Chapter 57
Chapter Fifty-Seven
QUINN
Kade’s face appears in front of me, and I screech.
“Quinny.” He smirks while shutting off the vacuum. “I’m doing an intervention.”
“They’re not back yet. And I just have the bathroom to go.”
He holds up the bucket of cleaning supplies. “I did it. And I redid the kitchen.”
Any argument I have is taken away when he holds his phone up for me to see.
Phase one complete.
“Phase one?” My mind is racing backward, and I’m not sure I’ve heard the term phase one. Was I meant to know what that means? Did I agree to something I forgot?
“Stop.” Kade’s command doesn’t have the same impetus as a bark from my Alphas, but it’s got so much weight to it, I stand there like I’m locked up by him.
He grins before he drops the bucket, slowly peels off the rubber gloves, and cups my face. His mouth is on mine, and he breathes into my mouth. “Do you want to come and see phase one?”
I’m nodding and kissing, sighing and falling into him. The incessant need to clean replaced by a need to be with him. And them.
“You’ve been distracting me? All of you?”
He grins again, his tongue licking over mine, and I can’t help feeling I’m the luckiest girl in the world.
He pulls away, not far. “Did it work?”
“Yes.”
Kade closes the distance but veers off course. He leaves a trail of burning kisses from the edge of my mouth over to my ear where he breathes softly in and out a few times. It’s intimate, and a reminder Kade knows what I like. “Quinny, go check on Deena for me.”
I move like I’m hypnotized, his words playing over in my head, overriding any worry I have. I walk into her room and screech again.
“What is wrong with me, I don’t screech!” I protest, letting Marco pull me over to a spot he and Deena and have made on her bed.
Around the room are at least six giant gift bags. Someone clearly has been to Dollar Tree, given the haphazard collection of gift bags.
Marco is beaming. He looks so happy, I start crying. Which makes him bare his teeth at me before dissolving into a fit of laughter. His hands are flying as he teases me. “They said you would be so girly. You’re crying because you got presents? Chuvak, not cool.”
“Chuvak?? What is that? A new word?”
“From Aleksei. Like dude. He said I could only use suka when it was the boys. Santiago said cojones is the same.” And then his eyes bug as he realizes what he did. “Anyway, hurry and open this one first.”
He shoves a gift bag into my hands that has a giant rabbit on the front. I look at Deena for answers, but her smug smile lets me know she knows, but she’s not telling. It’s the same expression Marco wears.
Before I’ve opened the first, he’s raced around and collected all the others.
“Help me,” I beg him. And in his usual enthusiasm, he unpacks the gift bags in record time.
On my lap is a motley collection of blankets, towels, sheets, and even a rug in a muted rainbow of colors. The tears are falling, and I hide them.
“I don’t know how you found them, Quinn, but I’m glad you did,” Deena says, and her acceptance of my mates is a balm I didn’t realize I needed. “Now put everything back in the bags and get out of here. Marco and I will be fine. We’ve got everything we could possibly need.”
“Go! Go! Go!” Marco signs before shoving all my beautiful gifts back into the bags with the same gusto he used pulling them out.
With my arms full and my cheeks wet, Kade meets me at the front door. He’s showered and changed; the linen shirt he has on is in my favorite colour—stone gray.
“You look incredible,” he whispers, stealing the words I was going to say to him. “Let’s go.”
He takes my bags in one hand and holds my hand in his other. He twists over his shoulder, yelling back to Deena. “I’ll check in when I can!”
“What are we going?”
“Phase two.”
And then he doesn’t talk; he just walks me past the house and down the side of the small vegetable patch to the worn path to the creek. In summertime, Deena, Marco, and I spend time out here. Tonight, though, it looks completely different.
I splutter a messy sob as I take in what they’ve done.
“Don’t cry, Quinny.”
“Bit late for that, Kade!” I laugh before I break down again.
“Bebe, get your ass here now!” Santiago calls from the edge of the most beautiful, romantic, sweet setup ever.
“Did you rob a wedding shop?”
Sheer fabric hangs from fairy light strands, the two coming together to make a billowing and glittering roof that goes up and over an RV. From the strings, and between the draping fabric, hang strands of flowers.
Aleksei grins. “Not rob, maya, but we did buy everything inside their shop. It was small, I told them to expand. Same with the florist and the dollar shop.”
“The dollar shop?”
“Aleksei tried for couriers from Moscow and New York and Paris,” Santiago explains. “We had to make do with what’s in town. Next time, we’ll be better prepared.”
“Shut up!” I whisper. “I want this every time.”
Aleksei rolls his eyes, a dangerous smile playing on his mouth that makes him look more lethal than ever. “Come, wife, set your nest while you take my knot.”
My feet falter, but Kade grabs my hips as he steps behind me. He bends down and kisses my neck, right where their claim sits. It’s electrifying, and I undulate against him as rolls of warmth crash over me, spreading over each inch of my body.
He does it again, and my legs nearly give out. “Do you like that, Quinny?”
“Seems like,” I moan softly, pressing my hand to keep him there.
“What about if we take some of these clothes off? Although, Quinny, you wearing our clothes works too. Probably too much.”
Kade grabs my hand off his head and presses it over his hardness. “I’ve been cleaning with a hard-on. You know how difficult that is?”
I laugh, turning so he can kiss my mouth instead of my neck. I get a quick peck before he turns me forward again. “Go set your nest up with everything you’ve stolen.”
“Stolen?”
He steps away as he answers. “You didn’t even realize. Which makes it a hundred times better.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Bebe, have you looked in the mirror?” Santiago asks.
“Why? Do I look bad?”
“You look stunning. Better than you did on your wedding day,” Aleksei adds.
I glance down, then look straight back up. “What the hell? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“We were busy, not even here, maya,” Aleksei answers as he closes the distance. “Even if we were, do you think we would have stopped you?”
Santiago and Kade join him, and the three of them surround me. Their scent is off the charts, so potent it makes it impossible to even smell the sea of flowers surrounding us.
Together, they undress me. It takes longer than it should because I seem to have gone overboard. I honestly had no clue.
“Three business shirts, a pair of sweats, and a pair of shorts, four socks on one foot, three on the other, and a collection of ties.” Aleksei leans down and kisses my nose.
“And somehow you managed to look better than any supermodel. Take your naked popka inside and make your nest, do what feels right.”
Santiago sweeps me off my feet and carries me, and all my stolen goods, to the stairs of the RV. He stops at the door and lowers me slowly.
“Bebe, let go for us. Anything you want, you ask for, nothing is off-limits. Don’t hold back, either. You want to sleep in your nest, then do that. We’re right here, and we will always be right here.”
He finishes off being really fucking sweet by licking his way into my mouth and kissing me until my eyes are rolling. Normally, I could stay and kiss him like this for a long time, but not today.
I do what he suggests and let go.