Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
He smiled to himself, shoving down the unease that rode his every moment with her.
Because at least he bested her challenge.
It was the next morning when she was in her underwear, leaning into the mirror in his bathroom, putting on makeup to get ready for work, when he came in and gave her the other present.
He put the boxes on the basin beside her.
She glanced down at them. “What’s this?”
“Your not-sex-related presents from LA.”
“I cannot believe you’re a man who remembers to pick up gifts on a business trip,” she mumbled to herself, but there was his girl, she didn’t hide her excitement or hesitate going for the boxes.
But he nearly laughed out loud at the “business trip” thing.
He didn’t when he saw her notice the gold lettering on the burgundy box, times two.
So the reason they cost a whack was real. Baccarat meant something.
She opened one, gasped, then opened the other, and gasped at that one too.
“Saw ’em in a shop window and they reminded me of you,” he muttered, suddenly feeling super fucking uncomfortable.
Her gaze rose to his and there was no bright excitement and happiness there.
What was there was way fucking bigger than excitement and happiness, he knew that even though he’d never seen that look in his life.
“They’re just glass butterflies,” he said.
“Crystal,” she corrected softly.
“Whatever.”
“I love them.”
“That was the goal.”
She came to him, pressed close, slid her fingers in his hair and pulled him down to get her kiss.
When she finished with his mouth, she whispered, “Thank you.”
He needed to break this mood. “I prefer the other gift.”
His plan backfired.
She collapsed against him in laughter, and that wasn’t better than what he’d seen on her face a minute ago.
But it was a close second.
When she moved away, he went to his back pockets and put the jewelry pouch and a stack of cash wrapped in a paper band on the basin.
“For your friend,” he said. “I don’t know if any of those are hers, but I grabbed everything that fit the description of what was taken.”
Her eyes were huge as she stared at the black velvet and the bills.
“And three grand, bit more than she gave, but whatever. Maybe it’ll help with the credit cards.”
She looked back to him.
“If none of that jewelry is hers, she can either replace what was taken from her, or she can give you back that pouch. But she only replaces what was taken, she gives the rest back. There’s four pairs of pearl studs in there and seven diamond pendants. They had a thing about sitting on shit they stole before they fenced it, and everything everyone got went to the central vault, probably because, if they needed to gift it back out to a mark, they’d have it. So hopefully, not enough time had passed for them to hock her shit before I got my hands on it.”
“When you said it’s done, you really did it right,” she said with a voice and a face full of wonder.
“Resurrection doesn’t fuck around, babe,” he replied.
Then he left her to get ready for her day.
That Saturday, after three days of dinner together every night, then sleeping beside her and waking up with her, Core found Hellen lounged on his couch under his skull print with his dog, her feet resting on the back and her laptop open on his coffee table, when he returned from a workout at the clubhouse.
However, she was not, as she told him she was going to do, working.
Both she and Nanook were looking at her phone.
Or she was looking at her phone, Nanook was lying down her side in the curve of her arm and panting.
Core didn’t miss that when he showed, Nanook’s welcome was not physical, just a pup smile.
His dog didn’t leave their woman.
She tipped her head back to take him in, her mass of hair spilling down the side of the couch.
He started instantly to get hard.
“Nanook and I have decided he needs a TikTok,” she announced.
“Get to my room and get naked. I’m not going to shower twice.”
Her expression changed, then in the next beat she was tossing the phone aside, grabbing Nanook’s head, giving him a kiss on it, then she rolled to her feet and strutted down the hall to Core’s room.
She didn’t hurry.
Even so, when Core followed, to get his shit under some kind of control, he moved a lot slower.
“This one?” she asked.
They were finished, still in bed, him on his back, her at his side, as well as at his tats.
She was sliding a finger along the ink that trailed under his collarbone that said Iustitia, Tribus, Honoris, Fidelitas.
“Justice. Clan. Honor. Allegiance. Resurrection’s motto in Latin.”
“Cool,” she mumbled, then went down to his right rib cage, where he had the head of a roaring bear inked in his skin. “This one?”