AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Honestly, he’d already made it, hadn’t he? Caleb had even mentioned it, how he always said ‘we’ when he said anything about the Laughlin charter’s future. That was why he’d gotten mad so fast in the kitchen yesterday—because, without fully realizing it, he’d made the decision, and her fury at the Bulls, at him, had upended it.
He’d wanted to come to Laughlin for reasons that had nothing to do with her, but his reasons for staying had everything to do with her.
Again, maybe her explosion wasn’t so different—they’d both realized something scary at the same time.
Zach heard a jingle and scratch at her bedroom door. The handle turned, the door swung open, and Brutus sauntered in. He was so big his head easily cleared her fairly high mattress, and he stopped and gave Zach a look, like,Oh. You’re still here.
The beast was intimidating as fuck on first meeting, and no doubt if you made some kind of threat to his people he’d have bad guy tartare for dinner, but once you got to know him, and he got to know you, he was just a doofus love sponge like every other dog Zach had ever known.
“Hey, Shaggydog,” Zach muttered softly and wiggled his fingers at the side of the bed. Brutus looked at his fingers, then at Lyra, then—Zach would swear the dog shrugged—he came around and dropped his massive head on the mattress to sponge up the love Zach offered.
That went on for a good ten minutes. Every time Zach slowed down his strokes and scritches, Brutus shoved his snout into Zach’s bare side and got him going again. Then the dog’s head came abruptly up, and he focused on the door. The door that was standing open, while Zach lay naked in Lyra’s bed, where she was sleeping, also naked.
So, of course, there was Ben, standing in the hallway, looking straight at Zach with the glower that was a defining feature of the guy.
Brutus immediately abandoned Zach and went out of the room to stand by his main person. Ben set his hand on the dog’s head without taking his squint from Zach.
Zach considered what Ben was seeing: a man, naked but under the covers, sitting up in his daughter’s bed. His daughter sleeping, also naked and under covers, curled up at his side. His arm resting over her shoulder.
Nothing bad about that, right? It wasn’t like it was a surprise, after all. But that squinty stare had some weight.
Feeling like an idiot but needing to do something, Zach lifted his hand in greeting.
Ben came forward, grabbed the handle, and closed the door.
Yeesh.
Something about that uncomfortable moment must have resonated with Lyra, because she began to wake a few seconds after her father closed the door.
“Hey,” she said as she stretched. The comforter slipped and exposed her chest, and Zach’s hard drive locked up momentarily at the sight of her gorgeous tits, framed by a moderate bikini-shaped tan line. Why was that phantom bathing suit so damn hot?
He cleared his throat and rebooted. They had to talk; no more naked aerobics until they had. “Hey.”
“How’d you sleep?” she asked, stretching some more—why wasthatso fucking hot?—and finally pushing herself up to sit against the headboard, tucking the covers across her chest.Stillfucking hot. Her hair was tousled, and that was hot as fuck, too. Jesus, he was hopeless.
Zach bent one knee up to try to camouflage his cock’s sudden interest in this whole naked-in-bed situation.
“I slept good. You looked pretty cozy yourself.”
“Yeah. I like sleeping with you. I feel ... I don’t know. Safe, maybe. That probably sounds dumb.”
It did not sound dumb. Instead, it made his ribs cramp up funny and almost derailed his intention for serious talk.
“It’s not dumb,” he said, and she smiled at him. Maybe they didn’t need to talk right this second. He should let her wake all the way up first, at least—and some ideas about how to do that were presenting themselves right now.
But she pushed her hair behind her ears and said, “I’m really sorry I walked away last night. We should talk, huh? But we should wait till we’re, like, dressed, I guess?”
“We can wait, if you want. Or talk now. I don’t care about being naked while we do it.”
“Okay. I’m just gonna run to the bathroom quick and be right back.” She scooped his t-shirt up from the floor and pulled it on.
“Yeah, I could make that run myself, actually.” Zach grabbed his underwear.
She went first, and then he followed her—and, luckily, did not encounter any of her relations on the way there or back. When he came back into her room and closed the door, she wasn’t in bed. She stood before her fish tank, sprinkling flakes across the surface of the water, and saying good morning to each individual fish.
She was just ridiculously adorable.
Her fish fed and greeted, Lyra went back to her bed. Zach followed. Then they sat cross-legged, facing each other.
