The Slow Burn (Moonlight and Motor Oil #2)(93)

She turned back to the tree.

And again around, “Iz,” she called, then tossed a much smaller package to Izzy.

She then plopped on her ass, grabbed her kid, sat him in her lap and looked to Toby.

“Yours you can’t open in public,” she declared.

Brilliant.

He grinned at her.

She grinned back then dropped her head to Brooklyn’s ear and said, “Auntie Iz and Uncle Johnny are opening presents.” She lifted an arm and pointed to where Iz was sitting between Johnny’s legs on the floor in front of the armchair. “Watch, honey.”

Brooklyn looked Iz and Johnny’s way.

Then he pushed off and started crawling their way.

“Oh no. Stop. No.”

At the hitch, Toby turned to Izzy to see her head bent, her hair curtaining her face, a cheap white jewelry box in her hand.

She lifted her head to look at her sister, and Toby saw her face was red.

He’d learned the day before she was almost as pretty of a crier as Addie.

But not quite.

“No,” she said in a choked voice.

“When I become a legal secretary and I’ve got buckets of cash, I’m gonna redo it with real stones. Those are fake,” Addie told her.

“Never. Never. I don’t want a different one ever, Addie.”

Toby looked to his brother to see Johnny had leaned forward to catch what was in the box, but now his head was tipped back and a warm look was on his face, but his eyes were on Addie.

“Jesus, what is it?” he asked.

Izzy shoved it his way where he was sitting in the corner of the couch, and he just caught it before she rolled to her hands and knees and hustled in a crawl to Addie to grab her into a hug.

He looked down at the box.

“Those are our birthstones,” Johnny muttered. “And they used to give their mom charms.”

That explained the sizeable gold charm shaped like a heart with two stones embedded in it, some stars printed on it, and the tiny words Sometimes you gotta fall before you fly.

“Now you,” Addie ordered, and Toby looked her way to see her and Izzy cuddled cross-legged together under the tree looking at Johnny.

Brooklyn used Johnny’s knee to pull himself up to his feet and he banged on Johnny’s present.

Johnny tore into it.

He separated the box, shook out a long-sleeved tee, looked at the front then threw back his head with a bark of laughter.

“Let’s see!” Izzy cried.

He turned it around.

It read,





OFFICIAL MEMBER OF


THE FORRESTER GIRLS CLUB


(THE ONE WITH THE DICK)

“You can just wear it around the mill. I won’t be offended,” Addie assured him.

“Thanks, darlin’,” Johnny replied.

“Okay, for right now, just one thing for you,” Addie said, and Toby turned his attention to her to see a small box sailing his way.

He caught it just in time.

“This doesn’t look like an awesome Forrester Girls Club tee,” he muttered.

“You’ll get the one that says, ‘the other one with the dick’ from me on your birthday,” Izzy told him, sounding like she was laughing.

“Obliged,” he muttered, opening his present.

It was another cheap, white jewelry box.

But he was thinking, with Addie, the best shit came in those.

He opened it.

And he was right.

The best shit came in those.

At first, he thought it was a kickass, narrow, brown leather man’s bracelet.

But when he pulled it out, he saw inside it was tooled with the words, She’s Mine.

So far, from him, she’d opened his Sephora gift card and a pair of high-heeled boots he’d seen in the city when he and Johnny were shopping for Izzy that he thought were kickass, and he’d called Iz to find out her sister’s size.

There were two more gift cards under the tree from him to her.

One, considering she’d been looking for office work and had mentioned she didn’t have the wardrobe for it, was for a thousand bucks at Nordstrom. And one was kind of a joke, kind of not, considering they’d be setting up house soon and he wanted her to make it her own—another five-hundred-dollars, this at Crate and Barrel.

Her real present, Johnny and Izzy were supposed to bring over that morning, but with the change of plans, it was now at Margot and Dave’s.

None of that shit was as good as that bracelet.

Except maybe the real one.

His eyes moved to her.

“I kinda dig you, Talon,” she said, grinning sassily at him.

Jesus, shit, he needed to fuck her.

“Do I get time to concentrate today?” he asked.

Her expression changed, and the way it did, he needed to fuck her even more.

“Not until after presents, at least.”

“Right, before you two go at each other through the wrapping paper, let’s get back to it,” Johnny said. “One for Brooks.”

And he got up from his chair to find a present for Brooklyn.

“Come here, Lollipop,” Toby ordered.

She came there.

And when she got to her knees between his legs, his kiss wasn’t closed-mouthed.

After he ended it, she asked, “You like it?”