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I smile, curling my arm around her back and pulling her so she’s lying on top of me. “Have I told you how much I love you?” I ask, pressing a soft kiss to her lips, loving that she wants that. Even though Simon and I have Brandon and his family, I like the idea of being part of Zoey’s family too, that all of us can be a part of each other’s lives.
She smiles against my mouth. “Hmm, once or twice,” she teases.
“Once or twice,” I murmur, rolling us over so she lies beneath me as I trail a line of kisses along her collarbone. “Maybe I need to say it some more, or better yet, maybe I need to show you.”
Zoey laughs, her fingers sliding through my hair. “Show me, huh? And how exactly would you do that?”
I grin, my mouth moving to her breast as I gently tug on her nipple, looking up at her. “Oh, I can think of a way,” I whisper, kissing my way down her stomach, her hip until I’m settling myself between her thighs.
“You’re going to be late,” she says, even as she widens her legs to accommodate me.
My grin turns to a smirk as I lower my mouth to her, not giving a single shit about the time.
“Shit, I gotta go,” I say as I grab my keys.
“Told you you’d be late,” Zoey says, handing me my phone.
I take it, not letting go of her hand as I pull her into my arms. “Totally worth it,” I say, kissing her. “Promise me you’ll be careful today?” I ask, even though I know she will have security with her.
“I promise,” she says, smiling up at me. “We probably won’t even leave the lodge. Del is meeting me there.”
“And you’ll drive down?” I ask, knowing I’m probably being way too overprotective but not caring.
“Yes, I’ll drive,” she says, still smiling. “Go have fun and I’ll see you for dinner tonight, okay. I promise everything will be alright.”
“Hmm,” I murmur, leaning in to kiss her again. I fucking hate the idea of being apart from her while all of this is still unresolved. If anything was to happen to her again, I don’t think I could ever forgive myself.
“You’re really going to be late,” she says, laughing a little, as she squeezes her arms around me.
“Fuck, okay,” I say, reluctantly pulling back. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” she says. “See you tonight.”
On my way out, I stop to have a quick word with the security guy that’s going with her today, reminding him again that he isn’t to leave her side for any reason. He assures me he won’t and with no excuse to linger any longer, I climb into my car to head over to meet Brandon.
“Nice place,” I say as he opens the front door.
Brandon makes a point of looking at his watch as he replies with, “I’d give you a tour, but not sure we have time.”
“Fuck off,” I say with a laugh as I step inside. “I’m like five minutes late.”
“Yeah, I’d ask why, but pretty sure I don’t need to know,” he says, dropping an arm around my shoulders and squeezing.
Chuckling, I shake my head. “You definitely don’t,” I tell him. “Trace already gone?”
“Yeah, she’s gone to speak to the restaurant about the menu,”
I nod, remembering that I’d seen it on the work calendar yesterday as we make our way inside their new house. They only closed on it a couple of days ago, Tracy taking care of most of it while Brandon took care of things for me, so there are boxes everywhere.
“Still have to buy some furniture,” Brandon says as he leads me into the kitchen. “But it’s livable at least.”
“You keeping your place in Seattle?” I ask.
“Yeah, we will. Probably split our time between here and there, at least to begin with,” he answers. “But we both like Tahoe a lot, so I can see us making this our main home,” he continues.
“Be nice to be able to hang out again,” I say, not realizing how much I’ve missed my friends until now.
It hasn’t just been good having Brandon here to help out with the lodge after everything that happened with Zoey, it’s been great having him here so we can just hang out and do shit like this. We were always close, especially after my parents died and his family basically adopted me and my brother, Simon. And even though things changed when he met Tracy and I ultimately decided to leave Seattle, it’s not like we had some huge falling out or anything.
