I didn’t know how many times I’d thought that was never gonna be me. Having a family and shit.
“I need more, Ethan,” she pleaded. “Fuck me.”
“Give me a sec. I’m appreciating my view.”
She sucked in a breath and clenched.
I grinned. Fuck, that felt incredible.
I rubbed her ass cheeks and pushed in just as slowly as I’d pulled out, and I was rewarded with her desperate whimpers.
In the end, I gave us both what we wanted. I gripped her hips tightly, and I fucked her hard. If we were going to hike after I helped Lias fix a radiator and we made the video of me chopping wood, we had to get going. Natalie was probably gonna wanna run by her place to get her hiking boots.
The only downside to Natalie staying as far away from sugar as she could was that I had to eat her crumble in secret. She could make things for me, but she didn’t want them around the house, and I respected that.
One day, I legit walked into Darius’s restaurant to heat up the latest crumble in his kitchen. He was giving me a weird look when I returned to the bar so I could eat. They’d just opened, so the lunch crowd wasn’t here yet.
“Why are you holding somethin’ that smells and looks delicious?” he asked. “That’s so unlike you.”
I barely spared him a glance. He could stand there and rack wineglasses all he wanted. I was busy. I only needed a stool and the bartop. In an hour, I had to be back at work.
“Let me eat my crumble in peace,” I said.
He walked closer and looked at the dish. “What’s in there?”
“Caramel apple with some crispy oats thing and rum.” I stabbed it with my fork and tucked in.
Fucking divine.
“Can I tr?—”
“No. It’s mine.” I formed a protective shield around the food with my arm. “Nat made it for me, not you.”
He sucked his teeth. “Do you even know how to eat pie these days?”
“It’s motherfucking crumble,” I told him. “Can people get it right?”
He rolled his eyes.
“If I don’t eat the whole thing, you can have a taste,” I settled for.
“That’s fuckin’ mean.”
I shrugged and shoveled more crumble into my mouth. “If you one day decided to take your retirement from military work seriously, maybe I’d reward you. Maybe.”
But as it was, he still occasionally did shit that put him in harm’s way, and I was fucking over it. Ryan wasn’t any different. I understood that money was great in the private sector, but we’d lost enough in our family.
“I’m retired!” he exclaimed. “I haven’t done shit.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. When he lied about his gigs, it just meant he didn’t want anyone to know he was taking another break from “retirement.” But his new limp wasn’t unnoticeable, and I wasn’t born yesterday. His recent trip to Las Vegas to “attend some agriculture thing” was pure horseshit. I watched the news, dammit.
“Who runs a national agriculture convention in Vegas anyway?” I blurted out. “Shouldn’t they be in Texas or one of the flyover states?”
He shot me an annoyed look. “Every fuckin’ state has those fairs. And for the record, I’mma buy feeder pigs.”
Whatever.
“I’ll tell Gray to remind you to make an appointment with me,” I said. “You need a recovery routine for that shit leg of yours.”
