21. Chapter 21
Chapter 21
BERNIE
R aiden’s shoulders immediately fell as he stepped sideways. My heart lurched, warmth and knowing exactly why she was pissed surged through my body at the sight of the incredible woman standing with a hip cocked and scowl on her face.
She was clearly here to chew me out, but that fact did little to quench the fire roaring at the sight of her.
“Bernie, it’s for you,” Raiden grumbled and gestured at Kat, bowing as if motioning for a princess to enter the house.
Her frustration slid away with a tip of her head.
I lifted my chin in a nod. “He thought you were Charlotte,” I explained to her.
“Ah,” she replied as Raiden let go of the door and stomped loudly back to the couch.
Kat pushed some wayward strands from her ponytail behind her ear and cautiously stepped into the house. Goosebumps erupted across my skin as my eyes slid down her body.
A sundress. This woman had decided to put on a sundress that did nothing to hide a single curve or asset on her body. The beautiful turquoise color deepened the tan on her skin, the square neckline accentuating just how blessed this woman was. The dress billowed as she sashayed into the house and brought her bright blue eyes to me.
Scowling once again, she narrowed her eyes. “You just fucking left without a word. In fact, you were so quiet when you took Muffin, I thought I’d lost her and spent almost an hour scrambling to find her until Sawyer told me that you’d grabbed her and gone. And then you’ve ignored me since!” she barked, throwing that hand back on her hip and pursing her pouty lips. “Do you not understand how sh—”
She stopped talking as her gaze slid to Ford quietly seated on the counter, watching the exchange with a smirk. The frustration shifted to confusion as her brows twitched.
“Don’t let me stop you. Bernie deserves a good ass chewing,” Ford said, crossing his arms. Her eyes darted down his right arm covered in a full sleeve of colorful tattoos before returning to me.
As if on a pendulum, her eyes shifted back and forth between Ford and me. Ticking from one side to another, giving a dressing down to both of us—or most likely just me. Her chest expanded and contracted on a slow metronome, a steady rhythm between the two of us as Raiden simply watched the exchange with noisy curiosity as one teenage boy would do.
Then finally she stopped at me and narrowed her eyes .
“Where is your shirt? Do you not have a sense of decency at all?” she continued sharply.
I threw my hands in the air and exhaled sharply. “Okay. This is where I live. Am I not allowed to lounge comfortably in my own house?”
Ford chuckled and tucked his chin into his chest as I shot him a steely glare.
“Don’t say a fucking word,” I hissed in his direction.
“Who is he?” Kat asked, tossing a thumb at Ford. She quickly looked back at him. “Who are you?”
“Ford,” he answered, and she rolled her eyes, sighing heavily.
“One word? That’s it?” She paused and pinched her brows together for a moment. “Wait, I know you! You were there at the bar too!”
Ford and I nodded. This exchange had me all sorts of confused. I knew what she was doing here. I wanted to disappear somewhere alone with her, but also wanted to stay here in the wide open with Ford and my brother because that meant I wouldn’t do something extremely irrational. Plus, being caught with her would not only fuel Wyatt’s suspicions but possibly get her hurt. But when she got all sassy like…
It was extremely difficult to argue when her fiery attitude came out since all I wanted to do was find relief by burying my teeth into her skin. I’d get on my knees for her in a heartbeat, all she needed to do was ask.
She tipped her head, drawing my attention back to the present as her lashes fluttered briefly over her eyes that were latched onto mine. “Brother or boyfriend?”
“Brother,” Raiden answered for us from the couch .
“Your mom’s never said anything about another son,” Kat continued, her gaze scanning Ford from head to toe. “And you don’t look a thing like Bernie or Raiden.”
“We’re not blood-related,” Ford replied, lifting his chin, and then his grin suddenly grew even wider. “Hold the fuck up. You’re the girl dumbass here hit with a bottle cap.” Ford tossed a thumb at me.
“Yes, I am,” she replied and returned her snarky glare toward me.
“I already apologized, damn,” I said with a shake of my head.
Ford chuckled. “What a small fucking world.”
“So, you two haven’t… you know?” she cautiously asked.
“Nope,” I replied.
“Ever?” she added, raising a brow.
“Never. He’s not my type,” I stated, and she clicked her tongue.
“Why not? He’s hot,” she casually tossed out with a shrug of her shoulders.
“Yeah, why am I not your fucking type? I’m hot,” Ford asked, raising a brow at me.
“You’ve never called me hot.” I blinked rapidly in Kat’s direction.
“Eh, average at best,” she replied without hesitation, and my mouth fell open as Ford clutched his chest, flopped backward, and boomed with laughter.
“Kat’s hated him since day one, if you can’t tell,” Raiden called out from the couch with a grin.
Ford roared even louder with laughter as I closed my eyes and shook my head, unable to stop the smile from lifting on my lips. At least that wasn’t true anymore, but now wasn’t the time to say shit to Raiden. Allowing him to think that she still hated me would make the ending of Kat and me easier. Even if I begged to no one, to the universe, to whatever was bigger than me, to allow more to us than just this, I knew I couldn’t have it.
