Ezra dropped a kiss to Raleigh’s neck, and I caught his eyes and narrowed my own, a nonverbal ‘watch yourself’ passing from me to him.
He grinned and looked to my parents to see my mother staring at me with hearts in her eyes.
“I want more grandbabies,” she ordered. “And to accomplish that, you probably should start working on it.”
I rolled my eyes, but the thought was planted.
Carmichael pregnant with my baby did sound really fucking awesome.
Like, so awesome that I just might get her that way. If she’d let me, anyway.
“We’ll see, Mom,” I teased. “Could someone go let the dogs out?”
Mom got up and did that, taking the now-empty pizza box with her.
Danger, huddled close to her side, stayed with her, surprising me.
“Maybe Danger will do good with her,” Raleigh said softly. “They don’t look like they hate each other.”
“No,” I agreed. “They don’t.”
CHAPTER 14
Kind of a lady. More of a pervert.
-Coffee Cup
CARMICHAEL
When I woke up the next morning, Croft was gone.
I was also asleep in my bed, with an obvious dent where Croft had once laid his head for the night, and the smell of him on my sheets.
After getting up, I walked through the house, finding that I was alone.
Danger was nowhere to be found, which obviously meant that she’d gone with Merida, Mrs. Crusie.
Lion was gone, too, which prompted me to look outside and take a look across the street.
Croft was nowhere to be found—or his car anyway—but there was a police cruiser sitting outside my house.
I looked at my watch and winced.
I was supposed to be teaching a noon class in about thirty minutes.
I’d better hurry if I was going to make it in time.
But just as I got to my bedroom to get dressed, I found a note at the bottom of my bed with my name on it.
Carmichael, I went to teach the class. Can’t move or demonstrate, but I was bored as hell and you slept for, like, ever. I’ll be home in about an hour and a half with lunch. –C
Grinning, I thought about the night before.
It’d only been hours later that I’d woken up to find that we were alone.
I’d woken up somewhere around two in the morning and had a hard time going back to sleep.
So, since I did this on a regular basis, I stayed up for a couple of hours and read one of my all-time favorite romance novels.
Which then had me thinking about other things, which happened to be why I started doing what I was doing next.
Which also happened to be when my sister-in-law came into the room with Raleigh.
“Knock much?” I asked as I saw the two of them enter.
“Yes,” Raleigh said as she held out a footlong Subway Sandwich. “I asked your brother, and he said that you liked this kind of sandwich. Hopefully he wasn’t just pulling my chain, because I got it for you.”
“What kind is it?” I asked curiously.
“It’s a meatball sub,” she answered.
I took it without dropping what I had in my other hand which happened to be a condom that I had attached to a plastic bottle and placed it on the counter.
“What are you doing?” Camryn asked as she came to stand next to me.
“I’m testing something,” I said as I turned my Mountain Dew bottle upside down.
“What?” she asked, looking from me to the condom and back.
“I’m testing to see how much liquid can go into one of these things before it breaks,” I answered, stating what I thought was the obvious.
“But why?” she pushed.
I looked over at her, then back to my task. “So. Say that I might or might not have had sex with someone. Say that the condom wearer might or might not have come in the same condom twice. I just need to make sure that it’s built to withstand the load without breaking.”
“There’s no way in hell that two ‘loads’ will be the equivalent to a two-liter-filled thing.” She gestured to what I was doing with the two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew.
“But the penis was…” I stopped, unsure whether or not I wanted to admit just how big Croft’s penis was.
I didn’t really think that the woman that used to have a crush on my crush needed to be told about his penis size. Nor said owner of the penis’s sister.
It was bad enough that Camryn had once liked him.
I didn’t really want to gross Raleigh out. I liked her and I wanted to continue to have her as a friend.
“Are we talking about my brother’s penis?” Raleigh asked. “I’ve heard rumors. I always assumed those rumors were false.”
“Noooooo,” I lied. “Of course not. I have sexual intercourse with multiple penises at a time.”
Raleigh rolled her eyes. “I’m going to just go outside and eat my sandwich. Y’all come back and get me when you’re done talking about this disgusting stuff.”
Camryn snickered as Raleigh walked out the door.
“You should just get on birth control,” she suggested.
I looked at my watch.
“My doctor’s office is closed for lunch,” I sighed. “I’ve never been on birth control before. What would you recommend?”
She pursed her lips. “I would suggest the implant in your arm. You can just get it and forget it. Birth control pills, or the shot, you have to remember to get it/take it. Which sucks all on its own.”
I held the Mountain Dew-filled bottle and nodded once. “I think I’m okay.”
“I think that you’re nuts,” she countered. “What made you do that anyway?”
“I’m just freaking out,” I admitted. “I just started dating him, and all of a sudden we’re doing stupid stuff.”
“And getting really close all at the same time,” she murmured. “Are you okay?”
I drew in a deep breath. “It feels… not real. I mean, he didn’t give me the time of day, and all of a sudden, we’re sleeping with each other, he’s healing from a gunshot wound, and I don’t want him to ever leave. I’m… scared.”
She threw her arms around me, and the
