Chapter 9
Cass
The smell hit first… Grease, gasoline, and metal. All my favorite things in one. I stepped into Mason’s garage, a six-pack swinging from my fingers.
He was under his truck, legs sticking out from beneath the chassis. But he wasn’t fooling me.
“The way you’re working that wrench almost makes all this believable.”
The random clanking stilled.
“Cass?”
I kicked his leg lightly. “Are you always this hospitable to uninvited guests?”
He slid out on a creeper, face streaked with oil and glistening with sweat. He wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t look mad at me either. I took it as a small win.
His gaze moved from my face, to the peace offering in my hand. “Are they cold?”
“I’m not an animal.”
He sat up and took the beers from me, popped one open without breaking eye contact. “Then I guess you can stay.”
His tone was flat, but the fact that he didn’t tell me to leave gave me the tiniest spark of hope. I looked around, pretending to care about the basic setup he had going on.
“What are you working on?”
“Ball joints.”
Now that he was standing, I had an unobstructed view of his bare arms in the wife-beater he wore.
Ripped muscle gleaming with a thin sheen of perspiration.
Good enough to lick. My mind hurtled back to the time he was in nothing but a towel, saving me from the fire chief, and nearly choked on my beer.
“Need help?” It came out a little strangled, but all-in-all, a smooth redirect.
“And have you steal my thunder? Not a chance,” he said, taking another swig.
I set down my beer and pulled my hair up into a messy bun. “You talk like you had thunder to begin with.”
That got a crack of a smile out of him. Small, and quick. Gone in a blink.
He gestured toward the open toolbox. “Third drawer down. Grab the torque wrench, and show me what you’ve got.”
“You sure you trust me with your tool?”
At first, it looked like my question set his mind on a different track, but then he said, “I’ve got two busted joints and a bruised ego. Not a lot left to lose.”
The tightness in my chest eased once I was getting dirty. This was my comfort zone. It always helped having something that could actually be fixed.
“Sorry I never texted you back.” The admission was concise, without any eye contact as he crouched next to me.
I kept my eyes on what I was doing. “I didn’t come here to talk about that. I came to see if you’re okay.”
“Whatever that means,” he mumbled. “You think showing up here in shorts with a few beers was going to magically make things okay?”
I gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I was hoping it might be a start.”
“You’re trouble,” he said with a slow sigh, but there was a hint of a smile on his lips.
“Nothing you didn’t already know, Calder. Now get in here with some light, would you? Make yourself useful.”
He slid under the truck, our bare arms touching, and put his phone’s flashlight on. I stared at it, then him.
“What? It’s all I have.”
I wanted to laugh, but didn’t. That was so Mason-coded, I couldn’t have scripted it better myself. “You have a stocked garage but no work light?”
“Gotta leave room for character development.”
I shot him a look, but reached over to guide the light anyway, fingers brushing his. Just slight contact, no big deal. Except it was. He felt warm, solid, a little too close.
“You’re in the wrong spot,” I muttered, angling the wrench.
“I go where I’m told. You’re in charge, remember?”
“Don’t you forget it,” I said under my breath, and scooted deeper, nudging him with my hip. “Now hold it steady. Ball joints aren’t as forgiving as I am.”
We fell into a rhythm then. He held the light, and passed me whatever I asked without question. Occasionally, he’d throw in a sarcastic comment just to keep me on my toes. I liked this version of him. The one that was less burdened by everything.
His eyes also kept flicking down to my cleavage. After the third time, I said, “You’re staring again.”
“Sorry, but… have you seen yourself?”
I bit back my smile, but there was nothing I could do about the warmth creeping onto my cheeks. I tightened the lower joint and rolled back, smearing grease on my shorts as I reached for the beer I’d left on the floor.
“Look at you,” Mason said from behind me. “Competent and hot. A real catch.”
I took a long sip, then wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Not the first time I’ve heard that.”
He laughed, and it actually reached his eyes. “You’re good at this.”
“Trucks are easier than people.”
With a flourish, he launched his empty beer can into the trash for an easy two-pointer. “Guess that explains why you’re always elbow-deep in engines.”
I sat on the edge of his workbench, eyeing him curiously. “What’s your excuse?”
“Honestly? The quiet.”
He said it so simply, it stole my breath. Because beneath the flirting and the walls he kept halfway up, I could see it again. The weight he carried around like it was stitched into his skin.
“Then I’ll try not to talk so much,” I teased.
“Don’t do that.” His voice had dropped, and he was standing in front of me with a look I couldn’t quite read.
“Do what?”
He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. Not wanting to lose contact just yet, he traced his finger all the way along my jaw. Then his hand dropped away, and I could breathe again.
“Don’t act like this isn’t exactly what it is.”
That electric charge that was always between us pulled tight, rushing through me in pure white heat and nothing else.
