Wow again.
That was, in a way, beautiful.
“So how did you become all you are today?” I asked quietly.
“When I started growing, Cass took me under his wing, taught me how to work out, lift, use the weight machines, helped me fill out. And Lars and me played a lot of basketball.”
“So you have a tight family.”
“They’re all still back in Pennsylvania, except Lars, who lives in Idaho. But yeah. I’m thirty-three and Christmas and Thanksgiving are still sacrosanct. If I didn’t haul my ass back home for both, Mom would disown me.”
“That sounds sweet,” I said.
He looked into my eyes. “It is.”
I turned back to my food, happy he had that, wondering how it would feel.
“Not everyone can have Ozzie and Harriet,” he said gently.
I returned my attention to him. “It sounds like you did.”
“I did. My parents fought on occasion, we heard them. But they got over it, sometimes it’d take a while, but they did. It wasn’t great, being the scrawny Sadler brother. But Mom and Dad and even Cass and Lars played to my strengths at home, so I had a solid foundation it was impossible to fall off. I know I was lucky, am lucky. Hear shit. See shit. Shit I never had at home or shit my parents shielded me from. I count those blessings, Ryn. But it doesn’t make someone who doesn’t have all that any less.”
“I’m just a little jealous, I guess.”
“You’ve just been blindsided by some ugly. It’s raw. I’m sure there was good.”
You could say that about being blindsided.
This happening repeatedly since I was six.
I scooped up some potato salad.
I was chewing it when Boone asked in a strange voice with a low timbre I didn’t get, “There wasn’t any good?”
I looked to him and instantly understood that timbre.
He seemed wired in the sense, if that wire snapped, he’d be pissed.
I downed the salad and told him, “My mom is incredible. She’s funny and she’s strong and she’s protective. I think you’d really like her.”
“So she’s like you.”
That was the nicest thing anyone could say to me.
“I hope so.”
He put his fork on his plate, bent forward, reached out a hand and curled it around my ankle.
He then pulled my leg straight, putting my heel on his thigh, repeat with the other foot, and through this, I rescued my plate so it wouldn’t fall in my lap.
Only then did he sit back, with my feet in his lap, and return to his food.
But he did this saying, “We weren’t gonna get heavy. You wanna watch TV?”
“We could stream a movie.”
“I’m up to be haunted by a case.”
I grinned at him.
His eyes twinkled at me then he dug under my calf to get the remote and pointed it at the TV.
I used to like dating. The anticipation. Dolling myself up. Going somewhere fun or out for good food.
After getting burned bad, twice, I’d begun to find it tedious.
He just wanted to get laid.
Halfway through the date, I just wanted to go home.
So in all my imaginings about Boone, I had not considered what a first date with him would be like.
But really tasty food that was no good for us, eaten on my couch with my feet in his lap while watching the ID channel would not have been on my radar.
So far it was the best date I’d ever had.
By a mile.
Chapter Six
All over That
Boone
Boone woke with his face in Ryn’s hair, his body curved into hers, her ass in his crotch, his arm claiming her around her waist and his cock rock hard.
Fuck.
Ryn.
Finally, in his arms, he had Ryn.
Last night, they ate. They watched TV. They cleaned up and put the food away. They took the cookie to the living room, broke off chunks and munched while watching more TV.
He gave it time, then he adjusted them on the couch again.
Having successfully pulled her out of her protective ball earlier, he dragged her from being as far away as she could get so he was slouched in the cushions, his feet on the coffee table and he had her tucked into his side with her head on his chest.
Eventually, she started drooping.
He roused her long enough to get her to her feet and walk her to her door, where he kissed her.
When he had her mouth, she gave it all up like she did the first time, and it was too good, so he knew what came next, he shouldn’t do.
But he did it.
“Don’t go,” she whispered when he broke the kiss, and she knew he was about to leave.
“Baby, that’s not taking it slow.”
“We won’t do anything. Just stay with me. Spend the night. I’ll make you breakfast. Though I’ll warn you, I’m only a passable cook. So alternately, we can go out for brunch.”
He’d been waiting a fucking long time to be right where he was, he had her taste in his mouth, her still in his arms, her devouring her fair share of their big cookie and not hiding she enjoyed it, so he knew sleeping with her and waking up to her was a very bad idea.
Because they both wanted it, and they wanted what was later to come for them, and they wanted it too much.
Even knowing that, he said, “All right, Rynnie.”
She shot him a smile that made him think he was wrong about this being a bad idea, which made it an even worse idea.
She then unearthed a new toothbrush head for him to use with her electric brush, put away the cookie, and they prepared for bed.
He climbed in it in his boxer briefs with Ryn, who was wearing a little blue, cotton-knit nightie that was simple, lace at the bottom and top, but the back was just a band of that lace under her shoulder blades and an open dip beneath it that went nearly to her ass.
Which meant, as he suspected, he was as he was now.
Curled into her with a raging hard-on.
