Page 48 of Close Quarters

“What about that is good?”

“I mean, I know I gave you shit about it before, but…it is kind of impressive. I don’t know a lot of guys’ stories here, but how many of them do you think realized they screwed up so royally they needed to turn themselves in?”

“Uh, I guess not too many.”

“And you did it because you felt bad and knew it was wrong. Even if it got you thrown behind bars, you did the right thing. That had to feel good.”

“I didn’t do it because it felt good.”

“Look, doing the right thing got you a record and prison time. If you can’t enjoy doing the right thing when you’re paying a cost for it, what’s the fucking point? People need to stop getting so fucking hung up on the idea of doing the right thing just because it’s right, and you’re not allowed to feel good about it. Feeling good about it afterward is fucking normal.”

“I guess,” he said somewhat reluctantly.

“How did I even wake you up?” I asked him.

I felt him glance at me. “This time?”

“Wait—”

“Yeah, bud, you’ve woken me up more than once.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Never knew what to say. You’re…not exactly easy to talk to sometimes, especially when something bothers you. Figured you’d take anything I said like I was trying to baby you.”

I could only grunt at that because, well, tonight had already proven his suspicion correct. I still wasn’t sold on the difference that he insisted existed, but…I also didn’t want to remove him from my side. Despite the lurking nightmare in the back of my head, there was the steady presence of his body against mine. In some ways, he was taking comfort from the moment instead of expecting me to take all of it.

My fingers twitched, and hesitantly, I shifted my hand from my towel and placed it over his thighs. Through the thin fabric of his sleep pants, I could feel the warmth of his skin. It wasn’t like I hadn’t gripped his thighs before, and I felt a familiar wash of lust go through me as I imagined taking him on the bed right then and there. I had no doubt he would have let me, a goofy grin on his face right up until I pushed inside him.

I turned my head toward him, pausing when I realized how close he was. His eyes blurred in my vision momentarily before he closed the distance. It wasn’t like any of the kisses we’d shared before. There was the familiar flicker of hunger inside me when his lips met mine, but it was quieter, subdued in the face of something gentler and warmer. He didn’t try to part my lips to invite my tongue into his mouth. He just let his lips linger softly on mine before pulling back.

“Go the fuck to bed,” I told him softly, glad it was so dim in the room he couldn’t see my face going red.

“If it’s all the same to you, I kind of want to stay here for a little while,” he said, laying his head on my shoulders. “This is actually pretty comfy.”

“There’s something wrong with you.”

“Yeah, but we knew that already.”

It turned out I didn’t have an objection to him staying there as we waited for the sun to come up.

ELLIOT

“It is hotter than the devil’s taint today,” I complained as I squatted next to a pile of mangled lumber.

Having lived most of my life away from southern Texas, I’d never really experienced monsoon season. The massive storms terrorized the coast, but when they came on land, they became storms that people still called monsoons. Even without the added power the storms got from the Gulf, they could be pretty potent.

From the destruction of the storms we’d had over the past couple of days, they weren’t kidding. Apparently, it wasn’t uncommon for at least some cleanup to be necessary as summer started creeping toward a close. Last night had been particularly brutal, and I’d wondered if the cabin would come down around Reno and me at one point. Thankfully, the only places with serious damage hadn’t had anyone in them.

The same couldn’t be said for some of the animal pens and barns. A dozen pigs had been lost, a handful of horses had been killed or injured, and apparently, they were still trying to wrangle the sheep that got loose after their pen was destroyed. I didn’t envy whoever was put on sheep duty, the little shitheads were cute as hell, but they didn’t have a brain cell between them. They had probably been terrified and booked it in whatever direction seemed safe, and it would probably be hell to get them back.

“That’s a new one,” Dom muttered beside me as he began lifting piles of wood that had been tied together. “I’ve heard about witches’ tits.”

“That’s for the cold,” Reno said from the other side of the pile, carefully extracting pieces that might be useable to remove the nails and screws. Mona hadn’t seemed bothered by the destruction and immediately put half the workforce to cleaning up, trying to salvage what we could.

“Is it?” Dom wondered.

“Yeah. I don’t know why a witch’s tits are supposed to be cold, though,” he said absently, pulling a long board out and looking it over. “Huh, this might work.”

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