“And what exactly is it?”
“You tell me,” he said, never once taking his eyes from mine.
I stared at him, pulse racing. “I thought we were changing ball joints.”
He stepped closer, right between my legs. I could count the flecks of black scattered in his eyes. My lips parted slightly, and I wet them with my tongue.
“You really don’t know that I know?”
This was the part where he was supposed to lean in and kiss me. Where I let him finally kiss me. Instead, he went and said something that made no sense.
“Know what?”
Mason reached past me to grab another beer, and straightened. As the can hissed open, he said, “That you’re not just Cass. You’re Cass McAvoy, specifically Coach McAvoy’s daughter.”
The shockwave beating down on me should’ve been anticipated. The video had gone viral. Of course my dad would’ve found out. And being himself, of course he would’ve cornered Mason about it.
“What did he say to you?” I demanded. “Is that why you didn’t text me back last night?”
His laughter was caustic, slicing through the built-up tension like a freshly sharpened blade. “He told me I could date whoever I wanted. Just not you.”
My fingers twitched. I wanted to reach for him. To pull him back into the bubble we’d made for ourselves, untouched by reality. But I couldn’t. Not when the rules were laid down like land mines and both of us were standing on top of one.
“I’m not good at this,” I admitted. “At the whole… being someone’s complication thing.”
“You’re not,” he said, fierce and sure. “You’re the only thing that’s felt remotely normal since I got here.”
“Then why does it feel like we’re being punished?”
The silence between us roared with things unsaid, touches never made, and the kind of heat that could torch us both if we let it.
Mason took one more sip, then set his beer down. “I respect your father. But Cass, do you want me to stay away?”
I hesitated. Just long enough to find the most honest part of me.
“No.”
He came back over to me, the warmth of his chest radiating through my shirt and setting my skin on fire. “Then tell me what you want.”
My eyes flicked to his mouth, his jaw, and back to those damned eyes. What did I want?
“I want,” I said quickly before I could change my mind, “to make bad choices and figure out the rest later.”
And then he kissed me. It was fast, firm, hands curling around my waist the way I’d been dying for him to hold me. Wonderful warmth spread through my core, igniting everything inside of me in a way that I’d been craving for a long time.
His breath was ragged against my lips as he asked, “Is this choice bad enough for you?”
“Definitely,” I breathed.
Good intentions be damned. All the things I’d told myself I was in control of—gone. Vaporized. Boundaries blurred like oil on water, slipping away the second his mouth met mine again.
This time there was nothing hurried about it.
He kissed me slow and dangerous, a drag of heat that bloomed low in my belly.
His hands slid up under my shirt, palms pressing into the curve of my back, rough fingertips skating against skin that had no business reacting to him this much. But it did. God, it did.
I hooked my fingers into his shirt, pulling him closer until I could wrap my legs around him. Get him where I really wanted him. He didn’t stop me. If anything, he came willingly, like he’d been waiting for the invitation all along.
He braced one hand beside my thigh, the other still holding onto my waist. The kiss deepened, turned hungry and far less polite.
A hundred reasons sped through my mind for me to pull away and stop, but there was no air left for anything like that.
Not anymore. Just the frantic grind of his hips between my legs, and the desperate way I rocked to meet him there.
The sound that tore from his throat made every nerve ending light up like I was wired straight into a power grid. We were still fully clothed, but I felt all of him. Everywhere.
“Cass,” he murmured, dipping his mouth to my neck. His voice was thick with restraint when he said, “I’ll stop if you tell me to.”
“Not gonna happen.”
I dragged my fingers through his hair and angled his mouth back to mine, tasting the beer, the frustration, and so much longing it made me forget what day it was.
His hands found the backs of my thighs, lifting me just enough to plant me fully on the workbench. The metal was cold against my skin, but it barely registered. Nothing could cut through the heat he’d stirred up.
I bit his bottom lip and tugged lightly until he growled at me.
“Playing dirty,” he said, forehead touching mine. “I never would’ve guessed.”
I gave a low, throaty laugh that reverberated through the both of us. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“Thank God.” He was wrecked, fingers digging harder into the soft flesh of my thighs as he bucked his hips with need.
My fingers traced the slick, muscular line of his neck. We were breathless, burning for each other, and I rested my mouth against the corner of his.
“We should stop.”
He didn’t move, didn’t speak. Just stood there with every inch of him pressed against every inch of me. Then he pulled back enough so he could look at me. Gaze would be a better way to describe it, because what I saw in his eyes was enough to make me take back what I’d just said.
His thumb traced the corner of my mouth, and he licked his lips.
“We should,” he agreed, stepping back an infuriating foot so I could leave. The space between us seemed to grow. “But I can’t make any promises for next time, Firestarter.”
His scent stayed on my clothes long after I was gone.