Chapter 21
Twenty-One
What’s your blood type? IDK, fucking boiling.
—Hux to Odin
Hux
I had the heat cranked up so high I knew that my heating bill was going to gut me this month.
But seeing her rush of relief was enough to make me not give a damn.
I had plenty of money.
Between a small trust fund that my great-grandfather had left me and a hell of a good paycheck every month from my job, I had more than enough to go around.
Plus, the work wasn’t ever going to lighten up.
I’d have to quit first, and that wasn’t happening any time soon.
“Did y’all decide to work tomorrow?” I asked as she shed the layers at the front door.
She hung each layer—my jacket, hers, then her sweatshirt—on the coat hook right beside the entryway.
Once she was clear of the coat hook, I followed suit, kicking my boots off last.
When I turned, she was squatted down on her haunches as she held her hand out to the cat.
“She’s hungry if you want to feed her,” I said. “Can’s in the cupboard beside the microwave.”
“I thought I saw you get it out of the fridge?” she asked.
“I usually give her half a can in the morning and half in the evening, but she’s been grouchy about not getting to go outside. Or maybe I just feel guilty. But I’m giving her the full can in the morning and in the evening.”
“Spoiled,” she said as she walked to the counter and leaned up to reach for the cabinet pull. “How’s the construction coming?”
“Slow,” I admitted. “But I have no clue. I wasn’t able to get up there today. I had a lot of catching up to do.”
She blushed. “I’m sorry for keeping you from your work.”
I moved in until she was bare inches from me, wrapping my arm around her upper leg, right where her ass met her thigh, and tugged her the rest of the way.
Our entire bodies were touching from chest to knee, and there was no way that she could miss the erection that was filling up the front of my jeans.
“Did I say I wanted an apology?” I asked. “I don’t do things I don’t want to do, Bernice.”
She bit her lip. “Is that right?”
I nodded.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Now, let’s talk about how you found out it was my birthday yesterday, and then you didn’t tell me that it was your birthday today.”
She flushed bright red with embarrassment.
“I, uh…” She hesitated. “I just don’t like to celebrate it.”
I knew that.
A good stalker would know these kinds of things.
That was probably why I missed the date.
She never celebrated it, so of course it would never occur to me to note the date.
But that time had passed.
We would be celebrating from now on.
“You do now,” I teased as I tucked a few stray locks of hair behind her ear.
Ones that’d escaped from her perfect hairstyle from this morning.
“Next year,” she suggested.
“No, now,” I disagreed.
“Now?”
I lifted her skirt again. “Did I tell you how much I like this skirt?”
“No,” she breathed.
“I do,” I said. “Easy access. Plus…”I trailed off when I found out that she had leggings underneath the skirt.
“Not so easy when I actually wear the pants I’d planned on putting under them.” She giggled. “I left them off this morning when I came to give you the cupcake. Just in case.”
I grinned, holding her skirt high with one hand and tugging the leggings down the length of her body with the other.
She stepped out of the leggings, which just so happened to take her panties with them, and kicked them off to the side.
My hands met the warm flesh of her thighs as I smoothed my hands up to her waist, letting the skirt drop from my hold.
“That’s better.”
She leaned in, her lips only inches from mine, and said, “What would you call what we’re doing, Hux?”
“You mean, a relationship?” I asked. “Because that’s what it is. A relationship.”
“We went from never talking—at least on your end—to a relationship in a blink and a half. Usually there’s some talking that happens beforehand.”
“We talked.”
“About the show that we were watching,” she countered.
I swung her around and into my arms. “Why does there have to be a rule on what you have to talk about, say, or do? I like your company. You like mine. And we’re both in agreement that my mom is a douchebag.
I’ve been watching you for months.” Try years.
“And I like what I saw. Maybe I was just waiting to grow a pair.”
“You’re the most confident man I’ve ever seen.” She leveled a look at me. “You were a playboy before I came around.”
I shrugged. “Were being the operative word.”
She ran her finger along the shape of my lips. “I’ve been cheated on three times.”
I didn’t reply, only squeezed her tight.
“I don’t want to ever go through that again, Hux,” she admitted. “If that’s where you lean, I’d rather know now.”
I placed her on the counter and bracketed her legs with my hands.
“I’d never do that to you, Bernice,” I promised. “Plus, I don’t like many people. Women included. That sounds like a nightmare. Not only because it would be wrong, but because your brother would castrate me, then deep fry my balls and eat them.”
She wrinkled her nose up at me in disgust.
