Page 17 of Sin (Salvation #1)

Sin

I’m booking it through campus in a hurry to meet with Cassidy when I hear footsteps coming up behind me. Suddenly, a strong bicep is draped around me. “Hello, best friend,” Mercer says with a crafty smile that alerts me he’s definitely here to try to talk me into something.

“What’s going on?” I ask, waiting for the hook.

“Devlin is in town.”

“Again? He wasn’t in Nashville this much when he lived here.”

“He has some deal he’s working on,” Mercer answers vaguely, not meeting my eyes and his eyebrow doing a funny little twitch, which I know from playing and winning at poker with him are two of his tells. Something is up .

“Must be some deal.”

“Yeah, must be,” he says, clearly ready to move the conversation along. “I’m stuck having dinner with him, and I need you to tag along to annoy him.”

“Why me?”

“Please,” he rolls his eyes, “Just the sight of you gives him heartburn. Plus, you have the gift to piss off people better than anyone I know.”

I clutch at my heart. “You see me. You really see me.”

He laughs. “So, you’ll come?”

“Can’t tonight. I have that tutoring session with Cassidy I told you about.”

“Oh, you mean your date with your stepbrother?”

I push him away from me. “It’s not a date. Cassidy is helping me with a class.”

“Really?” He runs a hand over the dark stubble on his chin. “Where are you meeting for your tutoring session?”

“Mezzaluna.”

“So, soulful music and candlelight. Probable had to bribe the ma?tre d’ at least three hundred bucks to get a reservation?”

“Price of a good table at a good time,” I reply.

Mercer nods his head. “You’re right. Sounds like a tutoring session to me—except for the fact that you took calculus your freshman year at Thurston and passed it with no problem.”

“What can I say? I love their cacio e pepe.”

He shoots me a mischievous grin. “Maybe I’ll bring Devlin to Mezzaluna and we can crash your date.”

“Oh, that would be nice,” I answer his grin with an evil one of my own. “That way we could turn it into a double date.”

Mercer’s face goes red, and I know I hit a bullseye as intended. “Fuck you,” he says, shooting me the finger.

I laugh. “Don’t play the game unless you come to win.”

“Whatever,” he waves me off. “I’m outta here. I’m already ten minutes late to meet him.” He perks up. “At least that will piss him off.”

A wave of fondness for my friend rolls over me. We’ve been friends since we were kids, and we understand each other at a basic level. No room for judgment between us. You could say that both of us suffer from serious daddy issues, though they manifested in very different ways.

He walks off. “Mercer,” I call.

“What,” he calls back, “You need tips for your date?”

I let that barb slide, “If you want me to piss Devlin off tomorrow, I can be there.”

He lights up at that. “You’re my favorite asshole,” he yells before turning and hurrying in the direction of student parking.

“I don’t know if this is the best spot for a tutoring session,” Cassidy says from his place tucked against me in a circular booth in a private area of one of the hottest restaurants in town.

I disagree. I think it’s the perfect place.

I know I should have staged this whole tutoring session on campus, but I savor being arm to arm, thigh to thigh, with him.

Being able to breathe in his scent—grocery store soap mixed in with his natural body chemistry—surpassing the most expensive of fragrances.

I couldn’t resist taking him to Mezzaluna. It’s one of my favorite places and I want to share it with him. I’ve become addicted to showing him new experiences. Sharing his delight as he discovers new pleasures.

These “tutoring sessions” may have started as a way of keeping Tate Carmichael, a natural-born predator, far away from Cassidy, but I see no reason why I can’t also use them as a chance to enjoy Cassidy’s company.

Even a rich boy like me likes a two-for-one special.

“Sure it is.” I tug away the calculus book he’s holding against his chest like armor and place it on the table. Then I lean closer than a tutor and their student should really sit. Let alone two stepbrothers. “Go ahead. Teach me,” I challenge him.

“But you’re paying me for this,” he whispers.

I run a finger down the side of his cheek. “That makes it even more exciting.”

He desperately grabs for his water glass and gulps it down while I sip on my Barolo.

Having finally quenched his thirst, Cassidy looks up at me from under his long eyelashes. “We’re here so you don’t fail your calculus class. We at least need to tackle the basics tonight.”

I give in and let him teach me a subject that I mastered a long time ago, but somehow it’s not boring. Cassidy’s passion for teaching and genuine joy in sharing his knowledge leave me unable to look away from him as he diligently tries to build the foundation for me to understand calculus.

Of course, that could also be attributed to the dirty, dirty fantasies I spin as I watch him bite down on his plump bottom lip while he explains differentials to me.

“You’re doing really well,” he tells me after I effortlessly solve the practice problems he set out.

“I have a good teacher,” I tell him as I shut the textbook and motion for our waiter to begin serving our meal. “Now I get my reward.”

"Reward? Your reward will be passing your class.”

“Nah, that’s boring.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Everything you have to give,” I tell him truthfully, and just as Cassidy is about to ask me what I mean, the waiter returns to the table with the first course.

Several hours later, I pull up to the circular driveway and put the car in park. Cassidy looks at me, strangely. “You’re not parking in the garage?”

“I’ll park it after I make sure you get in okay,” I tell him, glad I’d turned off the car’s interior lights so Cassidy won’t see the blush climbing up my neck and cheeks at my peculiar need to walk Cassidy to the door.

“Oh, okay,” Cassidy says, not quite sure of my new whim, but his easy-going nature goes along with it.

He gets out of the car, and I rush from my side to jump in front of him to close his door for him. At my gesture, he gives me a nervous smile. Great. You’re scaring him. I make an awkward hand motion for him to walk ahead of me to the front door.

Who the fuck am I right now? Mercer would be laughing his ass off if he were watching me try to play at being chivalrous. But screw him. This is all his fault. His talk of tonight being a date got in my head, and it’s making me act like an asshole—a different kind of asshole than I usually am.

In no time, we reach the doorstep. Cassidy shuffles his feet and looks up at me, obviously unsure of his part in the script for this little one-act play I sprang on him.

He’s not the only one.

I clear my throat. “Um, Thanks for the lesson. I think I’m really beginning to understand calculus because of you.”

“You really caught on to the subject fast,” he says. “And thank you for dinner. I really enjoyed tasting all those new dishes.”

“Not as much as I enjoyed sharing them with you. I like showing you new things. It’s like it makes me see the things I take for granted in a fresher way.”

And suddenly I realize why I’m being so unsure and inept.

Tonight is the first time I took a person I was attracted to out to dinner, and it wasn’t just a prelude to fucking.

It’s the first time, with the exception of Mercer, I spent that much time with a person and really listened and enjoyed talking to them.

It’s definitely the first time I walked a person to the door and felt a suspicious fluttering of nerves in my chest as I did it.

Tonight is my first date. Cassidy just gave me one of my firsts.

And suddenly I’m recovered from my awkwardness because even though I’m new at this, I know what I’m supposed to do at the end of a date.

Slowly, I lean down and brush Cassidy’s lips with my own.

Our second kiss is even sweeter than the first. Just as chaste, but this time I allow myself a few more seconds to memorize the feel and taste of his lips beneath mine.

My body immediately comes alive and urges me to deepen the kiss, but I step away.

Cassidy lets out a sigh of disappointment, and it takes every ounce of previously never-utilized willpower to stop myself from pulling him into my arms.

I know I’ve stolen this night for myself, just like I stole his first kiss and this second one as well. Soon, Cassidy is going to finally walk away from me and this family for good, and I can’t let myself take any more from him.

“Goodnight, Cassidy,” I whisper in his ear and open the door for him so he can walk into the house and shut me out.