He’d slept great, with her tucked close, the feel of her against him, the scent of her everywhere, in her crappy apartment with its tiny rooms and nicked-up floors and minuscule kitchen that had a carpet he had to pretend didn’t exist, it was that heinous.
But all of it, against those odds, she’d made cool.
Total cool.
Total Ryn.
The cave of her living room was sweet. Dark and warm, with furniture that looked good but was comfortable as all hell.
And her bedroom.
So small, the queen bed was shoved up against the wall.
But she had an awesome headboard made of different types of wood notched together at a slant, and it had some Christmas lights strung on it. More of her plants that were everywhere. Lighter walls, bare floors, save a sheepskin by the bed that’d be kickass to put your feet on in the morning, he knew, because it was kickass to stand on before you got into bed at night. Sloppy-on-purpose bedclothes in a narrow gray-and-white stripe with lots of pillows but only a couple toss pillows. And her nightstand was a thick wood stump, stained and veneered.
As it went, her pad was a reflection of her.
She was not girlie.
No.
Kathryn Jansen was all woman.
A woman with a particular style, she showed it, was confident in it, and she didn’t care what anyone thought about it.
And she slept with a fan on.
He ran hot in sleep and did the same.
Perfect.
Having these thoughts, his arm involuntarily and possessively curled tighter around her stomach, and she stirred in response.
A little stretch, which shoved her ass tighter into his crotch.
And then she stilled.
He smiled.
Yeah, now she was understanding why this had been a bad idea.
“You awake, baby?” he murmured.
“Bluh,” she replied.
His smi
le got bigger and he shoved his face deeper into her hair.
Thick. Soft.
Fuck.
“Not a morning person?” he asked.
“I like sleep.”
“Then go back to it.”
“Are you gonna leave?”
He shifted his head back an inch.
They were just starting out; he didn’t know her all that well.
But he’d been paying attention to her for months, straight-up following her for a while, and everything about her said she was a together person.
Not a lot fazed her.
In other words, suddenly, he was seeing her request he stay last night, and what she just said, in a different light.
“No, I’m not gonna leave,” he answered, then put a hand to her stomach, moving enough to give her body room, before he pressed her to her back, coming up to a forearm to look down at her. “We’re gonna have brunch.”
She wasn’t meeting his eyes. “All right.”
“Ryn,” he called.
Her gaze skittered to his.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she answered.
“You were kidnapped the other night,” he noted carefully.
“It really wasn’t that bad.”
“Ryn—”
“I don’t wanna be that woman,” she blurted.
He said nothing for a beat, before he asked, “What woman?”
“The needy, clinging one.”
“What do you need?”
“It’s stupid.”
“Nothing’s stupid.”
“Any and all brands of fat jokes are stupid.”
He felt his mouth quirk. “Okay. I’ll give you that.”
“Texting while driving is stupid.”
“I’ll give you that too.”
“Letting white sexual assaulters off with a slap on the wrist while incarcerating to the fullest extent of the law Black dudes who are caught with a bag of weed is the epitome of stupid.”
“Are you gonna ask me to go on a social crusade?”
Her face changed.
Big, blue, sleepy eyes going guarded, she whispered, “The last couple of days have been super sucky.”
“Baby,” he murmured.
“And okay, I haven’t told this to anybody, because there was a lot of shit going down for Evie, and I didn’t want to worry anyone…but being caught in a firefight in the Cherry Creek parking garage was all kinds of unfun.”
Shit.
He fell to his back wrapping an arm around her so he could pull her up on his chest.
When he had her where he wanted her, he deduced, “Seeing Cisco again was a trigger.”
“Our chat really wasn’t that bad. And since I’m letting it all hang out, truthfully, as whacked as this is gonna sound, he seems like an okay guy.”
“Gotta say, considering what I know about him, that is pretty whacked, babe. Because he is not an okay guy.”
“What I’m saying is, considering the fact that he kinda, sorta promised he’d never hurt me, it’s stupid that I’m feeling…vulnerable.”
“You do know that really is not at all stupid,” he stated inflexibly.
“But, Boone—”
He gave her a squeeze. “Quiet and listen to me, Kathryn.”
She shut her mouth.
“You were betrayed by a family member. Not in a little way, in a big one. No bones about it, she stole from you time and money, a lot of both, and she did it for years. And when you called her on it, she took from you something that’s more important than all that. Your brother is up in your shit about it. You had to share it with your mom, which is insult to injury, ’cause then you had to deal with your mother’s reaction. And none of that is little shit, sweetheart. That’s a lot to deal with.”
Her mouth worked but she didn’t say anything.
So Boone kept going.
“And yeah, you were being held by people demonstrating an intent to harm you and were caught in the middle of a firefight. You know how I reacted when I was in my first firefight?”
Those big blue eyes got bigger. “Your first one?”
He gave her another squeeze. “Ryn, focus.”
“Okay, what did you do?”
“Froze.”
She made no response.
