Page 83 of Gator
He laughed quietly, the sound warm and easy.
“So what’s our plan for today?” I asked. The salon was closed on Mondays, which meant Julius had the day free. I didn’t have Mondays off normally, but I’d already let Wolfe know I would be unavailable all week.
I was already trying to convince myself it would be safe to let him go to work on Tuesday. I chuckled to myself at the thought, like I had any say in what my boy did. No one, not even me,letJulius Petros do anything.
Logically, I knew we’d caught the bad guys. That he was safe at the salon. Of course I’d thought that before, hadn’t I, which was why I also planned to go to work with him for a little while, just to ease my mind.
He interrupted my thoughts with a long, sexy stretch before rolling towards me.
“We should go by my house today. Get my stuff so I can officially move in. I miss my good coffee maker and my clothes.”
“You sure you’re up for it?”
“Yeah. I want to get it done. Not that we can get it all today, but I’d rather have all my important things here in our place. I can decide what to do with the rest later.”
The words hit somewhere deep in my chest.Our place. It wasn’t just my house anymore. It was his, too.
A short time later, Julius unlocked the door to his house, humming under his breath, and went straight to his closet.
He didn’t waste a second. No hesitation. Just started pulling clothes off hangers, stacking boxes of shoes, and debating out loud which jackets he needed to keep.
When he’d finished in there, he moved around the house, putting things into boxes and muttering to himself about what to take, what to leave for later, and what to get rid of.
Once we had everything loaded, he took one last look around. “I liked this place,” he said softly. “It was good to me. But it’s time.”
I stepped closer, resting a hand on the back of his neck. “Then let’s go home, baby.”
He smiled, eyes shining. “Let’s.”
Back at the condo, he wasted no time making himself at home. Within minutes, the spare room had become a walk-in closet, every inch of it filled with neatly arranged clothes, shoes, and enough skin care products to open his own spa.
When I passed by the doorway, he was standing there, hands on his hips, surveying his work. “This is much better. You had an entire empty room, and now it has purpose.”
I leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “You’ve been here fifteen minutes, and you’ve already taken over my bathroom and a whole bedroom.”
He turned, grinning. “Correction—our bathroom and our bedroom. Don’t act like you mind.”
He wasn’t wrong. Watching him move around the space like he’d always belonged there made something settle inside me. I’d built a life around protecting other people, but now I had someone of my own to protect.
By late afternoon, everything was unpacked. Julius curled up beside me on the couch with a mug of coffee while Trixie perched on the back cushion, whistling softly.
“You ever think,” Julius said quietly, “that sometimes things have to get bad before you take the steps to get you where you’re supposed to be?”
I smiled, kissing the top of his head. “Yeah, I think about that a lot.”
He tilted his head up, eyes soft. “Good. Because this feels a lot like where I belong.”
“Oh, don’t you doubt it,mon petit,” I said, pulling him closer. “It is.”
He settled against me with a happy sigh, his hand sliding over my chest until it rested right above my heart.
I brushed my thumb over his knuckles. “You know, my mee-maw always said that home isn’t the place you sleep—it’s the people who make you want to stay.”
Julius looked up at me, eyes full of that love, making me feel like the luckiest man alive. “Then I guess we’re both home, huh?”
“Yeah, baby,” I said, voice low. “We are.”
Outside, the city kept moving—sirens in the distance, traffic, life carrying on—but in here, everything was still.Safe. Exactly how it was supposed to be.
For the first time in a long damn time, I didn’t have anywhere else to be.
I hope you loved reading Gator and Julius's story. Up next is Crowe and Noah story. You can get it here: Crowe
It’s been six months since Noah escaped hell. Therapy helped him find his footing again, and for the first time in a long time, he’s starting to believe he’s safe. Until the man who bought him—the one he never met, but never stopped fearing—tracks him down to claim what he thinks he owns. Desperate and terrified, Noah turns to the only people who ever made him feel safe: the men of Three Bears Tactical.
Crowe usually runs the training camp, not protection details. But when Noah walks back into their world, shaken but determined to fight, Crowe can’t stand on the sidelines. He’ll keep Noah close—closer than he should—and protect him with everything he’s got. But the more time they spend together, the harder it is to tell where the job ends and something deeperbegins. Because protecting Noah isn’t just duty anymore. It’s personal.