I’d lost him during the roll, so he was free to cup me between my legs.
I sucked in a sharp breath because that felt awesome.
“You good with me cleaning you up, or you like to see to that?” he asked.
“I can swing either way.”
“Then stay still,” he ordered.
Annnnd…
Of course he was that guy who got out of bed to clean his woman so neither of them had to sleep in the wet spot.
Another roll that left me on my side. Then he yanked the covers out from under me so he could put them over me (and of course he was that guy who didn’t leave his woman naked and cold).
He went to the bathroom, came back with a warm cloth. He nearly made me weep again with how tender he cleaned me. He returned to the bathroom, came back, switched off the lights and joined me in bed.
Gathering me to him in the dark, he said, “Now tell me about tonight.”
I would later give some headspace to the fact that he was interested, no doubt worried (before I got there, again, he hadn’t even put jammies on!), and both of those felt fantastic.
But in the now, I gave him the skinny, having just enough energy left to power through his scary vibe when I told him we’d nearly been caught and were in the same house as some bad guys.
I then briefly laid out what was next.
I finished with, “Do you think that’s a good plan?”
“An alternate plan would be just telling him he’s being played so he can tell them to go fuck themselves,” Gabe said.
It was indeed an alternate plan, but…
Fuck that.
“They’ve been messing with his head, Gabe. She probably targeted him, making him think she liked him and was his friend. And that’s so mean, it’s cruel.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“And they might be dangerous, so maybe he can’t just tell them to fuck themselves. Maybe they’ll stop playing games and start getting nasty.”
“If they went to this effort to manipulate him, I’d assume they don’t have the firepower to really fuck with him. And honestly, babe, some people suck. It could be they’re doing it just for shits and grins.”
Frankly, that was what I was worried about.
Because yeah.
Some people sucked.
“Take a look at his crew,” Gabe advised. “How many of them there are. Run through their rap sheets. Find out what they’re into and the level of danger that might mean for you. The son got nicked and is doing time. Might be he wasn’t the only one who was caught. And that might mean their crew’s numbers have diminished, and that made them weaker, even vulnerable. This seems like a pretty elaborate scheme when they could just threaten him with his own bodily harm to get him to do what they want. Which tells me they either don’t have the resources, or the stomach, to take it there.”
These were good points.
“I’ll tell the girls,” I said. “But I’ll warn you, I think we’re all pretty fired up to deliver the message that Duane isn’t open to be fucked with.”
“You’re heard,” Gabe replied. “But do the legwork first, Willow. Always do the legwork first.”
He was right.
“We will.”
