Page 34 of Loving Words
She covered her mouth with two fingers. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether you use the lovely brain the good Lord blessed you with. Now, swear on my life, dammit.”
Chuckling, I said, “I swear on your life I won’t speak of...” I trailed off, still unsure about whatever the hell I’d missed.
“You won’t speak of Puck!” she said, slamming her aged hands on her hips.
I rubbed my forehead in frustration as I regretted leaving the warmth and sanity of Kennedy’s bed. “Gran... Who is Puck?”
“You. Won’t. Speak. Of. Puck. Swear it, Jack!” Any possibility that I’d thought she was drunk left at her stern, clear voice.
Raising both hands in a sign of defeat, I said, “I swear I won’t speak of Puck.”Whoever the hell he was.
Gran released a heavy sigh. “Good, because I need your help getting him out of the tree.” She pointed her thumb backward.
Walking forward, I noted a visible hole within the fake branches I remembered fluffing to look like a real tree. “I never saw a cat around here.”
She laughed. “Puck’s not a cat. I must have moved a few too many branches, and he fell backward.”
I froze, my fingers at the entrance of the hole. “Am I going to be bitten?”
She patted my cheek and stepped down from her perch. “No, darling, Puck won’t bite you, but by the sight of that hickey on your neck, Kennedy sure does.”
A blush warmed my cheeks. Sliding my hand into the hole, I felt around until I touched something cool and hard. My brows pinched together as I tried to understand what I was touching. Peering down at Gran, I spotted her mischievous grin.
Grasping into the darkness, my fingers wrapped around something familiar. With one brow quirked, I pulled out... Puck?
For a long minute, I stared. Finally, I cleared my throat and met Gran’s laughing eyes. “Is Puck the dildo or the gnome?”
In my hand was a twelve-inch gnome wearing a gnome-sized strap-on. Upon further inspection, I was pretty sure the makeshift strap-on was an anal plug.
Gran cackled like a damn witch in a movie. “The gnome, but now I think the dildo needs a name too.”
“Okay,” I said, drawing out the two syllables.
“Here, give him to me,” she said, her hands outstretched. “Now, if you’ll be a dear, please fluff the branches to cover that massive crater I created. I didn’t think he’d be that heavy, but clearly, I was wrong.”
She peered around the room as I stared at the woman holding the absurd gnome in her hands. He’d been painted a tan color, his bare ass on display. I shook my head and reached above, making quick work of fixing the hole.
“Much better. Now where should I put Puck?” Gran asked.
I covered my mouth and sighed before dropping my hand to my side. “What is your goal? He’s not exactly a Christmas decoration like that.”
Gran laughed. “Harrison never mentioned anything to you?”
“About his gran displaying a naked gnome with a strap-on? Nope, I think I’d have remembered that.”
“No, no one knows—including you—that I’m one of the handlers of the gnomes. Although I have my suspicions, I don’t actually know who controls Robin.”
“And Robin is...?”
“The female gnome in town. Now, where should I put Puck?” she asked, doing a slow turn in the living room.
“If you don’t want them to figure out you’re doing this, I think in here is a bad idea. They aren’t exactly children who believe he’d magically appear in the living room of their vacation home.”
Gran deflated before my eyes. “Shoot, I didn’t even consider that.”
