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“Fuck,” Gunner growled, taking some of his weight back as he sucked in a deep breath. “You alright?” he asked, leaving me completely, his hand gently stroking down my spine.
“I don’t think I have legs anymore,” I told him, feeling silly, but it was exactly how I felt.
I could hear him moving away from me, pulling open the cabinet under the sink where the garbage was located, and letting out a low chuckle.
“Come on,” he said, putting his arms under my knees and back, pulling me to his chest, lifting me, then carrying me to the living room, dropping down on the couch with me on his lap. “Were those cookies in the kitchen?” he asked after a long minute.
And that, more so than the sex, more so than the thing with Cortez, more so than just showing up here after I had fully given up hope that such a thing was even possible, that was what made my heart feel like it was about to burst through my chest.
“Yes,” I said, smiling into his chest.
“You made ’em?”
“Yes.”
And it was maybe then that I realized that learning to do so, my steadfast determination not to give up on the baking thing, it was because of him. Even though, logically, I knew I wouldn’t see him again, something within me needed to know that I could bake for him somehow.
“Alright, you sit your pretty ass here,” he told me, dropping me down on the cushion with very little ceremony so he could stand, and move toward the kitchen, still shamelessly naked. He came back a moment later with a plate completely loaded down with cookies… and a cup of milk. “These are fucking banging,” he informed me as he dropped down. “For this, you get to pick the movie,” he told me as he put his glass down, and threw the remote at me.
“Alright. Just let me go get dressed,” I said, moving to stand.
“Can’t imagine what you’d need clothes for, since as soon as I get some sustenance back in this body, I plan to fuck you again. And again. And again. Got time to make up for.”
And, well, I couldn’t argue with such a sound bit of logic, could I?
So he ate cookies and drank milk while we watched a Val Kilmer movie from the eighties that he grumbled about at first, but actually liked.
Then he fucked me again.
And again.
And again.
Then woke me up at four in the morning to get one more round in.
I wasn’t even mad.
And then I fell back to sleep.
And for the first time in weeks, I didn’t have a nightmare – because there was nothing to fear. And I didn’t dream about Gunner. Because I didn’t need to.
I had him.
THIRTEEN
Gunner
This Auddie chick was a trip.
I had gotten up at my normal time, woke up Sloane with my tongue, then got inside her again, finding her even more needy and demanding when she was sleepy, then I got dressed, and headed down to the makeshift gym, giving up on it and its shoddy equipment after five minutes, going instead for a run around the town.
It was a nice place.
I didn’t really appreciate it on the first round.
Because I had been so focused on if Sloane would like it, if it suited her city tastes, and, maybe most importantly, that this was the place I was going to lose her to, souring my opinion of it.
But it was nice.
Small, yet big at the same time.
The shops were mostly independent, a lot of the locals seemed to know one another, and even though none knew me, offered me a hello or a wave as I ran past.
I could see how she had managed to settle in a bit.
And I could see why she had made friends with Auddie who had met me at the entrance to the building, completely blocking it with her body, arms crossed, chin lifted, in full-on mama-bear pose.
“Listen here,” she started, narrowing her eyes at me. “I know men like you. The ones who float in and out of a woman’s life, promising things you have no intention of delivering, then disappearing and leaving her shattered. She might be blinded because of all of this,” she said, waving her hand at my shirtless torso with a disgusted lip curl. “But I am not so easily fooled. She moved here to get away from you, asshole. Take a hint. Leave. She deserves better than to be with someone who made her uproot her life because he was such a jerk.”
“Think you might have me confused with someone else,” I said, brows drawing together.
“She said she had to move here to get away from some asshole.”
Alright, I was pretty sure she hadn’t used that term, but I could see that being implied. About Cortez.
“Alright, listen…”
“And you certainly seem to fit the bill,” she cut me off, righteously angry for a woman she had known for less than a month. Which was actually nice. For Sloane. I actually felt bad that she would likely be losing that, something she had never really had in her life before.
