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Chapter 9
I don’t know why I opened the front door to Cain before he even knocked. It made me look overly eager, I knew that. But I felt nervous about him in my parents’ house. Bella was locked in her room and swore she wouldn’t come out. She was video-chatting with Bradley and had her music playing loudly in the background so I couldn’t hear what she was saying. As if I wanted to.
But I wanted to sequester Cain into my room quickly before Bella was off the phone and needed a drink of water or something.
Now I was standing on the front step though and could see Cain getting out of a black, beat-up pickup truck and laughing at something the driver was saying. It was a girl, around my age, wearing very little clothing. It was June, but it wasn’t precisely a hot day. The tiny shorts and tiny T-shirt seemed a bit extreme for the current temperature. She had dark hair and a very large chest.
It stunned me to realize that I felt jealous. I wanted to know who the girl was. A bartender? A friend? A friend with benefits? It bothered me. She was that sort of overblown sexy that men responded to, and I knew I didn’t have that. Not that carefree smile and laugh and awareness of my own body.
Then again…
Because of Cain I knew a whole lot more about my body than I had a week ago.
So I stood there and just decided to hold my ground. I wasn’t going to attempt to go to the truck or ask him who the girl was or anything. It didn’t matter. He didn’t belong to me. He was on loan. Just because he had opened up to me the night before and shared his private pain, didn’t mean that we were anything other than an extended hookup.
“Hey, baby,” he said as he strolled up the walk wearing jeans, work boots, and a ratty T-shirt, along with a smirk that seemed out of place for him. For me. He didn’t look at me like that.
“Hey.” Then as he got closer I realized he had already been drinking. Most likely a lot. His eyes were glassy, his walk not quite straight. “How was your day?” It was an odd social nothing that I usually avoided, but I felt off-kilter. I had expected that if he did drink, it would be after he arrived. I didn’t expect him to show up wasted.
“It fucking sucked,” he said. “But I don’t want to talk about it.” He took my hand and laced his fingers through mine. “Come here and kiss me.”
It was never hard to kiss Cain. But his touch felt more possessive than tender and he smelled like the ocean. Not like sunscreen and saltwater. More like dead fish and seaweed. “Did you come straight from work?” I asked as I broke away, needing to breathe.
“Yep. By way of the bar. And my mother’s house.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “My sister dropped me off.”
I felt petty but I was relieved. I tugged him toward the house. The truck was still idling so I leaned around him and waved to his sister. She waved back.
“That’s Charlie. She’s the youngest and she’s the sibling with the most attitude.”
“That’s quite an accomplishment.” I said it sincerely, not realizing immediately that it sounded offensive.
He cracked a laugh. “Oh, Sophie, you kill me.”
I should apologize. That was the polite thing to do. But I couldn’t because I stood by it. For him to call his sister out for attitude seemed more than a little ironic. “I have that effect on people.”
“That’s not really the primary effect you have on me.” His hand slid across my ass.
“Come in the house.” The open door was squawking at us. The alarm didn’t like the extended time frame. We didn’t have neighbors. The house jutted out over the rocks in the back and either side was wooded. I didn’t care about his sister seeing us either, if he didn’t. But I still felt nervous about having him here, in my parents’ house, and I wanted to get into my room, in a sex cocoon.
“Eager. I like that.” He pulled his hand out of mine though as he followed me into the house.
Maybe it felt too much like legit holding hands. Boyfriend-girlfriend stuff.
“Can I take a shower?” he asked. “I should have gone home and changed after work.”
I wasn’t going to disagree with that. “Sure. I have a bathroom in my room.”
The house was designed with an open concept. The architect had intended for the view of the bay to be the star and it was. When you stepped through the front door, the wood floors were dark, the walls light, and it just drew your eye straight back to the water. The master bedroom was on the first floor in its own wing. The guest rooms were upstairs. The stairs were in the front left of the house so they didn’t steal the view, and I started to walk up them.
But Cain hesitated. “Should I take my shoes off?” He was already doing that, kicking them off at the heel with his toes.
A glance back showed he was frowning. “Only if you want to. It doesn’t matter either way.” That was a huge concession for me. Huge. It definitely did matter to me. But I could tell he was intimidated and I didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable. There was something in-your-face about this house and I recognized that. It was a pure display of wealth, plain and simple. I didn’t want him to get that defensive bravado people did when they realized how much money my father had. It wasn’t my money. I just reaped the benefits of it.
The thought of his boots, that had crossed over docks and boat decking, with blood and guts and seawater, made me internally shudder but I had to suck it up.
“I can take them off.” He had them off already and abandoned them there, at the bottom of the stairs.
“Okay.” I sighed in relief. “Do you want any bottled water or anything?” Now I was pausing, my heart racing a little. Our dynamic was off. The power between us had shifted and I didn’t like it. I wanted him in charge. The mentor. Me, the student.
