19. Harper #2
“No, I know it works. You have to pee on it. They did it on Friends. It has to be true,” I argued. Ghost appeared, handing Magnus a knife while holding a first-aid kit in his other hand. “Ghost, you’ll pee on me, right? If I ask for it so the pain will stop, you’d do that for me, wouldn’t you?”
Ghost looked at Magnus then back at me. “Is she serious?”
“Yeah, they did it on Friends. It must be true,” Magnus said, sarcasm thick in his tone.
Ghost kneeled beside me and took my hand as I felt the knife start to scrape along my skin.
“Angel, while I would happily do most anything you ask of me, I’m not going to do that.
One, watersports aren’t really my kink, and I don’t think it’s yours.
Two, the toxins in a jellyfish sting won’t be neutralized by urine and could make it more painful.
With the number of times we’ve been surfing, this isn’t the first or the last time one of us has gotten stung.
We’ll fix you up, and in a few hours, you’ll have a great story to tell… minus getting peed on.”
“You’re sure it doesn’t work?” I asked just to be sure.
Rolling his eyes at me, he rested his forehead against mine. “Yes, I’m a thousand percent positive it won’t work. Now, if there were another reason you wanted me to pull my dick out for you, I would be happy to distract you if it would help.”
Snorting, I shoved him away so I could see what Magnus was doing. He’d removed the jellyfish from my skin, and a nasty red welt wrapped around my calf. Flipping open the first-aid kit, he yanked the top off a reusable bottle and poured it over the welt before sprinkling another white substance.
A scent I knew well hit my nose. “Did you just pour vinegar on my leg?”
“Yup, and now I’m covering it in baking soda.
This will help neutralize the toxins the jellyfish used.
It takes a few minutes, but the burning should subside some.
It’s going to be sore for the rest of the day, but the worst of it should be over,” Magnus explained as he turned my leg this way and that to get it coated with baking soda.
“Just to be clear, I’m never going surfing again. This is a clear sign it is just not my sport,” I muttered, flopping back on the towels.
“Whatever you say, angel,” Ghost commented with a chuckle.
I rolled my head to glare at him. “You make that sound like you think I’m kidding, but I’m not. No amount of praise, sexy touches, or pouting will get me on a surfboard again.”
Jaxson helped me sit up and pulled my coverup over my head like a toddler. Once I was dressed, he scooped me up while the others packed up what we needed to and headed out. Jaxson took me right to the Jeep while the others returned the boards and umbrella.
“Not that our life was boring before we met you, but it’s amazing the situations you find yourself in, gorgeous,” Jaxson teased as he placed me in the front seat.
I gave him a wide grin and shot him with my finger guns. “Girls gotta do what she can to keep men like you on your toes.”
Laughing his ass off, he hopped behind the wheel and headed back to pick up the others.
The drive back to the house was quiet, and the sun started to fade behind the mountains, setting the sky alight in shades of pink, orange, and red.
It made me think of some of the fabric I had in the car that Ghost and Magnus were now buried under.
Will I be able to go back to my shop after this? Is that life going to be fulfilling enough for me?
I would always have the itch to design. It’d been that way since I was little, always cutting up my clothes or bedazzling the shit out of things.
The boys had been right, though. Now that I was seeing what else life could offer and the company I could have while doing it made the life I’d been living seem rather tame and boring.
The trouble was if they knew I was seriously considering this, the kid gloves would be off, and I would have three men fixated in my life forever.
When we reached the house, Magnus carried me in, brought me to the bathroom to clean my leg of the baking soda mixture, and applied some sort of white pasty cream. It smelled like the stuff you would use for diaper rash, but it soothed the burning sensation even more, so I didn’t complain.
“Let’s keep you off your leg for tonight.
Depending on how bad the sting was and if the venom gives you any other side effects, we might have to journey to the hospital.
I don’t think that will need to happen but letting you know if I feel you need to go, you’re going,” Magnus ordered, giving me a pointed look.
“Fine, fine, I don’t want anything crazy to happen like I lose my leg or anything, so I’ll go,” I agreed.
He nodded and started to strip me out of my clothes.
“Uh… what are you doing?” I asked when he started to slide my bikini bottoms off.
He ignored my question and continued to undress me.
Why would he give me any personal space?
It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen me naked already or finger fucked me so good I squirted.
Who needs boundaries after that? Although the way he was moving made it clear this was not about getting frisky.
No, he was focused on getting me into clean, dry clothes.
“Do you want to wash your hair or leave it till tomorrow?” he asked. “We should let that cream sit on there as long as we can. The longer it’s on, the better it is for the pain and itching.”
“Meh, we can leave it. I’ll take a good long shower tomorrow. At least it’s salt water and not chlorine,” I answered with a yawn as he placed a T-shirt over my head. This one smelled like him, and I couldn’t resist the urge to take a deep whiff of it.
Glancing at Magnus, he looked at me with a smug expression, knowing what I was doing even if I were trying to be subtle.
He didn’t comment, just gave me a smirk that told me he was well aware and pleased with my reaction.
“Come on, doll. I’m gonna get you settled on the couch with a movie while I make dinner. ”
“Sounds like an awesome plan to me. What are we having, by the way?” I asked, wrapping my arms around his neck.
“We never did use up that fish, so I should do something with it before it goes bad. I’m thinking of baking it in a lemon cream sauce over rice. What do you think?” he asked as we headed for the living room.
“I think you should broil the fish with lemon slices and olive oil, but make a lemon, coconut milk cream sauce to put over it instead. Same idea, but then you can make it to taste if you want lots of cream or less cream,” I suggested.
“One of these nights, I’ll have to cook for you guys.
I’m not a master chef, but I can pull together a decent meal. ”
“I like the sound of that. It would be nice to share the job with someone I don’t have to worry about burning down the kitchen,” Magnus said loudly as we passed the other two seated at the kitchen counter.
“Hey, that only happened once,” Jaxson called after us.
Ghost just laughed until I heard a smack and a grunt quickly following. “Fuck, man, you almost got me in the family jewels.”
“Then I missed because that’s what I was aiming for,” Jaxson shot back. “You have no reason to laugh when we all ended up with food poisoning the last time you tried to cook.”
“It was the flu, not my food,” Ghost defended. “We were better the next day.”
“Do you even hear yourself talking? Everything you just said proves my point. The flu doesn’t last for twenty-four hours, you dipshit,” Jaxson argued.
Magnus set me on the couch as he muttered to himself and charged into the kitchen.
“Fuck!”
“What the hell, man!”
“You two could make a nun murder the way you fight. Get the fuck out of my kitchen and keep Harper company,” Magnus scolded.
The two brothers looked disgruntled, rubbing the back of their heads while they came to join me.
“Angel, Magnus is being mean to me,” Ghost pouted as he sprawled out on the couch, putting his head in my lap. “He hit me real hard on the back of the head. Can you kiss it and make it better?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jaxson huffed, shoving Ghost off the couch with a thud. “Grow the hell up and don’t make her fight your battle for you. That’s just stupid.”
Ghost got to his feet and launched himself at his brother, taking him over the back of the couch onto the floor.
There they scuffled, rolling around, trying to choke each other out.
I peeked over the back to make sure they wouldn’t kill each other, then started messing with the remotes to figure out how to turn on the television.
“Boys,” I muttered with a sigh. “Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”