Текст книги "Walk Through Fire"

Автор книги: Kristen Ashley

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Gonna Be My Throat

Millie

“ALAN WILL COME around,” I whispered against Logan’s neck.

We were in my bed, Logan in his clothes, me in my pj’s, Logan on his back, me on top of him.

My sister and her family had left five minutes ago. The snowplow had gone down our street thirty minutes before that but it didn’t matter. Alan told us it was going to get near sixty degrees that day, so Denver was going to thaw.

When they’d left, I’d wanted to do the dishes.

Logan had firmly led me right where I was.

“I know, Millie,” he whispered back.

I lifted my head to look up at him. “How did Dot know about us?”

Conversation had not been heavy during our surprise visit with my family. We made waffles. We ate them. We talked about France. I gave out presents. The kids took most of the attention but that didn’t mean Dot didn’t go out of her way to communicate to her children and her husband that Logan was welcome and accepted. This meant she went out of her way to communicate the same to Logan.

Alan, on the other hand, resolutely refused to heed this communication and spent a lot of his time scowling at Logan and being very loving and familiar to me. He did this last bit by centering anything he said around things Logan couldn’t know or hadn’t been a part of, leaving him out.

Logan appeared not to give a shit about this.

But he was human and he was back with me. Family was all important to him.

He’d give a shit.

This was one concern.

The other concern was the fact that they’d come at all, not to see me after France, but obviously to check I was okay since they knew Logan was there.

“After you passed out in my bed in the Compound,” Logan began, “I went to her. We had words.”

I felt myself go tense as I felt my eyes go wide.

“Uh... what?” I asked.

His arms were already around me, loose but warm.

At my question, he started stroking my back with one hand.

“Babe, she’s Dot,” he declared. “She was more worried about you than me showin’ up at her door pissed off she didn’t share with me back then. Then she showed her usual spunk, and side note, glad to see she hasn’t lost that, it can be irritatin’ as fuck, but just like you, mostly it’s cute. In the end, she asked me in for cocoa and welcomed me back.”

I felt better at his words.

I also felt amused at the cocoa bit.

“Did you have cocoa?” I asked.

“Fuck no. Had you back in my bed. Said what I had to say and got the fuck outta there.” His hand stroked up my spine and curled around the back of my neck. “And seein’ as I’m sharin’ this, even if you weren’t already pullin’ out of that Arizona thing, Dottie’s probably been manipulatin’ that since I was at her place so you would be pullin’ out of it, seein’ as I gave her that assignment and, like her little sister, when she’s in, she’s all in.”

That didn’t surprise me either. Dottie, like my parents, had loved Logan. They’d missed him. Dot had tried repeatedly (and failed miserably) to talk me out of ending things with him.

However, Logan going to get in her face wasn’t fair.

He didn’t know that.

But it wasn’t.

I bent closer to him and shared carefully, “You should know, she didn’t agree with what I did. She tried—”

He slid his hand to cup my cheek in his palm. “Babe, you don’t gotta say no more. She told me you were in a state. I told you I get the state you were in. We’ve talked that through. Let’s not go back there.”

I stared at him.

I knew I missed him. I lived with that pain every day.

But now I was remembering all the reasons why I missed him.

One of these being that he was understanding. He listened. He did it with focus. He heard what you were saying and if it meant something to you, he found a way to get it so it wasn’t an issue. Alternatively, if he didn’t get it, he eventually found a way to accept it. That didn’t mean there weren’t arguments or out and out fights, but that was usually about unimportant stuff.

The important stuff Logan treated as important.

Another of these things was the fact that once an issue was put to bed, it was done. Not only did Logan not dredge it up again, hold a grudge, use it as an example, reopen discussions, he also didn’t let me do it either.

If we found ourselves at a hurdle in life, once we cleared it, we kept going.

No turning back.

