Chapter 124
Chapter One Hundred-Twenty-Four
Robin
Waking up tangled in sheets and with a warm body wrapped around me from behind, my day is already off to a better start than yesterday.
Last night’s two-hour dinner consisted of four courses eaten while Harper made silly jokes, Jay made sure everything was hot when it needed to be, and Falcon told his mates they were long past due to be marked properly.
Considering Shayne was sleeping the whole time, he told Harper and Jay they’d have to wait a little longer to have their throats marked, but he promised they’d be marked by both of their Alphas when it happened.
Harper was already excitable and that only made him even more over-the-top.
I couldn’t help getting caught up in it. I didn’t realize it was so common for mates to avoid marking the obvious places in real life, and I’m glad my mates are going to have marks the whole world can see from all of us.
I don’t care what anyone thinks about my marks.
They were given to me by the men I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.
It’s not my problem if strangers don’t like it, and my mates will be more than happy to educate anyone who gives me any hate.
I stretch my arms in the empty space in front of me.
“You’re awake!” Harper exclaims, as if he’s accusing me of lying to him.
“I am now,” I tell him, stifling a yawn. “Is everyone else up already?”
“Yeah, so we’ve got the room to ourselves. Want to work on making the quads a sextet?”
I laugh, and he makes a sexy sound.
“Ooh, save that for after I’m inside you. I could use it.”
“No more of that until later. That detective is coming here today.”
“Damn, I forgot about that,” he says, letting me go. “I should get up, too, then.”
“Yeah. I think it would be better if we were fully dressed when she gets here.”
I shuffle to the edge of the bed and get up.
He gets out the other side, yawning loudly.
“Shayne got up really early and ate the leftovers we put in the fridge. I got up to make sure he was all good. Falcon and Jay left a couple hours ago. Falcon said they needed to iron some things out with Owen, and he thinks it might take a while.”
“Contract stuff?” I ask, remembering he mentioned something about that last night.
“Probably. Sounded boring. I tuned out.”
He opens the closet, and steps inside.
I can hear him rummaging around in his bag as I go around the bed to get to the closet.
“Hm,” he murmurs. “Starting to run out of clothes here.”
I look at the laundry basket on the closet door.
I guess it’s kind of full.
It was made for a single person’s laundry, and now there are five of us in this suite.
“I’m not sure how often they empty the staff laundry. I can ask Katie and get this picked up.”
“Oh cool. You have laundry service here,” he says, as he puts on a pair of boxer briefs.
“Yeah, it’s one of my jobs with the kitchen staff.”
“Well, I can’t say I’m jealous. Going to the laundrette with Jay when we were younger was a pain in the ass. I shrunk so many sweaters before I realized I wasn’t supposed to be machine drying them.”
I snort, and he grins at me, before shaking out a pair of pants.
“They were cute-baby-sized. Maybe I should have kept them.”
“I don’t think babies usually wear sweaters.”
“You think our babies will be like all the other babies?” he sounds completely offended.
I watch as he pulls on his pants. He’s still smiling. Clearly, he’s joking.
“Um … No?” I ask, raising an eyebrow at him.
He sighs as he pulls on a sweater. “Okay, fine. No cashmere for the babies. They can wear onesies like all the other regular littlest humans.”
“Good. I think that’s for the best.”
I open my underwear drawer, and his eyes light up.
“Ooh, wear these,” he says, taking out a pair of silky pink panties.
“Sure.” I take them out of his hand and put them on.
They feel nice, even if they’re a bit on the skimpy side.
“No bra,” he tries, starting to close the drawer.
“I need to talk to a cop today, Harper. I’m wearing a bra.”
“Dang,” he murmurs, “Fine. Let me see what you’ve got.”
Of course, he picks out a back fastening one.
It’s darker pink than the panties but I guess it kind of matches.
“You can fasten it for me,” I tell him, putting my arms through the straps and turning around.
