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Chapter 6

Paul's POV

It takes every ounce of willpower I have not to slam my door shut when I get into my bedroom. This was not how this was supposed to go. Cassie was not supposed to get flustered around me. Her heart wasn't supposed to be hammering out of her chest every time we were close to each other. We were not supposed to ever be so close that I could literally feel sparks fly.

She was supposed to see me as her soon-to-be step-brother. Not be fucking attracted to me. As angry as I am, though, I'm not angry at her.

I'm angry at myself. Angry for potentially slashing her face open with ice. Angry for letting myself hold her when she can't be mine – not yet anyway. Angry for not being able to warm her up on the walk home. But mostly, angry for being the one responsible for the disappointed look on her face when I told her I was going to bed.

Sitting on my bed, I rest my head on my hands – resisting the urge to scream. Or phase. I needed to get my hormones under control; then, I needed to go downstairs, apologize, and ask if the offer to watch Once Upon a Time was still standing.

Before I get that control, however, I overhear Cassie talking in a hushed but frantic tone from downstairs. Instantly, my attention perks as I strain to hear what she's saying. I know I shouldn't, but the house is quiet enough that with my enhanced hearing, I can easily hear her voice. Whoever she's talking to, on the other hand, is too muffled to make out. Since I'm pretty sure she hasn't made any friends at school this week, I'm assuming it's her friend "Ricki".

Because it's not like I didn't want to punch a thousand walls when I thought the answer to my dad's joke was yes.

It only takes me a second to realize she's relaying what happened tonight on our walk home. She's definitely almost towards the end of the story. To my relief, she doesn't seem disgusted at the interaction. But, like I said, she sounds pretty frantic.

"What am I supposed to do?" She's a terrible whisperer when she panics. Even without my wolf hearing, I'd probably be able to overhear some of it. "I'm crushing on my fucking step-brother!"

I freeze. That sentence would be music to my ears if it wasn't for the fact that this isn't a typical imprint relationship. We cannot go down that road with the wedding weeks away.

Either she put her friend on speaker phone or her friend was yelling, because I overhear a perky voice exclaim, "Your parents are outta town. Go upstairs and tell him you wanna bang him!"

This time it's my heart that's pounding out of my chest; not that my heart is the only thing that's throbbing. Part of me is hoping she'll take her friend's advice, but I also know how much that cannot happen.

And how much I want it to happen.

"Ricki!" Cassie's tone is scolding, but also flustered. "You need to stop talking like that. He's my step-brother." Her words almost bring me back to reality, until she adds quietly, "We'd both know I'd just be embarrassing myself if I did anyway."

The embarrassment in her voice breaks my heart. Does she really think I'd tell her no? I groan. Of course she does. I'm going to be her step-brother. I shouldn't be fantasizing about her. Imprint or not, right now we need to be siblings. Which means I definitely shouldn't be eavesdropping on a private conversation.

Before I can hear anything else about me, I grab my earphones and put my iPod on full blast. Eventually I must drift off to sleep, because suddenly my room is pitch black and the alarm clock on my bedside table says it's nearly 3 a.m... Turning off the iPod, I throw it onto my bedside table, groaning. I have patrol in a few hours. The last thing I want is be up all night.

As I turn over, pulling the covers over my head, I hear strange noises coming from Cassie's room. At first I think the noises are just because she's breathing heavily, but it doesn't take me long to recognize that they're moans.

My hormones catch on fire of images of what she could possibly be doing over there run through my mind. Eventually, I realize she's tossing and turning, so she's probably just having a dream. That doesn't cool me down any. Because, as wrong as it is, part of me hopes she's dreaming about me.

Fuck. So much for falling back asleep before patrol.

Cassie's POV

"Oh my god," I gasp, sitting up frantically in bed. Running my hand through my tangled hair, I try to catch my breath. I'm drenched in sweat, my bed sheets are a snarled mess, and my heart is beating rapidly in my chest, but I have much bigger problems to worry about.

I just had one of the wildest dreams of my life. And it was about Paul.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" I whisper, maneuvering out of my mess of blankets to get out of bed. It's nearly three-thirty in the morning. Quickly, I stumble through the dark towards the bathroom. I splash water on my flushed face, trying to cool down.

Logically, I tell myself that I only had a dream like that because it's been awhile, and he was the person in it as either because my brain has a twisted way of telling me I'm not yet accepting of him being my step-brother or because of what happened earlier tonight.

With a sigh, I grab a hair tie off the sink and pull my hair out of my face into a pony tail. I just need to go back to bed and pretend like that dream never happened. After all, it's a dream; nobody else will know. I drench my face with cold water one more time, before flicking off the bathroom light and heading back to my room. The moonlight shines through the window, lighting up the hallway enough for me to see.

However, it's not bright enough for me to notice a figure walking towards the bathroom.

I stifle a scream, although my heart has been pounding too much since I woke up for my pulse to possibly increase at the scare. "Paul, you scared me!"

His laugh echoes through the empty hallway. He runs his hand through his bed-messed hair. He's not wearing a shirt, just boxers, and even in the dim lighting I can see his chiseled abs. I have to use all my strength to not let my eyes wander south of the 'v' below his abdomen.

Oh god. My pulse races just at the sight of him, and I know my logic about my dream was wrong. It wasn't some psycho-analysis crap; I just blatantly want him.

