Page 51 of Grin and Bear It

“Fuck, yes,” he groaned. “Who can top a Bunnings sausage sanga? So, what do you like on yours? Say onions. Ya gotta have onions.”

Chapter25

Cole

So far, this was working out a whole lot better than I had anticipated. I’d gone around to Ellie’s partly because I figured if that fuck, Lin, could go rogue, then I could, too. But mostly because I had to. Since the moment she’d walked into that conference room at the school, I’d felt a low-down ache in my body that was like a combination of a sore stomach and blue balls. It had only eased when she was close.

And now she was?

I had to resist the urge to stand too close to her as we lined up for the Australian delicacy that is the Bunnings sausage, but it didn’t stop me from looking. I tried to restrict myself to little sidelong looks at the way her brown hair tumbled down over her shoulder, begging for me to wrap it around my hand, or those full fucking lips that—

Oops, caught red handed.

When she looked over at me and caught me checking her out, she blushed, something she seemed to do all the fucking time. It was too cute, but it also made me want to see just how flushed I could get her. My eyes held hers, and the moment stretched on and on. I didn’t want it to stop. Then a voice broke the spell that had us both transfixed.

“What would you like, love?”

The gravel-voiced lady behind the counter winked at me—because apparently it was that obvious that I was besotted. I grabbed Ellie’s hand and, as I did so I felt that ache intensify, and my fangs throbbed with the need to dig into her and make her mine.

“Two with onions, sauce and mustard for me, thanks,” I said, then nodded towards my mate. “And whatever the lady would like.”

We didn’t have to wait long for our snags. The volunteers cooking for this week’s fundraiser sausage sizzle had a setup that made it clear they were old hands. They even had a bain-marie topped by a covered tray of cooked sausages and another one loaded up with onions. Once I’d sorted out our transaction and thrown in an extra fiver for Greenbank Gardens Kindergarten’s new play equipment, we made our way inside the store to the café.

Ellie scored us a table and guarded the food while I went up to the counter and grabbed a couple of jumbo lattes. When I sat down, I wasted no time making short work of most of my food before leaning back in the chair to take a sip of my latte. As I raised the last bite of my snag to my mouth, I looked across at Ellie. My lips quirked when I saw her eyes were closed as a look approaching ecstasy crossed her face.

“Oh my god…”

Ellie’s groan of satisfaction had me stopping with my hand half-way to my mouth, my every muscle tensing in response. As far as I was concerned, she could make that sound as much as she liked. Preferably while I was providing her with a quite different sort of satisfaction. Ellie opened her eyes and popped the last corner of bread between her lips, using the paper serviette to wipe a bit of sauce from the side of her mouth. She looked at me and smiled.

“Wow. Lin brought me pizza last night, and that wasamazing…”

Did he now? Bet the fucker had spoiled her with Pizza Heaven, the best around here. I was instantly jealous of him getting the chance to do that.

Then straightaway I wished I’d been there with him.

“…but Bunnings sausages? You can’t go past them… I don’t know why they are so good.” I shoved the last bite of mine in my mouth, then nearly choked when she licked her fingers. That little pink tongue? I had ideas for it.

“They’re a cultural icon,” I said, after managing to swallow. “I can get you another if you like?”

“No, I’m fine.” She took a long sip of her coffee and seemed to relax a bit more every minute.That’s it, my bear purred,relax and surrender. I mentally shoved him off. He saw this as a hunt, one we had to succeed at if the sleuth was to enjoy any kind of happiness, and he was real keen on that. Nash checking out and the boys running amok… He growled and I fought the urge to do the same. “So you grabbed a bunch of colours?”

She seemed to gravitate towards cooler colours, so I’d focussed on that, picking several different choices and the associated accents that might go with them. I wiped my fingers and then started to lay them out.

Part of me felt a little bad. Ellie didn’t understand what was going on, what it meant to us. All she knew was there were some blokes curiously keen on fixing her house in return for helping their shithead nephews. But it was more than that. So much more. A bear shifter’s whole fucking purpose in life was proving to his mate that he was worth her time when they first met, then making sure she never regretted it afterwards. I wanted her to have a newly restored house because she wanted it: the discomfort, irritation and outright hatred of her place was throbbing there like a sore tooth your tongue couldn’t leave alone.

And if there were to be tongues involved, I wanted them used in whole lot of other ways.

I had to shake my head, drag my eyes down from her to the swatches, because otherwise I knew I’d just stare and stare. She was beautiful, from the shine in those eyes of hers, and the keen way they took everything in, to those full lips that moved all too much, though sadly not on me, yet. I reached across the table, taking her hand, not able to stop myself from touching her, even if it was probably a bit too soon. My thumb rubbed across her knuckles as I started running through the paint colours.

“We could go with a variation of the original colour you chose. It’s obviously a colour you already like, but if we drop the intensity down a notch, repaint the trims this colour.” I pointed to the bone colour. “And the doors this.” That was the greige colour. “Then you’ll have something that is a bit more muted and easier on the eye.”

“Anything would be easier than the colour it is right now,” she said with a sigh. As I watched a frown form, an urge rose in me to smooth it away.“Or we could change the colour completely. White will never work because you don’t get a lot of natural light in the house. That’s good for snuggling down in bed.”Christ, shut the fuck up about that, I told myself, because I could feel my body reacting to the thought of the two of us nestling down in her bed, her scent hitting my nose, making my mouth water as my hand slid… “But for day-to-day living, it’ll look grey and dirty most of the time, so you need some colour.”

I pushed a set of swatches towards her.

“Or sometimes you just embrace that and go for a grey on the walls.”

Her nose wrinkled at that, which made the bear chuff inside me, but I was in charge and I knew my shit.

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