by Max Monroe
She shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, I’m a bit of a badass bitch.”
Yeah, I was definitely going to be friends with this chick.
Feeling that any gossip about her brother and the blonde had been settled, Georgia’s prying eyes came to me.
“And what about you?”
“What about me?” I challenged.
“You are just like your boyfriend!” she accused with a laugh, and as much as I tried to stop it, I started to blush.
“Boyfriend?” Will asked. “What boyfriend?”
My skin started to tingle, and my voice locked up.
“Look at you,” Georgia prodded. “You’d think you’d be able to talk about it. You should be able to talk about a relationship where you’re living with the guy, for fuck’s sake.”
“Wait a second? Living with the guy? When did this happen?” Will asked rapid fire, while Winnie looked on with interest.
“It’s Thatch,” Georgia announced.
“Holy fuck. Why didn’t he say anything either?”
My eyebrows pulled together. “It’s relatively new.”
“You’re living together,” Will insisted with a laugh.
“I’m aware, thank you very much. I moved in as a prank.”
“Nuh-uh-uh,” Georgia said. “Don’t give me that. When you move in as a prank, you move out. You don’t fuck like rabbits and make moony eyes at one another and talk about picking up stuff for each other from the store.”
I wonder how hard it would be to wring Georgia’s neck.
“I like him, okay?” I admitted in a rush. “He’s funny and fun, and goddamn, he’s got a cock that won’t quit.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Will cried.
“I like him already,” Winnie put in with an encouraging smile.
“Right?” I blubbered in a rush. “The stupid asshole makes it nearly impossible to not like him. It’s not my fault.”
Georgia’s smile was practically nuclear. “So…what’s that mean? What’s going on with you two?”
I shrugged.
“Have you tried talking to him about what’s actually going on?” she pushed, and Will groaned. She turned cold eyes in his direction and snapped. “You, shut it. This is girl time, and you’ll deal with it.”
He shut up and Winnie laughed. “I’m gonna start talking to you like that at work. You obeyed more quickly than usual.”
He groaned again and sank his head into his hands.
Georgia turned back to me, but I was happy to use the distraction to my advantage. “Just drop it for now, okay? Let me worry about Thatcher’s boner, and you just concentrate on Big Dick.” I smiled to take some of the sting out and hoped she’d understand.
I knew I needed to talk to Thatch about where we were. But I couldn’t help but worry about the chance that, for once, for the first time in all the years I’d been dating, I was the one who was sure we were—an item, an us, all the things I wanted in my life for a long time and maybe forever—and he was the one thinking we weren’t.
“Wake up, honey,” I cooed in Cassie’s ear.
Phil snorted awake and started rooting at my hand.
“Look out, Phil. I’m trying to wake up your mom, and you know that’s not gonna be easy.”
“I can hear you, asshole,” Cassie grumbled into the pillow.
“Oh, so you only sleep like the dead when I’m trying to fuck you?”
“Hey! I haven’t fallen asleep on your dick in a while.”
I smiled and touched my lips to her bare shoulder. “Let’s keep it that way.”
“Ugh. God. Where’s the coffee? Is there coffee?” she asked, her eyes still closed tight.
I picked up the mug from the nightstand and held it carefully under her nose. “There’s coffee.”
One eye peeked open to make sure. “Thank God,” she said as she grabbed the mug and pushed up to sitting.
She took three sips before bothering to speak again. “What time is it? I feel like ass.”
“Don’t worry about what time it is.”
Her eyes narrowed and jumped to the nightstand to look for what I’d been careful to move earlier. “Where’s the clock?”
“Hmm,” I said, playing innocent. “Look at that. Phil must have done something with it.”
“Don’t you dare blame Phil!” she shouted. “What godforsaken time is it? You tell me right now, Thatcher!”
“It’s not important. Just drink your coffee and wake up,” I tried to say soothingly. She wasn’t buying it.
Out of the bed, she jumped and ran, coffee in hand and Phil hot on her heels. He snorted and she cursed and I pushed up and off the bed to follow at a slow walk.
This had to be what men felt like when they were walking to their execution.
“Three a.m.?” she shrieked from the kitchen. I winced. “Three o’clock was made as a time for going to bed, not waking up,” she yelled just as I cleared the mouth of the hall into the living room.
“Occasionally, it’s a time to get up. Radio DJs do it. As do people with flights first thing in the morning.”
“Do I look like any of those people to you?” she asked, and my eyes bugged out with the effort it took not to laugh.
Her hair was a fucking rat’s nest of epic proportions, and her tits were hanging there perfectly out in the open like they did so often. Mascara smudged the creamy skin under her fierce blue eyes, and her nipples stood at full attention.
She was the best thing I’d ever seen in my life.
“I’m sorry about the early wake-up call,” I apologized. “But I’ve got a surprise.”
Her eyes softened a little. “I like surprises.”
“I know, honey.”
“All right. I’ll get dressed. But Phil and I are putting you on our blacklist. Right, Phil?”
Phil didn’t even look up from where he was rooting around at the bottom of the island.
“Fuck, Phil. Would it kill you to give me a little support?” Cassie asked.