These thoughts were profound and made me an alarming mixture of happy, hopeful, and sad, thus they made me drop my head so I hit his collarbone with my forehead. I turned so my cheek was pressed to him and his fingers were forced to glide into my hair. To get more of him, I then slid my hand down his stomach and up so I could shove it his shirt, skin against skin, around to his back.

“What’s on your mind?” he rumbled.

“I never forgot why I loved you so much, missed you so much. But having you back, I find that I still forgot.”

“Baby,” he said softly.

“I’ll get over it,” I told him, hoping that was true and I didn’t live with new wounds, wounds reminding me of all I’d missed over the years.

“Yeah,” he murmured, gave me more soothing strokes, then moved us along. “Now we should take a shower. You got shit to sort bein’ back and we got shit just to sort and we should get on with that.”

I didn’t want to.

The day was sunny and warm. The snow was thawing. And this time we had together would be at an end.

Logan was intent we’d have more times together and no matter how bumpy that ride got, this time I was going to hold on tight along the way.

But now we had this moment. This final stretch of time in our reunion before we had to get on with life.

And I wanted more.

Even if it was just a little bit, I was going to finagle it.

In order to do that, I lifted my head and shifted so I took some of my weight off him as I slid my hand into the other side of his shirt.

“How about we sort out life in a little bit?” I asked quietly, watched his eyes fire, and I not only got my answer to my question, I got tingles.

“Works for me.” His words rolled over me, through me, in me, and I got more tingles.

Then I lifted my hands, arching my back to free his shirt so I could pull it up, and High raised his arms and did an ab curl so I could pull it off.

And with him right there, in my bed, all mine, again, I decided to multitask.

I’d get to do the catch-up I wanted while we had these final moments of our reunion.

This was such an excellent idea I set about doing it immediately, taking him in, lazy but intent, smelling the smell of Logan I remembered, running my lips along his rough jaw, down his throat, my hands down the bristly hair on his chest.

I followed them down.

I found none of this had changed. The brothers had a workout space and they used it. They might drink and smoke and carouse but they took every opportunity to commune, including while lifting weights.

So the hard swells of Logan’s pecs might have been bulkier, but they weren’t unfamiliar. The compacted bulges of his biceps might have been bigger, but that only meant better. The furred boxes of his abs were no less defined. The sleek ridges of his ribs no less delineated.

I found a large tat along his side, losing sight of it on his back, but it protruded quite a way across his ribs. It was a set of scales, one tray having the word Red on it, blood dripping off the sides, the other having a ghoulish reaper floating up from it with the word Black. The base of the scale was the words Never Forget.

I took one look at it knowing all the brothers got tats that meant something, told a story, proudly displayed a brand, shared history. Thus the story behind this troubling work of art, I decided, would wait for another day.

So, quickly, I moved my lips across the word Black and trailed them down his abs and along the waistband of his jeans.

His hand, already cupping my head, convulsed, the pads of his fingers digging gently into my scalp.

He knew where I was going next. He wanted it.

I wanted it too.

I slid a hand up his hip and in, dragging it over his hard crotch.

His voice was a coaxing growl as he said, “Keep goin’, beautiful.”

He had nothing to worry about.

I undid the button at his waistband, the next, the next. His fingers tangled in my hair as I went on and undid them all. The minute I was done unbuttoning his fly, I pulled his jeans down an inch, intent on getting to one of my favorite parts of him that I knew I still loved from recent experience, a part I would always adore, but I hadn’t been together enough to fully take it in.

I was going to do that then.

And I was going to take my time this time.

Intent on that, I yanked his jeans down another inch, Logan lifting his hips to help. I could see the thick root of his hard cock and I couldn’t wait.

I yanked again and something caught my attention.

I looked at it, not taking it in at first, except to see it was freaking cool.

The head of a snake, mouth open, fangs bared, inked into the muscles demarcating his hip bone.

Staring at it, all of a sudden my insides froze and my fingers at his right hip yanked down more.

