Page 113 of Bride of Choice

“Don’t,” I whispered softly, glad when they both knocked it off.

“Missed Jo,” Rek murmured softly as he carried me to a branch-crafted tent, complete with leaf canopy and grass mattress.

“I missed you, too, asshole,” I whispered right back.

Noting there was no blanket to snuggle up with, he grumbled, “Rek keep Jo warm. Has help.”

If my eyebrows shot up any higher they might fly right off my shocked face. “Beg pardon? You’ll have help?”

“Just for keep warm,” he stressed.

“Who?” My eyes narrowed but I had a lil lightbulb moment as he started rattling names off.

“How much do you want to get back in my good graces?” I leaned in to whisper in his ear as he carefully settled me down on the grass bed inside. My teeth worried his ear, causing him to cough to cover up the rumbling purr in his chest.

“What Rek need do?” he choked out softly.

Laying out my plan to him, he went from watching me shrewdly to choking back laughter.

“So you’ll do it?” My lower lip jutted and I held my hands up pleadingly.

With a sigh to end all sighs, he gave me a look. I knew I had him the second his lips started to twitch.

“Yes!” I softly crowed, then pressed a short, chaste kiss to his cheek in thanks.

“What do in there?!” Kirch barked at us.

“Nothing you wouldn’t do, Dad! Swear!” I shot back.

The choked, strangled noise Kirch let loose at that had Rek rolling his eyes at me, even as he bared his teeth in Kirch’s direction and fought off silent laughter.

???

“Good morning, Douglas,” I crooned, bopping the male sharing his body heat with me on the nose in an overdone, cutesy, boop to his snoot, affectionate gesture.

“What’s… happens?” he grunted out, glancing from where I laid huddled under my coat with Odix spooning me, my bare shoulders exposed.

A soft gasp left me. “You mean you don’t know?”

“Head… fuzzy,” he grunted out.

“Hmm. It must have been all that moonshine you imbibed,” I tsked.

Leaning towards him, I waggled my eyebrows, exposing more bared flesh.

Doogie’s eyeballs bugged as I cooed sweetly with a mock pout, “You mean you don’t recall last night? Me… You… Odix… this big ol’ tent room… doing anything and everything we can think of to keep warm?” With a quick glance over my shoulder at Odix, I gave Odix a naughty look.

“No… No.” Douglas was looking a bit like he’d woken up from a nightmare.

Hopping up, he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. The fake eyelashes he had yet to cotton on were glued to his eyebrows like huge purple fans fluttering about his face were perfection, the cherry on the revenge cake.

“No,” he kept saying, like it just couldn’t be true.

“Maybe you should have eaten and thrown all of that shine you guzzled down last night up, like a free stomach pumping, like I did!” I called after him.

Turning in search of my shirt to find a very bug-eyed biggun behind me, gaping at me, he started to say something but I put my finger to his lips. “Not one word to him about what really happened or I’ll show up at your place butt naked, skunk drunk, shake my ass around as I sit on every fucking piece of furniture you own, singing the big butts song as I do so. Got it?”

“What big butts song?” he mumbled against my finger, eyeing me thoughtfully.

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