“I was only waiting for the right woman to come around.” I smoothed my hand up the length of her thigh, causing her skirt to ride up slightly thanks to my calluses catching on the fabric.
“And you think you found her with me?” she asked vulnerably.
“I know I did,” I said. “Who else is going to put up with me treating her like crap for the first few months that I knew her? Then bring me birthday cupcakes when I didn’t tell her my birthday and help me cut up meat when we both know that you hate it.”
“I don’t hate it,” she lied.
I leaned in and ran my lips along the pounding pulse at her neck. “No? Then why did you curl your nose up in distaste when you saw that baby lamb in my meat locker?”
“Because it was a baby.” She rolled her eyes.
I winked. “And when you saw me cutting the skin off that elk a few months ago?”
“He had really soft brown eyes.” She shrugged. “And he was cute.”
I chuckled. “See, you do hate it, but you do it for me. But that’s part of why I like you so much.”
“And as for not sharing with you about my birthday, I don’t celebrate it.
Ever,” she admitted. “My birthday was a constant guilt trip. At first, my mother made me feel bad every time Creed had to remind her that it was my birthday. She always bought me a small cake from McDonald’s.
Acted like I asked her to rip out her heart for me.
Then, when it was just Creed and me, Creed had to work his ass off to get us essentials.
When my birthday rolled around, he’d go without to make sure I had something to celebrate.
I don’t know. It’s just a pain in the ass. ”
I hummed and backed up, pulling the fridge open. “So you don’t want this chocolate cake that I got?”
Her eyes gleamed. “Cake?”
“Maybe next year we can celebrate our birthdays together. Quietly.”
She leaned forward. “How’d you know that I liked chocolate cake?”
“Because I’ve never seen you without something chocolate in the months that you’ve lived here.” I shrugged. “It was a lucky guess.”
I’d seen her order this very chocolate cake by the slice several times in my stalking escapades.
Of course she would like the whole damn cake.
I pulled out the container and set it on the counter. “Though I think you like it warm, right?”
“The only way to eat it,” she breathed as she looked into the box. “What’s all that on the top?”
“Chocolate syrup,” I answered. “I told them to add extra chocolate to it. So there’s this chewy fudge center, chocolate syrup, then the chocolate icing.”
She licked her lips. “I could eat it cold.”
I chuckled. “We’ll let it warm up on the counter while we do other things.”
“Other things?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said as I pulled her back into my arms. “Ones that’ll get our heart rate up and the calories burning so we can eat the cake guilt-free.”
“Everything I eat is guilt-free,” she said as she wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist.
The move had her skirt riding high, exposing her bare ass to my hands.
I hefted her up higher, then walked her to the bed where I laid her on the heated comforter.
“Ohhh,” she breathed. “What’s this?”
“Only the best for my cold girl,” I teased. “Can’t have you freezing on my watch.”
She spread out her arms above her head and did a snow angel on top of the duvet comforter.
I watched her with amusement clearly written on my face.
“So,” she said, still smiling. “Since it’s my birthday, does this mean that I get whatever I want?”
I leaned into the bed, both hands planted on either side of her hips. “Depends.”
“On what?” she asked, sitting up.
Her nipples were hard, and I wanted nothing more than to shed her of every stitch of her clothing so I could see her naked.
“On whether or not that aligns with what I want to do with you,” I said as I tugged off her socks one by one.
“Hmmph.” She harrumphed. “That sounds like I’m not in control.”
My eyes gleamed as I reached for her shirt and yanked it off her body.
When she fell backward, her tits bounced, and I watched until they fell back into place.
“You could always pretend,” I suggested as I went down to my elbows between her spread thighs. “Close your eyes and maybe what you want will come true.”
Her breath hitched. “Are you…”
I spread her pussy lips with my thumbs, exposing her pretty pink clit, and lapped at it with my tongue.
She groaned, her knees closing around my ears, as she pulled me closer to her.
“Maybe this was what I wanted,” she admitted.
I hummed, nibbling on her clit with my lips. “Is that right?”
“That’s right.” She cleared her throat, then pushed her heels into the bed so that she could press against me further. “Oh God.”
Her shaky breath had me grinning against her clit. “Close already?”
She pressed my face further between her thighs and said, “It’s my birthday. I can come fast if I want to.”
“That you can,” I said as I inserted one finger deep into her wet pussy. “That you can.”
She cried out in response, riding my finger while I sucked and licked her clit.
“Hux, please,” she begged.
“Please what?”
“Please,” she repeated.