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Ares crosses to the window and lifts the blinds, peering out. “Good news is it doesn’t look like it snowed too much more last night.”
“Thank fuck,” I say. “If the roads are clear, then we can get the fuck out of here.” I head for one of the windows in the front of the house, and it does look like the plows came through in the early hours of the morning to clear the roads and hopefully lay down some salt too.
“Are we chancing it?” Ares asks, coming to stand next to me.
“If the weather holds, we should be okay. At least we can make some more progress. At this rate, we’re going to end up using all of our time off just to get to this fucking place.”
Ares makes a face at that and goes to start the coffee.
We all take turns in the bathroom, getting cleaned up and dressed to pack up. Callan starts loading the car, and Ares takes charge of getting some breakfast thrown together. He practically throws me out of the kitchen when I offer to help, so I laugh and go find Brynn.
She’s curled up in one of the arm chairs, reading the book I lent her.
I lean over the back of the chair and smirk when I realize what chapter she’s on.
“You read that chapter twice the other day,” I tease her. “You must have really enjoyed it.”
Her cheeks immediately go pink, but she doesn’t deny it. “It was interesting. That’s all.”
“Interesting. Sure. We can call it that, if you want. Or we could say that you’re just a dirty girl who’s very into these kinds of things.”
Her flush just gets darker from that. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing something? Making breakfast or whatever?”
“Ares threw me out of the kitchen, so I’m free to tease you as much as I want.”
She rolls her eyes, but doesn’t tell me to fuck off, so I take that as permission to linger.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I say. “You should pick your favorite spicy scene from the book, and I’ll bring it to life for you. You can live it out however you want.”
Her eyes go wide at that, and she blinks up at me, turned on and flustered. “Oh. I…” She bites her lip, and I can’t decide if this is a good reaction or a bad one.
I just decide to ask her. “What’s up? Do you hate that idea?”
“No, no, it’s not that. It’s just… I’ve never had guys care more about my pleasure than theirs. No one’s ever offered to set up a scene just for me before.”
“Well, they’re stupid,” I say, grinning at her. “Also it would be a complete pleasure for me to bring a fantasy scene to life for you. Trust me, I will enjoy it. But any man who wouldn’t worship you and make sure you’re completely satisfied is not worth your time.”
“Oh my god.” Brynn covers her face with one hand, but not before I see the dazed little smile spreading across her lips.
I would tease her more, see what it would take to really make her blush for me, but before I can, Callan comes stomping into the room. “What are you doing?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say, going for innocent. “We’re just waiting around.”
“Ares made breakfast sandwiches. We can eat those in the car. The house is cleaned up and ready. Let’s go.”
I glance at Brynn with a sly smile. “This is Callan in ‘leader mode’,” I tell her. “He starts treating us like we’re a bunch of little kids at an amusement park or something. The best thing to do is just go with it.”
“The best thing to do is get up so we can leave,” Callan says.
I straighten up and snap to attention, giving him a salute. “Sir, yes, sir.”
Brynn laughs, but puts the book back in her bag, and we let Callan herd us out and to the car.
29
BRYNN
The weather is probably the best it’s been in a while once we get on the road. The roads have been cleared and salted a bit, and it’s not snowing at all.
