Pride pushes my shoulders back.
Tips my chin higher.
Has me cockily grinning until I move closer and slip on the silk socks lined up near the edge of her car. Crashing into the frame of the vehicle knocks all the air out of my lungs and swiftly refills them with shame.
Why the fuck does this shit keep happening to me?!
Humble.
I am humble! I’m the most humble Draak of them all!
No.
I fucking am!
No.
Maybe not, but I’m at least second!
Idiot.
“Smooth,” Ana teases at the same time I step back to connect our stares. She extends the tiny chocolate offering up to me on a crooked grin. “Like chunky peanut butter.”
I lightly chortle, take the candy, and lift it in a cheer’s nature. “Like chunky peanut butter.”
The woman who is getting harder to deny being my Fated Mate laughs loudly realigning everything in my existence. In spite of the messes I’ve made, the information I’m missing, the consequences I’ll be paying for, everything suddenly shifts with ease.
As though everything is going to be okay.
As though everything is okay.
Which is asinine because my life is a total shit show at the moment.
From work to rescues to my dick leading a mutiny, nothing is okay.
Once I’ve finished chewing through the crunchy treat, I warmly suggest, “What do you say we get you out of those clothes?”
Her brow scrunches together in outrage.
“You’re wet.”
More disbelief is painted on her face.
“I mean they’re wet!” Rushing to correct myself happens in tandem with me stepping out of the eye hurting zone. “From the rain. And I don’t want you to catch a cold or pneumonia or Crane’s Cough!”
“What the fuck is Crane’s Cough?”
“Shit! What do you Sleepers call it? Um…” The racking of my brain for the right term is rapid. “Oh! Whooping cough.”
“Sleepers?”
“That term is part of the conversation you’re going to want to be dry for.”
Amusement begins to seep into her dark stare yet again.
“During.”
It spreads to the rest of her expression.
“For Dragons Sake, you make me so fucking bad with words!”
“Oh, this is my fault, peanut butter?”
Thoughtless groans over the nickname rattle my chest.
Fuck, why do I like that she gave me a stupid nickname?
Care.
You can’t fucking prove that.
Rather than let mortification win for the millionth round, I simply release another sigh of exasperation and present my palm for the taking. “Will you and your pretend pepper spray please join me in the estate for M&M’s, vodka, and dry clothing?”
Ana laughs at the proposal, yet places her hand in mine, “You had at me M&M’s, peanut butter.”
Maybe I did.
And maybe if I’m lucky, they’ll somehow help me keep her too.
I wave around the long, green vegetable while sporting a curious smirk. “Why was there a zucchini in your pajama pants pocket?”
A.D. snatches the object out of my clutches. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”
Shooting him a skeptical stare is instantly done.
“It was there for snacking,” he nonchalantly tosses the piece of food onto the humongous gold sheet-covered bed behind him, “not sex.”
More snickers slip out of me as I fiddle with the string to the silk, gold bottoms I’m borrowing. “Whatever you say, peanut butter.”
Against his own volition, he smirks at the term of endearment that I didn’t intend to give him.
It just sort of happened.
And treasuring the words my dad raised us by is the reason I’m okay with it.
Sometimes the best things in life just seem to happen.
They aren’t planned.
They aren’t predicted.
They simply occur.
Like falling in love.
Building a family.
Having a legacy.
Flopping down onto the golden-colored couch beside a table housing a record player is done at the same time he gathers my wet clothes into his tanned, brawny arms. His rearrangement of the stack, however, forces my damp, black lacy, thong from the bottom of the pile to the top and a bright red color to stain his cheeks.
Unfortunately, I’m not given the opportunity to playfully taunt his new uncomfortableness due to a knock on his bedroom door. “Master Draak, I have your requested snacks.”
“Come in.” A.D. hastily shuffles the pile around once more to hide my undergarments yet manages to swing the edge of my bra into his direct view, reddening his complexion further. Grumbles of disbelief are immediate and louder than I’m sure he realizes. “ForDragonsSake. Are you fucking kidding me right now?!”
“Master Draak,” the man politely begins as he drifts into the room, English accent heavy. “Is everything alright?”
“You’re floating,” I thoughtlessly comment on a casual point to the lower half of his body that’s nothing more than a swirling green tornado. “Is that a magic trick, too?” My head whips to the individual who owes me a lengthy explanation of the night’s events. “‘Cause I gotta say, peanut butter, this one is way better than your onion disappearing thing.”
“Shallot,” he huffs. “I was eating a shallot.”
“Same shit.”
“They are not the same shit. They’re in the same family. They can be substituted in most recipes to more or less get the same results. But they are not the same shit.”
“Sounds like the same shit.”
His frustrated grumble is interrupted by the John Cena stunt double. “Master Draak, who may I ask is peanut butter?” He adjusts the tray in his hold. “Do we have an additional visitor I forgot to greet? Is it a ghost or perhaps a ghoul?”
“Now, I know those are the same shit.”
The hovering creature shifts his attention to me. “They are actually not, Lady…?”
Unsure of what he wants me to say leads to me staring on cluelessly.
“Your last name,” he curtly informs.