Page 148 of Shattered Veil

Not that she was my territory.

She was her own territory.

She was.

But she was mine.

Cassie glanced at me with playfully narrowed eyes as if she had read my every thought, and I immediately thanked my good graces that I hadn’t spoken anything along those lines aloud. Throwing Garrett a begrudging waggle of my fingers in greeting, he returned it with a megawatt smile that made me chew on my tongue, and without skipping a beat, he turned to grab my usual whiskey. He held up the bottle in question with a raised brow. I nodded, and he went to work.

At the table that we used whenever Luke and Claire were off the clock, we sat in our usual seats, her on my left and I on her right. Already having arrived and received their own drinks, Luke and Claire spoke a simultaneous:

“Hey.”

We returned it—me with an uptick of my head and Cassie with a chipper, “Hi,” and once again, they talked at the same time.

“You still staying at Jay’s, Cas?” had come from Claire’s mouth, while Luke had merely asked how my day went as he had known that it was my first shift back at work.

Luke tipped his head to the side as he looked to her with a disbelieving smile.

“Claire,” he laughed her name.

She hummed back, “Mhm?”

“Didn’t we talk about this?”

“Whatever do you mean?” she coyly replied. “It’s a simple question. They’ve never shown up somewhere together…so I’m asking.”

“Not prying,” he stated as if it were a reminder. “We’re not prying—weren’t you the one to say that we shouldn’t be prying?” Luke feigned, waiting for Claire to reply. She opened her mouth to do so, and he mockingly cut her off, “I distinctly remember—”

“Yes, I’m still at Jay’s,” Cassie admitted, matter of fact.

Claire high-beamed on her. “Is that right?”

“A lot happened to make me bunk there for a bit, no?” she responded with a single, high eyebrow. “I’ll get back to my place soon.”

“No rush,” I told her, and she shot me a crooked grin.

My drink was set before me, and we all looked to Garrett as he remarked, “Cas, I have to go grab another bottle of Jack from the back, so give me a sec—”

Without hesitation, she reached for my glass, took a hefty sip, smiled as if her insides were immune to fire, and took it as her own.

“That’s okay, Garrett—Jay’s gonna have another.”

Garrett murmured an understanding, “Right,” as he turned to move to the bar. “Be back.”

“I’ll buy your next one?”

Cassie was looking at me with a glint in her warm eyes that challenged me as she always did, and as I had done in the past, I imagined tucking the stray strands of hair behind her ear, pulling her to me, and kissing her so deeply that I could taste my whiskey.

Only this time, there was no need to sit back and imagine. My gaze wandered down to her mouth, her teeth bit at her lower lip, and I did it all—basking in every movement. Her hair was silky between my fingertips. The deep pull of whiskey she took had already seemed to bring a flush to her cheeks that I could feel on my palm. Her husky chuckle as I ushered her toward me with a curl of my hand on her neck played in my ears like soft music, and my whiskey on her lips—and oh-so-briefly on her tongue—sent me soaring.

Claire squealed, “AH!” as Luke groaned:

“Good God, Jay.”

At my brother’s complaint of our expressive public display of affection, I pulled away.

“Yes,” I told Cassie. “You’re buying my next one.”

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