Page 21 of Crazy In Love (Love & War #2)
“Well shit, Dr. Phil.” She tears the seatbelt across her body and stabs the metal into the catch. “You’re probably right. You’re a genius.”
“Hurt your feelings.” I turn the radio up, just loud enough to cover the noise of my engine, and driving away from our parking slip, I angle for the exit and hit one or two— dozen —potholes in the blacktop.
“You went out of your way to let me hold the baby all day ‘cos you didn’t want to hurt my feelings. Then family was mentioned, and it felt like a bit of a slap to the face.”
“Uh-huh. And my niceness was for naught, because you’re still here, badgering me when I could be wandering in the middle-of-the-day sun.”
“You can go for a walk later.” I amble onto the road and settle in for our thirty-second journey.
“There are some really pretty trails that cut through mine and Tommy’s yards.
They wind around the lake and lead into a few hidden spots we didn’t even know existed until we bought the land.
Alana will be in the hospital for another day or two, which means you’re sleeping at Tommy’s until she’s back. Save your walk for later.”
“You almost sound genuine, but my spidey-senses predict a hike where, eventually, I die from exposure and a mass-mosquito buffet. You’d stay inside with Franky, so when I’m gone and out of the way, you can be his savior and never have to deal with me again. I’m not stupid.”
“Right. ‘Cos killing Alana’s best friend and Hazel’s namesake would go completely unnoticed.”
“Oh my gosh!” Like the flip of a switch, she transforms from night to day, slapping her hands to her mouth and twisting to place her knee on the bench seat. “I’m her namesake! Isn’t that amazing?”
“It’s pretty amazing.”
“I get to be the Fox from Hazel Fox. Like, what?”
I tap along to a Kane Brown song and smile. Dammit, I don’t want to smile. “It’s very cool.”
“And sure, you get to claim the Watkins thing, since you all have that name now, and eventually, Alana and Franky will, too. And Hazel is Hazel because of your eyes. But I’m Fox. I’m the Fox!”
“You’re the Fox.”
“I’m gonna have a couple of kids someday and call them Alana and Tommy, just so they can understand how amazing this feels. There’s a whole new human in the world, Chris, and she was named after me!”
I peek at her from the corner of my eyes and shake my head because she’s no longer cranky and mean. She’s jittery and beaming. Wriggling with excitement and clenching her fists.
“I never knew that was something I wanted. I didn’t even know it was something I’d care about.
But she’s named after me! So for the rest of her life, when people meet her and ask about her name, she can point at me like, ‘ yeah, that cool chick over there. She’s the OG Fox .
’ I don’t have to be Uncle Chris, sharing DNA and a surname when I can be Aunty Fox. Fox! ”
“You’re kinda excited, huh?” I pull into a parking spot outside the bookstore, recently named Happily Ever After , and dragging the key from the ignition, I glance across and study her giddy grin. “Did you have suspicions they were gonna do that? Did Alana give you any hints?”
“No! Did she tell you?”
I shake my head. “They were firm on keeping it under wraps till she was here. Though I reckon Alana probably worried about my feelings. I’m hearing rumors that I’m kinda protected and whiny when it comes to them.”
“At least you admit it.” Laughing, she turns to her door and shoves it open, sliding out until her feet touch the road.
Then she slams it shut again and waits for me to do the same.
“It’s clear Alana spent her entire youth mothering you, and hell if you didn’t come to rely on it.
” She wanders to the shop door and pats her pockets.
Searching. Panicking. And then realizing.
No keys. No purse. Nothing but the phone in her pocket and hopes and dreams—and puppy dog eyes glittering up at mine. “Can you…”
“Bet you’re glad I drove you now, huh?” I unlock the door and push it open, then I hold it wide and wait for her to pass under my arm before I follow and close up behind us .
Fuck knows, Barbara will waltz on in if she sees the place unlocked for more than three seconds. “You would have walked your cranky ass across town, kicking stones and cussing me out for no reason except your own bad mood, then you would’ve arrived and realized you couldn’t get inside.”
“Lucky me.” She tears the scrunchie from her hair and cuts a line through the store. “You get to be my knight in shining armor. Oh, Sir Lancelot. They were right to dub you the most perfect knight.”
She swings her hips and traverses the stairs, and coming to a stop on the top landing, she peeks over her shoulder, doe-eyed and sugary sweet. “Please, my sweet knight. Putteth the key in the locketh.”
