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She didn’t argue, though he understood why she might have a case for not believing in him.
As she drifted off to sleep, he gathered her in his arms and tried not to think about how natural it felt to be her go-to guy, how it made him want to stick to the problem until it was solved. How it made him want to stick to her.
Coupledom. Love. Living with someone under the same roof, sharing a bed, bank accounts—that was definitely an adventure Nicolas had never gotten to have. Gage had been avoiding anything that even remotely looked like that under the pretense of living life to the fullest on behalf of his brother. But in reality, the whole concept made him want to run screaming in the other direction.
Or at least it used to. He’d developed the strangest urge to stop running.
And he was truly daft if he thought for a moment that settling down was in the cards for someone like him.
Ten
A mournful howl woke Cass in the morning. She blinked. Sunlight streamed through the window and Gage’s heavy arm pinned her to the bed.
Arwen apparently wanted them both to know she was awake and bored. But only one of them seemed to notice. Gage still slept like the dead, a fact she’d not forgotten. He’d never been the type to let the pressures of life keep him from something he enjoyed as much as sleep. He’d need a dictionary and autocorrect to spell stress.
One of the many reasons he fascinated her. It was a trick she’d like to learn. She openly evaluated his beautiful face, relaxed in sleep. How did he shut off everything inside so easily? Or was it more a matter of truly not caring and therefore, there was nothing to shut off?
The latter, definitely. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d labeled him heartless. It was starting to ring false. Any man who clearly loved his dog as much as Gage did couldn’t be heartless. And he’d been so sweet in the Hummer yesterday before rocking her world, then again last night.
She shook her head. And therein lay his danger. Instead of uncovering his involvement in the leak, he’d uncovered her, in so many ways, reminding her why she’d fallen for him in the first place. He’d taken everything she’d dished out and come back for more.
He lulled her into believing he might be someone different this time around, someone who would be there tomorrow and the next day, growing closer as they grew older. Someone who could be trusted. She had no evidence of that.
Didn’t stop her from yearning for it, though.
Gage stirred awake and smiled sleepily at her. “Morning, gorgeous. You better stop looking at me like that or we’re going to get a very late start on our investigation. That’s our top priority for today, no ifs, ands or buts.”
“Oh, that’s a shame. I do enjoy your butt.” She snickered as he waggled his brows.
And somehow, she ended up under him and panting out his name before she’d scarcely registered him moving.
Finally, they rolled from bed at nine o’clock, the latest she’d gotten up since...college as a matter of fact. Gage was truly a terrible influence on her.
But then he took over her Keurig and brewed her a giant cup of coffee, exactly the way she liked it, which hadn’t changed in a decade, but still. How had he remembered that? Trinity never remembered that Cass hated sugar in her coffee, and Trinity had watched Cass make it every weekday morning for years and years.
Gage elbowed her aside as she tried to put some breakfast together, insisting on scrambling eggs and frying bacon himself, despite never having set foot in her well-equipped kitchen before. Of course, she rarely set foot in it either. The pan he’d scrounged up from under the Viking range didn’t even look familiar.
After Gage filled a plastic bowl with food for Arwen, they sat outside on the flagstone patio at the bistro set she’d purchased shortly after buying the house five years ago, and yet had never once used. It was a gorgeous morning full of fluffy clouds flung across a blue sky, but Cass was busy watching the man across from her as he tossed an old tennis ball he’d pulled from Arwen’s bag. The dog raced after it time and time again. In between tosses, Gage shoveled eggs and bacon into his mouth in what was clearly a practiced routine.
It was all very domestic and twisted Cass’s heart strangely.
She’d dated a guy... Tyler Matheson...a year or so ago and she’d have said it was bordering on serious, but she’d never once thought about inviting him to her house for the weekend. It had felt intrusive. As if men and her domain should be kept separate at all times. When they’d broken up, Tyler had accused her of being cold and detached, but she’d brushed it off as the ranting of a rejected man, just like she’d ignored the hurt over the unkind, unnecessary accusation during what should have been an amicable split.
