Laric also kept his arm around me the entire time.
Oh, and the butter stayed on Adam’s beard until the freakin’ owner of the establishment—apparently Amelia’s friend—wiped it off for him like a mother would to her unruly child with spaghetti dinner all over his face.
Laric pulled me closer as he laughed, and I realized two things.
One, Laric got along really well with my family. So well that he fit in a way that none of us had realized we’d been missing a piece until he was there, filling the spot.
Two, I was so in love with Laric that it was downright crazy how short of an amount of time it took for a person to become the center of one’s world.
CHAPTER 17
Tomorrow is not promised. Use your PTO today.
-Text from Harlow to Catori
CATORI
“Fuck me.”
I laughed as I rolled off of Laric and onto my stomach, being super careful of my shoulder.
“You better get going.” I sighed, wiggling deeper into the bed as a sense of contentment rolled through me.
I’d just gotten done screwing Laric’s brains out, and he now had to get up and get to work.
“Can’t feel my legs,” he sighed, lying so still that I was sure he’d gone back to sleep.
When I blinked open my eye, however, it was to find him staring at me.
“What?” I asked, face half-smooshed by the pillow my head was laying on top of.
He grinned and rolled over, his face mere inches from mine, and said, “When this is all over, I want to take you on a ride in the mountains. Can we do that before you have to get back to work?”
I refrained from telling him I couldn’t go back to work until this situation with Thor was figured out.
He knew, just as well as I did, that I couldn’t go back to work working with children unless Thor was handled.
Sadly, that may or may not happen any time soon.
“Gotta go get gas in my bike,” he grumbled as he hefted himself out of bed. “You made me late.”
I rolled my eyes. “I most certainly did not.”
He snorted. “You’re telling me that you didn’t just use me completely? I was on my way out of bed when you rolled over and jumped on me.”
“Yeah.” I closed my eyes again, sighing at the feeling of utter deliciousness. Man, his bed was the bomb. He better be careful or, when this was over with Thor, I’d be taking the bed back to my apartment with me. “That was exactly what happened. Sure.”
He chuckled as he disappeared into the bathroom, coming out long moments later dressed in all black.
“You gonna get out of bed and clean yourself up?” he wondered.
Though it felt incredibly weird to have Laric leaking out of me, I was so damn comfortable that I didn’t actually have plans of moving any time soon.
“Maybe.” I paused. “But I have this towel underneath of me, and the bed is so warm.”
He walked to the side of the bed I happened to be occupying and started to load his pockets up with stuff. Spare coins, a wallet, gun magazines, a knife.
“Women’s pockets suck compared to men’s pockets,” I told him.
He grinned swiftly at me. “That right?”
I nodded, feeling drool pool on my lip. “Yeah. If I wanted to take all of that, I’d have to find a purse. I might be able to fit that little pocket knife in my pocket, but that’s it.”
He finished putting shit in his pocket, then reached for the gun in the bedside table.
“How do you even have that?” I asked. “Isn’t it illegal for felons to possess one?”
My teasing caused him to roll his eyes. “Illegal, sure. But you damn well know just as I do that it’s easy to get illegal guns from almost anywhere if you want one bad enough. But this one just so happens to be one of Lynn’s. Now, don’t ask me if it’s legal, because I highly fuckin’ doubt that. But I at least took it from his safe. Now, don’t leave the house, right?”
I rolled my eyes, tired of the same ol’ routine, day in and day out. “Yes, daddy.”
His mouth kicked up at the corner. “You can call me that. When we’re in that bed together. Otherwise, try to keep it to a minimum.”
I scoffed. “I’ll call you that when and where I wann… ack!”
That ‘ack’ came from my mouth as he brought the flat of his palm down on my ass. Hard.
“Hey!” I cried out.
He winked. “Gotta go. Stay inside.”
I sighed and closed my eyes. “Love you, too.”
I meant it as a joke, but just as fast as his booted feet started taking him out of the room, they paused and backtracked to the bed.
Before I could open my eyes and look at him again, I found myself flipped over, with Laric’s big body all but hovering over mine, his mouth only inches away from my own.