WAYLON (Ruthless MC 1)

“Yeah, angel?” The husky quality of his voice tells me he’s right on the edge of sleep.

“I…” I swallow in the darkness and tell both him and myself, “I don’t belong to you. I’m not yours. You know that, right?”

Silence. And I wonder if he’s fallen asleep.

“Waylon?”

“Let’s not talk about shit we both know ain’t true.”

I open my mouth to protest. To insist we set some guardrails on this insane and highly unethical thing we’re doing.

But then I close it again.

Not because he’s right, but because it’s late, and I don’t want to argue.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

But as I fall asleep, two questions swirl in my head.

What next?

And….

How will this all end?

CHAPTER 15

The next morning I wake up to the smell of frying bacon and eggs.

I crack open one eye to find Waylon in the kitchen, singing along with a Colin Fairgood tune playing on the radio. It’s one of the really early country hits the singer had before fully crossing over into the mainstream with a bunch of hip hop and collaborations.

I recognize Colin Fairgood's song because it’s the theme song for Medical Reinvention, a docu-drama I love to watch, starring his half-brother. Waylon doesn’t sound half bad. Yet another surprise in a week chock full of them.

I consider everything, then make a sanity-saving decision not to worry about how comfortable he looks in my kitchen.

“So you’re a Colin Fairgood fan?” I ask over him singing. I sit up in bed and recall that I’m completely naked when the covers fall just as he turns around.

He takes one look at me and immediately stops singing.

“So, you’re a fan of getting taught before breakfast?” he asks back, turning off both the radio and the stove.

I giggle when he rushes the bed and falls on top of me for a morning kiss that tastes like orange juice and coffee.

Then I do something else when he kisses down my body and eats something you can’t make on a stove.

Yes, yes, apparently, I’m a huge fan of getting taught before breakfast.

And cold bacon and eggs.

And half-eaten sandwiches when Waylon decides to teach me how to return his pre-breakfast favor—without teeth.

We wile away my day off, grazing on whatever we find in the cabinets and fridge in between sudden but not surprising lessons.

At one point, Waylon asks, “You think we’re half-shifter? Like those characters in your books? It feels like we’re in heat.”

Yes, it does. But eventually, we’ve got to return to reality.

The next day I have to inform Waylon it’s time for me to go into work after he wakes me up with a lesson in how to take it from behind while we’re lying on our sides.

His arms tighten around me. And I wonder if he’ll try to keep me from going in for my shift. Take this already problematic relationship to a new level of messed up—the kind that makes me miss work.

But in the end, he just lets out a heavy sigh. “I know work’s important to you. I’m not going to interfere with that. I want you to remember who you belong to when you’re there, though. And come straight home to me.”

My heart thrills at his possessive tone. Not in the silly, teenage way it did whenever Jonathan asked me out on dates. In a new, deeper way that thrums in my solar plexus and resonates all the way down to my womb.

“You understand me?” he asks, turning me around to face him. He clearly doesn’t care about aggravating his stitches. I’ve learned that lesson several times over the past thirty-six hours.

No. I don’t understand him. Or myself. This is all so crazy and wrong.

But I nod, unable to get words past all the emotions I shouldn’t feel when I look into his eyes.

“I’m going to miss you today, angel,” he says. Then he grabs the last condom from the box on the nightstand. And I admit that I was totally wrong about him buying too many when he rolls me onto my back and settles between my legs to say goodbye.

My heart pounds then aches as he brings me to completion for a second time that morning.

And mind you, I’m no expert at these things. Like, at all.

But maybe….

Maybe this is what all my books mean when they talk about making love.

The other nurses start giving me a hard time as soon as I walk into work, grinning from ear-to-ear and apparently, glowing even brighter than when they saw me last.

“Mr. One-Night-Stand circled back around, okurr!” Sierra crows like Cardi B after I show up at the nursing station.

During my time with Jonathan, I’d gone over every text message and confusing signal with her. But in this case, I neither confirm nor deny. My relationship with Waylon needs to stay private, I sense—for obvious reasons and a few that make a confusion of emotions patter around my chest.