That has me popping my head up. “You know the girl I bought my house from?” I ask in surprise. “How?”
“We go way back,” he says, keeping his answer vague.
“You can’t go too far back. She’s my age.”
He snickers lightly, brushing his lips against my forehead. He sure as hell isn’t timid about what he wants. I’ve never had anyone come after me as aggressively as he has. There aren’t any games, any questions, or any doubts about what he wants—well, in the physical sense. I’m not sure about anything past that.
“Feels like decades,” he says, moving his lips lower, letting them graze my cheek, and my heartbeat speeds up to the point it feels like it’s thudding in my chest.
“What made you buy that house?” Zee asks from the kitchen. “Did your roommate go in on half or something?”
I really don’t like personal questions, but I decide to answer anyway. “No. I paid for it in full. I had some cash from my grandfather who passed away recently. They… I didn’t even know he existed until after the fact. But I don’t want to blow through what’s left of my money, so I got a roommate to pay the utilities—that’s her rent cost. With my course load, it’s hard to find a job, so it seemed like a better alternative.”
“Your roommate is fucking annoying,” Thad says close to my ear, and I can’t help but smile.
“She’s not what I thought she was, but she’s better than a lot of people I’ve met.”
He starts to say something, but then he stops for some reason. “What made you buy instead of renting? You planning on staying here for good?”
Something tells me that’s not his original question, but he seems genuinely interested in the answer.
“I just couldn’t bring myself to rent. There’s something about owning a house… Owning anything, really. It’s a first for me, and I like the way it feels. I also like Pine Shore, so I don’t see why I wouldn’t stay.”
He seems to approve of that answer, and he wraps me up in an intimate hold that feels a lot like after-sex cuddling.
“I thought that house only had one bedroom,” he says idly.
Telling him that I converted a small office space into a bedroom for myself will sound absolutely pathetic.
“Two bedrooms,” I partially lie.
Jenny insisted she get the master bedroom, since she’s only staying until college is over. I just need a place to sleep, so it doesn’t really matter.
“Here, lover boy,” Zee says, smirking as he thrusts a glass at Thad.
The amber liquid lies around the cubes of ice, and Thad grins while taking it. “Thanks, barkeep.”
Zee flips him off, seeming more amused than annoyed by that. Ella walks in with two more glasses, quickly handing me one that I can tell is a margarita on the rocks. That has me smiling. It’s my favorite.
“Sorry if you don’t like it. That’s the only drink mix Thad has.”
“My favorite, actually,” I tell her.
Thad leans down to press another kiss on my bare shoulder, making me both happy and regretful about wearing this camisole top.
Zee rolls his eyes at us, and Ella moves toward him just as the front door opens and the guy from the other day walks in with a duffel bag in his hands.
“Gage,” Ella says while walking over to him. “Did you bring my stuff?”
He nods, his eyes raking over Thad and me as his lips twitch. “Yeah. Heard you needed a change of clothes. Kane is pissed you took off solo. Kimber is even more pissed, considering she was put under house arrest for defying him, then you sneak off.”
Curious, I lean over and whisper to Thad, “They still live at home with their parents?”
He coughs on his drink when his laughter tries to rumble free, and all of them stop to look at me, seeming genuinely amused.
No way they heard that.
“No,” Thad says finally. “We all work together. Bounty hunters. No solos for a while due to some new info.”