Wild Forces: A Friends to Lovers Romance (O-Town Book 2) by Karen Renee (summer reads .TXT) 📕

“I better. We love our volunteers, but you gotta hold up your end of the bargain, Gabe.”

I grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ll see you soon.”

When I stood up, I looked down at what I was wearing. My head jerked up as I wondered what the hell I was doing. I never cared what I wore around Cassie before, why the hell would it matter now? Either she would forgive my fuck-up or she wouldn’t. Wearing special clothes wouldn’t change that one iota.

I toed on some flip-flops and left my room.

Brock, sitting on the couch in the living room, caught sight of me and his brows furrowed. “You aren’t headed to the pool or some shit, are you?”

I glared at him. “No. I’m headed to Daughtry’s place, but I’m not even sure if she’s home, so you could say I’m just headed out for a walk.”

“Good luck. I have a feeling you’re gonna need it,” he muttered.

The puffy clouds in the sky had grown and turned an ominous shade of slate. I heard distant rumbles of thunder, but my instincts said it would be another hour before the clouds above let loose. Even though the clouds obscured the sun, the heat persisted, just as stifling as ever in late July.

At quarter to five in the afternoon, not many people were home yet, which meant I didn’t run into anyone on my walk over to Cassandra’s building.

As I approached her door, I checked the doorway of the unit across from hers. The Ring cameras were both gone, which relieved me.

I knocked, and Cassandra opened the door a few moments afterward.

“Gabe,” she said, in a strange voice.

“Cassie. Can I come in? Just for a little bit. I’m sure you’re busy with the end of the summer semester.”

Her lips shifted as though to purse, but she caught them and her expression turned neutral. She opened the door wider, so I went inside.

I stood next to the breakfast bar while she locked the door.

She walked toward her couch, but stopped and turned to me. “What’s up, Gabe? And I hope you will make this quick. You were right about the end of the term. I’d invite you to sit down, but I’m working on a project.”

I glanced at  her couch; papers and books were scattered everywhere. She had her laptop perched on the arm of the couch in a precarious position.

I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I shouldn’t have come over here the other night. And I never meant for you to feel so uncomfortable that you couldn’t sleep in your own bed here.”

She nodded with her lips pressed together, but her expression told me nothing. I didn’t trust her nodding, and my hands suddenly went clammy.

“Well. I’m sorry, too, Gabe. But it’s good you were able to stop. Things would’ve been different.”

I frowned. “I don’t regret it,” I blurted. That didn’t sound good, and I pushed forward. “I wish I hadn’t been drunk.”

“What? You don’t... No. See, you may have told me you were done with the meaningless hook-ups, but drunk or not – we can’t do that again.”

I pulled my hands out of my pockets and put them on my hips. “Nothing with you would be meaningless.”

Her face turned stony. She looked to the carpet at her bare feet. “Exactly why it can’t happen, Gabe.” She looked up at me. “It would be wrong.”

Would it, though? I wondered.

“It didn’t feel wrong two weeks ago when I almost kissed you to the Stones.”

She looked away, giving me her profile. Her nose had to be the most elegant one I had seen. Or, more likely, the only one I had ever noticed. Her beauty defined the terms ‘understated,’ and ‘classic.’

The silence between us became harder to handle.

“Sorry, Cassandra. I didn’t say that to make this more awkward. It’s just, I don’t want you to think I only kissed you because I was drinking. I’ve wanted to do it for a while. So, it wasn’t the whiskey and rum talking for me or making me act that way. Does that make sense?”

Her eyes flashed with surprise, but she shuttered it just as quickly. “Yeah, I get what you’re saying, Gabe. I’m not holding it against you. I just don’t think we should go there.”

If I had learned anything from my Dad and two older brothers, it was to give in to a woman’s desires.

“You’re right. It won’t happen again.” I held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

She semi-frowned. “You were never a Boy Scout, G-Rock.”

I grinned. “Damn it! You know all my secrets, Cass. Can’t pull anything over on you. We cool?”

She gave me a small smile. “Yeah. But seriously, I have to get back to it.”

Cassie

GABE KILLED ME, BUT not because he drunk-kissed me.

Even at twenty-seven, he had a boyish way about him. His beard muted that boyishness to an extent, but it was still there.

We were adults, but his words reminded me of high school. Besides cliques and teen angst, the thing I most loved leaving behind in high school was the talk about kissing. Or not kissing.

‘I’ve wanted to do it for a while.’ When he said those words – sounding just like a high school boy, not a man – my tongue wouldn’t move, even though my brain screamed, “Lies!” Yet, him sounding so young and almost boyish endeared him to me further.

I could not be trusted around Gabe Sullivan. That was abundantly clear.

Yes, he killed me. A thousand merciless little deaths. Merciless because of the resuscitation. I came back for more every time.

But we could not go there. Which meant I would no longer be back for more.

Definitely time to move on.

I threw myself into finishing my end of term project because I reported for orientation to my bookkeeping job tomorrow.

My time would be limited moving forward, and I hated that I didn’t know when I would get back to the shelter again. However, I would figure something out since I couldn’t go