Free Getting Rough by C.L. Parker Page B

she was having with her friends.
    Well, our friends. I might have been closer to Landon and Chaz, but we were all tangled, what with Landon and Sasha being an item, finally, and Chaz and Demi having that sort of thing going on where they both liked each other but neither of them were doing anything about it.
    It was a revealing conversation, with two very valuable nuggets of information being exposed. First, the jig was up on the affair we’d been having. Our friends now knew we’d been fucking. And, for whatever reason, I wasn’t mad about it. There was no question in my mind that we were going to keep doing what we were doing, so it was inevitable that those closest to us would find out about it sooner rather than later. I was okay with that. And I had no idea why that didn’t cause me to panic.
    I also didn’t panic when Demi and Sasha ratted me out.
    Cassidy slammed her laptop closed, abruptly disconnecting the Skype call with the rat finks and Quinn without so much as a goodbye. It was just as good a time as any to broach the second nugget.
    Pushing the cracked door open, I stepped inside and closed it back behind me. “Your mom hurt herself? That’s why you left San Diego?”
    Cassidy stood, busying herself with connecting her laptop to charge. “I told you that before. You thought I was lying?”
    She was calm. A little too calm. I’d figured there’d be a lot of yelling and mud slinging between us when this conversation finally happened, but I didn’t feel like doing any of that. Maybe it was because the energy it would take to do it was percolating in my pants with all the unresolved sexual tension still arcing between us. Unresolved for me, at least. Jesus, she really needed to stop bending over furniture right in front of me.
    “I thought you were running away from me.” She should run away from me. And maybe wear a chastity belt or something.
    She stopped and turned toward me. “You said that before, too, and I told you I wasn’t. You, however, never answered any of my questions. Why are you here, Shaw?”
    The caveman imagery popped into my head again, the weight of that proverbial club on my shoulder begging me to knock her unconscious so I could steal her away. I’d gone in search of her to put an end to the raging boner in my pants, which was what had led me to the spot I now occupied. But I don’t think that was what she meant.
    “Denver told me he’d offered you the contract first, but you turned it down and told him to give it to me instead.”
    Cassidy shrugged. “So?”
    My jaw ticked as I recalled my annoyance, and I wanted to punish her all over again. Not verbally. Not physically. Sexually. “So you’d just found out about my past. It looked like —”
    I saw the proverbial lightbulb illuminate behind her eyes. “Like I was giving it to you?”
    I wanted to give it to her. “Right.”
    She put her hand on my chest to stop my forward momentum, which I hadn’t even been aware of. But she didn’t push me away. No, she raised that self-righteous chin and placed her hands on those curvy hips, so that her sweater tightened at the shoulders and accentuated her breasts. Her voice was low, sensual. “You should’ve known better.”
    She was right.
    “I’m too competitive to give anything away unless it will benefit me and my end goal. I’d won that contract fair and square and earned the right to rub it in your face, and would have if my family hadn’t needed me back here.”
    Oh, she’d rubbed something in my face, all right. Or rather, I’d rubbed my face in something. The problem was that I’d been left unsatisfied. The denim cage imprisoning my engorged cock was only barely containing it.
    “Some things are more important than a partnership. Even a partnership I’d worked so hard for. But that still doesn’t explain why you’re here.” Cassidy’s sweet breath was inches from my face.
    She wanted an explanation? Fine, I’d give it to her. “I went through a lot to