Page 23 of Sin (Salvation #1)

Cassidy

“We should take him to the ER to make sure his ribs aren’t broken,” I insist to Mercer, who helped me get Sin out of the club and back to the suite without creating more of a scene.

I only hope none of this ends up on a gossip site.

The last thing any of us needs is for Gideon to find out about tonight.

“He’s fine,” Mercer says. “I checked his ribs. They’re just sore. Nothing the hot shower he’s taking won’t go a long way to curing.”

“And you’re a doctor?” I bite at him.

“No,” he sighs, “but I’ve cleaned Sin up after countless fights and dustups, and he’s done the same for me. I know when he needs to see a doctor.”

Just more of the history that Sin and Mercer share.

More proof that they are meant for each other.

“Well, since you’re staying with him, you can make sure he doesn’t overdo it.

” Translation: Please don’t make me listen to you two having sex all night.

Not in the hotel suite I’d planned to seduce Sin in. It will kill me.

He looks at me oddly. “I’m not staying here. My family’s company keeps apartments in Lexington over by the Botanical Gardens.”

I try to take that in, but it doesn’t make any sense. “I thought that—Since you were—” I clear my throat. “I thought the way you were dancing meant that you’d be staying here together.”

Mercer lets out a long breath and then looks me straight in the eyes. “I know you don’t like me, Cassidy.”

The polite, always-wants-to-please Cassidy instinct is to deny Mercer’s statement, but then images of him licking tequila from Sin’s chest flash in my head. “You’re right. I don’t.”

He smirks. “That sucks, cause I like you. So many of the people in Sin’s and my lives are users and hangers-on, and mostly, not very nice people. You are a genuinely nice kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” I tell him, not willing to be patronized by Sin’s lover. “You are only a few years older than I am.”

“You’re right, and I’m sorry,” he apologizes, “What I was trying to say was that when you became Sin’s brother, I recognized how cool you were and always hoped we’d eventually become friends.”

“Stepbrother,” I correct.

His smirk turns into a full-blown laugh. “And that brings us to the whole reason you don’t like me.” He gives me a searching gaze that feels so intrusive, I instinctively fold my arms across my chest.

“Sin and I haven’t hooked up in months, Cassidy.”

“But—”

“Not since,” He strokes his chin as if to call back a memory, “oh, what a coincidence,” he rolls his eyes, “not since the night you came back to Nashville.”

All those times these past months, Sin had mentioned plans with Mercer, and it had felt like acid burning in my gut to imagine them together. Now, if Mercer is telling the truth, it turns out that they were just hanging out as friends—until tonight, that is.

Mercer seems to sense my thoughts. “Tonight, what you saw in the restaurant and the club had nothing to do with Sin.”

“Nothing to do with him?” I object, my jealousy coming unleashed. “You had your tongue down his throat all night.”

He waves his hand as if to minimize what happened between them. “That was nothing.”

“You did dangerous drugs, and then you were practically fucking each other on the dance floor.”

“Look,” He runs his hands through his thick, dark hair, “I’m in a kind of fucked up situation and I acted out,” he admits. “And Sin had his own devils he was trying to burn off tonight. We were just using each other in the moment. We both knew it didn’t mean anything.”

“What do you mean by devils?” I demand.

“That’s for him to tell you,” Mercer says, “I have a feeling they’re all about to come out tonight anyway. Do me a favor, though.”

“What?” I ask suspiciously.

“Don’t let Sin hide from you or ice you out, Cassidy. He can be a cold bastard when he wants to be, but if anyone can thaw him, it’s you.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I stay quiet.

“But whatever happens, I’m sorry for the shit show that tonight turned out to be.”

I’m caught by the genuineness of his words. “Thank you,” I say and mean it.

The smirk makes a reappearance. “Does that mean you hate me a little less now?”

“Maybe by about this much less.” I place my thumb and index finger about an inch apart.

“I can work with that,” he says, reaching over and giving me a small, playful shove.

“The biker wasn’t enough?” Sin’s icy voice fills the room.

I turn to see him freshly showered and wearing just a pair of sweats, standing in the doorway of his bedroom.

“Now you’re flirting with my best friend?

” He walks into the room and places himself between us.

He glares at me. “Are you going to kiss him too?”

“I didn’t kiss anyone.” I shoot back. “I’m the only one in this room right now that can say that.”

