Hold On (The 'Burg #6)(180)

My arms around him tightened as my brows went up. “Not concerned about another episode?”

“This time I do you, I’ll be lookin’ in your eyes.”

I liked it like that.

Enough to lift my head and press my lips to his.

He pushed back so my head was to the pillow and opened his mouth.

Our tongues tangled at the same time.

Merry didn’t do me looking in my eyes the whole time.

But it was me who lost eye contact when he made me come.

I would find out later I did draw blood on his back. Two lines, one deeper than the other along his shoulder blade.

I was careful as I washed them in the shower. I gooed them up with Neosporin before we snarfed down donuts.

But the ointment ended up on Merry’s sheets.

What could I say?

We had the whole day.

We were young, healthy.

We loved each other.

And that was worth a repeat.

We loved each other.

I loved Merry and Merry loved me.

Life was good.

For once.

With a hopeful forecast for the future.

Finally.

So it was time to f*ck.

* * * * *

Saturday Night

“Babe?”

I was nearly asleep, f*cked out and cuddled into my man.

“Mm?”

“Keep an eye, open communication, it happens again, you got shit messin’ with your head, we talk. You need it, we take you to Doc.”

I opened my eyes.

My man took care of me.

I closed them again.

“Whatever you want,” I whispered.

He pulled me closer.

“Love you, brown eyes,” he murmured.

Yeah.

Life was good.

“Love you too, Merry,” I replied.

Not long after, snuggled to Garrett Merrick, I fell asleep.

* * * * *

Garrett

Sunday Morning

Cher was in a certain mood.

That mood was moving her to taste him, slow and light, everywhere.

He liked it a f*ckuva lot, but they’d been busy. He had news he hadn’t shared.

“Baby,” he called.

“Mm?” she murmured against his abs.

“Come up here,” he ordered.

She lifted her eyes to him. “Headed in a different direction, honey.”

He grinned. “Come here a sec.”

She studied him a beat before she slid up until they were face-to-face.

She rested her chest against his.

“What?” she asked quietly.

“There were a lot of variables, wanted to make sure it all went down—the inspection, what I asked to be fixed, what I was gonna suck up—so I didn’t tell you just in case it fell through. It all got worked out. Now I can tell you. Got an offer on the condo coupla weeks ago, took it. Sold the boat. I used that and savings as the down payment. Closing is set for Thursday on the house.”

She stared into his eyes. “What house?”

“Lake house,” he told her. “I close on this place in three weeks. Get that money, use some of it to do some updates. But I’m gonna have to live there while they get done.”

“You’re closing on the lake house.”

“Yeah.”

“That house you showed me on your laptop?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re closing on that.”

He grinned again. “Yeah.”

“You’re gonna live there?”

His grin got bigger. “That’s what I said.”

“Ethan and me get sleepovers?”

They’d start with that.

They’d end with him having a lake house that looked like Jim Morrison bought the place, not Garrett.

He rolled her and answered, “Oh yeah.”

She was now on the bottom, staring up at him.

She did this awhile without speaking.

Then she declared, “For a housewarming, I get to buy you a kickass grill.”

He’d let her do that.

“You’re on.”

“And twenty tiki torches.”

Garrett burst out laughing.

When he was done, he saw she was smiling.

His brown-eyed girl…happy.

He knew a way to make her happier.

And he was on top.

So he dipped down and set about doing that.

In the end, he succeeded.

Chapter Twenty-Five

No Room for Tears

Cher

Thursday Morning, Mid-December

“We should do Christmas here,” Ethan said to Merry and me while sitting at the breakfast bar in Merry’s awesome new house, shoveling in some of Merry’s pancakes. “We can open presents, then go out and ice skate on the lake or something.”

“Kid, it hasn’t even snowed,” I reminded him. “There’s about a half a centimeter rim of ice that runs the edge of the lake and that’s it.”

He shrugged. “Maybe we’ll get a deep freeze between now and then.”

“We don’t have ice skates,” I went on.

“That would be why we’d go out after we open presents. And just sayin’, ice skates are a big fat no. Hockey skates, though…” He let that hang.

And there it was. Shared with all the finesse of a hammer.