“Cassidy.”
“Fuck you!” She turned and headed back toward the door, this time wrenching it open. “Fred!”
But Fred was already standing outside the bedroom door, expression worried.
She stormed out of the room as best she could, considering she needed to hold the pant legs up to keep from tripping over the length.
She smacked open the screen door, holding it as she waited for Fred to slink by, aware of the tension in the air. She watched Mac from where he watched her, leaning against his bedroom door frame. She ventured, “There were about two minutes. Two minutes where—”
His eyes narrowed, and he shifted against the door, cutting her off. “It’s late. Good night.”
Cassidy took in the magnificence that was his physical form, naked against the door, brooding, dark features still irresistible even though she wanted more than anything to slap him, hurt him, the way he’d hurt her. But her parting words were more intentional. “Goodbye.”
Outside, she picked up her dress and underwear. Tears gathered as she held the items to herself, walking away from the cabin, feeling his eyes on her. She paused at the end of the dock, looking out over the lake. Then she turned and headed home.
Well, she’d accomplished what she’d wanted. She was far from safe.
Chapter twenty-nine
Cassidy
LIE IN THE BED SHE'D MADE
Curleduponthefloor of her shower, face buried in her raised knees as the hot water pounded over her, she relived the night over and over.
How stupid was she to have thought Mac’s ease with her, his smiles, his charm, had meant something? Something more than sex. And yet still she sat here, knowing how he’d treated her, and she couldn’t stop the ache; the want.
She’d been so long without a connection. What was wrong withconnecting? He hadn’t needed to be so cruel. She wasn’t going to start making demands on him. What was it he’d said? Exclusive rights?
Ha! Cassidy was surprised any woman looked at him twice considering how he behaved afterward, so ridiculing.
And then her head snapped up, and she blinked against the spray.
There was no way Darlene would withstand such treatment and go back for more, which meant he didn’t treat Dar that way. And most likely any of the other women he’d been with.
It was her.
Only her.
Confused and feeling stupid, she tired to cling to something meaningful where there was nothing.
Enjoying being inside you, Day.
Not that I haven’t seen you… will want to fuck you again if I do.
Fucking heaven, this.
He’dkissedher, something Darlene said he never did.
How did the gesture mean nothing? That she was just another in the rotation?
“Jesus, I’m acting like a teenager,” she scolded herself. Moving off the shower floor, she reached for the nozzles before the hot water ran out and was doused with cold. “He doesn’t get to reduce me to a teenager.”
Mac didn’t get to reduce her toanything.
She’d asked for it, he’d given her what she wanted, and now she had to lie in the bed she’d made.
If only she was more like Dar because, as it turned out, he was the man Dar said he was.