“I’ll be there by noon. Good?”
“I’ll text you what I need, where it is, and where I am.”
“Later,” he says, the girl squealing in the background before the line disconnects.
“You didn’t mention me.”
“I want to have theyouconversation when we’re eye to eye. Not over the phone.”
“Themeconversation?”
I brush my lips against her hair and close my eyes. “I’m going to lay down some ground rules.”
She flattens her palm against my chest and nuzzles deeper into my side. “I don’t want there to be trouble because of me.”
“There won’t be. Lemme handle my brother. I have decades of experience with him.”
“You do, but I also have a past with him. One I’d rather not repeat.”
“I got you, princess. Leave my brother to me.”
“Oh boy,” she mutters against my skin. “This isn’t going to be good.”
I pull away, pushing her onto her side and curling my body against her. “Sleep. You let me worry about tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she says on a yawn. “He’s your brother.”
That is a fact I can’t escape, no matter how much I wish I could. He and I have never had a good relationship. It’s like he’s been gunning for me since the day I was born. If there is a way to fuck me over, he does it and seems to take pleasure in it too. I am used to his bullshit, but I’m not going to let his sourness bleed onto my girl.
Which brings up another point, something she and I are going to have to talk about soon. Our relationship has been casual. It’s been whatever it is. We haven’t had much of a discussion about anything more serious. We’ve been easing into things, but that time is over.
With the girls gone for the summer, I plan to stake my claim and make her realize exactly who she belongs to—she is meant to be mine. I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life, and nothing is going to stop me from making that a reality.
“Sweet dreams, Wylder.”
I pull her tighter against me and press my lips to the back of her shoulder. “You too, princess.”
I drift off to the possibilities of a future I didn’t think was possible until I met her.
I feellike I’m being punked as I glance around the small but full dining room. “I didn’t think this shit was real.”
Tate giggles across the table from me as she tears apart an everything bagel that has more cream cheese on it than should be legal. “Which part?”
I glance around, waving my hands in all directions. “All of it.”
Her eyes follow the movement of my hands as she lifts a chunk of bagel to her lips. “It’s nothing I’ve ever experienced before.”
“I thought it was all made up for television. I feel like I’m stuck in some creepy horror film and someone with a chainsaw is going to burst through the front door.”
“Or that everyone’s been taken over by body snatchers,” she says before shoving the bite into her mouth and licking her fingers afterward.
My gaze snags on the way her lips curl around her fingertips, her tongue swiping across the smaller bits she didn’t catch on the first pass. “Tate.”
“Yeah?” she asks, looking at me with big doe eyes, like she doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing.
“If you don’t stop that, I’m not going to be able to stop myself from bending you over this table and giving everyone a show.”
Her smile is immediate. “They’re already staring. May as well give them a good reason.”
