Stitches

Finally, he must decide he believes me. “I like that. Good friends are hard to come by. I look out for my friends, too.”

Griff’s comment

about Ashley fucking around with Danny Long comes to mind, but last I knew, he and Donovan weren’t on good terms. That probably won’t be an issue, but I figure I should tell him anyway. “His wife… well, no two ways about it, she’s a whore. She’s been sleeping around on Griff and Danny Long is one of the guys she’s seeing now. I don’t know—or want to know—your business, but in case you have any crossing paths, I thought I should mention that up front.”

Shaking his head dismissively, he says, “Nah, he’s nothing. I appreciate your honesty, though. I’ll tell you what, I’m gonna do this job for you, and I’m gonna give you the friends and family discount,” he tells me.

“Great. Is there a punch card I can get, too?”

He grins at me, but even his amusement is mildly threatening. “Buy the first nine hits, get your tenth free? No, but thanks for the suggestion. I’ll see what I can do about that.”

“What exactly is the friends and family discount?” I ask, in case that’s a real thing and he’s not just being a smartass.

“The friends and family discount means this: this is the first favor you’ve asked of me, right? So, I’m gonna cut the cost for you in half.”

I know there’s a catch, so I wait for it instead of responding.

Smiling faintly, he adds, “But then you’re gonna owe me a favor. Now, could be you get lucky and I never need anything from you. Maybe you’ll live happily ever after with your discounted hit and that’ll be that. Or maybe you won’t. Maybe I’ll need something from you down the line, and no questions asked, you’ll give it to me.”

This makes me pretty fucking uncomfortable. Amiable or not, this is not a man I want to owe a favor.

Of course, this is a mere formality. Donovan is being pleasant enough right now, but I know what he’s capable of. If Donovan needed a favor from me, he would demand it whether I owed him one or not.

So I nod my head once and say, “Of course. I’m always happy to help my friends in their time of need.”

A dark smile claims his lips and he steps forward, clapping me on the back. “So am I, Sebastian. So am I.”

26

Moira

Peace flows through my veins as Griff’s big, rough fingers skate up and down my arm. I’m on the couch in front of him, sitting between his legs, and I swear, the man is trying to put me to sleep.

“You’re not getting out of this movie,” I tell him, leaning my head back to look up at him. “If I fall asleep, I’ll just make you watch it tomorrow.”

Smiling faintly, he bends to drop a brief kiss on my forehead. “I’m not trying to put you to sleep. I just like touching you.”

“I like you touching me, too,” I tell him, running a hand down his muscular thigh.

“Good, ‘cause I’m gonna be doing a lot of it. I’ve got a lot of time to make up for.”

I grab his hand, bringing it to my lips so I can place a kiss on the back of it. “We’ve got nothing but time. We’ll get you all caught up, I promise.”

Since it was his left hand I grabbed, his gaze drifts to his empty ring finger. Even though it clearly ended badly, then she dragged the remnants of their relationship over a bed of nails and made it even worse, I wonder if he feels any remorse over the ending of his marriage. He loved her once, so maybe it’s still weird for him.

“How are you doing with all that?” I ask him, locking my fingers together with his, looking at our joined hands, at the difference in size. “I told you we could still talk about it if you needed to, and I meant it.”

“I know you did,” he says, evenly. “You ever get to the end of a relationship and looking at the long and short of it, all you can think is, ‘what the fuck was I thinking?’”

I crack a smile. “Yes. The minute man. The cheater Gwen wrote lipstick letters to.”

“Yeah, well, basically it’s a whole lot of that, plus I’m gonna have to pay for the privilege.”

“Whatever we have to pay, it’ll be worth it,” I assure him, squeezing his hand. “We’ll get you free of her clutches once and for all. Now you’ve got Sebastian to run things for you, and he would never let either one of us get into a mess like this.”

At that, Griff rolls his eyes. “He’s your husband, not mine.”

I shrug innocently. “I mean, if you guys felt like getting affectionate…”