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I leaned in, resting my head against his chest. “For future reference, wake me up. You’re a king. Kings don’t sleep on twenty-year-old sofas.”
“Noted.” His fingers brushed through my hair and scratched lightly at my scalp.
“My things are missing.” There were two possible explanations for the sudden disappearance of my possessions. Robbery or Gray Collins. If it had been a robbery, then Gray could comfort me over the loss of all my earthly items with multiple offerings of oral sex. If Gray was responsible, it meant …
He leaned down and kissed me. When he pulled away, the bastard was grinning ear to ear. “Do you know how hard it is to pack up an entire bedroom without making a sound?” He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in for a hug before whispering to me for no reason other than sending shivers down my spine. “I was hoping you might be ready to come home.”
“Don’t say it if you don’t mean it. Because you’re never getting rid of me after this. You know that, right?”
“I’m planning on it.”
***
“Where the hell are you taking me and why the hell do I have a blindfold on?” I barked at him, thirty minutes later. “If we were headed to Cobb, we’d be on the interstate by now. I swear to God, Gray, if this is some kind of sick game just to get my hopes up so you can crush my spirit, I’m divorcing you.”
“We’re not married, Kent. I don’t know how many times I have to remind you.”
“Until you give me a damn ring. That’s how many times. Christ, babe, I can’t make the hints any bigger.”
He snickered, and I scowled in his direction, crossing my arms against my chest. He reached over, thumping my nose, and it took everything in me not to lunge at him. We could have been driving along a jagged cliff for all I knew, so I resisted that urge.
“That’s assault,” I said with all the anger I could muster.
“We’re almost there. Just trust me, Half-pint.”
“It’s eight-hundred degrees outside, and I have perishables in those boxes.” I flung my arm toward the bed of the truck, inadvertently slapping what I hoped was the seat and not the man I loved. I could cope with being branded a failure, a loser, a … God help me, a‘daddy’in the gay community, but I drew the line at being seen as a perpetrator of domestic violence. “Did I just hit you? Are you okay?”
He sighed. “You smacked a pillow with some guy’s head on it. Wait, is that …”
“Don’t look at that!” I shouted, lunging blindly for the pillow. “Oh my God, Gray, if you love me, you’ll look away. Nothing good can come from this. Not a thing.”
“Kent,” he said, his voice as cool as ice.
Fuck. Fuck-fuck-fucking-fuck.
“Baby, why do you have a pillow with the back of my head on it?”
“Shut up. Don’t say another word.”
“Where did you even get this picture? You can’t see my face or anything, it’s just an overhead shot of my …” He groaned. “Dang it, Half-pint. Stop being weird about my bald spot. You know I’m self-conscious about it.”
“It’s big and beautiful, and I can’t help my kinks. It does things to me. I can’t explain it.” I knew it was a touchy subject, that perfect patch of flesh. The one time I’d talked him into letting me shoot my load on it, I thought we were going to need couples counseling just to survive the embarrassment it brought him. “Stop shaming me for loving you, for fuck’s sake. Just let me love you, dammit. Anyway, that’s not the point. We were talking about my eye cream, but way to make it all about you again, you raging narcissist. I’m warning you, if one ounce of that cream goes bad, so help me. That tube cost me more than I make in a week.”
“I love it when you whine,” he said, resting his hand on my thigh. “And I don’t know why you waste your money on that stuff. You don’t need it. There’s not a soul on this earth that holds a candle to you.”
I whimpered. How the hell did he expect me to respond to that statement? Before I could address any of the beautiful words he’d just spoken, he turned onto what I assumed was a dirt road. The sound of gravel and sand flinging out from under his tires went on for another minute or so before the truck came to a stop. As I reached up to pull the blindfold off, he slapped my hand away.
“That’s twice! I won’t stand for physical abuse, Gray.”
“Just sit there and hold your horses. You’re going to love this.” His door opened, and moments later, my door was swinging open, and his hand was in mine, guiding me out of the truck toward this mystery location of his. When we came to a stop, he leaned in, whispering into my ear.
“You ready?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re playing at, but—” Before I could finish, his hands were behind my head, untying the blindfold. When it came off, I grabbed his hand, needing to feel that connection to him again.
The lake.Ourlake.
As I opened my mouth to ask him what we were doing there, I noticed a small crowd by the shore. I turned toward Gray, my mouth hanging open. “What is this?”