That was when the rest of me froze.

Because the body of the snake trailed down and across his hip, cool as all hell, beautiful really.

But it covered my ink.

It covered what had once been there.

It covered his declaration that he was mine.

All mine.

Only mine.

His ink was still at my back.

My ink was gone.

I stared at his hip, unmoving, for long enough for Logan to call, “Babe.”

I didn’t even twitch.

He slid his hand to my jaw, putting gentle pressure on to tilt my head so I’d look at him, doing this saying softly, “Millie, beautiful.”

... only her.

Gone.

I’d lost that.

I’d lost it.

And I’d never get it back.

Not with our reunion.

Not even if this worked and we had the rest of our days together.

... only her.

That was something I’d never get back.

Ever.

Scalded by this knowledge, blistering with the burn, the snake moving before my eyes, fangs bared, ready to strike and lay me to waste, I moved fast, launching myself to the end of the bed.

I started to swing my legs around to get off, to run away, run fast, run for my life in order to get away from that snake.

I didn’t even get my legs all the way around before Logan’s arm clamped around my belly and he hauled me back into his body.

“Baby,” he whispered into my ear.

I pushed against his hold with my body and my hands at his arm. “Let me go.”

His arm tightened. “Mill—”

I reared and lost it, shrieking, “Goddamn it! If I want to go, you need to let me go!”

He let me go.

I flew off the bed, into the bathroom, and slammed the door.

Once inside, I stopped dead.

“Okay, God, okay,” I chanted, starting to pace, my body controlled by emotions I couldn’t fight but I also couldn’t let loose or the healing that had begun would be lost and this new wound would open and fester immediately.

I dragged my fingernails over my forehead, along my scalp and fisted them in my hair.

“Okay, shit, okay... God,” I whispered, remembering.

Remembering how we got those tats together. Me on my stomach on a table beside him lounging back in a chair.

It had been the most romantic moment in my life.

I knew it later, definitely, after losing him.

But I’d felt it even then, my cheek to my arms folded in front of me, watching him, him turning his head to catch my eyes. I knew then that even when we got married, it would be awesome, but it wouldn’t be as beautiful as that.

That was everything.

That was us declaring we were us.

I dropped my hands, moving to the mirror, yanking off my pajama top and turning my back.

I held the material to my breasts as I twisted to look at the mirror, sliding the hair over my shoulder.

Only him...

No... only her.

It was gone.

He got it. Not even twenty-four hours and he got it. He got what I did. He got why.

But I took us away.

He would have understood back then. He would have been there to help me deal with the loss of our dream.

He would have been there to help build a new dream.

He would have been there.

And my Only him... would have its... only her.

Forever.

And I threw it away.

I slid down the cabinets to my ass, locking my arm over my breasts with my thighs as I curled into myself and the tears came.

They were silent.

They were deadly.

“Millie,” Logan called through the door.

I pressed my face in my knees, closing my eyes tight.

And seeing snake.

My body bucked with a sob.

“Babe, come out or let me in!” Logan yelled. “You got two seconds!”

I didn’t go out or let him in.

I wept into my knees.

I heard the door open. I heard the pained, “Fuck.” I felt myself shifted so I was not ass to the floor, face in my knees. I was ass to Logan’s lap, face in his neck, his hand pressing it there.

For my part, I didn’t touch him. I didn’t curl into him. I didn’t hold on. I sat in his lap in his arms as the tears fell profusely and soundlessly, all this having discovered yet again how I’d lost it all.

How I’d lost us.

Logan stroked my hair and whispered, “I’ll tat it back, baby. I’ll ink you wherever you wanna be. You pick the spot. I’ll do it tomorrow. Fuck, do it now. We’ll get dressed and go out now, Millie. We’ll ink you back into me.”

“I threw it away,” I replied brokenly.

He curled me closer. “We’re not goin’ back there. We agreed. We’re here. Get back here with me.”