“Pretty sure that’s not how they spoke back then.
” I unlock her door and knock it wide to allow her entry.
I open my mouth to tell her which way to walk, but then I snap my lips shut again.
There’s no need for a tour of her new digs; the place only has one door beside the one we just walked through.
I close up behind me and set my keys on the counter, my phone right after them.
Then, bending at the hips and pressing my elbows to the countertop, I drop my head and run my fingers through my hair.
“I haven’t pulled an all-nighter in a good long while.
Turns out I’m not twenty-one and buzzing with teenage energy anymore. ”
“Yeah, because being twenty-nine and an athlete means you’re not literally in your prime right now.
” She strolls through the bathroom door and closes it most of the way, and tossing her hair tie to the basin, she peels the hoodie up and lobs it to the floor.
But I guess the fabric is kinda heavy, heavier than she’s used to, because it hits the bottom of the door and knocks it a few inches wider without her realizing.
Fuck me. I catch her reflection in the vanity mirror, the perfect view of her smooth skin and muscular shoulders as she peels her shirt up. She reveals a flat stomach and a glittering belly piercing, and higher up, a lacy red bra that matches her underwear perfectly.
Her spine creates a deep valley in the center of her back, and the ink I glimpsed earlier turns out to be a million times more detailed than I even guessed, stretching all the way around her hip and up to her right shoulder blade.
She didn’t touch her arms. Not her neck. She didn’t even mark up her stomach, except the very lowest section.
I lick my lips and watch, a prisoner to the show she unknowingly puts on, as she unbuttons her shorts and wiggles them over her hips. They’re wide enough to create the perfect hourglass shape. Her backside, just thick enough to force her to work the denim down instead of letting it fall .
Turn around, Christian.
This isn’t a peepshow, and she hasn’t invited you in.
She slides the shorts all the way to her feet and steps out of the denim. Her sinfully long legs are made longer now that she’s almost completely in her skin, then she reaches back and unsnaps the catch on her bra.
God save me. Please. Because maybe she’s infuriating, and perhaps we’re destined for a lifetime of bickering. But she’s fucking beautiful, and I’m just a man who hasn’t touched a woman in too damn long.
She releases the straps of her bra and shucks the lacy material down, until all she has left is her and her panties, and damn her to hell and back, but they hug her ass and provide me a challenge; see if your hands can do the same .
I’m not sure I breathe. I’m not sure I even know how.
But I stare and consider. I hungrily study her long limbs and delicate ink. Her thick thighs, the kind I’d assume belonged to an athlete. And then her eyes, when they come to mine in the mirror.
“Shit.” I drop my head and clamp my eyes shut, squeezing them tight and gritting my teeth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” I shake my head. “I meant to tell you the door was knocked open, and I?—”
“I’m not mad.” Her voice is stunningly husky, and fuck if it’s not needy enough to draw my eyes open again.
Swallowing, I glance across and watch her hide on the other side of the door.
She rests her cheek on the wood, her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Not sure if inviting you in would be the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done,” she murmurs.
“Or if it would be opening a can of worms I’m not entirely sure I could manage. ”
Beautiful brown eyes search my face, her gaze, as warm on my skin as her touch would be…
if only I allowed myself to walk closer.
I push off the counter and turn, dangling my hands by my sides, but that might be a mistake, too.
Because she lowers her eyes, trailing them over my thundering heart, my swirling belly… finally, my crotch.
“At least I know what you think of me.”
Groaning, I press my hands to my cock and cover the tent it makes of my pants. “I’m sorry.”
“If I go to bed with you, are you gonna be a control freak, like the fork thing?” She plays with me, teasing as she runs her tongue across her lips. “Or a control freak, like you’re gonna decide when I get to breathe and how often I get to come?”
Fuckkkkk meeeee. My cock throbs.
“Because if it’s the first, I’ll tire of you really fast. No woman ever wanted to be screwed by a man who never quite grew out of his ten-year-old dysregulated phase.”
“Fox—”
“But if it’s the second,” she hums, suckling on her bottom lip. “I can’t say I haven’t thought about it. Six weeks can be a really long time if all we’re doing is swiping at each other.”
“So you wanna fuck instead?” Shut up, shut up, shut up! “You think instead of fighting, we could direct our energies elsewhere?”