Page 99 of Tripped By Love
Marco
BLESSED
“I keep checking you for halos,
Swear, you’re an angel in disguise.”
Performed by Thomas Rhett
Written by Lane / Baker
I glanced toward Jonas, whose facewas a grim echo of Trevor’s. Flute music followed by drums filled the lobby from the open doors of the theater. The Painted Daisies was onstage. It explained why we hadn’t drawn a larger crowd, why Cassidy’s parents hadn’t come running to try and rescue her.
She was shaking like a leaf in my arms, and all I could do was wrap her tighter in my embrace. To try and dispel the hate and venom that Clayton Hardy had sent her way. To try and reassure her that everything was going to be okay, even as my own doubts were running wild.
“Jonas, why don’t you go on in with Trevor,” I said to my brother, eyes meeting his and trying to express my gratitude for his showing up at my side. “I’m just going to stay here for a few minutes while Cassidy calms down.”
A little snort escaped Cassidy’s lips, and she said, “Me? Calm down? You’re the one who almost strangled someone.”
It brought a wry grin to Jonas’s lips that matched my own. Jonas gave us one last glance before heading toward the theater doors. Trevor hesitated as if he wanted to say something but then just turned and followed my brother.
I loosened my hold on Cassidy only enough to scan her. He’d had his hands on her when I’d seen them. He’d been pulling her toward the hallway, and my vision had turned red as anger had flooded me. I pulled her arm up, eyeing her dainty wrist.
“Are you hurt?” My voice was garbled with emotions.
She shook her head, but I rubbed over the soft flesh gently, soothingly anyway. Then, I raised it to my lips and kissed it. Her lids fluttered shut before opening again.
“You’re here.” It was a breathy half-whisper. A repeat of the words she’d said when I’d first wrapped my arm around her waist.
I nodded. “I wanted to surprise you.”
My gaze took in the shimmery makeup layered lightly over her face that was surrounded in loose curls tonight and continued down the silky expanse of her shoulders and chest that were on display above the curved line of a light-purple dress. A dress that was completely un-Cassidy-like in that it clung to her shape rather than swung away from it. My body reacted to it without thought, heat filling me, burning from the inside out. I ached to touch her. Kiss her. Pull the dress off of her and put my tongue and lips on every little groove and valley that I’d so carefully memorized in our single night together.
“Well, you succeeded,” she said, drawing my eyes back to her face. “You shouldn’t keep doing that.”
I frowned. “What? Surprising you?”
“Telling Clayton things that aren’t true. That you’re my boyfriend.” Her lips twisted upward. “That we’re getting married.”
My pulse raced. She’d noticed my little slip, then. I had a ring sitting in my bag back at the house. A ring I’d intended to propose with after I’d talked to her about Jonas being with me for good. But I couldn’t do it now. Not yet. Not until we put Hardy behind us. Not until I could prove to myself that Jonas and I wouldn’t take her life and trip it up even more.
“I told you, Angel, I couldn’t let you go once I had you. But…” I glanced toward the exit where Hardy had departed. “But if being with me risks?”
“He isn’t going to get Chevelle,” she cut me off. “And he can’t take what’s ours and destroy it either. I won’t let him.”
What could I have said to that? To a woman so fiercely sure of me that she was willing to take this huge leap of faith to keep me at her side? I stared down at her sweet face, warring with the natural instinct I had to protect her by walking away and the desire to keep every promise I’d made about never leaving her side.
Without the right words, I did the only thing I could. I kissed her wildly, letting the flame leap into life between us. Letting the passion that had eroded both our defenses in Texas take over until there was nothing but us, our bodies, and our souls. The world around us faded away, our emotions echoed by Brady and Palak’s voices singing about the agony of loving someone you couldn’t have.
She broke our kiss with a small laugh. “I’d love to kiss you until you believed me, but I think we need to go in.”
Cassidy O’Neil amazed me. My angel had a strength that ensured she rebounded from any hits directed at her. Maybe a lifetime of picking herself up repeatedly from falls was the reason for it, but no matter the reason, she always got back up.
I took her hand in mine and led her toward the theater where we slid into a back row.
Brady was in full rock-star mode, prancing around the stage in ripped jeans and a “Ghost” T-shirt. It was the song that had truly cemented his success in the country-rock world years ago, and he wore it every time he started a new venture as if it would always bring him luck.
The long-legged, dark-haired force of nature that was Palak moved around him on the stage, mocking and flirting while she sang. Brady was all suave smiles, but every time there was a pause in his lyrics, his eyes drifted to the front row where Tristan sat almost bursting with their first child. Love bled from the look.
