Too Wrong: Hayes Brothers Book 2
Too Wrong: Chapter 15

Weeks pass me by since I accepted Grandad’s offer to take over the company. May turned to June before I noticed. And now, June is almost over, too. The last few weeks are a blur of meetings stretching into late evening hours and mind-blowing sex with Cassidy.

At first, I capped the visits to two a week, but halfway through week two, I couldn’t wait until Saturday and arrived at her flat sooner.

Now, I’m there every other day and still want more. I want to be there twice a day, make her come on my fingers and cock before work, then again after, but I draw a line at every other day. It’s too much, anyway. And somehow wrong that after two months of regular sex, we’re still going at it like bunnies.

Cass opens the door when I come over on Wednesday, a whirlwind of cute annoyance: angry and irritated, cheeks pink, hair gathered into a messy bun on the top of her head. She looks like she spent the afternoon on a treadmill, running at twenty miles an hour.

“Tonight isn’t the best time. I meant to text you, but I forgot. Sorry. Can you come back tomorrow?” she asks but pulls the door open wider. “I’m in the middle of making a mess and hurting myself.” She lifts her finger to her mouth, sucking off blood seeping from a scraped knuckle.

My cock should not grow painfully hard at the sight, but it does. Every move Cassidy makes is ridiculously titillating.

There’s no furniture in the flat. At least not in the living slash kitchen slash dining area. The door to the small bedroom stands open, blocked by the loveseat, the room packed beyond capacity. I doubt even Josh would replace a way to crawl in there.

“My landlord decided to change the floor,” she says while I take in the scene. “But the contractor only had enough time to dismantle the old one today.”

“And you decided to lay the new one down by yourself and without any tools.” I shed my jacket, rolling the sleeves of my long-sleeved jersey. “You’re right. All you’re doing is making a mess.” I point at the chipped hardwood panel in the corner. “Wait for the guy to come back.”

She folds her arms, pushing her boobs out, making it painfully obvious she’s not wearing a bra under the black t-shirt. She’s ridiculously sexy, even when dressed like a slob. Sweatpants hang low on her hip bones, hair spills from the bun, dancing across her shoulders. Her t-shirt is stained with glue, and a smudge of blood marks her forehead.

“That’s the problem,” she huffs, opening the fridge to grab two beers. “The landlord called an hour ago to say the guy won’t come back for two weeks! He’s trying to replace a replacement, but no one will get here tomorrow.” She hands me a bottle of Bud Light, hauls herself onto the counter, and starts nervously peeling off the label from her Corona. “I don’t mind sleeping on the floor for a few nights, but I can’t get to my clothes or the bathroom, and I haven’t peed in six hours.”

Beer won’t help with that.

I assess the space, counting the packs of flooring by the wall to make sure there’s enough, then check what tools are available—a tiny hammer, three screwdrivers, a big-ass kitchen knife, and a tape measure.

Not enough. Was she hoping to cut the panels to size with scissors?

I didn’t come over here to lay the floor down. I came to lay Cass down and eat her out, but there’s nowhere to lay her down.

Shit. I guess DIY it is.

I set the beer aside, marching out of the flat to fetch a toolbox from the trunk of my car. It’s an old habit to have it stashed in there. I enjoy the occasional handyman work and became the go-to guy in the family whenever anything needed fixing, but for the past year, I’ve been locked in my office and hardly had time to play with tools.

Now that I’m taking over Stone & Oak, I won’t be getting my hands dirty at all.

“I thought you left,” Cassidy says when I return, dropping the toolbox in the middle of the room that’s no bigger than my master bathroom. “I can do this by myself, Logan.”

“Say thank you and get your pretty butt here to help.” I dismantle the three panels she laid down, then open a roll of floor insulation. “This goes first.”

“I thought it was to cover the parts of the floor that are done while I work on the rest,” she admits, helping me roll out the insulation and cut it to size. “Okay, what’s next?” She’s excited now, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a smile.

