“Don’t forget about Isabella hanging with Jasna so Henley could take extra counseling appointments. That was a huge help,” Owl threw in.
Spike agreed with his friends, and he was grateful everyone had worked as a team to keep what could’ve been a volatile situation under control. Though he had to secretly admit to also being a little frustrated. Tonight was supposed to be his and Reese’s night. But he wouldn’t make love with her when she was three sheets to the wind, especially not for the first time.
Still, he had to admit she was adorable. All of the women were. They were sitting in the lodge, laughing and joking with each other.
“I’m thinking it’s about time we shut this down,” Brick said dryly when Alaska almost fell out of her chair, and the other women laughed so hard they were crying.
As if they’d all just been waiting for someone to call it a night, Tonka, Woody, and Spike moved at the same time. They headed for their women, saying their good nights to the other guys as they did.
Spike approached Reese and couldn’t keep the smile off his face as she tilted her head back to look up at him from her seat. “Hi!” she said happily.
“Hey,” he returned, putting a hand on her shoulder to steady her.
Reese continued to smile up at him. “You’re beautiful,” she slurred.
“Time for us to go home,” he told her, still grinning.
“Home,” she mused and closed her eyes. “Your cabin is home.”
Her words hit Spike hard. Had he ever truly felt as if he had a home? He’d had places to sleep between missions, apartments that were nothing more than a place to store his stuff. Even after moving into the cabin here on the property, he wasn’t sure he truly saw it as a home. It was where he slept, and convenient to where he worked, but a home? Not really.
But since Reese had arrived, it felt more and more like the place where he belonged. Where he looked forward to going to at the end of the day, simply because she’d be there. And while she hadn’t moved in officially, she’d gotten a few boxes of her things from Missouri that her neighbor had boxed up and stowed in her car before its transport. Having her clothes, shoes, and even a few knickknacks around the cabin had solidified her presence. It made Spike grin every time he saw her things mixed in with his.
“Can you walk?” he asked gruffly, trying to hide his pleasure at her thinking about the cabin as home.
“Pbsshaw,” she muttered before standing—and promptly swaying to the side. If Spike hadn’t been there to hold her up, she would’ve fallen on her face for sure. “Of course I can walk!” she insisted, even as she grabbed Spike’s arm with a death grip. “Tonight was awesome,” she told him. Then she turned to the other women who were similarly holding onto their men. “Tonight was awesome!” she proclaimed again.
“Awesome!”
“Super-duper awesome!”
“Muy bien!”
“Remember, we’re gonna all meet in the morning and have breakfast together,” Henley said excitedly.
The men all chuckled. It was more than obvious none of them would be in shape to get up early, let alone want to eat.
“See you in the morning!” Alaska said with a wave as Brick led her to the door.
“Mañana!” Isabella offered with a huge grin. It was cute how she reverted to Spanish when she was drunk. Woody put his arm around her and guided her out of the room, following Brick and Alaska.
“We’re gonna go down and check out the aminals!” Henley said as she gazed at Tonka adoringly.
“Is that code for sex?” Reese asked bluntly.
Henley attempted to wink, but in reality, she just closed both her eyes hard, then opened them again. “Shhhhh. Yes! We don’t wanna wake Jasna. And Stone’s in our cabin babysitting, although she’d die if we called it that, and we don’t want to intermupt him.”
Spike fought his smile at the way Henley kept mispronouncing words. And she wasn’t exactly using her inside voice.
“We aren’t having sex in the barn,” Tonka told her firmly.
Henley pouted. “Why not? Reese is gonna have sex with Spike, and I’m sure everyone else is too. Why can’t we?”
“I’m so having sex,” Reese piped in, nodding like a bobble head. “We keep gettin’ interrupted and I want Gus’s dick in me. So we’re gonna go do it. You two should too. Ha…two should too…” She dissolved into giggles.
Spike rolled his eyes.
“We’re going to the barn because you’re so loud right now,” Tonka told her.
“And to have sex,” Henley insisted.
“Sure, yeah,” he said, clearly placating her.
“Have fun with the sex,” Reese called out, the alcohol completely loosening her tongue.
“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you home,” Spike said as he leaned over and picked her up, one arm under her knees and the other behind her back.
To his surprise, Reese stopped talking and stared at him with wide eyes as he followed behind Tonka and Henley.
“What? What are you thinking, beautiful?” he asked when they were finally outside and on their way to his cabin.
“You’re carrying me.”
Spike nodded. “I am,” he agreed.
“No one carries me. I’m too big. Plus-size. Heavy. Fat.”
“You aren’t fat,” Spike growled, pissed off that she’d use that word to describe herself. “Curvy, yes. If you want to say plus-size, you can use that too—but don’t ever call yourself fat again.”
“Gus…” she whispered.
He looked down at her and saw tears in her eyes. “Do not cry,” he ordered.
Her arms had come up around his neck, and she turned her face so it was buried in his chest as he carried her. “No one’s ever carried me like this before. I didn’t even think it was possible! I just…I love you, Gus! So much.”
Spike stopped in the middle of the path to his cabin. He looked down at the woman in his arms, and it felt as if his entire world spun on its axis right then and there. It wasn’t as if he thought he and Reese were dating casually. He wouldn’t enjoy her being in his space so much if they were. And he wouldn’t be so impatient for her to get a job to definitively tie herself to the area. But her coming right out and saying those words felt life-altering.
Except…she was drunk. Shitfaced. Completely blotto.
He began walking again.
She didn’t say anything else, but he could feel her hot breaths through his shirt, and each one made his cock twitch in his jeans.
When he arrived at his cabin, he said, “I need to put you down so I can unlock the door.”
She merely mumbled against him.
“Reese?”
“Hmmmm?”
“Hold onto me,” he ordered instead of explaining further.
“I am,” she said.
Spike slowly lowered her legs to the ground and wrapped his arm around her waist when she collapsed against him, giving him most of her weight. He managed to unlock the front door and shuffle them both inside.
“Good, we’re home. Can we have sex now?” she slurred.
Spike didn’t answer, instead picking her up again, loving the mewing sound that left her lips as she snuggled into him once more. He carried her down the hall to his room and put her down on his bed. He turned on the small lamp on the nightstand and sat on the mattress beside her hip.