Chapter 26 Cash #3
Surprise widened those wild eyes even more, and her mouth parted as she gave a single frantic shake of her head.
Did it make him a prick that he was slammed with relief? Hypocritical, he knew, but he wasn’t sure he could stomach the thought of her being with one of those assholes at school.
“You touch yourself when you’re feeling like this?” He shifted, getting on his knees in front of her, watching down on her as she started to subtly writhe on his bed.
Fuck, he liked it. Liked seeing her like this. Flaming red the way she was, but that redness was coming from the flames that heated her skin.
There was some embarrassment, too. The bashfulness she always wore.
“I…” Uncertainty halted her words.
“You don’t need to be ashamed of it.”
Her chin trembled and she chewed at the inside of her cheek. “Sometimes,” she admitted on a hush.
“I want to see.”
“What?” She squeaked it.
“I want to see what it looks like when you’re getting yourself off.”
He was smashing through so many boundaries right then. Losing his mind in a way he never let himself.
But the need pumped so hard through him he couldn’t think straight.
“Cash…” She arched her hips from the bed, like she was begging him for the one thing they had promised they wouldn’t.
“Touch yourself, Little Wallflower.”
He wanted to do it himself. Fuck, he wanted to. But he was terrified of what would happen if he did. Sure if he crossed that line and she rejected him, he would be crushed.
The owner of that broken heart.
He guessed he finally got what that meant.
“You don’t ever have to be self-conscious when it comes to me. You need it, you take it.”
He was hoping to fuck that she would say the same thing in return.
Give him the go to dive in and taste that sweet mouth.
Only she hesitated, wavering in the energy that lashed between them.
Her body alive and thrumming with need.
She swept her tongue across her plump bottom lip, then she slipped her hand into her sweats. A soft sound escaped her as she parted her knees and began to rub her fingers over herself.
He wanted to drag the material down so he could fully watch, but he was already asking too much. Pushing her to a place he hoped she wanted to go.
But he thought he knew her well enough to know she would stop him if she wasn’t into it.
Was she into it?
Was she into him this way?
Friends.
Friends. Friends. Friends.
That was what they were supposed to be, but he knew, without a doubt, they were supposed to be more.
Forever, maybe.
Was that fucked up to think when he was seventeen?
“Cash…I…” She whimpered his name, and he knew.
He inhaled a staggered breath and moved to hover over her, his hands pressed to the mattress on either side of her head. His entire body strained to get lost in her. Not in the way he had with Brandy or those other girls.
This felt intrinsic. Like he was rushing up to meet with another piece of himself.
He started to reach for her face so he could pull her mouth up to his when the door clattered open behind them.
Matthew stumbled in, drunk as fuck. He immediately fell into a shock of raucous laughter. “Holy fuck, bro. I knew it. I knew it.”
Cash whirled around, staging his body in front of Daisy so Matthew couldn’t see her.
His dick so fucking hard and his heart nearly beating out of his chest.
“You don’t know shit,” he gritted, wanting to pummel his brother for barging in.
Matthew had gotten worse lately. Cash had heard their mother talking with their dad. She was worried he was spiraling and getting involved in things he shouldn’t. His injury messing him up. He’d dropped out of school and moved back home.
Cash knew he needed time to acclimate. Time to come to grips with his lot in life.
But right then, Cash really wanted to mess him up for cockblocking him this way.
When he finally was figuring his shit out.
“Oh, I think it looked plenty like that,” Matthew slurred.
Cash could feel Daisy’s mortification flooding out behind him, the girl trying to shrink down into a ball to completely hide.
“Daisy had something in her eye, so I was helping her get it out.”
Seemed like a plausible excuse.
“Whatever you say, man.” Matthew staggered forward on a laugh. “Just had to come tell my baby bro how proud I am of him. You made me a thousand bucks tonight.”
Worry pulled at Cash’s chest. “You bet a thousand bucks on my game?”
“Uh, yeah. It was a sure thing, right? No chance you weren’t going to make it to state.”
“Dude, that’s so reckless.” Cash knew he had to borrow money from their parents to pay his truck payment, and now he was making bets?
Except Matthew had always loved to wager. His arrogance fed on him being right and coming out on top.
“Nah, that’s smart.” Matthew tapped his temple. “Don’t need a fucking degree to have myself rolling in the dough.”
Cash wanted to tell him it wasn’t smart at all. That he was being a complete idiot. But he saw the flash of grief in his brother’s eyes. The fact that when his leg was crushed, his dreams had been, too. And now Cash was living that same dream.
He could only imagine how badly that sucked for him.
“Hey, man, you don’t have anything to prove,” Cash told him.
Matthew choked out what amounted to pain, and his face twisted in disbelief. “I don’t have anything to prove? I’ve got nothing, Cash. Nothing. I’ve got everything to prove.”
“Not to me. You might feel like you have nothing to offer, but you’ve given me everything. I wouldn’t be where I am without you.”
Matthew’s mouth tweaked at the side. Half smile, half sorrow. “Was supposed to be there right beside you.”
“You still are.”
Matthew shook his head and started backing toward the door. “No, man, I’m not.”
He turned and walked out.
Sadness pulsed through Cash, this cross between empathy and pity because he had no idea what shape he’d be in himself if this opportunity was stolen from him the way it had been for his brother.
Part of him wanted to go after him, but he felt the horrified breath heave from Daisy, the flurry of movement as she suddenly flew off the bed.
He turned to find her frantically putting on her shoes.
“What are you doing?” It gushed out of him.
Flustered, she hugged her arms over her chest. “I think it would be best if I left.”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
“Go to your brother. He needs you.”
He was pretty sure what he needed was her.
“I—” he started, but she put out her hand and touched his chest.
A plea filled her expression. “Cash, I’m terrified that I think there’s something here that there’s not, and I’m not sure I can handle you telling me I’m wrong. That I misinterpreted it.”
“You’re not wrong, Daisy. You’re not. You’re everything that’s right.”
Confusion pinched her brow. “But you said—”
“Maybe I was just afraid, too. Of losing this. Of losing you.” He swallowed hard. “Told you I would do absolutely anything for you, and I thought it was my job to bring you out of your shell. Helping you to heal so you’d remember how to live. But it’s you who gave me all those things. I—”
A crash sounded from downstairs. Glass shattered just as Matthew roared in pain.
“Fuck,” Cash mumbled below his breath, frustration bleeding out.
“Go to him. He needs you right now. I’m right here.” Emphasis twisted across her pretty face. “I’ve always been, Cash, and I’m always going to be.”
A soft smile hooked at the edge of his mouth. “Always?”
“I felt it the first time I met you. I just never thought you’d see me the same way.”
He set his hand on her cheek, brushed his thumb over the soft skin. “I see you, my Little Wallflower.”
“I see you, too.”
Then she turned and slipped back out his window, leaving him there with his heart in his throat. He watched her disappear down their tree before he forced himself to turn around and go downstairs to his brother.