Chapter 16
***Cass***
Ihad tears leaking down my cheeks by the time I was able to pull myself together and stop laughing.
My sides ached but nothing took away how hilarious their choice of picnic food was.
Inside the large picnic basket were four sticks of beef jerky and nothing else.
I wiped my eyes and gave into another fit of giggles.
Despite how angry I was at them and how much they hated me there was something therapeutic in laughter. It wasn’t going to solve our problems but it broke the tension enough for us to chew our jerky sticks in peace.
I’d just finished my jerky when Hayes swore under his breath and moved closer to me. My breath caught in my throat as he cupped my cheek and tipped my face up to his. A hot buzz flushed through my body and I was instantly aware of every inch of my body.
He leaned closer and stroked my cheek. “There are people watching.”
Reality came crashing back down on me. I sucked in a sharp breath and nodded. “I know.”
He leaned even closer. “They’re taking pictures. You need to stop looking at me like your world’s ending.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to slow my breaths. I felt him shift his body closer and felt the sudden urge to sob when he wrapped his arms around me.
“You okay?” He whispered against my ear and I was sure it looked sweet and romantic.
I let out an awkward laugh. “N-no. Not even a little bit.”
He leaned back and I felt his mouth hover over mine. “Your breath smells like beef.”
I snorted and opened my eyes just as he kissed me.
I wanted more than anything to be able to say that I felt nothing.
I wanted that first night to have been a passing fluke.
Instead, the moment he kissed me my eyes drifted shut and I felt my insides tingle.
My core warmed immediately and I leaned in without any conscious thought.
Hayes stroked his hand into my hair and tugged it down from its ponytail.
His lips were soft and his facial hair freshly shaved so when he tilted his head and kissed me deeper it was smooth.
And too sweet. Just as it felt like he was losing himself to the kiss he pulled back and cleared his throat. “That’s enough for me.”
With no more jerky and nothing else around to hide my face behind I had to try to appear that I wasn’t shaken by Hayes’ kiss and his quick dismissal.
I quickly worked my hair back into a ponytail and then gripped my knees tight.
I wanted to leave. No one had considered what having them kiss me while actively hating me would do to my confidence.
“You look like you’re miserable.” West growled and reached over to grab my arm. He tugged me into his lap and gripped my ponytail to pull my face into his neck while locking his other arm around my back. “If this is what you look like when you’re in love, it’s no wonder-”
I was done with him poking at one of my oldest and deepest wounds.
I opened my mouth and sank my teeth into his shoulder.
Hard. He gripped my ponytail harder and I was sure I was going to lose a few strands of hair with how tight a grip he had on it but I was going to get my point across.
I didn’t just release my bite, either. I dragged my teeth away, pinching him as I did.
“I’m doing my best to be apologetic. I’m letting you take your anger out on me.
I’m doing it but there’s a line. You need to respect that line if you want to survive this fake dating bullshit. ”
His face was red when I pulled back and lightly traced the place I’d chomped down on with my nail.
His eyes were darker than normal but instead of tossing me across the park like he probably wanted to he pulled my mouth down to his and kissed me hard.
It was forceful enough to push me backwards, arched over his arm.
He shifted until there was a breath of space between our lips and held my gaze. “You deserve to be bent over and spanked.”
My head went straight to the gutter and my body happily jumped in behind it. The comment wasn’t sexual, not when he was looking at me like he actually wanted to spank the shit out of me, but my core reacted with a rush of wet heat between my thighs.
I felt him harden under my ass and gasped. “Weston?”
He bit my bottom lip and tugged. “He’d react the same way to a bag of flour if it touched him just right. Don’t be flattered.”
I scrambled out of his lap and before I got back to my spot Cash caught me and positioned me between his thighs with my back to his chest. My feelings were hurt and I wanted to fight the hold and run home but I forced myself to stay where I was.
“Breathe.” Cash’s lips were right next to my ear. “In and out.”
I tried to work with him but I’d never felt more trapped.
Not by Cash’s hold but by the situation, by my life.
I was always trapped so close to having what I wanted with no chance of getting it but being with them was a different kind of trapped, one I could feel closing in.
It was torture. Being on a picnic with the three of them, having them hold me and kiss me, it was a dream.
But what was a dream when there was no hope for it becoming real if not pure and utter torment?
He wrapped his arms around my stomach and rested his chin on my shoulder. “Are you going to be able to do this?”
I shook my head hard. There was no way. It was too much, too awful, too painful. I wouldn’t survive. How long would I need to pretend like their forced attention wasn’t eating away at me? For the semester? The year? I couldn’t do it. “N-no.”
Hayes sat beside us and gripped my chin so I had to look at him. “You can and you will. We’ll stop with the asshole shit. Like it or not, we need you, Cassidy.”
I stared out at the park beyond and gripped Cash’s hands to pull them free but he interlaced our fingers instead. That simple gesture shouldn’t have made my stomach flutter like it did. How starving was I for affection?
“Look at me.” Cash waited for me to look at him over my shoulder. “We’ll cut the shit. We were coming to battle the person we thought you were but it’s kind of clear that you’re not exactly the giant, tough monster everyone painted you as.”
Even that somehow felt like a failure on my part. “Sorry?”
“Let’s just play nice and see how it goes.” He looked past me at Weston and raised his eyebrows. “Yeah?”
When he didn’t respond right away I looked over at him and regretted it. He looked like he was considering how to get away with murdering me to make it easier on himself. “Sure. Why the fuck not? Seems like a great plan.”
Cash sighed and tightened his hands around mine. “Smile pretty, Cassidy. This seems to be our life now.”