Crave (The Gibson Boys 3)

“Fine,” I say, my words tinged with laughter. “If you’re sure.”

He steps around me and heads down the hall toward the kitchen. The grocery bags swing in his hands. “I was thinking about getting a dog.”

“A dog?” I try to focus on Machlan getting a puppy, but it’s hard not to watch his back muscles ripple with each step he takes. “Why do you want a dog?”

“Why not?” He disappears around the corner.

Realizing I’m still standing just inside the door, I scurry down the hallway. “I don’t know. I guess there’s nothing wrong with getting a dog. But are you sure you want to potty train a puppy?”

I turn the corner and stop in my tracks. He’s leaned against the stove, his hands gripping the ledge behind him. With his bare feet and slightly damp hair, he looks like a picture straight out of a magazine.

My breath stolen, I try to recover. “Um, you know, they pee a lot.”

“Yeah.” He grins. “I guessed that. All animals pee, don’t they?” He lets his gaze linger on my face, driving home the fact he’s a witness to my flustered state, before turning to the bags. “What did ya get?”

“Steaks. Potatoes. Salad,” I say. I help empty the bags onto the counter. “I thought if you had a grill, we could do that. And, if not, we can use the oven.”

A package of dinner rolls hits the counter. “Do I have a grill? I’m a man. Of course, I have a grill.”

“How was I supposed to know?”

“Well, I’d hope it was a given,” he says, side-eyeing me.

“Right. It should’ve been. Because you’re such a normal guy.”

He wads the bags up and looks at me. “Are you implying I’m not a normal guy?”

“Let’s see …” I say, tossing a tomato in the air and catching it. “Where do I start?”

“You know what? Don’t answer that.” He fishes out a lighter from what appears to be a junk drawer. “I’ll start the grill. You start the salad. Deal?”

“Deal.”

He brushes against me as he walks by. He smells heavenly, like freshly washed laundry mixed with a deep, heated aroma. My body tingles as he walks out the back door.

Instead of cutting the salad, I watch him out the window over the sink. He pauses next to the grill and gazes down the hill toward the cemetery below. A soft grin plays on his lips before he shakes his head and gets to work.

One plays on mine too.

I move around his kitchen, pulling open drawers and cabinets until I find what I need. It’s fairly organized, and I’m surprised he actually even has a cutting board. I’m also surprised how easy it feels being in this space.

As I rinse the vegetables, I think back on my relationship with Mach. How all the phases we’ve been through together, the ups and downs and twists and turns, changed how we interact with one another. But at the end of the day, we’ve never been able to truly walk away.

I’m slicing through a tomato, lost in thought, when he walks in.

“Grill is fired up,” he says. “What can I do in here?”

The knife clatters against the cutting board as it presses all the way through a tomato. “Can you grab me a paper towel? This thing is juicier than I thought.”

He reaches above my head and pulls a roll out of a cabinet. I turn to see his arm flex but stop when I see the tattoo on the inside of his arm.

I drop the knife onto the counter.

My throat seals shut as my gaze locks on the ink emblazoned on his skin.

“Here you go …” He takes a step back. His arm falls slowly to his side as our gazes lock.

His lips part, his chest rising and falling as he waits for my reaction.

I take a deep, shaky breath. Tears gather at the corner of my eyes as I reach for his hand. He gives it to me without a fight.

His palm is heavy in mine. His skin is warm from the grill. With a dose of uncertainty, I turn it over so his arm rotates and I can see the underside of his bicep.

And there it is.

I press my finger against the four-leaf clover with a pink bow laced around the stem. My brain races, sorting the odds that I’m way overthinking this and it doesn’t mean what I think it means—it isn’t for who I think it’s for.

Still touching the design, I bring my eyes to his. “What’s this?”

His Adam’s apple bobs. “It’s what you think it is.” He reaches carefully for the charm on my necklace, the one I’ve barely taken off since I was seventeen years old. The little clover lays on the pad of his finger. “This is probably the nicest thing I’ve ever bought you, huh?”