Page 40 of Since Day One

“And if I had boobs, my hands would be under my shirt all the time,” he replied. Narrowing my eyes, I glanced at him for the first time. He shrugged in question. “What?”

“That was a very immature thing to say,” I answered and looked away, instinctively leaning into his body and pulling my legs up onto the couch.

“And what you said wasn’t?”

“Hush,” I commanded, dismissing him.

“Sooo.” He pursed his lips. “You’re just going to leave your hand around my balls?”

“Yep.” I nodded, cuddling closer and getting comfortable as I let my hand relax between his legs. Maybe, eventually, I’d do a little more…

He blinked three times, slowly, and then nodded his head. “Well, okay.” Gunnar leaned forward, grabbed the book from the coffee table, and opened it, once again becoming lost in a make-believe world.

I watched him for a bit, at ease and settled in within his embrace, and suddenly, I wanted to be a part of everything that he loved. Even if he was only reading because there wasn’t much else to do, he seemed to be enjoying it greatly, and I wanted to be part of that.

“Will you read that to me?” I whispered.

Gunnar did a double-take. “What?”

“Will you read out loud to me?” I voiced again, and he raised his brows, a little surprised. The shock wore away, quickly to be replaced with excitement.

He yanked the throw blanket off the back of the couch and tossed it over us, shifting us a little deeper into the couch, and then flipped back to the first page.

And he read to me.

Chapter 14

It was getting late in the evening by the time I groaned, or at least I thought it was late, listening to my stomach growl. We were halfway through this Western novel, and I didn’t want to move with how comfortable I was. But it was necessary to eat at some point; plus, whatever we made tonight would be our Thanksgiving dinner.

“I can hear your stomach, Princess,” Gunnar said, pausing where he was in the book and looking down at me. Lifting my chin, I pressed my ear tighter against his chest and pouted.

“I’m comfy,” I grumbled.

“And I need to pee.”

I pushed my bottom lip out further and batted my lashes. “One more chapter?” I asked in a teeny voice, and he shook his head, chuckling.

“You can put your hand back in my pants and we can snuggle and read again later. Let’s just take a break,” he said with a silly smile as my stomach growled once more with a nasty vengeance.

“I probably should start cooking dinner,” I muttered, and he laughed as I peeled my body away reluctantly. He shivered when I shifted out of our blanket cocoon and made my way toward the kitchen, watching from the corner of my eye as Gunnar stretched. He made his way to the bathroom, disappearing inside while I wandered into the pantry to figure out what we were going to do.

Dinner didn’t turn out too horribly. I still managed to whip together a green bean casserole, even some stuffing, and found some canned ham that I scraped into a decent side dish. There was no turkey, but the mashed potatoes turned out pretty well. Gunnar was setting the table with a couple of fancy candles and nice, if mismatched, cowboy dinnerware he grabbed from the cupboards while I finished the last of the yams.

“Ta da!” I said with a flourish, gesturing toward the food that was now plated as best as I could manage.

“Exquisite,” he said, walking my way, exaggeratedly inhaling the steaming food and pretending that the meal I served was the most delectable he’d ever experienced in his life. An extremely girly giggle escaped my lips as he turned around and winked, a crooked boyish grin plastered on his face. For him, this was probably not the grandest or most heartfelt Thanksgiving, but for me, it was turning out to rank as one of the best I’d ever had.

Gunnar handed me a plate and began serving himself large helpings of everything that might not have even tasted that good. I watched as he sat at the table and then waited for me to join him with my regular-sized portions. Once I was relaxed on the chair, he dug in, not once saying anything unpleasant about the food, which luckily, I had to admit to myself didn’t taste half bad.

Our Thanksgiving meal might not have been fancy or fresh, but watching him between mouthfuls, it was easy to imagine I was with someone who was simply grateful I was in their life. Gunnar didn’t seem to care if I gave him anything except my presence. He was patient with me and hadn’t made a single attempt to use me. Which was a little scary if I was being honest with myself. I’d become so used to being used that I almost didn’t trust that he didn’t have an ulterior motive. If this is what trust felt like, I was greedy for more.

Easy table conversation taught me that he loved the color green, but not bright green. He liked deep, forest green, and was extremely good at math, having completed a bachelor’s degree online in accounting. He told me his parents technically lived with him at the lodge since he owned it, and the entire upstairs was his bachelor pad, as he called it. He said he had always been really close to Ruger, and they’d run in the same friendship circle growing up, with many of those guys now the regular hands that worked at the ranch today.

“How is it that Ruger was the player yet he’s the one married?” I asked after Gunnar finished his fourth story about Ruger having more than three girlfriends within a span of a month on more than one occasion.

“His fiancée didn’t cheat on him with his uncle,” Gunnar said, and I couldn’t help snorting.

“That’s fair,” I answered. He smiled, leaning back in his chair, satisfied. Rubbing his belly, he sighed in contentment.

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