“You can’t get it back,” I told him.

“You get dressed with me, doin’ that now,” he told me.

“You can’t get it back,” I repeated.

“Baby—”

I pulled my face out of his neck and looked at his misty beauty.

“You can’t,” I hissed fiercely. “I made it so you can’t. I threw us away and it isn’t only me anymore, Logan. It’ll never be only me. I threw that away so I can never get it back. You had a wife.”

“She didn’t—”

“I don’t care,” I kept hissing. “She still had you.”

“Millie, you calm down so I can explain, you’ll get—”

I spoke over him.

“I have mine. You saw it. I never changed mine because that never changed. And honest to God, I don’t know what’s worse. The pain of knowing I threw that away. I should have told you. I should have never let you go. Or the humiliation at admitting to you mine stayed true. It stayed completely true. It was only you. It was always only you, Logan. No boyfriend, no lover, hell, not even that first fucking date. Twenty years without you and it was always... only... .you.”

After my pain-filled, mortifying speech, it took a few moments to get out of my head and back into the room.

A room that was so still, it felt like there was no air to breathe.

Then I saw his face.

And my heart exploded.

It did this right before he surged up, me in his arms, and stalked toward the door.

“Logan... ,” I began, but trailed off when he didn’t even look at me, his jaw set, his face hard.

He stalked to the door, right to the bed, and threw me on it.

I didn’t have the chance to bounce because he grabbed my ankles and dragged me his way.

I began panting when he let me go but immediately bent in and latched on to my pajama bottoms. He tore them down my legs, tossed them aside, and I was struggling for breath, my body on fire, as he instantly sank to his knees at the side of the bed, clasping my ankles again, tossing them over his shoulders.

Then he bent; I lost his face and my head dropped back to the bed when I got his mouth as it latched on to me.

He tongued me hard. He sucked my clit harder. He sank his tongue deep inside me. In no time I was past squirming right to writhing against him, my thighs clamped to either side of his head.

And then it washed over me, my orgasm carrying me away as I cried out in yipping gasps and caught his hair in my grip with both hands.

I lost purchase on him. Hardly having started coming, his mouth left me and his hands were back at my ankles, using them to twist me around to my stomach. I kept gasping for breath against the sensations sweeping me away as I felt him let my ankles go but grasp under my arms and he again dragged me into the bed, coming in with me.

He hauled up my hips and positioned. I felt the nudge of the tip of his cock before he drove inside.

My head flew back at the glory of being filled by him and I automatically started to come up on my hands when I felt his fingers wrap around the back of my neck and push.

“Stay down,” he growled, pounding inside me.

Oh God.

This again.

Shivers of pleasure mixed with shivers of fear.

His fingers left my neck but I felt them brush my hair to the side. I felt the trail of his touch across my tat. Then he grasped my hips in both hands.

Oh God.

No.

Not this again.

Something else.

Something beautiful.

“Stay down, Millie, and take my cock,” he ordered gruffly, still thrusting but now also pulling my hips forward and slamming me back to get more of him, faster, harder, God...

God.

I did as ordered, trying to hold it at bay, trying to concentrate solely on the feel of his cock ramming into me, the feel of his wild, the feel of his control completely gone, the feel of what he was communicating to me.

But I couldn’t. All that was making it build again and I dug my forehead into the bed as I moved with his thrusts, whimpering into the sheets.

“You gonna go again?” he grunted his question.

“Yes,” I breathed.

I felt his body round me, hand to the mattress, cock powering deep, his other hand slid around and in. He found my clit with his finger and rolled.

God.

God.

“Then go, baby,” he whispered.

I went.

Through it, I moaned. Turning my head so I was cheek to the bed, I ground back into him, my back arching as his finger worked my clit, his cock slamming inside me and again I was swept away.

“There you go, Millie,” he groaned, then his arm locked around my belly and he held fast as I took his pounding thrusts and listened to his harsh grunts as he came inside me.

