“I know, MeMaw,” I chuckled as Dahlia came back into the room.
I knew far more than she realized. MeMaw wasn’t wrong—Dahlia Aldridge was the marrying type. She was also the loving, obsessing type of woman I couldn’t stop thinking about. Oh, let’s not forget about the type of woman that I wanted to fuck.Hard. All the goddamn time. She was just my type, my personal brand of drug.
Sitting down, I didn’t eat much as I listened to them talk and watched her eat. She managed to get down most of her pasta, seeming to not be fully focused on it. A part of my soul settled at that, feeling like she had let me take care of her. I needed that. I needed her to be healthy.
I had been keeping tabs on the situation through Yates, who, despite not pushing me on my situation, managed to run into me once a week and give me an update. I had almost lost my shit when I found out someone had been bullying her. I was just glad they were looking out for her as well, because I clearly hadn’t gotten my shit together enough to do it properly.
“I’m going to shower before we head over to Dermot’s,” I announced as I stood and stretched my arms up. Dahlia nodded, her eyes flickering with heat before my grandma asked her something. I shook my head, nearly groaning as I tried to not look at the way her lips pulled into a smile. Goddamn it. I literally could get a hard-on from her smile. Walking up the stairs, I cursed, trying to think of anything besides her hot frame and sexy mouth.
Stripping down, I locked my bedroom door and walked in the bathroom, looking over my tattoos in the mirror. How long would it be until she realized the extent of my obsession? Would she be rightfully freaked out?
Right on my heart, buried within other dark symbols, was adahliaflower.
On my sixteenth birthday, I’d gone into the city and booked an appointment at a shady fucking place that did good work and didn’t question my age. It was my favorite piece of ink, and every moment of pain had reaffirmed just how much I felt for her.
Hopefully she wouldn’t think I was a complete psycho when she saw it.
Or she would. Either way, nothing I could do about it now.
Stepping under the hot water, I tried to ignore the urge to call her up here just to show her how hard she made me. My cock pulsed in my hand as I considered stroking myself off, but I knew it would feel cheap compared to being inside of her. After I’d tasted her lips, I knew nothing in my imagination could ever compare. I had been relying on those thoughts for years to find some relief, and now I knew I just needed the real thing. It was the only option. So yeah, I was tempted to call her up here to show her just what she did to me.
How much she made me want her.
How much I wanted her kneeling in front of me as I felt her hot mouth on my cock as I gripped her hair tight enough that her eyes teared up and she gagged on me.
Holy shit. I needed to get out of here.
Moving my thoughts from that to the fight, I was able to work myself down to where I was only sporting a semi. I finished cleaning off and changed into a pair of fresh shorts and a shirt, wondering if it was going to be weird hanging out with all of them again. I nearly rolled my eyes at that. No, I knew it wouldn’t be, and that was what had made it so difficult to walk away from all this in the first place.
At the end of the day, they were like my brothers. True family.
As I got downstairs, I frowned, finding my grandma watching the news, the table cleared.
“Where is she?” I asked, not wanting her out of my sight.
“Kitchen!” my grandma called, smiling. Yeah, yeah, I sucked at hiding my feelings, hence why I had avoided my angel like the goddamn plague so she didn’t realize how crazy I was about her.
As I entered the kitchen, I couldn’t help but pause and watch. Dahlia was humming and putting away items in the fridge, twirling on her toes with each movement. Her face was flushed and she looked happy, making me wonder what she was thinking about.
Maybe it was better I didn’t know. It would probably make me want to pin her onto the kitchen floor and take her.
“Oh!” Her hand flew to her chest as she snapped her head to me when I let out a small laugh, not ashamed of watching her. “You scared the bejeezus out of me, Stratton.”
“You didn’t need to clean up,” I noted softly as she walked up to me, intertwining our fingers and leaning her head against my chest.
“I don’t have to do a lot of things.” She shrugged and led me towards the door. I followed after her like she had a goddamn siren call.
Hadn’t I said I was the lost fucking pup following her around?
Yeah, I think we all knew the truth of the situation here.