Page 146 of Damaged Protector

“How am I supposed to get morning sex if you’re in another room?” He slipped a hand between us and slid the crotch of my panties to the side. Then his eyebrows squeezed together and he muttered, “Damn furball.”

Confused and embarrassed, I asked, “What do you mean? I shaved yesterday.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Not your pussy. I’m talking about the pussy walking around on my back.”

A second later, a tiny kitty tongue licked my finger, and I giggled. “Coconut, what are you doing up there?” I pulled her off Hawk’s back, and he rolled off me, stretching out on his side.

“She’s obviously cockblocking me,” he grumped, though he stroked her from head to tail with a big, affectionate hand. The kitten mewed at him and then hopped up onto his shoulder before making her way down to his neck. She made herself at home, curling up and promptly going to sleep.

“You do make a good pillow,” I informed him with a straight face, and he looked at me, deadpan. Leaning forward, I kissed his lips. “Do you want me to make breakfast, or are you saving your appetite for the shrimp and crawfish boil today?”

Hawk glanced at the window, where the sun peeked through a gap in the curtains and already appeared to be high in the sky. “We slept late. I’ll just wait. Unless you want something.”

“Nope, all good.” I pushed off the bed and went to the bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror. I looked sexily disheveled from last night’s activities, and my lips were swollen and chapped. Smoothing on some lip balm, I gave myself an internal pep talk.

You can do this, Mal. Just get through the next week and a half, and then you’ll be in your dorm room. You can bury yourself in your schoolwork and try to nurse your heart back to something resembling normal.

All that went directly out the window when I walked back into my room to find Hawk on his back with Coconut snuggled on his chest. He was cupping her tiny body with one hand as they both slept, and my ovaries practically exploded.

The sheet was pooled around his waist, showing off abs cut from marble, and one tan leg poked out from beneath the covers.

He was absolutely gorgeous, and holding the small animal so tenderly only made me want him more.

Christ, Mallori. You’ve fallen in love with the perfect man.

A lone tear slipped down my cheek.

Well, perfect except for one small thing… he can’t love you back.

The party at Charli and Shark’s house was in full swing. Their son, L.J., had his third birthday earlier in July, so there was a Spider-Man cake, which I was surprised to learn Charli had made herself. They’d had what they called a “kid party” a couple weekends ago with his preschool friends, but this get-together was for their extended family, the people who worked for DFW Security Force.

That’s what I loved about these folks. They always celebrated everything together. Though most of them weren’t actually related, they were everything a family should be.

I wandered over to where Cam and Shark were standing beside a large metal contraption with steam rising from it. The air was tinged with spices that tickled my nose but smelled delicious.

“Hey, Marshmallori,” my cousin said, looping an arm around my neck and kissing the top of my head. He was wearing a black T-shirt with a crawfish on the front that read It Ain’t Gonna Suck Itself.

“What’s up, Camel Toe? Your shirt is ridiculous.”

“Thank you,” he replied, ignoring my insult.

“Can I do anything to help?”

“Nah, we’re just about to get the shrimp out.” He lifted the lid of the huge rectangular cooker, and fragrant steam rose. Shark stirred the contents with what looked like a metal boat oar, and the smell of seafood and spices became even stronger, permeating the air.

Cam lifted a handle and pulled the metal basket up, letting the water drain. The lid had turned into a kind of slide, and when he tilted the basket, the pink shellfish slid down and into the open cooler at the bottom.

“Well, that’s cool as hell,” I said, watching as Cam tilted the basket back down into the boiling water, which was a reddish-orange color. “What do you season them with?”

He nodded toward a large jar with a little orange powder in the bottom. “You can use this for any kind of seafood boil. Crab, crawfish, shrimp, whatever.” Patting the cooker, he said, “This baby can cook around sixty pounds at a time.”

My attention drifted to Hawk across the yard, adding salt to several large red coolers. “What is he doing?”

“He’s purging the mud bugs.”

“Okay, now tell me in English,” I retorted, and my cousin laughed.

“You add salt and water, and it makes the crawfish vomit out any mud or waste in their digestive tracts.”

---