I was coasting, no thought, just feeling, languid, peaceful, covered by my man, filled with him, and I stayed that way as he stayed that way.

Until his arm moved from around me, his hand trailing across my stomach, my side.

He flexed his hips into mine and my lips parted with a soft mew.

“My Millie,” he murmured.

Oh God.

I stayed still, covered with my man, filled with him, as his hand kept trailing.

To my back.

I started trembling when I felt his finger trace the ink.

“My Millie.”

I closed my eyes tight as the lazy slid away, the peace started slipping, and the emotion rolled back.

Logan slid out and shifted up. I felt pressure on my hip and at his nonverbal command, fell to my side.

I instantly curled into myself and kept my eyes closed.

I felt Logan’s presence leave. I heard the tap go on in the bathroom. Then I felt Logan’s presence come back.

I also felt the bed depress when he returned.

“Hitch your leg, beautiful,” he murmured.

I hitched my leg.

Gently, like he was so good at being, Logan cleaned between my legs.

When the washcloth was gone, I felt his lips at my hip before he was gone again.

But he came back.

I couldn’t keep my eyes closed when he got hold of me again, careful this time. Sweet, tender, he shifted me until we were back in bed, how we started, this time naked, the covers over us, me on top.

“Look at me, Millie,” he coaxed, his hand at the back of my neck resting, just his fingertips caressing the skin at the side.

I lifted my head slowly to look down at him and the moment I did, he lifted his other hand to cup my cheek.

“That is not a sacrifice I’m comfortable that you made,” he said quietly.

I licked my lips.

“Even sayin’ that,” he went on. “Knowin’ that’s the kind of love you have for me, that rocks me. Rocks me in a good way, baby. Knowin’ you were in so deep for me you didn’t let go even for a hookup, makes me feel like a dick sayin’ this, but I’m sensin’ you need to hear it, it means a lot.”

“I think you kinda communicated that with our, uh... latest session.”

His gaze softened with humor but the intensity stayed put.

“I hate that for you,” he whispered. “I hate that you had that kind of lonely without me. And I love it at the same time.” His head tilted on the pillow. “Do you get that?”

“I think so,” I whispered.

“You suffered,” he whispered back.

“At my own hand,” I reminded him.

“I didn’t come back.”

I shut my mouth and felt my head twitch.

“Knew you. Knew us,” he declared. “Knew what we had. You got shot of me, knew that wasn’t right. But I didn’t come back. You suffered at my hand, too, Millie. And that fuckin’ sucks. I hate that most of all. But I vow to you right now, I’m gonna fix it.”

“I...” I shook my head. “Logan, it wasn’t your fault.”

“It wasn’t all yours either and it’s not cool you take that on.”

“But it was me—”

“And it was me who didn’t come back.”

I opened my mouth but he spoke.

“I didn’t love her.”

I shut my mouth again.

“You know that. Now you’ll know I never got close. Didn’t even try. What we had wasn’t about that and I think that’s part of the reason we had it. She’s not a woman who wants to be loved. She loves our girls but that’s all she wants out of life and she’s good with that. She made that plain. She did not suffer through what we had. We existed. And that’s all the effort either of us gave it. She gave as good as she got to us. That bein’ nothin’. She was down with that and so was I. Lookin’ back, that’s one of the reasons why I went in with her. Because I didn’t have to make the effort. I didn’t have to bury what was always at the surface even to pretend. Even in an effort not to hurt a decent woman.”

He stopped talking and when he said no more, I replied on a prompt, “Okay.”

“In other words, Millie, it’s only been you.”

I dragged in a ragged breath.

“It’ll only be you,” he went on.

I stared down at him.

He swept his thumb along the apple of my cheek. “So it’s gonna be my throat.”

My head twitched again.

“What?” I asked, and it came out breathy.