“It was during a mission. I had a team all around me who were counting on me to play my part, and I fucking froze. Didn’t get off that first shot. My commanding officer lost his shit on me after and every guy in my squad acted like I was a speck of dirt. But I felt smaller than that. Even with that, the bottom line is, there was so much goddamn noise and chaos, bullets were flying, bullets kill people, and I did not want to die. I had training and it’s arguable I should have reacted better, but finally a bud approached on the down low and told me he did the same thing his first time. I still felt like an asshole, but when he told me that, I felt less of one. It never happened again but it’s human nature.”
He reached up, pulled her hair around her neck so it was falling down one side, then tangled his fingers in it.
“You didn’t have training, Ryn,” he told her gently. “You were shopping one second with your girls and in a hail of bullets the next. Let yourself react to that. And if your reaction includes wanting me to stay close for a while, I’m not gonna think that’s clingy or needy. I’m not gonna have an issue with that at all. Because I understand it seeing as it’s natural.”
“So, all right, first thing in the morning heavy landing on us, the thing is, Boone, I like you and I want you to like me. And I do not feel it’s conducive to that happening when our first date happened on my couch, and it was a great one, and then I land a bunch of crap on you because my life’s a mess, which might make you think I’m a mess.”
Christ.
She thought them lying on a couch, eating fried chicken, chunks of big cookie, cuddling and watching TV was a great date.
She was right.
She was also as into him as he was into her.
And this was spectacular.
“And I’m not a mess,” she carried on. “My mom taught me to be self-sufficient and—”
He rolled them so she was on her back, he was pressed down her side, and his face was in hers.
“You thought our couch date was a great one?” he asked quietly.
She sucked her lips in between her teeth.
He grinned down at her and dipped his face closer. “You thought right, sweetheart. It was a great one.”
“Boone,” she whispered.
Her face that close, her mouth that close, her soft body under his, in her bed, with her lips forming his name, shit.
He’d already decided they’d fuck mostly vanilla in her bed because there was no way to tie her to the headboard.
His bed was where they’d do their serious play.
First go here, he’d take it slow.
First go when he went at her, he’d tie her down and eat her until she begged to come, and then he’d fuck her until she couldn’t stop coming.
“Boone,” she whispered again, there was a nuance of change, because with his thoughts, and her right there, he was getting hard again, and with his cock pressed to her hip, she didn’t miss it.
“Suffice it to say, I don’t think you’re a clingy, needy mess,” he muttered.
Her hands came to his body, drifting lightly, which was awesome, and dangerous.
“I’m all of a sudden not at one with my decree to take this slow,” she said, her gaze on his mouth.
Fuck, he wanted to hold her down and kiss her until he could smell her wet.
He dipped closer. “Good morning kiss and that’s it. Then brunch.”
“Boone—”
He put his mouth to hers. “That’s all you get, baby.”
He felt her lips move, saw her eyes pout, and his dick got even harder because there it was.
She was a brat.
Fuck yeah.
He slanted his head to take her mouth right when
there was a knock on the door.
Her body stirred a little against his in surprise.
He lifted his head and looked toward the door.
Right.
No.
He knew what this was.
He’d told his bud Axl he was going to Ryn’s and there was a thing. A thing they’d inherited from the Rock Chicks. Lottie’s sister’s posse, consisting entirely of a bunch of crazy women, the only difference in that was the level of crazy each one was.
Proof positive of this crazy, the Fuck Pool.
He’d been in when they did it to Mag and Evie.
But starting a pool on when he and Ryn were gonna get down to business and members of his crew, Ryn’s gang, or the Rock Chick posse were not going to fuck with them in order to delay the inevitable so it might hit on the day they’d put money down for it in the pool.
They were going to do it when they did it without anyone banging on the goddamned door to stop them.
“I’ll take care of this,” he muttered.
“What?” she asked.
He looked down at her. “The Fuck Pool.”
“Oh,” she mumbled, and he knew she knew about it when it looked like she’d laugh.
Another knock came at the door and he was guessing one of his boys, because it was a loud, not-to-be-denied cop knock.
None of them were cops.
All of them were veteran soldiers who now worked domestic civilian contracts for Hawk Delgado.
So they’d all had occasion to use that knock.
“This isn’t funny,” he told her, shifting away from her.
“It’s kinda funny.”
He gave her a look as he put his feet on her sheepskin rug.
He was right.
It felt as good in the morning as before he climbed into her bed.
Another knock came when he was yanking up his jeans.
He nabbed his shirt and headed to the door, shouting, “Cut it out! I’m coming!”
He was still pulling on his shirt when the window in her door came into view, and he saw through the curtain two bodies in the vestibule that led outside.
These bodies did not belong to his crew, her crew, the Nightingale crew (who were all hooked up to the Rock Chicks) or even outliers. Like members of the Chaos Motorcycle Club (who were allies, and in Boone’s case, since he was tight with Joker and Snapper, buds).
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