Chapter Thirteen

The next morning at breakfast, things could not have been more awkward. Lane tried to focus on helping Tucker butter his toast but at least seventy-percent of their brain was taken up by the understanding that Cassidy had apparently assessed this morning's t-shirt as belonging to the bra-not-required category of outfits and Lane was never going to be able to get through a normal conversation in their life again.

"How was your night?" Brynn asked.

"Fine," Lane muttered, their mind too full of perfect breasts to speak syllables.

"Okay." Cassidy shrugged. Okay? Lane couldn't stop the eye-roll that snuck out. Sure, maybe there'd been no fancy cocktails or amazing music, but Cassidy had more than enjoyed herself; that much had been obvious.

"Did something happen?" Savannah looked from one to the other, her spidey senses obviously tingling, and Lane felt the blood drain from their face. They were just about to deny everything and perhaps dive under the table to hide when Cassidy replied.

"It was football night. Lots of drunk meatheads out. We cut it short."

She didn't mention the threat to their safety, and Lane was grateful for that. Savannah was the one person at this table who'd seen the aftermath of one of Lane's beatings as a teenager and they did not need her to fret over the idea of history repeating, especially with her little sister present. Of course, there were a lot of things Cassidy had just left out about their night that were definitely for the best.

"That sucks." Brynn looked at the two of them in turn. "Guess you'll just have to make it happen another night instead."

"Guess we will." Cassidy looked at Lane, her eyelashes lowered. Lane nearly choked on their orange juice.

The day went on in a thankfully normal fashion. After a couple of blessedly mild days, the sun was blazing again and Lane kept Tucker indoors out of the scorching heat. Brynn went off to record, and to Lane's relief, Cassidy went with her. Savannah had a series of meetings at the record label, so the house was quiet and the day uneventful. Uneventful, that was, except for the occasional slam of extraordinarily heated memory that hit Lane at odd moments throughout the day.

They were cutting a sandwich on the kitchen bench and the image of Cassidy writhing her hips in their lap in the moonlight suddenly overwhelmed them. They were hunting for the remote in the living room when they relived the gasp of pained desire that escaped Cassidy when they first ran their tongue over a tight pink nipple. As they sank down on the couch, they recalled perfectly the ragged tone in Cassidy's voice when she begged for Lane to touch her.

Maybe Lane had done the right thing in shutting things down before they'd crossed the line into actual sex, but to their deep discomfort they suspected they were suffering at least as much as Cassidy was from their mutually unmet desire. Damnit, why did she have to be so attractive? It was Cassidy, Lane kept reminding themselves on loop. Just Savannah's annoying sister, the girl who was kind of a brat. Lane was adamant they were going to keep it in their damn pants.

They had dinner early since everyone - Savannah mostly - was ravenous. The rest of them pretended for her sake. Lane made sure to sit next to Cassidy instead of across from her, remembering how much easier life was when they weren't tempted to look at her all the time. Tucker was excitable and bouncing and thankfully dominated the dinner table discussion. He begged for an after-dinner swim with Lane after being cooped up from the heat all day, and after checking in, his parents eventually agreed.

The two of them dive bombed into the cool water and shoved and played as the darkness fell. Then, out of the fading light, Cassidy appeared. She was wearing a bright red bikini that honestly just didn't seem to be playing fair. She slid into the water and came over to greet her nephew.

"Hi!" Tucker looked excited to see her.

"Hi!" she replied. "What are you playing?"

"Hungry dinosaurs," he told her.

"How does it go?"

Tucker explained the rules he'd just made up on the spot three seconds ago, and Cassidy embraced them with enthusiasm. Her squeals competed with Tucker's, causing him no end of delight and by halfway through the game he was clinging to her like a monkey, Lane suddenly chopped liver.

"Tucker!" Brynn called from the front porch. "It's time for bed."

"Noooo, Mom!" he protested, and Lane detected the gathering storm of a total meltdown. They went to take him from Cassidy but to their surprise, she hugged the little boy to her tightly.

"Are you ready?" she asked him, then plunged him down under water with her. He came up giggling, then she whooshed him up out of the pool and ran with him, making him chase her up the steps to his mother. "Quick, go to sleep!" Lane heard her tell him. "Then it'll be tomorrow and we can play again!"

