"Personal growth," she says sweetly.
Dylan doesn't reply. Just lifts his coffee to his lips, watching me over the rim like a man filing away questions for later.
I realize, with growing dread, that Dylan is nobody's fool.
***
The day passes in a blur of construction talk, job-site planning, and mild chaos. I throw myself into it, grateful for the distraction, for the familiar rhythm of work and planning and normal conversation.
Every time I look at Cassidy, she's laughing with Dylan or scrolling her phone on the porch swing like she hasn't had my tongue between her thighs less than twenty-four hours ago.
By the time dinner rolls around, I'm wired tight and barely holding it together. I fire up the grill jabbing at the coals.
Cassidy brings out a bowl of salad, and when she sets it on the table, her fingers brush mine for just a second, and it's enough. Enough to remind me of how those same fingers felt digging into my back, enough to make my cock twitch against my jeans.
Dylan leans against the deck rail, beer in hand, watching us.
"So what's really going on here?" he asks finally.
I glance over, trying to keep my expression neutral. "What do you mean?"
He eyes me with the kind of look that says he's not buying whatever bullshit I'm about to feed him. "You and Cass. You’re not looking me in the eye, and she's glowing."
"Glowing?" I echo, flipping a burger with more force than necessary.
Cass jumps in, her voice just a little too bright. "That's just the mountain air."
Dylan's gaze shifts between us, and I can see him putting pieces together.
He doesn't look convinced.
But he lets it go.
For now.
That night, after Dylan's gone to bed in the guest room, I'm in the kitchen nursing a whiskey and trying not to think about the woman sleeping down the hall.
I'm failing spectacularly.
I hear quiet footsteps behind me, and I don't need to turn around to know it's her. I'd recognize the sound of her bare feet on hardwood anywhere.
Cass.
She wraps her arms around my waist from behind, pressing a kiss between my shoulder blades, and every muscle in my body goes tight.
"Well," she murmurs against my back, "that wasn't hard, was it."
I turn in her arms, and the sight of her nearly brings me to my knees.
"You're enjoying this," I accuse.
There’s mischief in her eyes that makes my blood run hot. "A little. But I also wanted to kiss you all day."
I stroke a hand down her back, fingers trailing beneath the hem of her shirt to find warm, bare skin. "I wanted to do a hell of a lot more than kiss you."
She presses her body against mine, and I feel her heat, her curves, everything that's mine and not mine at the same time.
“Me too.” She tells me as she steps away. “Me too.”
