Price grumbled and leaned over to pet Daisy, who waited patiently for the bacon she hoped she’d get if she behaved.
Will walked in next, looking his usual dour self. It’d probably kill him to smile before seven a.m. He grunted and walked like a zombie toward the platter of pancakes.
I held the spatula up like a weapon and stopped him in his tracks. “Do. Not. Even. Think. About it.”
“I think he’s hungry,” Price stage-whispered to Will.
“Nah,” Will grunted. “Horny.”
I poured another circle of batter and prayed for patience.
“Look, he’s not even going to look at us,” Price crowed. “How long’s it been, man?”
I set a finished pancake on the mountain I’d made and saw all three of them, Chief included, staring at me. “None of your business.” No way would I tell them it’d been almost a year. I was a long-term kind of guy, and the women kept turning out not to be.
I turned the eye off, flipped the gingham kitchen towel over my shoulder, and carried the platter to the oversized dining room table.
My brothers laughed and followed me, taking their seats on opposite sides of Mike, who’d smartly stayed out of the kitchen. Chief brought up the rear. I took my seat and looked around. Guess it was me and the let’s-never-leave-Aaron-alone crew. Great.
Chief held his hand up, once again stopping Price from grabbing a piece of bacon. “Let’s say grace.”
“Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat,” Price said.
I smirked as Chief glared at him. “Hands in your lap. Have some courtesy.” After he was satisfied that everyone was sufficiently quiet, he said a quick, but much more mature, prayer. “Amen,” he finished.
Price dove for a piece of bacon and shoved it in his mouth. “So good,” he mumbled as he chewed and rolled his eyes to the back of his head.
I laughed. “I knew I made it crispy enough, you bastard.”
“You seeing Devon after your shift?” Mike asked after a few minutes of blissful silence.
Damn. Just when I thought they’d leave me alone, Mike comes in and does this.
“What?” he said at my glare. “I’m making conversation.”
“Did Chief put you up to this?”
“No, but it’s polite to answer a question when someone asks you,” Chief said.
I looked around. Price was shoveling pancakes in his maw as fast as he possibly could, and Will was quietly eating his scrambled eggs. Chief’s eyes danced mischievously and Mike stared square at me, with no trace of an agenda.
I sighed. “Yes, I’m going to see her. Happy now?”
The table exploded into laughter and I shook my head. “I hate all of you.”
12
AARON
I’M JUST HERE to help her with Gigi’s house. That’s what I kept telling myself, even as she opened the door and her eyes widened in surprise.
“Hi.”
She smiled and wrapped her arms around her stomach, as though she was holding herself in check. A far cry from last week, when she nearly let me kiss her. I’d replayed that moment over and over in my head. She’d been scared. I knew that. But there was something else there, a tentative trust, and that trust was what I was hanging onto.
“Hi,” she said.
On instinct, I leaned in for a hug, catching her vanilla scent. It was distinctly her, no matter the time of day, no matter if she was sweaty from a hike or not. Basically, her body was trying to seduce me, and it was torture.
The embrace was stiff. “I didn’t know you were off shift today,” she said.
I thought about pointing out how she’d have known if she’d bothered answering my texts these past couple of days, but held back. We were definitely not on the same wavelength as we’d been last time, so I needed to tread carefully. Then I noticed what she wore.
Damn.
Those were the tiniest running shorts I’d ever seen. They showed off Devon’s curves, framing the decadent swell of her hips and ass in a perfect shade of blue-green that emphasized the light tan of her skin. The shorts were popular with college girls, but I’d never paid any attention to them, because that was creepy. But on Devon? That was something different altogether.
I forced my eyes back up to hers and answered the question she’d asked. “Daisy and I thought you might need some help around the house.”
She smiled, a crack in the wall. “I’ll take it. Especially if it means getting Samson out of here.”
As if on cue, the scruffy monster barked, his tail wagging ninety miles an hour. I leaned down to pet him, which got me eye level with Devon’s legs. They were toned and more than a handful, and I wanted them wrapped around my waist immediately. Clearly I’d not appreciated them enough on the hike.
After petting Samson much longer than necessary, we put the dogs in the backyard and I followed Devon up the stairs to the second floor. I might have stared at her legs the whole time I followed her. I might have also gotten a healthy dose of her ass. I groaned, grateful for the creaking stairs that covered the noise.
“You okay?” Devon looked over her shoulder at me. Maybe the stairs didn’t cover it as well as I thought.
But also, I wasn’t okay. My head and my dick were on opposite paths. I wanted to throw her onto a bed and get her to open back up to me. To learn every bit about her body and soul.
