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“Wow, look at all these men.” She turned a mischievous smile on me. “You’ve got a whole volunteer crew to coerce into working on your nonprofit projects with Scott Construction.”
I laughed. “I know. Actually, Knight signed up for the next New Horizons project already.”
“First time it didn’t conflict with my job,” he said apologetically.
“And what do you do for work?” she asked.
“Tattoo artist.”
Her interest sharpened. “No kidding. So, you know Emory?”
He grinned. “Yep. That guy’s a real artist. Not like me. I’m just your basic hack.”
She laughed. “I like you.”
Kit returned with a plate of food, which Dakota set on one of the end tables. The rest of us all settled into our seats—some of us in lawn chairs—and balanced plates on our knees, laughing about how good we’d gotten at cutting steak on flimsy paper plates.
“So, is this our last steak dinner now that you’ve moved out of your family mansion?” Knight asked.
“It wasn’t a mansion,” I protested.
“Aren’t you going to miss the pool?” Hollywood asked.
“Ooh, a pool,” Dakota said. “I used to swim for PT, but I got tired of going to the Y.”
“You can swim?” Tex winced. “Sorry. Maybe that’s a dumb question.”
“No, it’s fine. Yeah, I can’t kick my legs, but the water is buoyant and I can swim using my upper body strength. I honestly feel more free in the pool than anywhere else.” She sighed. “Maybe I should restart my membership.”
“Well, you can come swimming at my place this summer.” Everyone looked askance at me. “Er, my parents’ place. I moved out. It’s not like they disowned me. I can use the pool whenever I want. In fact, they invited you all for a cookout sometime. We can make it a pool party.”
“Oh damn,” Tex said. “You’ve been holding out on us. We could have been swimming there all last summer? Seriously?”
I grimaced. “Sorry. I wasn’t on the best terms with them at the time, but…next summer. For sure.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Dakota said.
“And to answer your question, it’s not the last steak dinner, though I don’t think I can swing it every week. Mom offered to let me refill the coffers, so to speak, whenever I wanted.”
“I’m liking your mom more and more,” Tex said.
“Yeah, we could use a group mother,” Hollywood joked. “Maybe she’d want an honorary title.”
“And rob Knight of his role of Den Mother?” Tex teased.
“No, that’s okay,” Ghost deadpanned. “Like Joey said, Knight can be the Daddy.”
Everyone busted up, and Kit leaned in to murmur in my ear, “Do you need a Daddy? I wasn’t aware…”
I laughed a little. “It was just a joke because…”
Kit’s hand slipped down my back and slipped under my shirt, caressing the skin just above my waistband. I trailed off, breath stuttering.
“Just remember who’s in charge of you.”
I glanced sidelong at him. When we’d first decided to date officially, Kit had pulled back from bossing me around in bed. He’d said we needed a more equal dynamic. But as time went on, we both discovered that we liked it better when he was calling the shots—at least when it came to sexy time. Out of it, Kit always listened and even if he didn’t agree, he’d respect my wishes.
But when the clothes came off, all bets were off.
