Draw (Gentry Boys #1)(54)

“Last thing I remember I was eating chicken and wondering which of the fine ladies sitting at the bar would invite me inside first. Woke up with my face in the carpet, and not the nice kind of carpet.”

He looked at Saylor and frowned slightly.

“We have a talk last night?”

She blinked at him innocently. “No. I don’t remember even seeing you.”

“Good,” he nodded, looking relieved.

Creed disappeared into the shower a few minutes later and Chase grudgingly offered us bowls of his marshmallow garbage.

I enjoyed watching Saylor as she stirred copious amounts of sugar into her coffee and gave Chase a hard time. At one point he looked pensively at the two of us and pointed his dripping spoon in our direction.

“I should get one of these.”

Saylor looked down at herself and then raised her eyebrows. “A dress?”

“No, wiseass. A girlfriend.”

Saylor laughed. “Are you the boyfriend type?”

Chase kicked me. “Is he?”

I threw a spoon at his head and glared.

“He’s doing a pretty good job so far,” Saylor glanced at me, blushing.

My brother thought that was freaking hilarious. “He’s doing good jobs all over you, huh? So,” he leaned in, “you guys really go at it bareback?”

“Jesus,” I sputtered. “You were listening?”

Chase stood and belched. “Well I’m not f*cking deaf. What’s the big deal?” He grinned nastily at Saylor. “And yes, multiple births are hereditary. So I hope you’ve got a whole lot of room in that there cavern, doll face.”

I got angrily to my feet, knocking over my chair. Saylor, however, was simply giggling. She tugged at my arm.

“It’s okay, Cord.”

“Dipshit should keep his ears to himself,” I muttered.

Chase scowled. “Now that doesn’t even make a coherent ounce of sense, Cordero. You’re getting pretty humorless in your old age. Do something with him, would you, Saylor? I’m going to the gym.”

As Chase shoved a baseball cap on his head I remembered something.

“Not so sure that’s a good idea. You know, you going to the gym alone after the trouble you had yesterday.”

My brother waved a hand. “Because I always let a few momma’s boy punks with chin pubes dictate my movements, right? I’ll be back by lunch, unless my * hunt proves successful. Then I’ll be back by dinner. You working tonight, Say? I’m in the mood for chicken again.”

“Yeah, Chase. See you later.”

I shook my head as he whistled and jogged out the front door.

Saylor wanted to head back to Bray’s and spend some time sorting through her boxes before work. She swung my hand as we walked in the shade towards her cousin’s apartment.

“After all,” she sighed. “I can’t just leave all my crap sitting in their foyer. They only have a one bedroom apartment.”

“We can haul it over to my place,” I shrugged.

Saylor glanced up at me, blushing. “Oh, I wasn’t hinting around that you ought to be the depository for me and my meager collection of garbage.”

“Why not?” I made a grab for her ass and she squealed.

“It’s broad daylight!”

I grabbed her anyway. “So what? You like it.”

“A little. Okay, a lot.”

“Anyway,” I continued, thinking aloud, “you really deserve a place to sleep which is a little more permanent than Brayden’s couch.”

Saylor laughed. “Maybe I can crash with my mom and The Gnome.”

“Or with me.”

She stopped in her tracks. “What?”

I slid my hands over her. “If all this is really mine, I should be able to have it whenever I want, right?”

She blushed, shuffling a little. “What are you asking me, Cord?”

I pulled her to me and ran a finger over her lips. She closed her eyes briefly and shivered.

“I want to be with you, Say,” I told her, reaching into the back of her dress and letting my hands travel down further over her silky skin, over the small of her back and into her panties. “I want to be with you all the time. Do you want to stay with me?”

“Yes,” she whispered, pressing firmly against my body. “I want to stay with you.”

I kissed the tip of her nose, then the corners of her mouth. “Good.” I thought of my brothers for a second. Long term girls had never come up before. But if I knew anything about them they’d recognize Saylor was different. Somehow I’d known it all along. She was f*cking permanent.

Saylor needed to get ready for work. I told her we could use the truck to haul all her stuff back to my place after she was done tonight. Before we kissed goodbye she looked at me a little incredulously.

“Cord Gentry,” she shook her head, “where the hell did you come from?”

“Someplace ugly,” I admitted, stroking her soft hair, “but it’s all looking a lot nicer now.”

As I walked back to the apartment alone I thought about what I was going to say to the boys about Saylor moving in. I was sure Chase wouldn’t give a shit but Creed might take a step back. I caught him as he was coming out of the shower and blurted it out. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows sky high.