Country Kisses (3:AM Kisses Book #8)(12)
Buddy lets off a few wild yelps, forcing me to blink back to life. I reach for my phone, and it reads 3:05 a.m. My limbs sweep the bed for a body, and I’m met up with nothing but ice-cold sheets.
She’s gone.
Kissy Kissy Bang Bang
Cassidy
“Oh my God!” I wake with a start as a horrible thumping shakes my tiny dorm. “What the hell?” I give a few hard blinks into the harsh morning light as Piper bleats out a laugh.
“Is that what it sounded like?” Her voice goes off like a horn, and I toss one of those ridiculous stuffed animals that she has multiplying all over the place right at her tumbleweed of a bedhead.
That cheeky grin of hers goes off, and for a second, I think I’m right back in that heated bedroom with a boy who looks vexingly like his sister. Ugh. What the hell was I thinking? Yes, he was drop-dead gorgeous, seemed like he has a general grip on his sanity and bought me not one but two drinks—but still!
God. I just had my first one-night stand. And with Cade James of all people. Anybody with half a brain cell can predict this isn’t going to end well. It never does when I listen to Caila’s not-so sisterly advice. I picture that annoying mini version of my not-so sweet sis prancing victoriously on my shoulder and giving a mean shudder.
Gah! It was like I was under her spell, like I became her!
I roll over in an effort to evict myself off the mattress, and there he is, the ghost of that drop-dead gorgeous city boy still lingering between my legs. I’ll give him one thing—that boy was hung.
Piper continues with her obnoxious wallops, and it takes a moment of some serious squinting for me to determine she’s slamming into the wall with a pair of her stilettos.
“Would you stop?” This time I toss my own precious pillow. “What the hell has gotten into you?”
She flings a shoe at me, narrowly missing my nose. “Oh, come on, Cassidy. Give it up. I really want to know if that’s what it sounded like when he took you back to his room.”
I suck in a sharp breath so fast, I’m half-convinced I just inhaled that little heart charm on my necklace Caila gifted me for Christmas.
Good God, Piper knows! She knows, and she’s being all sick and glib about it.
“I knew it,” I hiss. “I knew you were one sandwich shy of a picnic. Well, maybe I didn’t know, but I long suspected!” I wield her patent leather weapon in my hand. “How did you find out?”
“Sweetie, you partook in a universal ritual the world over—the walk of shame. Everyone in Cutler Tower heard you traipsing back up here at three in the morning like some wandering back alley whore.” She gives a hard wink. “So, come on. Which fraternity do I owe for turning my best friend into a back alley ho?”
“Ugh! Would you stop?” I give a few hard blinks as the room starts to take shape around us and the thick sleep dissipates from my eyes. “And walk of shame?” I fall back and bury my face into my mattress a moment. Just the thought of keeping this New York-sized secret to myself just a little while longer seems downright impossible. For one heart-stopping minute, I thought she found us out, us—what a laugh. Cade James has a one-night stand every day of the week. My vagina and I simply, and quite happily, filled last night’s empty slot. I’m sure once he figured out it was slim pickings for the evening, he made his way to my table. Sexual necessity was the mother of inattention to my facial deformity. But I can’t really blame him. I’m the one who agreed to that second drink. That’s where my mistake began. I should have never agreed to drinking with him, which led to winking with him, which led to all that bed warming BS that suddenly reeks of Pick-up Line 101 in the early light of day. Dear Lord, it’s probably his most tried and true lure-’em-back-to-the-dungeon-sex-scheme, and I fell for it like a little old church mouse just aching for a nibble of his rock-hard cheese. Wait… Didn’t I come up with that whole bed warming BS? Or in the least, I was a major contributor. I squeeze my eyes shut tight a moment, desperately trying to pull fact from fiction.
“So, who was it?” My mattress sinks as Piper lands next to me, and I instinctively scoot back a notch. Not only would she scream for a week if she found out I bedded her brother, but the fact my body still reeks of his isn’t going to help the situation.
“Nobody you know.” Great. Now I’m a fibber, too. I’m a one-night stand having back alley whore of a liar. I can’t wait to call Momma and tell her what I’ve been up to this week. This will really spice up our Sunday after church chat.
I try to scoot off the bed, but my insides burn straight through my belly. That boy had a weapon of mass destruction, and he wasn’t afraid to use it. And did it ever detonate. My eyes close involuntarily as I relive the moment he trembled deep inside of me. It’s been a while since I’ve been with a boy, but I’m hard-pressed to remember a seismic sensation quite like that one. Who am I kidding? Cade is no mere boy. What I had deep inside of me last night was an all-American man—all seemingly eighteen inches of him.
“Okay, so I can see you’re going to be coy.” She sneers at me for a second. Piper isn’t used to not getting her strong-willed way. Every bit of resistance life has to offer is a bit of a culture shock to her. “Have I met him before? Like at least seen him? Is he cute? What’s he look like?”