Page 79 of Whips and Chains
In a heartbeat, the door rattled, the handle twisting uselessly.
“Why the fuck do you have a lock on theoutsideof your bedroom door, X?” Levi shouted from the other side.
I grabbed my keys from the kitchen counter. “Some people have safety blankets. I have a reinforced door with a deadbolt.” I tossed the keys into the air, and they jingled as they fell back down into my palm. “I have Doc lock me in there when I’m in one of my moods. Safer for the public, you know? Don’t bother trying to get out. If I can’t, you won’t. Toodle-oo!”
“X!” Whip shouted. “If you leave us in here, I swear to God I will fucking rip you limb from limb when I get out!”
“And I’ll help him!”
I grinned, pausing in the doorway that led to the hallway of my apartment building. “Aw! You’re working together already! Good job, boys!”
I closed the front door on their complaining and practically skipped along the hallway. They’d feel so much better after they’d had some time out. I know I always did. There was water in the bathroom, and if they got hungry enough, there was flavored lube they could snack on.
Or do other things with.
Violet was waiting on Fang’s front porch, a long skirt brushing her ankles and a cropped sweater covering her top half. When she lifted her arm in a wave, it showed off a tiny bit of her belly, and she quickly tugged the top back down, looking uncomfortable.
I just wanted to get my fingers all over it.
She ran across the lawn to my van, and I got out, opening up the passenger-side door for her.
“Your chariot, my lady. It doesn’t even smell of horse.”
“No, it smells like ice cream and sugar.” She grabbed my hand and hauled herself up, pulling the seat belt across her chest and buckling it in. Then winked at me. “With maybe a dash of hyperactivity.”
I loved how she just got me.
The blinds in an upstairs window twitched, and I waved at Fang, who I knew was probably watching me through the lens of a sniper rifle, just waiting for me to put a finger wrong.
But I wouldn’t.
Tonight I was introducing my woman to my family, and it was going to be perfect.
I got back in behind the wheel and started the engine again.
Violet smoothed her hands over her skirt. “I’m really nervous. I’ve never met a man’s parents before.”
“Not just my parents. The whole family will be there. All my brothers and their partners. My grandma and her boyfriend.”
She smiled but seemed a little green. “Really? I didn’t catch that. All of them, huh? A whole party of your relation…”
“It’s gonna be great. They’re going to love you. Just like I do.”
“You don’t love me, X. You just love the idea of me.”
And she called me insane.
She was the one who sounded crazy.
But I didn’t have time to tell her yet again about how we were going to have four kids, a house in Providence with a white picket fence, and a birdfeeder so Harold had something to keep his psycho side entertained.
Like father like son, after all.
I couldn’t wait to get that cat.
“So, tell me all your brothers’ names.” Violet took a notepad from her purse and poised a pencil over a blank page.
She was so freaking cute with her note-taking.
