Chapter 47
BEATRICE
“Ow, you motherfucker,” I cry as pain shoots through my foot and up my leg.
Lifting my foot from the floor, I clutch it in my hand as tears spring to my eyes.
I twist around on one foot and rest my ass against the stupid island that caused this stupid injury.
It’s my own fault. I should have turned on the light.
But I didn’t want to risk waking Everett.
He should be sleeping like a normal person.
Not a pregnant woman who hasn’t slept properly in weeks, who finally got peace and quiet while lying in the most comfortable bed her ass has ever had the pleasure of being in.
God, it was so good. So needed.
But now, I’m wide awake, and it’s the middle of the night, and I suspect I’ve probably fucked myself up even more by sleeping all day.
My toe throbs as I clutch it.
“Shit,” I hiss when I feel wetness on my fingers.
Fucking hell, could this get any worse?
“What did you do?” a deep voice suddenly asks, startling me before the lights come on, illuminating me and making me wince.
“Fuck, that’s bright.”
“Sorry,” he rasps, although he doesn’t look it as he marches toward me with his brows pinched, wearing only…oh God. Wearing only a tight pair of boxer briefs.
My eyes track down his body, taking in all the ink and rippling muscles.
He is every bit as incredible as I imagined that night, and every night since.
My mouth runs dry as my eyes lock on the bulge behind that scrap of fabric. Yep, there is no hiding what he’s rocking.
A steady ache starts up between my thighs, and my temperature soars.
“Shit, you’re bleeding,” he states, snapping me out of my lust-filled daze.
“Oh, um…” My words vanish when he steps closer, his fresh manly scent flooding my nose. "I’m okay,” I squeak, needing him to back the fuck off so I don’t risk embarrassing myself by climbing him like a tree.
“You’re bleeding,” he repeats a beat before he wraps his hands around my waist and lifts me from my one foot.
I gasp as my bare thighs connect with his ice-cold countertops.
“What are you—” My words die when he drops to his haunches before me and reaches for my foot.
“Why didn’t you turn the light on?” he asks.
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
He glances up at me with an amused glint in his eyes. “Didn’t stop you from swearing at my furniture, though, did it?”
I can’t help but smile despite the pain shooting up my leg and the desire that’s building inside me.
“Well, it shouldn’t have jumped out at me in the middle of the night.”
He chuckles, and the depth of it hits me right in the clit.
Goddamn it. I knew I should have tried to discreetly pack my vibrator.
If my buzzing bestie can’t hit the spot, I’ve got no chance of my fingers doing it.
I don’t realize just how heavy my sigh is until he looks back up at me. “I’m sorry my magically moving furniture hurt you.”
“Oh no, it’s not that. It’s just…”
What are you doing? Shut your mouth right this second, Beatrice Walsh.
“Just what?” he asks, still holding onto my poor foot.
“Just…um…nothing. Just nothing.”
His eyes narrow as he holds mine, as if he looks long enough, the answer he wants will emerge within them.
“Okay,” he finally states. “I’m going to clean this up.”
He releases my foot and stands back to full height, giving me another full shot of his insane body.
“N-no, it’s okay. I can sort myself out. You go back to bed.”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” he explains as he walks toward the side of the apartment I’m yet to explore.
He disappears for a few seconds before he emerges with an impressively large first-aid kit.
“Whoa, that’s a big one.”
The most wicked smirk curls at his lips.
“That’s what they all say,” he quips before winking at me. “But you already know all about that, don’t you?”
I pretend to think for a moment. “I can’t really remember.”
His smirk grows. He knows damn well I’m lying, and I curse myself for being so readable.
“If you say so. It’s a damn shame, if you ask me,” he mocks as he flips the kit open. “It was a good night. The best, actually,” he adds while rummaging for something.
“So I rate quite highly on your long list of conquests. Can’t lie, I’m shocked. Some of the women you’ve been seen with—”
“You’re more than every single one of them,” he states, looking up and directly into my eyes.
My breath catches at the honesty in his. “Oh?” I breathe.
Finally, he finds what he’s looking for and lifts the antibacterial wipe packet to his mouth and rips it open, much like he did the condom that night.
My fingers curl around the edge of the counter as I fight to keep my whimper locked down. I can’t stop my thighs from clenching, though. All I can hope is that he’s too distracted with providing me medical attention to notice.
With the wipe in hand, he drops to his knees.
“This is probably going to hurt.”
“Good practice for childbirth then,” I quip, before hissing through my teeth when he presses it against my busted toe.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I force out as the sting begins to subside.
“How did you make this much mess from just kicking the island?”
I shrug, because I don’t think he’s actually expecting a response.
I watch, enthralled as he cleans me up. I’ve managed to split the skin on my knuckle, but I can still wiggle it, so I don’t think I’ve broken anything.
Not that there is much we could do if I had, Everett reluctantly tells me.
Considering what he does for a living and the number of injuries he must sustain, I take his word for it and allow him to wrap my poor toe in a Band-Aid.
“There,” he states before standing again. “Should be good as new in a few days.”
