Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“Good,” he said, nodding. “Sleep.”
“I will.”
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
With that, he lumbered off, leaving me alone. Uncaught.
And a mix of satisfied down to my bones… and disappointed beyond measure that I wasn’t still upstairs in bed with Perish.
That was dangerous thinking.
But it was all my mind (and heart) would ponder until, eventually, I finally passed out.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Perish
My bed smelled like her.
I stayed in bed embarrassingly late for that very reason, my mind replaying every touch, taste, sigh, cry, and shiver until my cock was rock-hard at just the memory of her.
Only when the voices got too loud in the common room did I force myself to get up, take a cold shower, and get dressed.
“Laz made breakfast,” Brooks said as he passed me with a plate.
I made my way in, and my fucking gaze immediately zeroed in on Gracie. With her bed-messy hair. She had her pink robe on over that little outfit from the night before but looked like she’d just gotten up.
“‘Morning,” I said, hoping none of the weird-ass skipping in my chest was clear in my voice.
“‘Morning,” she said. “Coffee?” she asked, since she was standing at the pot.
“Yeah,” I agreed, glad for an excuse to get close to her. “Let me guess,” she said, shooting me a little smirk. “You take it black.”
“Take it however,” I said with a shrug.
“Might not want to say that to her,” Croft warned. “She puts all kinds of shit in hers.”
“He’s not wrong,” Gracie admitted, passing me a mug, her fingers stroking mine in the process. The sensation was like a shiver down my spine. “And Cain picked up a whole rack of flavors,” she added, waving at the new additions.
“She told me our coffee here made her sad,” Cain said with a shrug as he took a plate from Laz.
A rumbling sound started in my chest, and I had to cough to cover it up.
The fuck was that?
Jealousy?
That Cain knew her coffee preferences and I didn’t? The fuck did that matter?
“Wanna hook me up with something?” Spike asked, passing her an empty mug.
My eyes narrowed at him.
But he wasn’t paying attention.
“Sure! Do you have preferences or do you want me to surprise you?”
“Just fuck me up,” Spike said, making Gracie let out a twinkling laugh.
My hand threatened to crush my mug.
Because everything in me was screaming that that was my smile and my laugh.
“You good?” Rune asked, making me look away from Spike and Gracie.
“Yeah. Just waiting for the sugar,” I said, shrugging it off.
Again, though, I felt like Rune was seeing shit he had no business seeing.
Luckily, though, he said nothing, just grabbed the hot sauce out of the cabinet and moved back out to the living room.
Spike finally stopped chatting up Gracie, took his coffee, and disappeared as well.
“Hey, Goose,” Lazarus said, making Gracie’s eyes squint with how big her smile was. “Still no bacon, right?” he asked as he started to make a plate for her.
“No bacon,” she confirmed.
“Why no bacon?” I asked, unable to help myself.
“Pigs are my favorite animal.”
“One of her asshole cousins told her when she was little that the little piggy that ‘went to the market’ was actually getting butchered. She cried for a week straight.”
“I did. I did that,” she agreed, taking her plate. “Though, to be fair, I cry over everything.”
Laz gave her a soft look. “It’s good to be soft in a hard world. Don’t ever lose that.” He turned back to pile up a much heavier plate for me. “You two might want to grab this table. It’s getting full out there,” he said, nodding toward the kitchen table.
We both shuffled our feet awkwardly but moved to sit down.
“So, uh, why pigs?” I asked.
“Have you ever seen a pig?” she asked. “Their noses and little oinks.”
“They’re kinda filthy.”
“They have no sweat glands! If they don’t stay wet, they can’t cool off. Birds are the same way. But they have access to enough water to bathe. Most pigs don’t.”
“You visit the pigs over at Kit and Ariah’s place?”
“Every chance I get.”
“You gonna get one?”
“A pig?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would I get a pig?”
“For a pet.”
“Oh, no, no. The whole ‘mini pig’ thing is mostly a myth. They’re more like a really dense medium-sized dog.”
“Don’t like dogs?”
“I love dogs. But I think I’d get a smaller dog if or when I get one.”
Eventually, Lazarus finished the last of the cooking and took a plate with him into the other room when he heard some of the other guys head outside.
Gracie’s shoulders relaxed when we were alone again. I liked that she felt at ease around me more than was probably normal.
She exhaled hard and shot round eyes at me.
“Did that feel awkward or was it just me?”
“It’s just us. For obvious reasons. They didn’t suspect anything.”
“Good,” she said, poking at her eggs.
“Eggs no good either?”