Even Makhi, who hurt me when he kicked me out and slammed a door in my face, did it to protect Vonn and Nash. It hurt, but I understand why he did it, even if I’m not sure I can forgive him for it.
No one in this house has ever used my feelings against me. So, I have no doubts about sliding into Nash’s lap and circling my arms around his shoulders to say, “I wouldn’t have a problem with you making love to me at all.”
He lifts me as if I weigh nothing at all.
We’re so focused on kissing that he walks into the doorframe, making me laugh.
“Sorry,” he whispers, rubbing his hand up and down my back as he holds me in his arms. “I didn’t want to drop you.”
“Carrying me out of the room might be a little easier if you’re not kissing me at the same time.”
A grin transforms his face. He’s always been handsome, but in a quiet, intense way. When he grins, I’m breathless.
“That’s true,” he agrees.
Then he goes right back to kissing me as we zigzag through the entryway and up the stairs.
Three steps up, he breaks the kiss, breathing hard. “I really do have to stop kissing you now, or we’ll both fall down the stairs.”
“Aren’t I heavy?”
He smiles. “Not at all.”
“If I tried to carry you, I’d break both our necks falling backward down the stairs.” I tease.
He stops halfway up the stairs and looks at me. “You’re lighter.”
My cheeks burn. “Put me down.”
Chuckling, he keeps a firm hold of me. “I don’t mean you’re heavy. You smile more.”
“I’m trying to lean into the happy moments. I used to run away from my feelings, but I’ve been thinking a lot since Vonn told me that we never have as much time as we think we do.”
He resumes carrying me up the stairs. “He’s right.”
I bite my lip. “And you don’t mind…” I fumble for the right words to explain this new thing we’re doing. “Sharing me? If that’s what this is.”
“We’re friends who all have deep feelings for you. That’s what this is.”
When he says it like that, it doesn’t feel as strange as when I say it in my head. I don’t know anyone who has a relationshiplike this, but then again, I never stayed in one place long enough to hear anyone's relationship stories.
At the top of the stairs, he stops and looks me in the eye. “And no, none of us mind it as long as you don’t.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t mind it at all.”
“Vonn and Makhi have a way of communicating that sometimes involves fists,” he says on our way down the hallway.
In his room, he leaves the overhead lights off and nudges the door closed before he carries me to his four-poster bed in a burgundy room as elegant as it is beautiful.
“What’s your way of communicating?” I ask.
He sets me down and gets on the bed beside me after kicking off his shoes, so we’re lying side by side.
“I didn’t communicate,” he says, smiling wryly. “Vonn and Makhi pulled me out of myself. I didn’t talk. I stewed in whatever mood I was in. It drove Nancenuts.” His lips twitch into an almost-smile.
“What are you thinking?” I ask, curious about the change in his expression.
“Nance found an orange cat in the backyard and insisted I adopt him. Reginald, the cat with the name no one but Nance would have given it.”