“Thank you,” I say, forcing my eyes to stay on his face. “And sorry for getting you out of bed.”
“Anytime,” he says before getting rid of the trash and plucking a bottle of water from the fridge.
He twists the top off, lifts it to his lips, and drinks.
His throat ripples with every swallow, and I can’t look away.
How is something as simple as drinking so freaking hot?
Because he’s Everett Donnelly, and everything he does is hot.
“Did you want a bottle?” he asks, lowering his when he’s drunk three quarters of it.
I shake my head as he lifts his other hand and wipes his mouth with the back of it.
He frowns. “What was it you came for?”
You.
My cheeks blaze even though I manage to keep that response to myself.
“Oh, um…a drink.”
He studies me with a small smile. I’m not sure if he thinks I’m the most irritating person he’s ever met, or if I’m bordering on cute.
“You’re more than every single one of them.” His words from before come back to me.
Surely, he doesn’t really mean that. He’s just being nice to me because I have his baby in my uterus. He has to be nice to me. It certainly isn’t because I’m prettier or sexier than any of those who came before—or, hell, after—me.
“Okay,” he teases. “Did you want to give me a clue as to what drink, and I can see if I have it?”
“Oh, umm…”
I knew what I wanted when I came out here. But my plan was to have a silent snoop through his cupboards to see if it was possible before trying to convince my body that something else would settle my craving when I ultimately came up empty-handed.
Everett has only been living here for a few months. We’re in the height of summer; there is no way he’ll have what I want.
He drains his bottle, throws it into the recycling, crosses his thick arms over his chest, and waits.
“I know it’s July and everything, but I really wanted a hot chocolate.”
“Hot chocolate?” he echoes.
“Yeah. But forget it. A bottle of water will be just fine.”
His brow creases as if he’s not understanding what I’m saying.
“Okay,” he finally agrees before pulling another bottle from the fridge and handing it to me.
The second I wrap my fingers around it, he steps closer and hoists me from the counter before swinging me into his arms.
“I can walk, you know. It’s only my toe.” My argument is weak at best because, honestly, it feels so freaking good in his arms.
“I’m aware. Now where to? Couch or bed?”
I should say bed, but I know I’m not going to be able to sleep again for a while. I do need to get my cookies, though. I snuffled a few before getting out of bed to stave off my nausea, but they’ll only last so long.
“Couch, please,” I say when Everett hovers, waiting for an answer. “But could you…” I hesitate, feeling weird about asking him to do anything for me. It’s enough that he brought me here to have peace.
“Could I what?” he asks after lowering me to his couch.
“No, it’s okay.”
“What do you want, sweetheart?”
My heart thuds at the sound of his nickname for me, and I quickly find the words rolling off my tongue.
“Please could you get me the ginger cookies? They’re…on the bed.”
His mouth twitches. “You were eating cookies in bed.”
“Uh, yeah. I wake up nauseous and—”
“It’s okay. I’m not mad. It’s just…I’m usually the one who eats cookie in bed,” he quips as he marches toward our bedrooms, leaving me with the delicious sight of his hockey butt as he walks away.
A girly giggle erupts. “You did not just say that,” I call after him.
“Not here, though. I’ve never eaten any cookie in my apartment.”
“Maybe we should fix that,” I shout, not thinking. “No. Shit. That’s not what I meant.” It totally was. “I meant you can have one of my cookies in bed and—” I give up trying to dig myself out of the hole I’ve created when his laughter echoes through the apartment.
I wait for him to return with the packet, but he doesn’t.
I hear him moving around, but he doesn’t emerge for long minutes, and when he does, he has my cookies, and he’s fully dressed. At two a.m.
“Going somewhere?” I ask as I pull a cookie from the packet.
“Yeah, the store. Did you want anything else?”
“Anything else?” I ask with a frown. “N-no, I don’t…What are you going for?”
“Hot chocolate,” he states, as if it should be obvious.
“Everett, it’s the middle of the night. You don’t have to—”
“There’s a store right around the corner. I’ll be ten minutes at most,” he says as he pulls on a backward baseball cap.
Oh, holy crap balls. That’s almost as hot as nothing but his boxers earlier.
I wonder if I ask nicely if he’d combine the two.
My teeth sink into my bottom lip as my mind runs at a mile a minute, trying to imagine how that might look. I already know it pales compared to what reality would be like.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Y-Yeah. Great. You?”
He tilts his head to the side, studying me as if I’m some kind of puzzle he’s trying to figure out.
“So, hot chocolate powder. Anything else?”
“Cream and marshmallows,” I add.
“Well, obviously,” he says, rolling his eyes.
“And sprinkles.”
“Sprinkles?”
“Yep.”
“Okay. That it?”
When I agree, he begins backing away, but he doesn’t turn around. It’s as if he already knows I’m going to add more.
He’s almost at the front door when another thought hits me.
“Everett?” I call.
“Yeah.”
“Could you get a pastry? I missed mine yesterday morning.”
He chuckles. “Leave it to me.”
I can’t help it, the biggest smile spreads across my face. I really shouldn’t love being here with him as much as I do.