“Phil’s more of a guy’s guy, honey. Bro code and all that. Don’t feel bad.”
“Well, he better get his act together and remember who brought him here.” Her voice dropped to the one women generally used with kids, but the words she used made it creepy. “Or else someone is gonna be on a sandwich, right little Phil boo-boo? Mommy won’t hesitate to make a little PLT.” She poured more coffee into her cup and headed my direction.
“Wear comfortable clothes,” I instructed as she passed me on her way back to the bedroom.
With a little more thought, I added specifics. “And a bra.”
She screeched to a stop, leaned into the wall, and turned to face me. “A bra? This better not be another fucking run, Thatcher.”
“No running,” I assured her. When she still looked skeptical, I broke out the big guns. “Pinkie promise.”
She took the two steps back and hooked her tiniest finger with mine. I smiled at the sight of them intertwined.
I swatted her ass when she didn’t move immediately. “Go on. Get a move on.”
She disappeared down the hall, but she did it walking backward and gesturing one-handed threats to me the entire way.
If you think she wants to kill me now, just wait.
“Where are we?” she asked as we pulled into the airfield. Luckily for me, it was hard to tell what it was in the pitch dark if you didn’t already have knowledge going in.
“You’ll find out.”
“You know, maybe I don’t like surprises,” she grumbled.
I chuckled. “Yes, you do. Just have a little patience. You’ll find out soon enough.”
You also wouldn’t be this eager if you knew what it is.
“I wish Phil could have come with us,” she pouted, and I barked out a laugh.
“You were just threatening to make him bacon, and now you wish he was here?”
“It’s called tough love. All the good parents use it every once in a while.”
God, she was cute. Ridiculous. But
cute.
The gravel of the empty parking lot crunched under our tires as we came to a stop and I put the car in park. “We’re here.”
She rolled her eyes. “I can tell we’re here. But where is here?”
I asked her for the one and only thing I needed from her. “You trust me?”
She leaned her head back into the seat and covered her face with her hands. A groan filled the otherwise silent air. “Ah, shit. You only ask me that before you make me do things I don’t like.”
“But they normally turn out well for you, right?”
“I fucking guess,” she grumbled. I took her hand between mine and turned it over so I could trace the lines of her palm.
“I’ll look out for you, okay? And I don’t just mean right now. I’ll always look out for you.”
“Jesus Christ.” She forced open the door, climbed out, and slammed it. I sat stunned for a second before following her on my side. “Now I know how Georgie feels,” she went on as she rounded the hood and pushed right into my arms. “Always dealing with that big-dicked bastard saying all sorts of swoony shit.”
I shook my head and squeezed her to me tightly. This was how Cassie Phillips reacted when you said something she liked. Unexpected.
Bending at the neck, I kissed the top of her head and breathed in the scent of her shampoo. Normally, I’d have been searching to place the scent of a woman, but not her. I knew she used the pink kind of Herbal Essences, could picture the fucking bottle in my shower, and the thought of it made me smile. It didn’t feel like the mystery was gone or some other clichéd nonsense men told themselves they wanted to avoid. It felt good. Like we were starting to become familiar in the best kind of way.
Like I knew things about her that other men only wished they did.
“Ready?” I asked into her hair.
“I’m guessing I don’t have a choice,” she muttered, pulling her head from beneath my chin and looking up at me through her freakishly long lashes.
I didn’t answer with words. Instead, I touched my mouth to hers and pulled away, clasping her hand in mine. A smile tipped the ends of her lips up.
We walked across the parking lot in silence, the echo of crunching gravel the only sound in the early dawn light. When we stepped inside the hangar, she had to shield her eyes because of the sudden intrusion of light.
Our companions were waiting across the space, already suited up. Cassie noticed them at the same time I did.
“Claire? Frankie?” She turned briefly to me and then back to them. “What are you guys doing here?”
She didn’t realize she was the truly unexpected guest.
Claire stepped forward first, returning Cassie’s enthusiastic hug, and Frankie followed not far behind.
Cassie turned back to me when she noticed their attire, and her eyebrows pulled together, but she didn’t put it together yet. “Do you guys know what we’re doing?”
Claire’s face was a mask of trying to figure me the fuck out, but Frankie’s slightly annoyed gaze just came straight to me. “She doesn’t know what we’re doing?”
“It’s a surprise,” Cassie said in my defense.
“Oh,” Frankie mouthed. “Well, then, yes. We know what we’re doing.” He hesitated, glancing to me for direction. “It’s a yearly activity. We always do this on this day.”
I appreciated his attempt to cover for me, but I hadn’t gone into this with any plans to keep secrets. I’d brought her here because I wanted her to know. I wanted her to know everything about me, and more than that, I wanted her to be part of it. Every day I spent with her made me want her to be part of everything I did.
“Margo was Frankie’s little sister and Claire’s best friend. And today was her birthday,” I told her freely. “Me, Frankie, Claire—and now you—do this every year to celebrate her life.”
Her face softened, and goddamn, I fell right into her trap. So hard, so brash for the rest of the world. But in that moment, she didn’t think about herself and how awkward it might have been. She thought about me.
