Wordlessly, I point to the floor by my side of the bed and avert my head.Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t throw up.
“Aww,” he snickers. “Baggy left you another present. That means he really likes you, kitten.”
“I wish he understood that dead field mice don’t make good presents. Especially not two days in a row!” A grimace twists my mouth at the sight of the tiny, limp carcass with its twisted, stringy feet.
Connor sweeps my hair to the side and kisses my temple. “I’ll clean it for you.” Shivering in disgust at the thought, I take three huge steps back so I don’t have to be near it.
When he gets back from disposing of Bagheera’s “gift” and washing his hands, he moves to a box and peeks at the contents. Giving a wolf whistle, he lifts a pair of my panties on his finger.
Heat creeps into my cheeks as I grab them. “Give those to me!”
“Oh, foxy little mama.” His finger hooks another pair.
Oh, God. A pair with holes in them. And if he keeps digging, he’ll find more.
Heat of a different nature warms my face now, and a burning sensation of embarrassment gnaws at my heart and stomach as I snatch the panties and the box from him. “I’ll get these,” I mutter as I turn away.
Blindly dumping my underwear into a drawer, I try to rein in my emotions and blink back the sudden onset of tears. Stupid hormones. Hiding my quiet little sniff, I reach for another box. Ah—my pants and shirts. These need hung in the closet.
Plop.Something hits my chest and lands on the bed. Slowly, I pick up the balled material and unfold it.
Gray boxer briefs.
Specifically a pair with a hole under the waistband.
Arms wrap around me from behind and lips caress the sweet spot behind my ear. “I have them, too. It happens. And you know what we do when it happens? We go and buy more to replace them.” His squeeze makes my boobs squish together. “Okay?”
Turning in his arms, I trace a line of his neck tattoo, keeping my gaze focused on his throat. “I didn’t want you to see those and realize just how poor I was. But you already knew from staying with me in my apartment, didn’t you? Such a far cry from your house. What are you doing with a girl like me, Connor?” The stupid tears I sniffed back earlier sneak down. “Pregnant with two babies and poor as can be, I’m just mooching from you. Hanging around your neck like an albatross.”
“Whoa, now...hold up. Let me see those pretty gray eyes.” His hand guides my face up. He doesn’t look mad, but he’s very serious. “The way I was raised, men take care of their women in all ways. Period. And if you think of yourself as a moocher, you couldn’t be more wrong.
“I wouldn’t be offering to take care of just any woman like this, Rosanna. It’s because it’s you. I know exactly what I’m getting myself into with you and these two babies.” A rough thumb angles upward to catch a stray tear that I couldn’t hold back. “I know what mooching looks like, kitten, and it’s not this. This is a man wanting to make sure his woman’s all taken care of. You hear me?”
This man. I tuck my head close and squeeze him tight.
“Besides,” he says, the deep rumbling of his chest tickling my face, “I was going to buy you all new panties anyway.”
Okay, that’s weirdly sweet. I pull back just a bit to look up at him, eyebrow arched. “Why?”
“Oh, kitten.” He traces my bottom lip with a rough finger. “You think you’re going to wear intimate things that people other than me have put their hands on?”
Other people. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he meant the movers just as much as he meant Silas.
I nip at his finger and smile as he laughs and tightens his comforting hug. I’m scared to admit this, but I have a feeling that as long as his arms are around me, I’m never going to leave.
“Connor,thisisamazing!”When he let the animals out for a bit, he brought me out to his workshop in the back to show me his current projects. It’s bigger than I thought it would be. Almost as big as my old apartment, and it even has a shower for when he gets too dirty to shower in the house.
His projects are all just as good as I thought they would be. In one corner, there’s a child’s wooden bed shaped like a miniature treehouse with a little ladder. Five tiny little rocking chairs line up next to it. The man seriously knows how to work with his hands. “These are so good! Did you make anything in your house?”
“Thanks, kitten. Besides the house, I built the kitchen table and chairs, the coffee table, our bed”—my breath catches at that—“and the rocking chairs on the porch.”
“Good Lord, Connor. You’re so talented.” I love that he can work with his hands. I turn my head to see if I missed anything. And I did. Something phenomenal.
Stained a rich black, this bookcase is shaped like a dragon and even more detailed than the seascape bookcase I’d seen at work. Carved, blunted teeth jut out from a mouth poised to strike, and the tapered head sports fierce slitted eyes that almost seem to follow me from every angle. Empty spaces spiral throughout the winding body and tail for the books to rest within. I whirl around to gape at him. “And this? This is freaking awesome!”
Connor tucks his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels, looking a bit bashful at my praise. “Thank you, kitten. It’s for Isaiah, my nephew. Kid’s a regular bookworm and was running out of room, so I decided to build him a little something.”
I smush his lightly-reddened cheeks in my hands and peck him on the lips. “A little something? Okay, we’ll go with that. Even though you and I both know it’s beyond a little something. When are you going to give it to him? Is it ready?”
