Until You (The Redemption, #1)(74)
His grin widens. “You did?”
“I did.” My cheeks flush. “And I was quite enjoying the show until one of the girls ran up.”
“Ah, the thirst trap spell was broken.”
I swat at him. “Thirst trap? Really?”
“What can I say?” He shrugs. “When you’ve got it, you’ve got it.”
“Oh, please.”
His laugh rings out and draws some glances our way. “Wow. So, first you ask for favors and then you admit you were a Peeping Tom.” He nods proudly. “I’m down with that.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“Maybe, but you know you love it. And why exactly are you telling me this now?”
Because I can’t tell you other truths, so I feel the need to tell you the ones that I can.
“I just thought you should know,” I say softly and then realize being sad will only make him question me more, so I smile and shrug. “It’s only fair that you know I was ogling you way before you were me.”
“Ogling?”
“That’s what I said.”
“What about . . . other things? Fantasizing, maybe.” He glances around to make sure no one is near before lowering his voice to that panty-melting tenor of his. “Getting off in the shower, perhaps?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I quirk an eyebrow, but I believe the deepening red on my cheeks might give me away by the looks of his Cheshire cat grin.
“Tell me what you did. What you were thinking of,” he murmurs in that gravelly tenor of his.
“I pretended my fingers were your tongue. Sliding over me. Into me. Owning me.”
“You’re goddamn right,” he says.
I smile. How can I not?
“It’s time for me to go help Bobbi Jo now.”
Crew’s hand is on my bicep, pulling me faster than I can think. “Oh, Tenny,” he whispers in my ear. “You’re not going anywhere. You don’t get to say shit like that to a man like me without me making you re-enact it so I can watch.”
I moan ever-so-softly, playing him with perfection. “Just know that you were good.”
His lips capture mine in a hungry kiss that says he doesn’t care who’s watching or what rumors it just started. When he leans back, his cocky smirk is back in full force. “Let’s go so I can show you just how good I can be.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Crew
“I think I’m deaf.”
Tenny’s throaty laugh floats over the warm, summer night air as she sinks down beside me on the slope of grass near the back of the property. It sounds so good to hear.
Today has felt more like normal between us. Like it had been before . . . She’s been more engaged, more tactile, more relaxed.
See? It was nothing. You were just insecure that she saw you after your nightmare and thought differently of you.
It was all in your head. Like the problems seem to be more often than not as of late.
“The decibel level is pretty high in there,” she says with a glance back toward the house and its lit-up windows.
“Pretty high?” I chuckle and lift my eyebrows thinking of how many times I’ve winced in the past thirty minutes before escaping out here for a quick respite. “I’m trying to drink responsibly since I’m the one in charge in there, but every screech and scream and squeal makes me want to break out a bottle of brandy so I can celebrate that I survived each one.”
“So that’s why you’re out here?”
“Yep.” I take a sip of my beer, wishing it were said brandy.
“I thought maybe it had to do with what Justin asked you. You really haven’t had much time to think about it.”
But she’s wrong because that’s all I’ve done. In fact, I can’t get it off my mind.
The pros.
The cons.
The what-ifs.
And pretty much every other thing in between.
“I’ve been thinking about it, but not today. Today’s about the girls, and I want to be present for every single second of it. With Brittney bailing on them and thinking a two-minute phone call was more than enough, with my mom and little sister unable to come because of her hip surgery, and with Vivian being on location in England, I feel like I need to make up for everyone and everything.”
“You’re doing a great job. The smiles on their faces and the laughter that has rung out all day long shows it.”
“Thanks. It never feels like enough, you know? Besides, I know at some point they won’t want to throw parties where their dad is present, so I need to soak it up while I can.”
“Very true.” She presses a kiss to the side of my shoulder. “Well, like I said before, I’m here if you want to talk it all out.”
I hadn’t realized how much Brittney and I didn’t speak about our lives, about anything above and beyond our day-to-day, until I told Tenny about my conversation with Justin.
It felt good to talk to someone, even if all she did was sit there, hold my hand, and listen.
Having Tenny do that revealed a stark reminder of how isolated I’d become in the aftermath of Brittney leaving and being shot. It reinforced that back then, Justin was the one I confided in more than anyone, and how after the incident, I lost my sounding board when I pulled away from him.