From Ashes (From Ashes #1)(52)

I didn’t see Gage again until after Russ had flung the garter and Stacey threw her bouquet into a sea of single women. I was starting to worry when the DJ stated there was only one song left before the happy couple would be taking off, when his warm hands found mine.

“One more?” he mumbled, his face a carefully composed mask.

“Of course.” I tried to smile but his look was worrying me.

He put a hand gently on my waist and grabbed one of mine with his other, clutching it to his chest. I laid my head next to our joined hands as we swayed back and forth to our first slow dance of the evening.

Halfway through the song he spoke again. “Cassidy.” I looked up into his eyes and he forced his gaze on something behind us, shaking his head slowly back and forth. “Look . . . I—”

I cut him off, not wanting to hear whatever regrets he was having from today. “Don’t, Gage.”

“No, I need to tell you this.”

He held me close as I quickly tried to back away from him. I shut my eyes so he wouldn’t see my hurt. “I get it. You don’t—”

“I’m in love with you,” he blurted out.

There was no way I had heard that correctly. My eyes popped open and I studied his face. “You— What?”

He blew out a long breath before looking at me again. His voice was so deep and full of emotion it caused a warm shiver to go up my spine. “I’m madly in love with you.”

My eyes grew even wider as I let that sink in.

“I’ve tried to keep my feelings to myself, and I know I’m no good at it, but I can’t keep doing it anymore. I don’t just view you as a friend, Cass. I never have. I thought you should know. I know you don’t feel the same but I’m tired of lying and hiding it from you.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“When was I supposed to? You’ve been dating my cousin since we met.”

A lump formed in my throat as I realized all the time I’d wasted thinking Gage could only ever be my friend. “Gage, I’m so in love with you.”

“But Tyler . . . ?”

I shook my head and cleared my throat. “Wait, why did you think Tyler and I were together when we first met?”

“Because he told me you were.” His brow furrowed.

For obvious reasons, I wasn’t a fan of violence, but I instantly wanted to punch Tyler. “Tyler and I only dated for a few months. You didn’t want me and you left, and I was afraid of losing Tyler too, so I agreed to be his girlfriend a little while after you’d moved out.”

Gage stopped swaying us, his face full of disbelief. “What? No.” He shook his head. “You were the one who didn’t want me. You told me you weren’t okay with what I felt; you were with Tyler while we were at the ranch—he told me what you did for him the morning y’all left.”

“What I did for him? What do you mean? Tyler was my best friend and nothing more. Gage, you were the one who told me to leave at the ranch. I was going to ask if I could stay with you, I was going to tell you that I was in love with you, and you kicked us out; Tyler told me you moved out of the apartment because you couldn’t stand living with me. He’d been telling me that since the first day after we moved in with you.”

“You were going to tell me you loved me, that last morning at the ranch?” When I nodded, Gage looked up and hissed a curse. Cupping my face in his hands, he pulled me close. “Tyler lied.”

He crushed his mouth against mine and my knees buckled under the wave of emotions swarming through me, but Gage’s hands left my face and he tightened his arms around me to keep me standing. How had I ever been able to kiss Tyler after having these kisses from Gage? He slid his tongue between my lips and I softly moaned into his mouth. A chill went through his body when I pressed myself closer to him and gripped his messy hair; I smiled at the knowledge that I could do that to him. Gage moved his lips across my jaw toward my ear.

“Let me take you home,” he whispered huskily into my ear.

I’d let him take me anywhere.

We started making a beeline toward the cars but that was the same moment the bride and groom were going to take off, so we not-so-patiently stood in lines with everyone else and blew bubbles at them as they ran to their awaiting limo. Once their taillights had faded into the distance, Gage grabbed my hand, intertwined our fingers, and walked me to the passenger door of his truck. Planting one searing kiss on my lips, he gently lifted me up onto the seat, letting his fingers trail down from my waist to my knees. My heart about stopped.

He rounded the front and, after hopping in, pulled me across the seat and kissed me senseless. Not long after, with both of us struggling to catch our breath, he broke away, but I wasn’t ready for it to be over just yet. I turned to better face him and eagerly pressed my lips to his neck, alternating between soft kisses and little nips, giving him a taste of the torture he’d put me through earlier. His fingers gripped my hips and a low moan escaped from him as I lightly trailed my lips along his jaw. The sound warmed my body and I could feel my control slowly slipping away. One of his hands made a trail down my thigh and curled around my knee, pulling me over so I was now sitting on him. I gasped and brought his mouth back to mine. I needed him. All of him. I ran my fingers through his hair and arched my back so I could press my body more intimately into his.