“Mouth kiss, huh?” Ella gasps when she finally stops laughing, reaching up to clutch her chest in mock shock. Playing this up for all it’s worth, apparently.
“Yup. Those.” Riley places her hand over her mouth and laughs a little harder. Her body moving with each one that escapes her adorableness.
“Wow, Riles … that is quite the news. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this sooner. You holding out on me, girlfriend!”
She smirks and I should have braced while I could. I should have known she would manipulate Riley into more confessions.
“Auntie even got a spanking the other day. She wasn’t giving him his …” she looks over at us and oddly nods after a second. Just like Drew does when he’s studying us for something only known to him. “Sweetness.”
“Oh my gosh,” I gasp.
Grace stops covering up her laughter up at this moment and joins Ella when she lets out even more loud giggles of her own.
“I don’t think you should keep your sweetness from him, Auntie.” Riley continues, to my horror. “Why would you not want to be sweet to my giant?” She glances back to Ella. “So you see, that’s why she needed a spanking.”
I open my mouth to shut this down at the same time that my back starts vibrating and the man pressed tight against it bellows out a deep, rich and smooth as honey laugh that is so spectacular to experience the whole room goes silent … well, minus Riley, who is laughing with him and looking at him as if he was holding the moon out toward her in his arms. I wish I could see his face. When he laughs like that the man deep inside him that is rarely shown bursts forward. I close my eyes and picture how breathtakingly handsome he looks in these moments. Soaking in his velvety laughter, no longer as rusty as it was when we first started this thing between us. That youthfulness he rarely shows enveloping the room around us. I feel so much lighthearted excitement from just hearing his laugh, I have no doubt would be knocked flat on my tail if he wasn’t holding me.
Ella’s eyes meet mine and I see the shock in hers. I’ve been blessed with this man’s laughter for almost three months now, she hasn’t seen it once though. I know from experience how heart stopping it is to see his handsome face when he lets go like this for the first time so I completely understand her reaction.
“Well, I really didn’t see that coming either,” Ella whispers when he stops laughing.
“What?” Riley asks.
“Him,” she responds, pointing at Drew.
“How did you not see him? He is right there, silly goose.”
She reaches out to ruffle her curls. “Takes some people a little longer to see what’s in front of them,” she adds without looking away from Drew and me. Something tells me she’s talking about a lot more than not seeing this side of Drew before.
Riley giggles, but doesn’t spend any time mulling that over. She launches over to us, gives Drew a hug with me in the middle before taking off and running out of the room toward her playroom in the back.
“Don’t mean to interrupt, but I was hoping to steal the rest of this woman’s time today,” Drew rumbles low toward Ella and Grace.
“Are you actually speaking?” Ella crazily asks.
“Uh,” I start, but snap my mouth shut when he snickers low in his throat.
“I am.”
“To me,” she adds.
“You both, but yes.”
She hums and slouches down so she is resting on the back of the chair.
“So … you do speak.”
“When I have something to say,”
“Well, that’s a relief. Now I can get this off my chest.” She leans toward him and points toward his chest. “Hurt them and I’ll be your worst nightmare.” She lifts her finger and drags it across her throat.
“Ella!” I gasp.
“Noted,” he says over me, nothing but the unmistakable promise in that one word.
“Good. Just so you know, I’m serious, mister. I know how to bring the hurt.”
Grace snorts a low laugh. “You don’t even kill flies.”
“Flies don’t make my best friend look like that.”
He clears his throat. “I wouldn’t expect less.”
“Good, we understand each other,” she responds after a beat of silence shared between them. “Alrighty, Grace … stop taking up all their time and let’s go.”
I shake my head and smile at my best friend’s crazy antics.
Grace rolls her eyes, but stands and starts moving around the room, collecting their things. Drew’s phone starts ringing and he gives me a little squeeze before letting go and stepping out of the room to take his call. We make small talk as they both help me clean up our lunch mess before I walk them to the elevator to tell them goodbye.
I’ve got the biggest smile on my face when I turn from them and make my way back to the kitchen, just in time to see Drew coming in from the balcony. The expression on his face clears the second he sees me come into the room. I didn’t miss it, though. He looked almost worried.
“I have a meeting tomorrow with the guys at my place. Are you and Riley okay with cutting our plans short a little?”
“Of course,” I tell him, walking over and reaching up to frame his face with my palms on his cheeks. “Would it be easier if Riley and I come back here instead of staying at your place tonight?”
“Absolutely not. Want my girls with me.”
I smile, having had this conversation with him a few times before.
“Well, in that case, why don’t we go get packed up and head over there to drop our stuff off before you take us on this secret outing?”
His mouth presses a light kiss against mine before wrapping me in one of his delicious bear hugs. When he lifts his head back to look down at me, I see something moving in his eyes that I haven’t seen before … hope.
“Mercy” by Shawn Mendes
What the hell am I doing?
This isn’t me.
Or it wasn’t me. Not the man I’ve become. He doesn’t do things for fun. He does things to hunt.
Walking through these doors with these two females at my side, though? They are making me believe this is the me I can be—taking the shadows I’ve been living in and letting the light Olivia and Riley cast onto my days shine brightly with hope.
Not the first time my thoughts have led me down this path.
Not when I pulled up to pick them up earlier, deciding to dust off my Jeep to give them this experience. No damn way I was willing to trust someone else driving them around. Not even one of the men on my team that have always had my back. There isn’t a single person I would trust with them. A thought that I wasn’t willing to put too many questions on. Something was physically pushing me toward her, making my gut scream for me to listen. The biggest tell that this was something special was feeling that hard jerk—almost as if I had something tied to my spine giving a hard tug—pulling me back to the girls.
It started out so simple.
Stay close, watch them, and wait for Ray to make his move. I would never let him hurt them, but there was no other way for us to pull him out of hiding without continuing to watch them as I had originally planned. It wasn’t supposed to get further than keeping them safe.