Her face lights up with that smile, and I can’t catch my breath for a second. That stupid compressor fires up in my chest, inflating my lungs to the point they synch around my heart.

“Now, we lay the floor,” I say, clearing my throat. “No glue, though. It clicks in place.”

I show her how it’s done and when she gets the hang of it, I let her work while I cut the panels to size to fill in the gaps by the walls. Half an hour later, half of the room is done, and the bottle of Bud Light beside me sits empty.

“We need more beer, baby.”

I swear internally, assembling my face into stock indifference while avoiding her eyes, focused on the task. No biggie.

Yeah, right.

Things are getting out of hand if I can’t keep the endearments in check outside the bedroom.

Cass either doesn’t notice or chooses not to make a big deal out of it, for which I’m eternally grateful. Fucking her out of my system isn’t working. I thought I’d be over the attraction by now. We’ve had sex in every position imaginable and on every surface in her flat, but I can’t get my fill of this girl no matter what. She’s Xanax, and by the look of it, I have severe anxiety.

I’m stepping on thin ice coming over here every other day. At some point, someone will notice. Someone will spot me leaving her flat, and the news will reach my brothers, and then… I don’t even want to go there.

“I signed up for swimming lessons,” she says, handing me another beer. “I had my first lesson yesterday.”

“Oh yeah? How did that turn out?”

“Not too well.” She yanks her t-shirt up to reveal a red and purple bruise on her back. A spike of anger jabs me in the ribs. Her instructor, whoever he is, should get a kicking for letting this happen to her. “I slipped on the ladder while getting into the pool and went under.”

Cold shivers chase up my back, and my stomach feels hollow when the image of her lifeless body flickers in front of my eyes as vividly as if it’s happening in real time. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the fear rising in my chest when I pumped air into her lungs, trying to bring her back.

“I get that you can’t swim, but there’s more to it, right? You’re afraid of water.”

“It’s not as odd as it sounds,” she insists, cinching her shoulder blades together. She stops clipping the floor in place, suddenly as rigid as a taxidermy animal. “I don’t mind water in the tap. Only when it’s deep enough to submerge my head.”

I swallow around the hot lump lodged in my throat. The look in those cornflower-blue eyes of hers makes my skin itch. It’s not sadness. No, this is more sinister: vulnerability laced with fear. Her aquaphobia isn’t without reason. Something happened to trigger the response.

“Did you drown as a kid?” I ask, trying and failing to keep my tone light. I’m ticking inside, remembering what she told me about foster care.

Let’s say I quickly understood that hunger and loneliness aren’t the worst feelings.

Cass turns the other way, gritting her teeth to stop the memories from overwhelming her. She resumes clipping the next panel in place but tosses it aside ten seconds later. “I was five…” Sitting with her back to me, she stares at the balcony door as if she can’t look me in the eye while telling the story. “It was the only holiday my parents organized. Nothing fancy, just a few nights at a cheap motel in Laguna Beach. There was a pool there,” she sighs quietly. “I remember how excited I was because I’ve never been in a pool before. I hadn’t even seen one at that point, so I spent most of the first day in the water while my parents sunbathed, drinking on the loungers.”

I don’t like where this is heading. A heavy, ominous aura settles around us. An airless mounting sense of unease that makes my skin crawl. I’m glad she trusts me enough to speak, but I dread what she’ll say next when she tucks loose strands of hair behind her ears, hanging her head low.

“My dad was nodding on and off, and Mom yelled at him to go back to our room. She wasn’t drinking heavily in public back then, but she was far from sober. I remember Dad swaying on his feet, too drunk to see straight. He toppled over into the pool, and the cool water sobered him up a bit. Enough to realize he had to get out.”

My hands ball into tight fists, anger rising in my mind, chest, and heart. This is worse than I could’ve anticipated.

Worse than I imagined.