He takes his time, because it means he gets to feel me up a little before I’m wearing an item he’d rather I didn’t want to put on. It’s cute how he fakes offence to random things. It makes everything more fun. And I could use a whole lot more fun today.
“Do you have a skirt?” he asks, looking around.
“I don’t think I do,” I tell him.
“You don’t think you do?” he asks. “What does that mean?”
“Lana got me new clothes when I got done with my stint in the medical ward,” I admit. “I had to put on weight to be discharged so I needed new things. I haven’t really looked through it all, but I don’t think there’s a skirt. I’m not used to wearing them anyway.”
I pick up a pair of jeans and put them on.
“I can’t think of better excuse for a shopping trip,” Harper tells me. “You should have clothes you picked for yourself, and you should definitely try out skirts, and dresses.”
“Sounds like fun,” I start. “Maybe after I get my first paycheck. I was thinking about going into the city to the mall then.”
“We can go at the weekend. Falcon said we’ll all be free at the weekend.”
“We can see what everyone wants to do,” I tell him. “Maybe Falcon will have plans for us.”
It takes a minute to find a T-shirt that’s not just white to pull on over the bright bra.
The gray one is a bit clingy, but at least it’s a dark color.
“Here,” Harper says, handing me a pale lilac sweater. “I haven’t worn it in ages, but I think it’ll suit you.”
“Thanks.” I put it on, and he nods.
“I was right. It looks good.”
I glance in the mirror.
It hangs nicely, and the color is gorgeous.
“I should be your personal stylist.”
“The job’s yours if you want it.”
He smiles and wraps his arms around me. “I want it.”
Somehow, I don’t think he’s talking about being my stylist.
He brushes my hair back and kisses my throat.
My marks make the skin there so sensitive.
It’s almost like he’s kissing me below the waist.
My panties feel damp within seconds.
“We can’t start something,” I remind him, kind of wishing we could.
He sighs and lets me go. “I know. Sorry. We should probably leave the bedroom. It’s the horniest room in this suite.”
“Really?” I ask, as I move toward the bedroom door. “After last night, I’m not so sure about that.”
He laughs. “That was only because we didn’t want to wake you. Jay thought you could use the rest.”
“Well, I’m glad I woke up when I did. I would have hated to miss the whole thing.”
I step into the main room of the suite to see Shayne sitting at the dining table. He looks up from his phone and smiles.
“Hey Robin, how are you feeling?”
“I’m good. I was going to ask you the same thing.”
He stands up and puts his phone into his back pocket. “I woke up starving, I can’t lie, but I feel better than I have in a long time. If you don’t count the bruises from working on that fence, I mean.”
My eyes widen as I get closer to him, noticing the big purple mark on his right forearm.
“Oh my God, did you have that last night?”
He nods. “It looks worse than it did last night. It also looks a lot worse than it feels.”
“Shayne bruises like a peach,” Harper says. “It usually looks that bad, and it’s usually because he bumped into something.”
“Well, I’m glad it’s not painful.”
“I assume no one’s told you when the detective’s going to be here?” Harper asks.
Shayne shakes his head. “Falcon and Jay are keeping Owen and Lana busy, so I don’t know if we’ll get any notice on that.”
“What about lunch?”
“What about it?” Shayne asks.
“Do we have an ETA?”
I laugh, but Harper’s being deadly serious, I think.
If there’s one thing he takes seriously, it’s food.
“It’ll come when it’s ready, which should be sometime soon,” Shayne assures him.
I move away to look at the lounge area. It’s clean and tidy and there’s no trace of Harper’s perfume around the couch. Someone definitely cleaned up this morning.
I find the two and a half bars of chocolate on the coffee table, and I smile.
“If you really can’t wait, there’s chocolate over here,” I tell Harper.
“Ooh!” he murmurs. “I forgot about that.”
Darting over, he picks up what’s left of the milk chocolate bar.
He passes me the salted caramel. “You should try it.”
“Thanks. I will.”