With Everything I Am (The Three #2)(76)
When Sonia alighted from the SUV and walked to the back of the vehicle to grab some bags, she heard Regan call her name.
She looked at her mother-in-law who was gazing at Sonia, perplexed.
“Sweetheart, what are you doing?” Regan asked.
Sonia, having the handles of two grocery bags in her hand, looked at Regan then at Nikolas then at Regan again.
“What do you mean?” she asked in return for it was readily apparent what she was doing.
Before she knew it, Nikolas had silently rid her of her bags and Regan came forward, tucking her arm through Sonia’s and guiding Sonia toward the house.
Regan’s head got close and she whispered, “Sweetie, you’re queen. In company, queens don’t carry bags.”
At Sonia’s horrified expression, Regan smiled an understanding smile and tugged her closer with a pull on her arm.
“It’s been so very long, I forgot how strange it all was after I’d been claimed. Mac had only been a prince then but still, the life he claimed me into was very different to the simple life I’d lived,” Regan remarked and patted Sonia’s arm with her other hand. “But, I promise, you’ll get used to it like I did.”
Sonia wasn’t sure she would and as the late afternoon wore into the evening she was certain of it.
This was because, when they arrived in the house, she found that Saint, Magnum, Caleb, Ryon and Callum had been joined by Julianna, Saint’s mate. Julianna was a lovely woman with a bright smile and a quiet but friendly manner. She was smaller than most of Callum’s people but still slightly taller than Sonia.
After Sonia met Julianna, while Nikolas carried in all their purchases, Callum claimed her, situating her in his lap and taking a moment to ask about her day.
While he did this, and she answered his quiet questions, Julianna put the groceries away in Sonia’s kitchen.
Listening to Julianna move around in her kitchen, Sonia noticed Regan settle herself with a book on one of the couches in the living room while Nikolas built a fire.
And something about all of this didn’t sit quite right with Sonia.
“Um…” she started and turned her eyes to Callum, “maybe I should help Julianna.”
Callum’s brows went up then his smile grew wide.
Then he said something that caused her temper to rise and her palms to itch.
“Baby doll, when no one’s around, your job is to take care of me.” She stared at him (as this was the point where her temper started rising and her palms started itching) and he continued, “But when someone’s around, their job is to take care of us.”
Seriously?
He might be king but…
Seriously?
He continued, “Saint called Julianna here to do that. It’s her duty. She’d be offended if you went in and helped.”
Sonia decided to keep on the subject she wanted to discuss.
“My job is to take care of you?”
He grinned. “I thought I explained that.”
He had.
He had just not done it thoroughly.
“How, precisely and in all the varied forms, am I required to do that?”
His grin turned positively wolfish.
“I’m guessing you understand the most important part.”
“Indeed,” she rejoined with irritation and he chuckled before continuing.
“The other parts include you cooking for me, caring for our home, our clothes, if there’s no one around to do it. Understanding my schedule and providing for it, Making certain I have what I need or want available to me so when –”
“So,” she broke in, “in other words, I’m to be your little wife?”
His best answer to that question was “no”.
Instead, being Callum, his eyes, for some reason beginning to change to golden, he replied, “Yes.”
“Did your people skip past the twentieth century?” Sonia enquired with sarcasm.
The gold obliterated the blue not, she sensed, due to anger but, she instinctively knew, with something else. Something that made that ever-present throb between her legs deepen and his face dipped close. “Baby doll, I’d really like to give you the opportunity to work out your anger right now but, regrettably, I’ve got things to do.”
She stared then glared then asked, “What does that mean?”
She asked it, but she really didn’t want to know.
However, he told her.
His face dipped even closer, veering to the left at the last minute, he said in her ear, “That means, you want rough play and I want to give it to you. But I’ll have to give it to you later.”
She wanted rough play? What on earth was he talking about?
She didn’t have the chance to ask, not that she wanted the answer to that question either.
Giving her a “we’re done talking about this” squeeze, Callum dismissed her, turned his attention to the copious papers and files on her dining room table and the laptop pointed in his direction.
Regardless of his inattention to her, he still kept Sonia pinned to his lap.
And he did this for a good long while.
He did this while they ate dinner. A dinner which Julianna cooked in Sonia’s kitchen and served in Sonia’s dining room on Sonia’s plates, using Sonia’s cutlery and glasses and cleaned up after, again in Sonia’s kitchen.