Somehow it worked because Lane heard a chorus of goodnights and the door close, before Cassidy padded through the darkness and reappeared at the pool. Lane's heart began to bang in their ears. The moon was still rising behind the trees and the pool was in shadow, but her wet body gleamed as she slipped back into the water. Lane swallowed.

"Thanks for playing with him." They tried to act like there was nothing interesting about the two of them being alone together, semi-naked, in the dark. "He's so excited to get to know you."

"He's adorable," Cassidy replied. "And he's fun to hang out with." She was drifting closer and Lane's chest was getting tight.

"Still," they jibed, "that was almost sweet of you. It's so weird to see."

Cassidy was in front of them now, barely a foot away, her body between Lane and the pool wall. Lane should definitely be moving away, but they very much weren't.

"I think," Cassidy said, her eyes dark in the dim light, "given the right context, you might find I can be extremely sweet."

"And what context is that?" Lane took the bait. A wet, slender thigh slid straight around their hip and Cassidy wrapped her legs around their body, both in invitation and demand. Lane's hands slipped greedily around her bare waist to hold her and already they were kissing. They'd been left alone for less than a minute. Lane should be better than this, but resisting her felt insane, impossible, beyond their basic human capabilities. Already, little soft sounds tumbled from Cassidy's throat as their tongue slipped urgently into her mouth.

She pulled back after a moment of heated kissing, her expression hungry as she ran first her eyes and then her fingers down over Lane's slippery pecs, scraping her teeth over their small rigid nipples. Lane's breath caught hard, sharp gratitude flaring for the skill of the surgeon that had left their sensation intact, Cassidy flicking over them with her hot tongue. She bit Lane's pec, none too gently, making them gasp, then pulled back further to look down at their abs.

"God, Lane," she whispered, her fingers exploring the hard ridges of muscle. "Honestly, these are so unnecessary." Her voice was practically a moan. She bit her lip as her fingers eagerly teased and roamed. "How dare you," she whispered, tracing along their obliques to the front of their waistband. Lane's whole body clenched.

They'd known since last night that Cassidy very much wanted Lane to touch her. But it was another thing altogether to know that she very much wanted to touch Lane, too. Oh god, this lust was mutual. So mutual, too mutual, Lane's fingers were already pulling at the ties to her flimsy bikini top.

"Oh, fuck." The curse spilled from Lane's lips as they bared Cassidy's body to their hungry eyes, the wet scrap of lycra sliding down her waist. God, how was she even more beautiful tonight than she'd been the first time they'd seen her? Her skin was gleaming with tiny drops of water, her nipples hard in the night air. This was stupid, they were out in the yard, anyone could come by but Lane couldn't seem to stop, instead filling their mouth with her, listening to her gasp and cry out as they nuzzled and teased her soft breasts.

Her legs gripped tighter, and they were both grinding their lower bodies into the other, Cassidy rocking her center against Lane's groin and Lane pressing back just as hard, cursing the bikini bottoms and board shorts between them, feeling desperate.

"Hey, Lane!" Brynn's voice rang out, the patio light flicking on simultaneously, spilling light onto the edges of the pool. Cassidy ducked underwater, entirely disappearing from view, and Lane whirled around with a splash. "Have you seen Tucker's green dino? He's losing his mind."

"Uh…" Lane's brain took what seemed like an hour to process those words into a sentence that made remotely any sense. "I'm not sure."

"Can you please help me go over his tracks? I think Savannah might actually die if we can't figure this out."

Cassidy emerged from under the water, her bikini top back in place, smoothing her wet hair out of her face.

"Sure," they replied distantly, staring at her helplessly. Her eyes were sparkling with slight shock and intense mischief, the same way that they had in the alleyway in Nashville and Lane desperately wanted to kiss her crooked smile. Instead, they shook their head at her and dragged themself out of the water to go find a dinosaur. When they returned, only minutes later, the pool was empty and still.

Lane looked toward the guesthouse, remembering Cassidy's plain insistence of the night before, but, to what they had to admit was their intense disappointment, there was no blonde wet beauty waiting inside to ambush them. All evening they half expected a knock at the door and by the time they were laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, they had to hand it to Cassidy. She really could give as good as she got.