“You made the choice and even if you said you wanted it on my dick, I’d do that. I’d ink my cock with you. But I want anyone who sees me to know. Anyone who gets a look at my face. Not the back of my neck. No way somewhere hidden. They look at my face, they can see, right across my throat, I’m yours.”

A badass biker with his woman’s tat emblazoned across his throat?

That was huge.

Mammoth.

Oh shit.

I was going to cry again.

To battle that, I started breathing deep.

And to battle it, I had to concentrate on that and nothing else.

Therefore, I didn’t speak.

“That work for you?” he asked.

“I... uh... you...”

I cleared my throat.

Then it overwhelmed me and my body bucked with holding back the sob.

I couldn’t look at him, he was too beautiful, what he was saying was too colossal.

So I shoved my face in his neck and started deep breathing again.

Logan slid his hand into my hair and through it. Back to tangle his fingers again, he glided them through. And repeat, all while he muttered, “I’ll take that as it workin’ for you.”

I nodded.

Then I took time to pull myself together.

Logan let me.

Once I accomplished that gargantuan feat, I remarked, “Getting a tat on your throat is gonna hurt, Low.”

“So?”

He didn’t expect a response and even if he did, I had none. As far as I knew, he’d taken the needle four times. The Chaos insignia that spanned his back. My tat, which was now gone. The tat that covered it. And whatever that was on his ribs (which I wasn’t sure I had the strength to understand right then so I avoided even thinking too much about it).

He’d know how much it’d hurt.

I let that go and carefully noted, “Your girls are gonna see.”

“Millie, look at me.”

He sounded serious.

All that was happening was serious, huge, unbelievable, overwhelming, in good ways and in some bad.

So I didn’t want more serious.

But I had to get my shit together.

Over the years, I didn’t even allow myself to dream that this might happen.

However, now it seemed I was living a dream I hadn’t had the courage to have.

Since it was here, though, I had to find the courage to face it.

Nourish it.

And unlike the last time, hold on and not let go.

So I lifted my head.

Logan slid his hand to the side of my neck, holding me there with that hand and the one at the back and keeping hold.

“I hesitate with this, beautiful,” he started gently, “ ’cause you’re fragile. I get that.” He gave me a light squeeze with both hands when he saw what I knew hit my face. “I don’t judge it. You’re not in my shoes. You don’t feel the gift it is that you gave me living the way you did for twenty years, keeping yourself only for me. Honest to Christ, it’s not a gift I want but it’s precious all the same.”

I took in another deep breath.

Logan kept going.

“I know you weren’t hibernatin’ and I woke you up. I know what I gotta do is like breathin’ life back into you. And I hope it’s sinkin’ in that I’m all in with that. So I’ll say careful-like that my girls are my girls. They might not have been raised in a home where their mom and dad loved each other, but they were raised in a home where there was a lotta love. They’ll want you for me.”

“Okay, Low,” I replied shakily, hoping that was true.

“Cleo, she always had her head screwed on straight,” he told me. “She’s a lot like her old man. Sees the world as it is and takes it as it is. Zadie...” He paused and held my gaze. “My Zadie’s a dreamer. It never touched her, the void of what her parents should have had. She made up what she wanted to be there and lived in that place.”

Oh man.

Logan continued. “So what I’m sayin’, gentle-like, is that I know I got my work cut out for me with you. But you gotta go in to this knowin’ we both got our work cut out with Zadie. You with me?”

Wonderful.

“Have you... I mean, you’ve been here awhile. Have you spoken to them?” I asked.

“About you?” he asked back, but answered before I could even nod. “No. But while you been asleep, I talked with their mom and I talked with them.” His voice dropped. “Talk with them as often as I can so I’ll be phonin’ them today while I’m with you.”

He sounded like that would bother me, but of course he would phone them.

So I just nodded.

“I’m going to do my bit,” I told him, likely with more bravado than bravery. “I mean, with you. With us. I won’t fall apart on you again.”

