She turned them over as she looked at every detail. “How do you know my size?”
“My sisters.” That had not been an easy conversation and I ended up having to promise to attend the New Year fundraiser gala Dorian was helping a women’s rights charity with. I normally didn’t go to all the events both of my sisters and our parents attended. Not unless they were for a medical cause or I owed one of the twins a favour.
“What did you give them in return?” She looked up at me as she slipped the knickers on. She turned around showing me every angle. “Do you like them?”
Was she being serious? “Yes, very much.”
“Good,” she smiled, “Me too. So what part of your soul did you have to sell to your sisters?”
“I promised we’d go to the end of year fundraiser. “
“We were already going.”
“I know, but they didn’t.”
“Sly, Mr. Anson, very sly.” She ran her index finger down my chest to my navel.
She smiled widely as I picked her up and sat her on the glass top of the island before I handed her the larger of the two boxes.
“Merry Christmas, beautiful.”
Her eyes rounded slightly with a noticeable mix of excitement and bashfulness as she wrapped her legs around my waist and shook the box a little. “What is it?”
“Open it.”
She narrowed her eyes giving me a playful scowl and took a deep breath before she pulled the thin blood red ribbon. Her eyes meeting mine once again as she opened the box. Her boobs jiggled slightly as her breathing quickened.
She was definitely excited, and it was contagious. I could feel it coursing through me and making my stomach somersault.
Her cheeks were slightly rosy and her eyes were shining. She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth before she looked down and then she was just silent.
Her legs dropped from my waist and her hand shook as she stroked the old and weathered grey cotton that had once been a darker grey or maybe even black.
“What have you done?” Her gasp was almost inaudible. “How did you even find it?”
“I know people.”
She looked up at me teary and with a smile so wide and bright that it warmed every single inch of me. “You know people?”
She took the book out of the box and opened it to the title page with the original misattribution—by the author of Jane Eyre—her eyes shone even brighter as she fingered her great-grandmother’s name, the pen marks now almost imperceptible.
“I can’t believe you found it.” She traced the title she’d read more times than either she or I could count.
Wuthering Heights had been her favourite since she’d spent a whole term listening to me moan about it as I prepared for my English Literature exam. When Batshit Lizzie had given it to her on her thirteenth birthday it became her most beloved possession for the two years she had it.
“Technically I didn’t, Jake’s uncle did.” I wiped the tear that rolled down her cheek. “You should’ve never had to sell it. If Phillip and I hadn’t been idiots and fucked around with the Ganja brothers, you never would have sold it. You loved that book more than anything and when Phillip told me how you’d gotten the money for us I felt so fucking terrible. So, really this isn’t an actual gift, more of a return. The gift is inside.”
She searched my face as she cupped my cheek. Her thumb grazing over my skin. “Even back then, I loved you more than this book. I wasn’t ever truly upset about the book itself.”
“You weren’t?”
She laughed silently as she shook her head, “Maybe a little, but mostly I was furious because the pair of you had gotten yourselves into so much trouble. I mean, two posh boys trying to roll around with some seasoned drug dealer’s bitches, really?”
It hadn’t been one of my finest moments, I’ll admit, but Phillip and I had some pretty funny times because of it. Until it went bad. “Hey, it was good weed.”
“It wasn’t that good.” She grimaced.
“How’d you know?”