Swallowing hard, I opened Mateo’s messages. He didn’t like talking on the phone and he’d sent me enough texts to pre-empt my call.
Mateo:he’s off the machines. moving to a regular ward in the morning.
Mateo:we need to talk about gardening later.
Mateo:can you bring him some food that won’t kill him?
The last one made me smile. Of all my brothers, Embry was the one most ruled by his belly. If he ever lost his shit, chances were he was hungry... sometimes for blood, but hey. That was life.
Our life, at least.
Cam:I’ll take morning visiting hours. Get some rest.
Mateo:yes boss
I didn’t mind it when Mateo, or anyone else, called me that. It was only from Saint’s lips that made me want to break things.I’m not his boss. I’m his—
Damn, I didn’t know the end of that sentence. And my dick was still hard.
Go me.
I pushed the heat in my gut aside and focused on the other messages and calls. There was one each from my siblings, both rude as hell. One from Rubi letting me know he’d opened the yard, business as usual.
Rubi:Decoy showed up. We can handle any shit.
I knew it.
The rest of the messages were from the masses, lower ranked brothers wanting to know if it was safe to bring their old ladies and kids back to the clubhouse, and I didn’t have an answer for them. I believed Alexei and the fear he’d provoked in the Sambinis, but this was my fucking family.
I needed time.
And more coffee.
Saint appeared with a magic mug as I was getting dressed. He was windswept and wild.
“Seal watching again?”
“Kites. They’re hunting in your garden.”
“That’s a bird, right?”
“Fuck off.”
He spoke without humour, but if I looked hard, it was there. He liked me ribbing him about preferring animals to most people. It let him know I cared enough to notice.
Saint helped me into my T-shirt. His close proximity left me dizzy, but I hid it in case he took the coffee back.
He pulled the shirt over my torso and stood back, and I noticed for the first time that he was wearing the same clothes as last night—clothes that had seen fuck knows what.
I rose and went to the drawers. It had been a while since I’d been domesticated enough to empty the washing basket, but I had T-shirts for days. I grabbed an RK crew neck and some grey jeans and tossed them over my shoulder. “Hang on, I’ll find you some socks.”
Boxers too, but I couldn’t seem to say it out loud. The idea of him wearing my underwear was hot as hell, like I was claiming him or some shit.
I found what I needed and turned to face him. He was holding my clothes as if I’d thrown him a Delia Smith book and told him to bake a fucking cake. Was I above taking advantage of that and helping him strip?
Nope.
I undid his belt buckle while he tugged his shirt over his head. His clothes may have been grimy, but his skin was musky-clean, warm, and vibrant with the ferns and trees he had tattooed from his feet to his neck. Still didn’t know how that had happened, seeing as he hated almost every other human touching his skin. The moment to ask him had never come.
