Page 90 of Bleed the Shadows

“Well, it’s just what I’ve been calling him. You can name him whatever you want, but doesn’t he look like a Ray to you?”

I studied the dog, then nodded. “Actually, he does.”

“Ray here is your Christmas present. And don’t worry, he doesn’t belong to anyone, or at least the vet doesn’t think he does because he doesn’t have a chip and he hasn’t been taken care of. And also, I’ll help you take care of him if you want. Cassie said it was presumptuous to assume someone wanted to take care of an animal for the next ten years.”

“Ten years?” I was just repeating stuff at this point, and who could blame me?

Bram had taken the dog to the vet. And the groomer. He’d talked to Cassie about the dog as a gift for me. He’d kept it asecret for days, had been feeding and caring for the dog in Poe’s studio.

The number of unbelievable things were too numerous to get my head around.

“Well, the vet says he’s about three years old, so yeah. Ten years give or take.”

“I can’t believe you did this.”

“Are you mad? Or… I don’t know, disappointed or something?”

I shook my head and looked up into his eyes. “No, I’m not mad or disappointed Bram.”

“So you’re… happy?”

I couldn’t hold back my smile. I didn’t want to.

“I’m happy. Really, really happy.” I threw my arms around him and Ray on impulse. “Thank you so much.”

He froze, and then I felt his arms come around me, and in that moment, I was pretty sure nothing had ever felt better.

55

BRAM

I’d never really beensure what people meant when they said they were “on cloud nine.”

I knew it meant they were happy, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever been that kind of happy, because it sounded pretty fucking happy and the truth was I wasn’t sure I’d ever been even a little bit happy before the last month.

But now? Well, now I was on cloud fucking nine, not just because Maeve had hugged me, which had been pretty fucking epic, but because she’d been happy. And not just because she’d been happy, but because I’d made her happy.

I’d been worried sick about the dog: would she like it, would she want to deal with it, would she think I was crazy?

But she’d loved it and she seemed more than happy to deal with it and if she thought I was crazy I was pretty sure it was the good kind of crazy.

Hours later, I was still so amped I could hardly sit still. I went out to do some business with Poe while Maeve and Remy got Ray settled and then went over the accounting for that month, but none of it was enough to keep me from feeling like I wanted to run a marathon or three.

It was almost midnight when I finally gave up and went downstairs, looking for a snack.

I’d expected to find the house quiet, the kitchen empty, but Maeve was still in there, the lights low, the Christmas tree shining in front of the window.

She didn’t hear me come in, and I leaned against the wall, watching her beautiful face as she bent to inspect a cake with white icing, gleaming scarlet cherries perfectly spaced around its border.

I still wanted to fuck her — like crazy, if I was going to be honest with myself — but somewhere over the past month I’d started wanting to make her smile just as much. I wanted to make her laugh.

I wanted to make her happy, the way I had with the Christmas tree and the dog.

Somewhere along the way what I could do for Maeve had become a lot more important than what she could do for me and my permanently hard dick.

I’d never felt that way about anyone before, except maybe my sister, but that was different.

Obviously.