Page 127 of The Grief We Hold

He pulls up on the opposite side of the stoplights and raises his hand when he sees me.

The truck rolls by us, the driver checking us out on the way past, in the lascivious way men sometimes do.

A leer out of a window, a double take, and an elbow nudge to the driver.

It then waits patiently at the light when it reaches them, then drives on past Wraith when they change.

“Jesus,” Quinn says. “That was weird.”

I stare at the back of the truck. “Yeah.”

“Your man looks good on that bike,” Quinn says. “Not hitting on him or anything, but I can admire a fine form when I see one. I’m jealous.”

He does. He’s wearing a T-shirt beneath his cut, but black leather riding gloves. With jeans and cowboy boots completing his outfit, he looks delicious.

Wraith pulls the bike up alongside the curb and removes his helmet. “You girls have a good night?”

“We did,” Quinn says as she reaches into her pocket and pulls out her keys. “Thanks for walking me home, Raven. And don’t forget to tell Wraith about our book club pick.”

I roll my eyes, but wave as she opens the door that leads up to the flat above the bakery.

When the door shuts, I turn to face him. It’s going to take some getting used to, being with a man who is always so genuinely happy to see me. His eyes always light up around me.

“What book is that?” he asks.

“Have you got any idea how dangerously charming you look when you smile?” I realize how much he’s changed from the sullen man I first met.

I step closer to the bike, and he snakes his hand around my waist and pulls me to him. “Only when I look at you. Now, tell me what the book is?”

“A steamy motorcycle club romance. I get to decide if the author knows what they’re talking about or not.”

Wraith laughs. “Steamy, huh?”

I bite down on my lip. “Mmm-hmm. You know how you said we should be honest?”

He brushes his lips over mine. “Yeah?”

“Well, the last book we read was a dark romance, and it contained somno.”

“What now?”

“Somno. Somnophilia. It’s where someone likes…umm…having sex with someone while they’re asleep or unconscious.”

Wraith’s eyes narrow, and he squeezes my ass. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Well, I thought maybe we could…” I feel the heat rising in my cheeks. “You know…if one of us wakes up in the night sometime, or in the morning if one of us wakes up first, we could, you know, initiate or something.”

“Get on the bike, Blue,” he says, shoving my helmet at me.

“I don’t mind if you don’t want to. It’s just I?—”

“The sooner we’re home, the sooner we can fall asleep, the sooner one of us can wake up and fuck the other awake, yeah?”

“You like the idea?”

“Having access to your body twenty-four seven, whether you’re awake or not? Abso-fucking-lutely. You got any more ideas from those books? ‘Cause I’ll build you a fucking library for ‘em if you do.”

“You know, there’s this thing where you buy paperbacks and use highlighters and stickie notes to mark up your favorite bits. I could do that, and then you could pull a book out at random and find a marked-up scene for us to try.”

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