“What?” She crosses her arms. “He was.”
“He had good reason to—” Bree begins, before Jack jumps in.
“She’s right. I am kind of mean.” He actually chuckles. “Not my best quality. But learning and growing every day, right?”
This must be the right answer because Tilly sits up straight in her seat and says, “Bingo!”
Bree shakes her head, and Jack reaches over to rub her back. He whispers something in her ear I can’t hear, but Bree looks pleased by whatever he said, and she hugs his arm. They stay like that the rest of our visit at the tea shop, and even hold hands as we go wandering around downtown. Bennett and I exchange knowing looks. Our plan is going, well, according to plan.
Then, far too soon, the afternoon is over. We drop Bree off at home and say goodbye, but I wish we didn’t have to.
Twenty-Five
Jack
I’m definitely thinking about Bree as Arthur rides my cock that night. When I admit it to him, he looks like I’ve just gifted him the moon.
“Good,” he says, slowing down to take me deeper into his ass. “Now you see? What we like about her?”
After today? “Yeah. I do.”
She’s smart and funny, independent and yet considerate to everyone around her. She always wants to do the right thing, whatever she believes that is.
Arthur kisses me on the lips. “Now we just have to marry her.”
The suggestion stops me still. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“You have to have some patience,” Bennett chimes in from where he’s sitting and stroking himself.
I agree with him. If I’m learning anything about Bree, it’s that she respects others’ boundaries and also her own. She doesn’t want to overstep.
But maybe those very things are what make me believe she would be the perfect woman for our herd.
“All right,” I tell Arthur, grabbing him by the hips so I can thrust into him. He moans and his head falls back. “We’ll figure out a way to marry her.”
It doesn’t take much after that to make him come.
We wait to hear from Bree. With summer upon us, Arthur’s job finally ends, and he switches to working hard on getting the house ready for sale. We’ve also started shopping for a new one, which is more exciting than I expected. It feels full of possibilities now, and when the realtor takes us looking, I can picture us in almost every house we visit.
But it’s missing something without Bree here. I find I want her input. Which room would she use for her studio? Of course I’d want her to keep up with her business even if she lived with us. It gives her happiness and purpose.
Then I think about which room would belong to the fawn and my heart skips a beat. Every house we look at, I imagine what kind of trouble a fawn could get into, which knocks the house with the beautiful open loft off the list. I also cross a house off with a trio of big, barking dogs next door. Our yard should be a happy, easygoing place for our fawn to play.
We find many good options that weekend and bring home brochures so we can remember the parts we liked and discuss later. We show them to Bree when she comes over, where she oohs and ahhs over the stainless steel appliances and wood mantelpieces.
“Fancy,” she says about almost all of them, which makes me wonder. She hasn’t told me much about her life, how she grew up. I don’t even know if she has siblings.
I should probably learn these things before we get too far ahead of ourselves. So I make a point of asking her questions whenever I can about her mother, her sister, the world she grew up in. Her family lived in poverty, I discover, and I start to understand why having her own condo has become so important to her.
Then, one quiet Sunday afternoon, Arthur’s phone rings wildly. I cover my ears as he pulls it out of his pocket.
“It’s Bree,” he hisses, and puts the phone on speaker when he answers it. “Hi baby! How are you?”
“I’m great.” But there’s something anxious in her voice that has me sitting forward in my seat. “I have big news.”
Arthur cocks a brow quizzically, as if her news could be anything but…
“What’s the news?” he asks innocently.
