Page 107 of Brim Over Boot
“Fuck,” I mutter, keeping my voice down, even though I don’t see Walter anywhere. “Don’t you think this is weird, Noah? You’re being all…polite and shit. And I’m…”
“Spiraling?” he supplies, tucking his face against my neck and unerringly finding the spot that makes my knees want to give out. He sucks on it, and I do wobble, just a bit.
“I’m notspiraling,” I hiss. “Christ. Say something mean.Please. Please assure me I’m awake right now ’cause I honestly don’t think I can—”
Noah’s grip slips up into my hair, and he tugs my head back hard enough to shock me into silence. “Later,” he says, voice low and full of promise, “I’m going to find out how much of my cock can fit inside your throat, little Colt. I’m gonna fuck your mouth, wait for the tears to slide down your cheeks, and only then will I give you mercy. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To worship at my feet?”
“Jesus,” I groan. “That wasn’t mean. That was…”
My “ungh” has Noah’s hand flexing in my hair. He leans closer, lips at my ear. “Beautiful Colt. How could you possibly think you’re not mine?”
With that, Noah’s fingers skim through my hair before he lets me go. He steps over to a pot on the stove as I waver for a moment, feeling as if my world has gone hazy.
“Do you like carrots?” he asks.
“What?” I nearly squeak. He can’t possibly know about the…carrotincident, right?
Noah looks at me over his shoulder, eyebrow raised. “Carrots?” he repeats, holding up a ladle, which has a stout, chopped carrot sitting next to a large piece of potato.
“Oh,” I breathe, shaking myself loose. “Yeah, I like ’em. Is that pot roast?”
“Sure is,” he says, that satisfied smirk back on his face, as if heknowshow much I love it. As if he could.
“The best pot roast,” Noah’s uncle says, walking into the room. His gait is slow, but he seems to manage just fine with his walker. “Recipe was his dad’s.”
“He’d hunt,” Noah fills in for me, pulling plates from the cupboard. “When he could, he’d make the dish with venison. Sometimes elk meat. This one’s beef.”
“Is that why you have antlers on your arm?” I ask.
“It is,” Noah says, pouring glasses of wine. “Have a seat. Dinner’s ready.”
I sit down in the chair Walter pushes out for me. “Good to see you again, Colton,” the man says.
“You, too, sir,” I answer, even as it feels surreal to be sitting in this kitchen. In this house. With these men. “Thank you for having me.”
“Oh, you’re certainly welcome anytime you’d like,” Walter says, humming happily when Noah sets a steaming plate of pot roast in front of him. “Isn’t that right, Noah?”
Noah’s gaze meets mine, the man setting a plate in front of me, too. “That’s right,” he says, no artifice in his tone, no hint of tease or anything at all but complete and utter honesty. “Anytime.”
I let out a breath as Noah takes his seat beside me. For the first time in a very long time, I eat dinner with someone—two someones—who aren’t family. One of whom I could have sworn was evil incarnate.
He’s not, it turns out. Not even close.
Either that or the devil managed to get me under his thrall, after all. Because I can not, for the life of me, find anything at all to hate about this moment.
Chapter 30
Noah
“HasRemialwaysbeenDeaf?” I ask Colton, the two of us out behind my house, sun beating down our backs as we work on the garden. I hand him another clump of bellflowers, which he takes before wiping his wrist across his forehead. The smudge of dirt he leaves behind has me smiling to myself.
“Yeah,” he answers, setting the hearty perennials into the hole he prepared at my instruction. It feels like a small victory, Colton being here with me during the day. We’re making progress, slowly but surely. “He got his cochlear implant when he was two. Am I doing this right?”
“Mhm. Now pat the dirt back into place.”
“Can’t believe I’m planting flowers,” Colton mumbles, following my directions and covering the roots of the plant. The simple act has my heart clenching in the best way, memories of my mom doing the same surfacing.
“You’re doing very well.”
