Chapter Twenty-Three #2
A few minutes later, when we were both back on our feet, the chairs were put up, my makeup fixed, he wrapped me up in another one of his comforting hugs.
I felt him press a hard kiss to the top of my head.
“Does he treat you right?” he asked, his voice gentle.
The anger was gone, but the sadness still remained.
“He treats me like I’m the most precious thing in his orbit,” I told him, looking into his eyes.
Rossy gave me a squeeze. “I think it would be best if I apologized for threatening him then.”
I blinked. “You…threatened Hayes?” I blurted.
He sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Perhaps.”
“What do you mean,” I adjusted my voice to a British accent, “perhaps? A threat is a threat.”
“Yes, well, given the circumstances…” He trailed off and started cleaning his glasses.
“You remember the days when I would just work on my novel all day? When you would make coffee all day and Carrie would run the checkout counter and Sarah would run everything for me all day? I miss those days. Less complications. Fewer…men.”
“You are a man.”
“Yes, well, I’m not a broody man who grunts.”
“You grunt, Rossy.”
“I most certainly do not,” he scoffed, putting his glasses back on.
I rolled my eyes and put my hand on the door. “I cannot believe you threatened my boyfriend.”
“To be fair, I didn’t know he was your boyfriend at Carrie’s party, and he was making you cry.”
“I—wait—Cardinal’s party? That’s when you threatened him?” I gasped, jaw dropping.
He nodded. “Yes, I told him if he hurt you then…well to be frank, it doesn’t bear repeating. Now, open the door. I have some apologizing to do, and you need to find Sarah.”
Shaking my head with a smile, I opened the door.
My smile fell when I found Sheriff Humbly standing on the other side.
“Oh fuck,” I muttered.
“Ms. Bennett,” he greeted, monotone.
My eyes searched for Hayes.
“Mitchell is outside on a call,” Michael said, answering my silent question.
“Am I under arrest?”
His brow furrowed. “No. Why would you think that?”
“Because you’ve got that look in your eye.”
“What look?”
“The ‘I gotta whoop some ass’ look,” I clarified.
“No, I’m here to get your restraining order filed. Normally, this is something we’d do at the station, but since you’re Margo, we can do it here.”
I leaned my head back and narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean ‘since I’m Margo’?”
He didn’t answer and stepped into the room, brushing past me and muttering a greeting to Rossy. I looked at him and then back at Michael’s back as he shrugged off his coat.
“Do you need me in here with you?” Rossy asked.
I moved out of the doorway. “No, boss man. I’m good. This shouldn’t take too long.”
“Are you okay?”
The question came from Hayes, who hadn’t left my side since we’d gotten home from Rossy’s. Today was a big day with high emotions and so many people. I didn’t know how he could detect the anxiety brimming underneath my skin, an annoying prickle.
“I don’t understand how you can read me so well,” I murmured as he opened the cabinets above the stove, grabbing the mixing bowl I asked for.
I watched as his stretched-out arm flexed, twisting the bowl out of the cramped cabinet.
My mouth watered as his black tee rose higher, revealing the taut muscles of his lower abdomen.
He handed it to me, his green eyes assessing as they always did. “You have too many bowls,” he told me simply, as if he was about to dedicate the next half hour of his life cleaning out my cabinets.
I snatched the bowl from his hand, clutching it to my chest. “Each bowl has a story,” I mumbled, shooting him a glare as I returned to my baking station.
Thanksgiving was in two days, and I had shit to show for it.
Every year, Sarah, Rossy, and I had a big thing over at the Humbly house.
When Cardinal had come into the picture, she was roped into the tradition.
Now Red Snake was involved, and last year, there was a big celebration over at Blue Beauty house, giving Michael and Sarah some reprieve for when it was time for their kids to go to bed.
“Baby, you aren’t a professional baker,” Hayes argued from behind me. “There’s no need for a single person to have twelve mixing bowls and twenty-four cereal bowls.”
I held up my wooden spoon over my shoulder, blindly pointing it at him.
“First of all,” I waved the spoon in a circle, “I thought that after our intimate cereal conversation this morning, you and I would be on the same page about the cereal bowls. Second of all, bowls can be multifunctional. You can create new recipes with them, make homemade Play-Doh, try a new funky salad that ends up being way too much for one person to enjoy during one sitting…so of course, you’ll need to find a way to store said salad and come to find out that leftover salad is actually fucking gross because the leaves get all soggy.
Then when it touches your tongue, you gag, because why wouldn’t you and—”
I was spun around, his hands at my waist, and before I could register what was happening, his lips were on mine, kissing me with a heated abandon that made my toes curl.
He pulled away only when I was pressed against the countertop, pinned there by his strong hips, his thigh between my legs, my hands up his shirt.
We were both panting hard, gazes locked, hearts pounding.
“Wh-what was that for?” I breathed.
“When you’re safe, you ramble,” he whispered. “I fucking love it when you ramble like that.”
I blinked. “When I’m safe…?”
“When you’re in danger, you freeze. When you’re safe, baby, you light up whatever room you’re in.”
“Oh.”
He smiled then, taking my breath away for a second time in five minutes. I wiggled my hips against his thigh. “Hayes, I have to bake.”
“I know.”
“So let me go so I can do that.”
He hesitated for a moment. “Can I get rid of some of your bowls?”
I gasped and removed my hands from his shirt. My skin craved to be against his, to be covered in his warmth. “How dare you?” I hissed. “No, you cannot get rid of some of my bowls.”
His smile transformed into a smirk. “All right, Temper. I’ll leave your precious bowls alone.”
Once he moved away from me, leaving my body humming with need and me slightly irritated, I tacked on, “And you can leave everything else alone too, Top Gun! I know your apartment is boring and all, but my place will always be fun and whimsical.”
“Whimsical?” he parroted, humor lacing his voice as he opened the fridge.
“Yes, whimsical. Life is only as dull as you allow it to be. And I decided a long time ago that my life would never be fucking dull.”
He turned around, milk in hand, and walked over to me. He gave me a kiss on the forehead. “Give me some whimsy, then,” he murmured. He backed away with a smile—my chocolate cereal in his other hand.
“What are you doing with my favorite cereal?” I whispered, putting a hand over my heart. He was a big man; he could easily devour the rest of the box.
“I’m going to pour myself a big bowl and eat it. And then, when you’re done baking, I’m going to eat you.”