“No, we can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have a job, Fangster Hunkadoofalus. I can’t leave until Corbin comes back. Although…” She looks thoughtful.
“Although what?”
“Chaldis!” she calls out. He almost immediately reappears, still holding the crossbow.
“Yes?”
She rolls her eyes at him. “Dude, put that down. Dexter’s fine. Listen. Where in Georgia is Corbin?”
Chaldis frowns. “Not far outside Atlanta. Why?”
My girl smiles up at me and wraps her arms around my neck. “If I agree to the spanking, can I ask a favor?Sir?”
“You’ll get the spanking regardless,girl.”
“I’m serious, Dexter.”
“So am I.” I deliver a playful swat to the seat of her jeans. “You aren’t going to sit easily for a few weeks, once I’m finished with you.”
“How’d you find me, anyway?”
“In a moment. What’s the favor?” Like I could honestly tell her no about anything within my power to give or do.
But she’sabsolutelystill getting the spanking.
“We need to transport Chaldis to the funeral in Georgia, so he can be with Corbin, and put him up in the appropriate housing,andget him safely back to Alaska.”
“Done. When do we need to leave?”
“Wait, what?” Chaldis asks. “Can we back up a little?”
When my girl smiles, the world feels like it’s righted itself—finally. “We’re going to fly you to Atlanta on Dexter’s private plane, so you can be with Corbin for his brother’s funeral. And we’ll put you up.” She looks like she just got another idea. “Oh! That was Mark at the gate earlier, wasn’t it? I thought I recognized the voice.”
“Yes. And Noah.” I lean in and playfully nibble the side of her neck. “And that was very naughty of you, threatening to shoot Noah after he was nice enough to agree to come with me to help track you. He’s Garrett’s cousin from Seattle.” I pull out my phone, so I can call Mark and John, but find I have no cell signal, dammit.
She takes the phone from me, quickly swipes into settings, and plugs me into the house’s Wi-Fi. “There. No cell service out here, sorry.”
I reach down and swat her ass again, enough to make her playfully yelp. “Thank you, love.”
Chaldis points to her. “You owe her dinner, by the way. I’d promised to grill us steaks on the deck tonight, but we thought you were coming to attack us, so she got homemade chicken pot pie instead.”
Yeah, I do feel a little bad about that. “Sorry.”
She sticks her tongue out at me, but the way her eyes crease at the outer edges tells me she’s trying not to laugh. “Bereallysorry about the crispy truffle potatoes. Thatreallytorqued me.”
“Can we let Mark, John, and Noah in?” I ask. “They’re down at the gate.”
I notice Chaldis looks to Eilidh, who gives him a thumbs up before he nods in response. She walks over to a control panel and hits the intercom button. “Mark, John, it’s Eilidh. Come on down to the house. Everything’s fine. We didn’t shoot Fangster Hunkadoofalus. And you can bring your wolf friend, Noah, if he’s not still pissing himself after I scared him. I promise I won’t shoot him, either.”
“Thanks,” Mark replies, when he gets done laughing. “We’ll be right there.”
Chaldis wears an annoying smirk. “You let your girl call youFangster Hunkadoofalus,hmm? Interesting pet name. My boy just calls meMaster. Perhaps I should renegotiate that.”
“It’s not so much a matter of ‘let’ as it is we’re still in the early stages of defining our dynamic.” I reach out and swat her ass again. “It’s growing on me. Although I think I preferSir.”