Something changed in his expression right before he changed our positions, rolling into me so I was on my back and he was pressed into my side, his face close, his hands moving so he had one arm wrapped around me, his other hand still at my neck, thumb stroking my throat.

“Never,” he whispered, and my hands resting at his sides curled in to his flesh at his tone. “Never, Millie, don’t you ever hide or feel ashamed of the emotion you have for me, for us, for what we lost, for all we got back. Don’t ever do that. All a’ this is gonna be pain right along with pleasure. That is, until we work through the pain and got nothin’ but the good left over. And I swear to you, fuckin’ swear, I’ll get us there.”

“I’ve changed,” I admitted, a tremor of fear lacing those two words.

“That isn’t lost on me,” he returned instantly. “There’s shit you gotta know about me too. But we didn’t walk through fire only to get to the end of that and not get our reward. If we can walk through fire, baby, we can do anything.”

I wanted that to sink in.

But there was still fear in my voice when I said, “I’m worried it’s too late. I’m worried too much time has passed. We’ve both changed. Probably a lot. I’m worried—”

He cut me off to ask, “Does this feel like it’s too late?”

I took him in, lying on me, touching me, holding me—he was my whole world in a variety of ways and had been since we met. But right then, that feeling was literal.

So it totally didn’t feel too late.

Not at all.

“You make it sound so easy,” I whispered.

“Doin’ anything at your side, no matter how hard it gets, it’s still gonna be a fuckuva lot easier than tryin’ to do anything without you. So, you’re right. It might not be easy. Life is what it is and we’re gonna face shit along the way. But I know what it was like, doin’ that not havin’ you. And I know what it was like doin’ that havin’ you. And I know which way I like better.”

See?

He was so good at the flowery, biker goodness.

Too good.

So good I was close to crying again.

And in order not to do that, I got bitchy.

“You’re gonna have to stop being so awesome or I’ll be bawling like a lunatic all the time,” I snapped.

He gave me more of his weight as he dipped his face closer.

“Not sure I can stop bein’ awesome, beautiful. It’s just me.”

I rolled my eyes.

When I rolled them back, I saw his were dancing.

God, I loved that.

I melted and lost the bitchy.

Then I realized I’d melted and lost the bitchy so I regained the bitchy and declared sharply, “You’re being awesome again.”

He started chuckling.

In order not to let how good that felt, and better, how good that felt having it back reduce me to a blubbering mess, I glared.

While glaring, I announced, “Right, so, this being at each other’s sides business, you should know the obstacles you face include, but are not limited to, me being scared absolutely shitless about meeting your girls and them not liking me. Me not having a good idea about the other tat that’s new that’s inked into your ribs. And last but not least, me warning you I’m no longer anywhere near an old lady. I’m boring. I watch TV, wear designer duds, and work most of the time. And don’t get any ideas because my halter top, cutoff shorts days are way behind me. And, although I hold no judgment against pot smokers, you still do that shit, you do it outside. I don’t want the smell in my furniture.”

He’d stopped chuckling but was still smiling when he returned, “Got kids, babe, don’t smoke pot except on occasion, only when they’re not with me and I’m at the Compound so I can commune with the brothers, then crash.”

“That’s acceptable,” I stated haughtily.

“And I dig your new threads. In fact, you’re gonna be wearing that sweater dress thing you had on that day you got up in my face when I was deliverin’ the champagne and you’re gonna be doin’ that soon so I can do the things to you I been thinkin’ about doin’ since I saw your ass in it.”

His words had a variety of effects but I elected to focus on just one.

“I didn’t get up in your face. You got up in mine,” I reminded him.

“I did,” he agreed cheerfully. “But then you got up in mine.”

“Only because you got up in mine,” I retorted.

“Whatever.” He blew that off and reverted back to the earlier subject. “As for you workin’ all the time, you’re gonna have to cut that shit out.”