my bathrobe. “Sorry I put you in that, of all things. You were just so very naked, and it was the first thing I came to.”

I look down at it, adjusting the neckline that had slipped a little. “I kind of like it better now that it’s all dirtied up by Wilder, don’t you?”

“When he was shielding you from his crew, I was sure he’d maul them like an animal if they moved any way but backward.”

A giggle slips out of me. “Oh, good, I do remember a little.”

“The way you looked at one another could have started several fresh fires—I broke out in a sweat just watching you. I’ve seen you and Wilder whip around intense energy before, but that was…whew.” She fans her face.

My face is flaming too. “Oh, I remember more than a little then.”

“Or when he scooped you up and carried you inside? In that uniform? Lord, Cass. He didn’t kiss you or anything, did he? Because he looked a little shaken when he came back out, if I’m honest.”

A host of sparrows takes off in my belly, swarming around in my chest. “No, he didn’t kiss me.”

She looks disappointed. “Hm. Shame.”

I laugh. “Thank God. That would have been a terrible idea.”

“Would it? Maybe a fling is just what you need?”

“If I was sure it could just be a fling, I’d agree. But Wilder and I have too much history for that.”

“Fair enough. But gosh, Cass—he quite literally growled at his crew when he ordered them to leave. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Davis growl,” she notes on a laugh.

My smile fades. “Davis.” For a moment, I stare at nothing. “Do you remember when I used to be practically psychic ? Take me to Vegas because I’m a lucky charm, always right on a hunch. I thought I knew. I was so certain I knew what my future held, all the way to the end. And look how tragically wrong I was. Did I ever really know what would come? Or have I always been wrong? Have I been living my entire life by a broken compass?”

Jessa pushes my coffee toward me. “Those are very big questions on a hangover, darling. Drink this first.”

I sigh, pulling the paper cup closer. The cardboard ring comes loose, and I spin it around.

“For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing a brilliant job,” she says. “You start your very first teaching job in little more than a week, your dream job. So many lovely things are happening. Remember when you first arrived? You had nothing.”

“Arguably, I still have nothing.”

“That’s not true. Drink your coffee.”

I roll my eyes like a child and take a sip as she continues.

“Two months ago, you had no car, no things, no job, and look at all you’ve done. You have a truck?—”

“That your boyfriend gave me.” I hate that I’m pouting, but I am. Just a little.

She gives me a look, her lips flat and head cocked. “He had three cars in the driveway, and you and I both know he only ever wants to drive the Scout,” she says before continuing with her pep talk. “You were hired at the elementary school, and have had the best time all summer preparing your class and lesson plans. And wouldn’t you call it a bit of fate that first grade—your favorite grade—had an opening?”

“That’s true,” I admit, my pout now stretched to a small smile.

“You only had your clothes and things left over from Davis, which you were loath to use, so we went to Nashville and bought you new things.”

“ You bought me new things. My sugar mama.”

“And you didn’t even have to have sex with me.” When I giggle, she adds, “It was purely selfish, darling. I can’t stand to see you sad. Plus, it means I can ask you to get dressed and come to the game with me, and you can’t say no.”

A laugh bursts out of me. “Diabolical. Remy is rubbing off on you.”

“He does that.” She waggles her brows as she stands.

“Gross,” I deadpan.

“Go take a shower and let’s grab a bite at the diner before the game, shall we?” She makes her way around the island and presses a kiss to my hair. “Whew. Yes, a shower would be good. You smell like the bottom of a barbecue pit.”

“In some places, that would be considered the highest of compliments.”

With a pat on my shoulder, Jessa says, “Yes, dear, but not here.” She’s gathering up her purse and Remy’s keys. “Text me when you’re on your way and I’ll meet you at the diner.”

“You’re driving the Scout?”

“It’s nearly impossible to reach the pedals, but yes. Remy left for practice with Wilder—we weren’t sure what you’d want to do about the game.”

“Funny, since you didn’t give me much of a choice.”

She shrugs. “Sugar mama privileges. Wear that pretty little pink dress I bought you. It makes your tits look incredible.”

And I did, but only because she was right.