Craft (The Gibson Boys 2)

This is different. A pre-lude to something else.

And when he looks at me and gives me that cocky smirk, I laugh.

“This is nothing to laugh at,” he warns as he shoves himself completely inside my body.

“I wasn’t laughing at you. Or at this,” I add, raising up and kissing his shoulder.

“Then what were you laughing at?”

I don’t know how to explain, especially in this moment, that it was a laugh of joy. Of pleasure. Of feeling this comfortable in my skin.

Instead, I look at the vaguely purple circle on his shoulder. “I was thinking of biting you in my mother’s pantry.”

He rolls over, bringing me with him and positioning me so I’m straddling him. “You know what?” he asks, his voice gravely.

“What’s that?”

“I think I loved you then.”

I capture his lips with mine. He sinks back into me.

The sun sets long before we’re finished. My stomach growls, the only part of me not satiated, as I curl up under his arm and close my eyes.

His breathing behind me is steady, his heart beating at my back in a gentle, continuous strum. I look out the window at the stars sparkling in the sky and fall into a peaceful, easy sleep.

Epilogue

Lance

“Peck! Come on,” Nana hollers out the door.

The rest of the family settles at the kitchen table, ready to dig in to a Sunday dinner of fried chicken. Machlan grabs a drumstick, bringing it to his mouth as discreetly as he can.

“Don’t you think about it,” Nana warns him, swatting the back of his head as she walks by. “We haven’t said grace.”

Machlan posts an argument, mostly for Nana’s benefit. She loves that Machlan loves her fried chicken—she told everyone at church today she’d have a hard time keeping him out of it until dinner was ready. This is his way of humoring her, making her feel good.

I look to my right, at the beautiful woman moving Nana’s water glass so she doesn’t spill it as she sits down.

It’s been a few weeks since the start of our relationship and the fact that the word almost makes me happy is still so weird. But if that’s what it takes to keep Mariah in my bed, in my bathtub, in my car for quick make-out sessions during lunch breaks, then so be it.

Sometimes I look at her while she’s sleeping or reading a book and wonder how in the hell I got so lucky. That she, a smart, kind, classy woman would take an animal like me as her own. An animal like me just the way I am.

I grab her hand as she sits back down and pull it to my lap. She smiles, used to it by now, because I can’t help myself but to touch her when she’s near. It’s not always a sexual thing, which surprises me as much as anyone. Just the feel of her skin reminds me she’s real, she’s mine, and she wants me. It’s like the best Christmas present ever every time it happens.

Peck comes in, Cross at his side.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” Nana says, pointing towards a chair by the window. “Get a chair.”

“I’ll get you a plate, Cross,” Sienna offers.

“Let him get his own damn plate,” Walker says.

“If he goes in there, he’ll make a mess and Nana will end up going after him and then Machlan will eat the chicken and Lance will pop something off to Peck and they’ll go at it,” Sienna says, making us all laugh. “I’m saving everyone time, babe.”

She gets to her feet and disappears into the kitchen, returning with a yellow plate for Cross.

“Thanks,” he says, smiling sheepishly, knowing he’ll get the raw end of this later from Walker.

Peck removes his hat and says grace as is customary on Sunday afternoons. Mariah leans close, her head on my shoulder, as I trace a little heart with the pad of my thumb on the top of her hand.

“Did you make these rolls?” Walker asks, looking at Mariah as we pass the plates of food around the table.

“I did,” she beams. “It was my grandmother’s recipe.”

“They’re great.” He stuffs a half a roll in his mouth, much to Sienna’s chagrin.

“I got the recipe, but I’m not making them if you’re going to eat like a barbarian.”

Walker chuckles. “I thought you liked when I ate like a barbarian.”

I choke on my potato as Machlan bursts into laughter.

“Ha,” he says, covering his mouth with a napkin. “Getting a little risqué there, aren’t you Walk?”

Sienna’s beet red as she tries desperately to change the subject. “Want to go to the lake with me this weekend?” she asks Mariah.

“Sure,” Mariah replies, looking at me. “We have dinner with my sister and her husband on Saturday night. I could try to get out of that.”

I flash her a huge, annoying smile. “No. We are having dinner with Chrissy and Eric.”