“He used me as leverage to keep his head above the water, pushing me under over and over again,” she continues, her voice void of emotions. Her words are distant, as if she’s reading a script instead of reliving the hell she went through. “Mom ran inside to get help. I was only five, but I remember it so clearly… the bubbles rushing to the surface around me, the pain screaming in my lungs filling with water, how Dad fought in a frenzy, afraid to drown, but not afraid to drown me.” She straightens her spine, exhaling a defeated breath. “The pool wasn’t that deep. Water wouldn’t reach higher than his neck if he stood, but he was too drunk to realize.”

Words fail me. I’m shaking inside so hard my bones feel like bobbleheads. What do I say to a girl who was almost killed by her father? I’ve heard my fair share of gore stories like this one from Shawn, but they were always about strangers. No one I knew or even met, so it never hit me this hard.

“What happened next?” I ask, my voice rough, throat dry. “Shit, Cass… tell me he paid for hurting you.”

She shakes her head softly. “I don’t know what happened later. I woke up at the hospital the next morning and spent three days in the ICU. When I came home, Dad was there, drunk.” She lifts her head and slowly turns around.

No tears stain her cheeks. Not one glistens in her eyes. It’s like another stab straight through my neck. She should cry. She should feel, but she seems numb and hollow inside.

I cuff her wrist and pull her in, cradling her in my lap, forcing her to cuddle into my chest.

We’re not a couple.

Our relationship doesn’t include hugging.

I doubt she considers me a friend, but my reaction is an involuntary reflex. I don’t know if she feels safe with me, but I sure fucking hope so. She lifts her hand slowly, carefully as if unsure if she’s allowed, but ends up weaving her fingers in the hair at the back of my head.

“In one of the foster homes when I was fifteen, there was a boy my age,” she says, her warm breath fanning my neck. “He hated the whole world on principle. I’m sure he was hurt as a child, and it was his way of dealing with the issues, but…” She inhales deeply, nuzzling her face further into me. “He quickly learned that I’m afraid of water and shoved my head in the bathtub almost every day so he could see me kick and scream as if my fear gave him some sick pleasure.”

I have the urge to replace and gut the fucker. Him and Cass’s dad, too. We might only be sleeping around on paper, but she’s been a part of my life in one way or another for years. I can’t stand on the sideline, unaffected by what she said.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that, princess.”

“It’s okay. In a way, you overrode the bad memories when you pulled me out of the pool at Theo’s. You were so gentle with me and determined to calm me down. Zack laughed when I coughed up water on the bathroom floor. Seeing you try to help… I don’t know. It lessened the fear somehow.”

My chest fills with a sense of pride, and my hold on her tightens on its own accord. She starts to relax against me. Her muscles have more give in them, but I can feel how hard her heart pounds against her ribs.

Only then do I realize I’ve been stroking her hair, combing it back behind her ear over and over again. It seems to have a soothing effect on her, so I don’t stop.

I should, but I won’t.

“Two years later, I was taken in by an older couple who couldn’t have their own kids. They were lovely people, and I learned to trust them after months of help and affection. They paid for my therapy. I healed as much as I could. I don’t let what happened in my past define me, but…” she chuckles weakly, inching away to look at me. “I don’t like water, and I don’t think it’ll ever change.” She moves away, sliding off my lap to continue the job.

I can’t help the disappointment settling over me. Having her close when it wasn’t leading to sex, when it was just a moment of affection… fuck. It felt right.

Everything about us is wrong. Too wrong, but that moment just now was so fucking right.

I want to reassure her somehow, put a smile back on her face, but I doubt she wants pity.

Within the hour, the floor is done, and her bedroom is decluttered. We spend the next hour in the shower and in bed, but sex is different tonight. I don’t want things to change, but I can’t do shit about how I feel. My touch on her body is more tender, my kisses deeper, and it means more.

It’s not just another physical endeavor.

It’s still hot and demanding, but the warmth filling my chest and how affected I am by her touch is new.