Chapter 22 #2
“That you’re mine,” I corrected, my voice going low and serious. I stood up, tossing the towel aside and pulling her into my arms. Her skin was still warm, her body soft against mine. “Ours. And that I take care of what’s mine.”
She looped her arms around my neck, tilting her head back to look at me. Her eyes were shining, a brilliant, happy blue in the soft light of the bathroom. “You’re all ridiculous,” she murmured, but she was smiling.
“Maybe,” I conceded, leaning down to kiss her. It was a slow, deep kiss, a kiss that tasted of satisfaction and something more. Something that felt a whole lot like forever. “But you love it.”
“God help me,” she breathed against my lips. “I do.” Another soft sigh after our kiss. “Voodoo?”
“Hmm?”
“You said you loved me last night.”
A warm feeling settled in my chest. Once upon a time, the idea of saying those words to a woman would have been anathema.
What the hell did I have to offer to one?
But Grace? Grace had been filling in all the gaps in my soul since we rescued her all battered and bruised.
Since the night in a hotel room when she let me help her forget for a little while…
“Yes.”
“Did you mean it?” All at once, I wanted to kick myself, she shouldn’t have to ask me that.
“Yes,” I told her, dipping my head to press a softer kiss to her lips, an oath, a promise, a dare.
Her eyes shone as she stared up at me. “I love you so much.”
“You have no idea how much I treasure that, and you.” I scooped her up and kissed her longer this time. Taking the time to fully explore her lips, her mouth, to savor and to taste. “You’re the best damn thing that ever happened to me, Firecracker.”
Then, because they’d let us have this time, I nudged the door open and carried her back into the bedroom.
The three of them were still there, propped up against the pillows, watching us.
There was no anger in their eyes, no resentment.
Just a deep, simmering heat and a measure of their own hunger.
They looked like they’d just watched the main event and were waiting for the encore.
I laid Grace down in the middle of the bed, right in the space they’d left for her. She landed with a soft little oof, sprawling out like a starfish. She looked at them, a slow, wicked grin spreading across her face.
“Well?” she said, her voice husky and full of challenge. “What are you all waiting for?”
And just like that, the exhaustion was gone. The tension was gone.
I settled back on the edge of the bed, watching her.
Grace was a fucking vision, sprawled out in the middle of our makeshift bed, her skin flushed and glowing, her hair a wild, damp tangle around her face.
She looked thoroughly, beautifully, and completely fucked.
And she was smiling. A real, genuine, ear-to-ear smile that made my chest feel tight.
Bones was the first to break the silence, his voice a low, cautious rumble. “You sure you’re up for this, Dollface?” He was always the one to worry, the one to check the margins, to make sure she wasn’t going to break.
Grace’s head lolled to the side, her gaze finding his. Her smile didn’t falter; it just sharpened, all sassy and full of fire. “I can handle you,” she said, her voice a husky purr. She let her eyes drift from Bones to Lunchbox, then to Alphabet, and finally back to me. “I can handle all of you.”
The sheer, unadulterated confidence in her voice was a fucking turn-on. We all knew she could. We’d just spent the night proving it. But to hear her say it, to see the challenge in her eyes… that was something else entirely.
Just as she finished her declaration, a loud, insistent growl rumbled through the quiet room.
It came from her stomach. The sound was so unexpected, so perfectly normal in the middle of all this, that it broke the tension like a rubber band snapping.
Her eyes went wide for a second, and then her grin widened.
“But,” she announced, her tone full of theatrical importance, “I do demand breakfast after.”
Lunchbox, ever the one to seize an opportunity, snaked a hand out from under his blanket and wrapped it around her wrist. He tugged, and she went willingly, rolling across the mattress until she was flush against him.
He pulled her in for a deep, lingering kiss, a kiss that was full of promises and a hunger that was just as on the edge of desperate as it had been a few minutes ago.
When he finally let her up for air, he rested his forehead against hers. “I’ll feed you anything you want, Gracie,” he murmured, his voice a low, intimate promise.
Grace’s eyes sparkled with pure, unadulterated mischief.
She slowly, deliberately, began to walk her fingers down his stomach, tracing the lines of his abs until they reached the waistband of his boxers.
She paused, her fingers tapping lightly against the fabric right over his cock, which was already showing a renewed interest.
“Anything?” she whispered, the single word a loaded question full of sin and suggestion.
I couldn’t help it. I threw my head back and laughed, a loud, booming sound that filled the room.
The whole situation was fucking ridiculous.
We’d just spent the night taking turns with her, a silent, competitive marathon in the dark, and now here we were, negotiating breakfast like it was a peace treaty.
My firecracker, holding court in the middle of the bed, completely naked, sore, and demanding pancakes while teasing Lunchbox about a different kind of meal.
It was perfect.
Glancing at the faint light coming through the curtains, I figured it had to be pushing noon. Breakfast was more like a late brunch. And from the way Grace was shifting, trying to find a comfortable position, my firecracker was definitely going to be walking funny for the rest of the day.
Winning all around.