Page 70

I sigh. “Seriously? You’re already regretting it?”
She shakes her head. “Not regretting. Just realizing that I’m probably going to ask you to come to New Orleans to visit me.”
My heart gives a hard kick against my ribs. “Done.”
“Like once or twice a month, Henry. I don’t think I can live without orgasms. And I don’t want them from anyone else.”
I growl. Loudly. “You’renotgetting orgasms from anyone else. I will come to New Orleans any time you need me.”
There’s a beat of hesitation. During which I swear a million things are said. Like ‘I need you all the time’, and ‘you’ll come unless Cian needs you’, and ‘if it’s like this between us, why can’t we just be together?’, and ‘maybe I should just stay here’.
And even if all of those words and questions are only in my head, Ruby and I need to talk.
“Why don’t you go take a shower, and I’ll make us some real food? Brownies are not dinner, Gem,” I say before she can pointto the plastic container. “And…I’ll tell you about my mom and dad and brother.”
Her eyes widen with interest.
We haven’t talked about my family and my past. Not because I didn’t want to. It just honestly didn’t come up.
Now it has. Even if she doesn’t know it. Or how it connects to Cian and the O’Gradys and my job.
“Okay.” She hesitates, then kisses me quickly before climbing off my lap, gathering her clothes, and heading toward the stairs.
“Hey, Gem?” I call.
“Yeah?”
“If I installed a stripper pole, would you do those routines for me too?”
She pops her head back into the kitchen. She grins. “I have a pole. I work out with it all the time. It’s great for my core. My abs. And my pelvic floor.”
I sit up straighter. “Where?”
“In the rec room in our basement.”
“In this house?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t I know this until now?”
She shrugs. “You probably need to stop pissing me off. I might know all kinds of fun things you’d be interested in.”
Then she turns and sashays her gorgeous naked ass up the stairs.
Chapter 17
Ruby
He made me chicken quesadillas.
I didn’t even know we had the ingredients for chicken quesadillas.
I was expecting grilled cheese. Maybe scrambled eggs. That’s what I would have probably made. I mean, Icancook. I just don’t very often.
And honestly, it is a universal truth that food other people make for you always tastes better than food you have to make for yourself.
“These aresogood,” I say for the fourth time.