Chapter 33
“I never got to ask my questions,” the small woman curled up in his arms mumbled as she snuggled closer to his side.
“Was your question about the pretties?” Reed asked as he pulled the blanket that he’d snuck upstairs to get a few minutes ago over her shoulders.
“Maybe,” she said after a short pause, making his lips twitch.
“Would it make it easier if I just told you about the room?” he asked, pressing a kiss against her forehead as he watched the fire slowly die down to a soft glow, letting him know just how late it was.
He should have left a while ago to go see Jackson, but he didn’t want to leave her. Even knowing that he probably wouldn’t see his best friend for another six months couldn’t make him leave her. Well, that and he had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to say to Jackson, especially since he didn’t know what this was anymore. The only thing that he knew was that he wasn’t ready for this to end.
Not just yet.
“It might,” she said, shifting to get closer only to shift again until she gave up trying to get comfortable on the unforgiving hardwood floor with a grumble and decided that he made a better mattress than the carpet.
“Comfy?” he asked, his lips twitching as he waited for her to settle on top of him.
“Getting there,” she said as she laid her head on his chest with a satisfied sigh and a-
“Brat,” he said with a mock glare at the little brat looking up at him through innocent baby blue eyes that didn’t quite match that devious smile as she wiggled one last time, causing his poor exhausted cock to twitch.
“You were saying?” she asked with a soft sigh as she finally settled on top of him.
“That your grandparents should have spanked your ass,” he growled as he wrapped his arms around her.
“They threatened to spank my ass many times, but they didn’t have the heart to go through with it,” she said with a heartfelt sigh.
“You locked yourself in the pantry until they promised not to spank you, didn’t you?” he guessed.
“Each and every time,” she said, nodding solemnly against his chest.
“And Jackson?” Reed asked, absently tracing a path down her spine.
“Was usually the reason that I locked myself in the pantry in the first place,” she said, making him chuckle.
“I’m pretty sure that you drove him to drink,” he said even as he couldn’t help but notice just how good she felt in his arms.
“I really did,” she said, sounding proud and for damn good reason.
She’d been a nightmare from day one and Jackson…
Jackson had barely been able to keep up with her. Poor bastard, he thought, chuckling as he remembered all the times that Jackson nearly lost his fucking mind over the years. There was the time when she’d decided that it was past time for her to teach herself how to swim by jumping into the fountain at the mall when she was three, leaving Jackson with no other choice but to jump off the escalator to save her. Then there was the time when she’d decided to set a trap for the monster living in her closet, which had resulted in Jackson getting trapped in there for six hours when he’d made the mistake of trying to figure out why there was a trail of cookies leading to her closet. Then there was the time when she was six and decided that the school bus was taking too long and decided to take her grandfather’s old riding lawnmower to school and poor Jackson ended up having to chase her through every neighbor’s backyard for a mile before she finally ran out of gas. She’d kept the poor bastard on his toes.
“God, you were a fucking nightmare,” he said, chuckling as he continued absently running his hands over her back.
“I really was,” she said with a devious little smile that had him cupping her face in his hands so that he could kiss her only to end up groaning when she suddenly sat up and-
“So, you were telling me a story about the pretties?” she said, practically bouncing with excitement as she shifted on his lap and pulled the blanket around her shoulders as she waited for him to tell the story that he’d promised his father that he’d only share with one woman.
“It’s a long story,” he warned her as he reached up and pushed a loose strand of her beautiful auburn hair behind her ear.
“As it happens, I have time,” Joey said with a hopeful smile that had him sitting up with a heavy sigh so that he could wrap his arms around her.
“You’re planning on hiding from your brother, aren’t you?” he asked, secretly pleased when she adjusted the blanket so that it was also wrapped around him and snuggled closer.
“For as long as humanly possible,” she said, nodding solemnly.
“And how exactly were you planning on doing that?” Reed couldn’t help but wonder because they both knew that Jackson wasn’t leaving until he got what he came here for.
“By sneaking out first thing in the morning and hoping for the best.”
“You realize that plan is flawed, right?” he pointed out, pulling her closer as he shifted so that she was sitting more comfortably on his lap.
“Yet, it’s all I have at the moment,” she said with a heartfelt sigh and a wiggle that made it difficult for him to focus. “My pretties?”
“Your pretties,” he said with a nod, and because he couldn’t help himself, he leaned in and kissed her. “My great-great-great-great-great grandfather Noah was born here in Bridgewater. Both his parents came from prominent families in England, but they’d decided to move here for a fresh start after they were married. They ended up having an insane number of children who all managed to get married and start families of their own. Everyone but Noah that is. He moved out, built a small house down by the pond where he helped fill orders for his father’s furniture business and that was it. He’d kept to himself, worked, and wasn’t interested in settling down with any of the women in town.”
“What happened?” she asked as she snuggled closer until her breasts were pressed against his chest and he couldn’t help but notice just how good she felt in his arms.
“There was an accident. A small boy was playing by the river and fell in. By the time anyone realized what happened he’d already been dragged halfway to the old sawmill. Every man within screaming distance came running and tried to grab him, but the current was too strong. Noah was at the mill picking up an order when he saw the boy being dragged toward the wheel. He didn’t think twice. He just jumped. He managed to grab the boy and shift him out of the way before the wheel dragged him under.”
“I don’t know how he managed to keep that boy safe, but he did. He held onto that boy and kept him away from the wheel even as it continued to crush him. One of the mill workers managed to shut the wheel down, otherwise Noah probably would have been crushed to death. It took them two hours to get him free and by the time they did, he’d already lost a lot of blood and broken most of the bones on the right side of his body. They didn’t think that he would live, but somehow he pulled through. It took him a year to heal and by the time that he did, his parents had decided that it was time to hold him to the promise that he’d made,” Reed said, absently noting that the men in his family had a bad habit of making promises and couldn’t help but wonder how badly this one was going to end. But even knowing that this wasn’t going to end well wasn’t enough to make him end this yet.