"Sorry," he replies with a smirk. "You okay? You look, um, a little flustered." Paul lets out as amused chuckle.

I feel my face blush even deeper, which I notice makes his smirk grow even wider. What if he knows? "Yeah, I-I'm fine. Just had, um, a bad dream. That's all." Bad wasn't technically wrong.

Instantly, the slightly cocky expression I thought I saw on his face disappears. He reaches out, almost instinctively, and strokes my arm soothingly. "Are you okay?"

I just away from his touch. While I thought I was being subtle, unfortunately, I jump almost directly into the wall. "Yeah, great. Promise," I lie, backing away carefully towards my room. "Goodnight."

Paul looks immensely confused, slightly concerned, and a little bit amused – probably at the humiliation I just bestowed upon myself by jumping into a wall. Nonetheless, he says goodnight and continues on towards the bathroom.

I shut my door quietly and flop onto my bed.

Well, I won't have to worry about ruining my mom's marriage, because I'm sure that little incident showed Paul how pathetic I am. Sighing, I shut my eyes and try to fall back to sleep. I'm probably being paranoid. It's completely plausible that he thought I was flustered from a scary dream and jumped away from him because I was still jumpy over the dream.

At least, that's what I'm going to tell myself if I'm gonna fall asleep tonight.

…

When I wake up on Monday morning, I'm slightly stunned at how bright it is in my room. Even though it's starting to get light earlier, I really didn't expect it to be this bright. I groan, rolling over to grab my phone off my bedside table.

"Fuck!" I exclaim, noticing that it's nearly ten o'clock. How could I have slept in this late? Why didn't my mother wake me up before she left for work? Paul and I haven't really talked since Friday night's events, but I'm pretty sure it's just because he hasn't been home. Why didn't he wake me up?

Without bothering to shower, I throw on some jeans and a hoodie, pull my hair into a pony tail, and rush to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I run down the stairs and somehow manage not to fall flat on my face.

"Where are you going?" Paul's voice asks curiously. I notice him walk out of the kitchen, banana in hand.

I pause putting on my boot to shoot him a confused look. "School? Why are you still here?"

"Snow day," he responds, mid-bite of his banana. "You looked pretty tired, so your mom didn't wanna wake you up to tell you. I guess."

"Oh," I say, feeling a little stupid as I place my boot back on the rack.

He smirks. "You look disappointed that we don't have school. What the hell is wrong with you Cass?"

I grin shyly at him, but I'm really relieved he's acting normal. I was a little worried that it hadn't been a coincidence that I hadn't seen him in a couple days and that he was actually ignoring me. "I just didn't expect a snow day. Did it snow that much?"

He nods towards the door. "You tell me."

With a shrug, I open the front door. "Shit," I murmur, surprised at the nearly three feet of snow on the ground. Quickly, I shut the door. It's also freaking cold outside. "Guess I'm not going anywhere today."

"Lucky," Paul remarks, walking towards the living room.

"Lucky?" I ask nosily, following him in. "Where are you going? You can't drive in this!"

Paul laughs. "Our parents went to work. I'm sure I would be fine. Anyway, I won't be going anywhere soon. I don't have to work until five. I doubt that will be cancelled, though." He sits on the couch, but I stand in the doorway, not sure if I should join him.

"Sam would make you work outside in this weather? What kind of trouble are people going to get into anyway with three feet of snow on the ground?"

Paul chuckles, seemingly amused, but just shrugs. "Yeah he would. You never know."

I roll my eyes. "He seems like a hard ass."

He bursts out laughing. "You can say that again." Grabbing the remote, he turns on the television. "You wanna watch that show?"

"Once Upon a Time?" I clarify. When he nods, I tease, "I'm surprised you want to watch the dumb show."

Smirking, he pats the couch beside him. "Shut it or else I might change my mind."

Shaking my head at his ridiculousness, I sit on the couch – leaving a fair amount of space between us. We begin watching the show, and honestly, we don't do much else all day. In fact, the only time we stop is to grab lunch and snacks. It's kind of nice. We really don't talk much though because Paul is so absorbed in the show. Which I find adorable.

When we're about to start the ninth episode, I notice that it's nearly five o'clock. Exiting out of Netflix so the next episode doesn't start, I inquire, "Paul, don't you need to go to work?"

He checks the time on his phone, then curses under his breath. "Yeah. I do." He pulls himself off the couch. "We should watch more this weekend; I don't have any patrols."

"You have a shitty memory," I tell him, giggling.

Cocking his head to the side, Paul shoots me an extremely confused glance.

"I'm in Port Angeles this weekend. Visiting my dad."

His mouth forms an 'o' shape as realization hits. "Oh yeah, the dad you're not super exciting to see."

"No." I shake my head quickly. "It's not that. He's really not that bad."

Paul shoots me a dubious look. "Your mom would say differently."

Rolling my eyes, I point out, "My mom is obviously biased. He's just not really … paternal? Like he tries, and he cares. He's just really absorbed into his career, and he kinda puts that above everything else."

Paul smiles sympathetically but doesn't say anything. He just stands there awkwardly, as if he's unsure if it's okay to leave after that conversation.

"You're going to be late! Go to work!" I laugh.

Nodding, he heads towards the door. "Don't watch it without me!"

"I've already seen it, remember?" I yell after him, biting back a grin. How the hell is it so easy to push awkward situations aside and have everything go back to normal with him?

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