“Can I grab mine now? Working the bar tonight.”
It took me a moment to compute he meant the dinner I’d wound up finishing off.
Potatoes.
Cam’s special meat sauce that was going to give him indigestion when he tasted it.
My blood was in my dick. My lungs felt empty.
I found a breath from somewhere and heaved the spud pot off the stove.
Embry stayed exactly where he was, so I had to step around him, dragging my crotch across his to get to the sink.
Oh.
Right. He was wearing sweatpants.
My heart thumped a little harder.
I drained the potatoes and dumped them back in the pot. Mashed them with butter and pepper, stuck a spoon in the meat, and scooped cutlery from the drawer.
Decoy filled his plate and left without saying much more.
It was my favourite thing about him.
Being alone with Embry was my favourite thing ever. I wanted to kiss his neck again. His high cheekbones. His jaw. I wanted to thread my fingers in his messy black hair and tip his head back. Make him look at me while I claimed his mouth—
Make him?
Fuck. The wrong kind of shiver rattled my spine. The same cold sweat I’d felt up on the roof came back, and bile surged up my throat.
Fuck.I’d been rough with girls in the past. Dominant. Demanding. Nothing they didn’t ask for or want, but how many times had I stopped to make sure? To check in with their state of mind?
None. I’d taken their first answer and run with it, as if consent was confined to a split second in time. A ticked box. What if I’d fucked up with them?
“Hey.” Embry waved a hand in front of my face. “Where did you go?”
“Hmm?”
He stepped back, staring hard. “You look like something terrible just happened in your head. Did you have a flashback or something?”
No. Yes. But it wasn’t mine. “What are you talking about?”
Concern built in Embry’s stormy eyes.
Eyes that saw straight through me because he was a wise motherfucker. He reached for me in the same moment I grabbed the spud pot, and a frown creased his face. “Are you about to run away?”
“To the other room? Yeah. Catch me if you can.”
I ducked out of the kitchen, nausea still flaring in my belly. Cam’s food had smelt amazing two seconds ago. Now I wanted to eat it as much as I wanted to sit on a thorny dildo.
Unsettled, I took the pot to the table, lost in my scratchy brain. It took a moment to register Saint’s presence in the still mostly empty chapel.
He was leaning over Cam, kissing him, murmuring something against his lips, and it was a sight that slowed my footsteps.
I’d never seen it. I mean, I’d seen them together, standing close, leaning on each other. And I’d watched Cam cry his fucking heart out when Saint had been hurt. But I’d never seen them so openly affectionate, and it warmed my fucked-up soul.
It also brought my splintering brain back to life.
