As Yernia laid her head on his thigh, she stared at Cassian’s face while he was busy looking elsewhere.
Feeling the intensity of her gaze, Cassian glanced back at her, and their eyes met.
Yernia felt dizzy suddenly, and she blamed it on the moonlight.
Her cheeks were flushed with heat.
Her eyes were half-closed, her lips were moist, and her chin was stained with wine.
Cassian’s shaky thumb stroked Yernia’s lower lip.
He couldn’t believe that he saw a side of her that he hadn’t seen before.
“Yernia, don’t you like me?”
“Why would I hate you, Cassian? I don’t hate you, but I felt like I had the worst luck in the entire universe.”
It was amusing how Yernia liked to drink, but she couldn’t tolerate alcohol that much.
She gets drunk quickly, but she can be quite honest if she is under its spell.
Cassian was aware of this.
“Then, do you like me?”
“Well, yes?”
She wanted to be blunt, but she felt her heart tighten for a moment.
Cassian must have expected an unexpected answer from her.
Yernia didn’t see Cassian as something more than family.
It was nothing more than friendship on her side.
“Not like that, Yernia.”
“If it’s other than that, then… what do you mean?” Yernia slurred.
Cassian’s long fingers caressed and gnawed her lips gently.
“I don’t think you know what I mean.”
“Do you mean… if I like you as a man?”
“You’re smart.”
When Yernia moved her lips to speak, his hand had brushed her teeth and touched her tongue a little bit.
At first, she thought she was unconsciously chewing her lips. But when she recognized she was suckling Cassian’s finger, she quickly swatted his hand away.
Yernia scowled at him. “Don’t touch my lips, Cassian.”
“Why?”
“It tickles. Your hands tasted salty, too.”
She broke the sexual tension in the atmosphere, making Cassian laugh.
He didn’t stop like what Yernia wanted.
Instead, he touched Yernia’s sensual lips in more suggestive strokes.
The sight was seductive.
Explicit.
“Well…”
Cassian continued to caress her wet lips, and Yernia groaned without meaning to.
Now, her lips felt ticklish and itchy somehow.
“Cassian…”
“Tell me how you feel about me.”
“I like you. It’s not that I hate you for a reason, but I just can’t imagine the two of us being together. You’re like my brother. My childhood friend.”
Yernia thought he was like a brother to her?
If so, Cassian wondered what her real brother, Evan, was like.
He had never complained about Yernia treating him like a brother before.
Cassian might as well start now.
“If we were both young, I wouldn’t have to feel wronged.”
“What?”
Cassian looked at Yernia, who was drunk for a while and slowly lowered his head.
His raven hair fell forward as he closed the distance between them.
When they had a little space left between their faces, Cassian paused to turn his head.
“All this time, you have been treating me like a brother. I felt wrongly accused, Yernia.” He whispered in her ear.