“Okay.” Mercer claps his hands. “Looks like it’s time for me to get the hell out of here. You,” he points a finger at Sin, “behave. And you,” he winks at me, “give him hell, Cassidy.” Mercer says and lets himself out.

As soon as the door shuts behind him, Sin turns and crowds me up against the hotel wall. His gray eyes, cold and sparkling with fury. “I can’t believe you let a stranger kiss you.”

From Sin’s angle, he must have missed that the biker had never kissed me. Even after I’d begged him to, all I’d gotten from him was a brush of his lips on my cheek.

I refuse to admit that to Sin. That another man besides him also found me so lacking that he could only force himself to drop a light, chaste kiss on me.

“So that ginger-haired guy you and Mercer were dancing with. The one wearing the see-through shirt. Do you know him?

“No.” Sin waves my question off like an irritation. “Never saw him before.”

“So, he’s a stranger, then?” I wait for Sin to get his inherent hypocrisy, but he seems to be clueless to my point. “The man neither you nor Mercer knew, but took turns kissing and rutting against.”

He finally gets my argument, but doesn’t seem to take it seriously. “That was nothing,” he scoffs.

I laugh. “You and Mercer both have really strange ideas of what constitutes nothing.”

“I didn’t go off with some tattooed bastard who is way too old for me,” he growls.

“You don’t get to tell me whom I can kiss,” I tell him. “You’re my brother, not my lover.”

“Stepbrother,” he snarls, his arms coming up to rest against the wall, leaving me trapped against him.

“Is that what that was about, Cassidy?” he demands his breath almost a caress on my cheek.

“You going off with that older biker to do god-knows-what in that dark corner?” He leans into my ear and whispers, “Were you trying to get big brother’s attention? ”

Sin leans in closer, our bodies almost touching.

I strain to close the space between us, but his hold on me is too strong, keeping us a torturous inch apart.

Frustration fires through me. This is what he does.

He teases me. Provokes me. Forces me close to him, only to throw up a distance between us that he never lets me scale.

I’ve had enough. I’m finally going to call him on it.

I pointedly glance down at Sin’s jeans that show a prominent bulge, and look back up at him, challenging him to deny it. “I think it worked.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Sin gives me a cold, pitying sneer of a grin. “I had to go chase after you, so Mercer didn’t get to finish what he started with the tequila.”

He waits to watch how his barb lands, and when he sees that it has done its intended damage, he pulls back. “Good night, Cassidy,” he says, releasing me and stalking into his bedroom.

I escape to my room and start gathering up my belongings.

Forget about Freedom Fest. I can’t stay here another day and night with him.

I should be able to afford a bus ticket back to Nashville.

Even though it will take more than a day to get there, I can’t stay here and continue to let Sin rip my heart to shreds.

I open up my bag and start stuffing things inside. There, in a separate compartment, are the condoms and lube that I’d packed when I thought I was going to be seducing Sin tonight.

I swing the bag over my shoulder and walk back out to the main room of the suite.

I need to tell Sin I’m leaving. I contemplate not bothering to tell him and just letting him figure out where I’ve gone in the morning, but Sin can be randomly protective, and if he wakes up to find my bed empty, he might do something as big and dramatic as organize a missing person’s search.

There’s already been enough drama tonight.

I pick up my phone to text him, but after several tries at finding the words to tell him goodbye, I end up slamming the phone down on the table and deciding just to stick my head in his room and tell him I’m leaving.

He’ll probably be relieved he won’t have to drag me around the festival all day with him tomorrow.

Leaving my bag by the couch, I march to his door and knock. He has his music on loud, and he must not hear me. I try the door. It’s not locked, so I push it open and peer in.

There he sits on his bed with his head cradled in his hands. Even from across the room, I can sense how alone he seems in this moment.

I quietly step back and close the door.

The Sin I just saw in his room is completely different than the one who pushed me away all night. Mercer’s words come back to me. Don’t let Sin hide from you or ice you out, Cassidy. He can be a cold bastard when he wants to be, but if anyone can thaw him, it’s you.

I think about Sin helping me through my asthma attack, teaching me how to drive, and the water fight where he’d doused my mother because she’s been mean to me. I think about the Sin who watches me from the shadows, and I know I have to try to reach for him one more time.

This time I won’t let him intimidate me into retreating.