Page 155 of The Forgotten

Wilder:

I’ll wrap up the food for later. I haven’t started on the eggs, so I’ll skip them and make them fresh when she’s awake.

“What are you plotting?” she asks sleepily.

“World domination,” I say immediately, pocketing my phone. “I think you may be too tired to even chew, am I right?”

“Yeah, you are,” she admits. “Everything feels hard right now.”

Wrapping my arms around her, I enjoy the way she hugs me back. I know Storm called her ‘Kitty’ because she has claws. I saw some of the scratch marks that were healing, but she also looks like she’d be more willing to curl up than hurt me.

“I’m going to have you sit in front of me,” I decide. “I don’t want you to accidentally fall off.”

Moving back, I help her sit in front of me, and place her helmet on.

“Relax, baby. I’ll get you home,” I murmur, holding her in place with my thighs as I cage her body with mine.

I’m careful as I ride through the early morning traffic, and force myself to discover a new way to go home. Marie’s body gets more relaxed and heavier with every mile, telling me that I made the right call. She’s completely asleep by the time I park beside the other bikes. In the winter, I may have to find a different place to park, but that’s for future me to worry about.

Storm opens the door and walks down to me, and I wonder if he and Wilder have both been waiting for me to get back.

“She’s asleep,” I tell him, easing off her helmet.

“I fucking hate her work schedule,” he growls, carefully lifting her off the bike.

“In an easier life, she’d be less stubborn, but what would be the fun in that?” I tease. “I love a challenge.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he chuckles, waiting for me to put things away and grab her bag. “Are we going to figure out a way for her to spend the night?”

“If she has clothes here, I think it’ll be less likely that she’ll kick up a fuss,” I say, walking inside with him.

“I’ll place an order for delivery. It’s so much easier to get shit quickly in the city,” he says.

“You mean instead of the middle of nowhere?” I laugh, locking up behind us. “Minneapolis is different than I thought it would be. People are exceptionally nice. I ran into some of the kids in the neighborhood earlier."

Wilder walks out to see that Marie is asleep, and immediately goes back into the kitchen. He returns with an insulated cup with a straw for her smoothie, and we begin the trek up to the roof. We had electricity, water, and internet connected yesterday, and Storm is going to begin working on a security system for the brownstone.

He decided he doesn’t want it connected to a company unless it’s someone he can trust. Since those people are few and far between, he’ll build out the system himself.

The couch is huge on the roof, with a million cushions.

“We should build some kind of pavilion over this, don’t you think?” Wilder muses. “Maybe we can get a garden going up here too that’s not too difficult to maintain.”

“Look at us,” I chuckle. “Homeowners for a couple of days and we’re already domestic as fuck.”

“I don’t see any issues with it,” Wilder grins, settling on the couch. The fireplace happily crackles, and it helps with the cooler air up here.

Storm refuses to release Marie, and instead sits on the couch with her body sprawled over him. The three of us chat while we watch her sleep, and the sun is shining by the time she shifts an inch.

“If I couldn’t feel you breathing, I’d be concerned,” Storm says, his lips twitching as her head tilts up. The blanket is wrapped around her, and she hums under her breath as she snuggles against him.

“Just tired,” she mumbles. “I’ll bounce back soon.”

Her stomach grumbles, and Wilder grabs the cup. I press my fingers against the outside, impressed when I find it’s still frigid.

“Here,” I say, taking the cup to press the straw to her lips.

“Thank you,” she says, her lips wrapping around the straw to suck on it. Storm makes a pained look that makes me hide a smile, while Wilder shakes his head in amusement.