“That’s amazing. Are you guys sure you’re okay with me being here?” she asked, stepping back to include all three of us in her line of sight and questioning.
“Yes,” I answered conclusively with absolutely no hesitation.
Cassie nodded. “Okay.”
She smiled at me and then glanced back at Frankie and Claire. Her eyes moved from their faces to their bodies, taking in the protective suit and the harness. “Wait…why are they wearing that?”
I took her hand, pulled her toward the office to grab our gear, and ruined her happy place all in one moment. “Because we’re going skydiving.”
“If I make it to the ground alive,” Cassie yelled over the roar of the twin-engine jump plane, “I’m going to straight up murder you.”
My arms wrapped tight around her chest even though I knew she couldn’t get away from me if she tried. She was strapped to me because I was her jump buddy, and we were forty seconds away from our jump point.
“I look forward to it, honey,” I yelled over the noise, sneaking in a kiss to her cheek and earning a world-class glare and two middle fingers.
Frankie and Claire looked on with smiles on their faces from across the plane.
“I can’t believe you’re a part of this madness, Claire!” Cassie screamed as loud as she could. Frankie laughed, and Claire gave two thumbs up.
“You ready?” I asked, maneuvering the two of us toward the door as the pilot gave the fifteen-second signal.
“No, I’m not ready, you motherfucker. I can’t believe you got me up here!”
With a reach around her perfect body, I pulled open the door and scooted us toward the edge.
“Oh, sweet baby unicorns,” Cassie breathed.
“It’s okay, honey,” I soothed. “Just close your eyes and enjoy the ride.”
“Close my eyes? What’s with you and always making me close my goddamn eyes?” she shrieked.
“Only until you feel like you can open them,” I clarified with a laugh. “I promise I’ll take care of you.”
One hand on each side of the opening, I moved us to the very edge and watched for the pilot’s signal. As soon as the thumbs-up flashed in my peripheral vision, I started my countdown.
“Three, two—”
“Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck!” Cassie screamed.
“One!”
I shoved us out and cleared the plane. The wind immediately hit me hard enough to knock the scream right out of my lungs. Surrounded by no sound but the roar of our descent to earth, I knew the same had happened to Cassie. I would have wondered if she was conscious had she not assumed the position we’d spent time instructing her on.
Her outstretched hands found my forearms and locked on, and I smiled against the force of the wind so hard that my lips started to curl back.
The fall was exhilarating and the scenery unparalleled. But as many times as I’d made this jump before, and it was a whole hell of a lot, the company had never been better. The whole thing had never been better.
I reached for the parachute as we hit our mark on altitude and gave it a solid yank. Slowing down so quickly that it felt like we went back up, Cassie’s screams could definitely be heard this time. But they mingled in with manic laughter.
“You okay, honey?” I asked now that she could hear me, and all I got back was a squeal.
“Give me something other than Phil’s language, baby,” I said with a laugh.
“That. Was. Incredible. Holy fucking shit, I might throw up.”
I chuckled and wrapped one of my long legs around hers. “Do me a favor and wait until we’re on the ground, okay?”
“I’m not in control,” she told me honestly.
“Just look around and breathe, baby. We’ll be down soon.”
I looked up to see Claire and Frankie floating not too far above us. Claire gave another thumbs-up when she caught my gaze.
“Wave hi to Claire and Frankie,” I told Cassie. S
he looked up and let out a scream so loud I wished I’d been able to cover my ears. But it was happy.
And so was I.
The landing zone was coming up fast, so I started reminding Cassie of the important points. “Remember what I told you to do? Legs up in front of you like you’re gonna sit down, okay?”
“Got it!” she yelled in answer.
Down we went, me maneuvering the chute so that we moved slow enough and in the right direction. She did terrific on impact, executing my instructions exactly until we came completely to a stop.
“Wooo!” she screamed in excitement once more. I laughed as I unhooked her from my chest and tapped her on the shoulder to let her know I was done. Before I could move to get up, she turned and tackled me, taking me back to the ground, wrapping her arms around my neck, and pushing her lips to mine.
I had never experienced anything better than that moment.
She let me go and jumped up, hopping around from foot to foot in excitement. I watched her smile, and as the sun glinted off her hair, I just knew.
I never wanted to do this without her.
I didn’t want to do any of it without her anymore.
I was in love with her.
“Cassie,” I called, and her eyes came to me. Claire and Frankie were landing thirty feet away and her attention was split, so I called her name again. “Cassie.”
“What, Thatcher?” she asked. As soon as her eyes locked with mine, I dropped to one knee. We were still nearly the same height.
“What are you doing?” she asked through nervous laughter. I just shook my head and took her hips in my hands.
“Marry me.”
“What?” she yelled.
“I said…marry me.”
“Thatch,” she breathed, just slightly shaking her head in disbelief.
With a clench of my hands, I dug my fingertips into the cushion of her ass and laid down a challenge I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist. Because when it came to this, this truly selfish request to have her as mine for the rest of my life, I didn’t care why she said yes as long as she did.
“What’s the matter, honey? You scared?”