I wanted more than just this sloppy shit I’d dug myself into, but I wasn’t sure how to build a ladder to get myself out of it. Or more importantly, how to keep her safe with me around. There was nothing but pain and anguish coming her way the longer she was with me. The closer that our lives became intertwined, entangled in this crazy web we weaved, the more heartbreak there would be.
Especially once she allowed herself to truly sit with the fact that I wasn’t deserving of such an incredible woman as she was.
But damn did I want to shout from the rooftops that I’d be a better man for her than Wyatt ever was.
For a third time within a matter of an hour, the wooden frame of the front door rattled with a knock. Raiden shot up from the couch and raced across the floor. Without hesitation, he ripped it open and sighed in absolute relief.
“Fina-fucking-ly,” he muttered, which only caused Ford to bellow with laughter again .
Charlotte’s hair, left in a naturally beautiful afro, rippled slightly as she took a startling step back at the sound. “What the?” She gasped and slapped a hand over her chest. “Who is that? What is going on here?” Her dark brown eyes darted around the kitchen at what had to be a rather strange sight—an unknown man, me shirtless, and Kat in a gorgeous sundress with Raiden at the door.
I gave her a smile. “Hey, Charlotte.”
“You the girlfriend?” Ford asked between soft wheezes.
She hesitantly nodded as Raiden tugged on his boots. Hopping on one foot, he jumped over the threshold. “Let’s go. I’ll explain things later. Oh, you wanna come to the crawfish boil tomorrow?” he asked as he shut the front door behind him.
Kat stared at the white wood, her brows slowly inching closer and closer together. “Crawfish boil? Who’s cooking a crawfish boil?” she muttered.
“Ford is. I doubt the local market’s got crawfish, but he can still put together a mean seafood boil,” I answered.
Slowly, as if moving through heavy sludge, she turned her head back toward Ford and me. Narrowing her eyes, she studied the man who somehow had another two cookies in his hand. He froze mid-bite, catching sight of her steely gaze. “You? You’re going to put together this seafood boil? Something that I’ve only ever heard about but never experienced because we’re not from fucking Louisiana,” she stated, her voice rising in volume with every word she spoke.
“He is. Born and raised on the fucking bayou, Kat,” I replied and pushed off the counter.
“You don’t have an accent,” she cautiously said, staring at Ford.
“Ask him to say water or boil.” I wiggled my brows at him as he once again raised his middle finger at me.
“I left home at eighteen and haven’t been back since. My accent comes out when I get angry, or say shit like Bernie’s trying to get me to say, or when I’m around others with the same accent, but otherwise, I’ve spent nearly as much time away from home as I did there. You adapt,” Ford replied and shoved the rest of the cookie in his mouth .
“You’re from Louisiana. As in the bayou itself,” Kat stated again.
He nodded. “My parents are from there. Grandparents. Great-grandparents. Even my great-great-grandparents. Shit, half the swamp has been in my family since people started living in the fucking bayou, I swear.”
“You’ve seen an alligator in the wild then,” she asked, her eyes widening in excitement. Sparkles danced across her ocean irises, and I couldn’t help the admiring smile that lifted upon her lips. She really was beautiful.
Desire ripped through me. Ill-timed and ignited by what? The simplicity of her fascination over learning something new? The way her eyes looked in this light? Whatever started the flames at this moment, they were unexpected, yet I happily added fuel to the fire.
Arousal coursed thick within my blood as everything in my body roared as hot as her feistiness. There was little I could do to tame what began to stiffen between my legs, and I shifted my body to hopefully mask the evidence of that fuzzy static roaring hot in my stomach.
“Seen one? Darling, I fucking helped raise gators, I swear. Hunted them. Eaten them. My mawmaw makes the best gator gumbo, I’ll tell you,” Ford replied, his eyes rolling back into his head as if he could taste the food at this moment.
“Haven’t had that in fourteen, nah fifteen, years though,” he added with a heavy sigh.
A giggle slipped past her lips. “I heard the accent there,” she whispered.
“See? Don’t you want some of your mawmaw’s gumbo again?” I pressed, making sure to pronounce ‘mawmaw’ the way he did .
Ford rolled his eyes and slid down from the counter. “Nice try. But even that’s not gonna work, Bernie,” he said and walked around the island, stopping beside Kat.
Tipping his head her way, he gave her a simple smile. “Nice to meet you. You should come tomorrow, especially if that means I get to watch you chew Bernie out. But I’m gonna head to the store and see what they got so y’all can fuck without an audience.”
Her eyes widened, and she stiffened, freezing as if made out of stone. “So—So we can what?” she squeaked, staring at Ford as he adjusted his ball cap and walked to the front door.
A chuckle left his chest as I inhaled deeply. “Raiden may be young and innocent, but I’d recognize that look you keep giving Bernie a thousand miles away. Plus, he’s got sweatpants on that really isn’t hiding much.” Ford tossed his head in my direction and then pulled open the door. “You two aren’t fooling anyone.”
And he slipped outside without leaving a chance for either Kat or myself to protest him.
With a quick glance down, I shoved my hands back into my pockets and attempted to adjust myself.
“Fucking shithead,” I muttered as Kat’s eyes slowly slid to me without a single other muscle in her body moving.