Coleslaw.
My bodyweight in fries.
That might take a while.
How about I stick to 3 large orders?
Fine.
You’re no fun.
I floppeddown on the couch, exhausted from hauling boxes and furniture and more boxes. I had no idea how the hell I’d managed to accumulate so muchshitin just under six months. Less than that, if you counted from when I’d moved into the tiny apartment.
My papasan was in the corner of the bedroom, my mattress stored in the basement, and various kitchen implements were stacked in boxes on the kitchen counter to be sorted out later.
Elliot had built me a wardrobe in the garage for my fire gear, since I had finally given in and used the money I’d be saving on rent to get my own pair of boots and heavy gloves, as well as black cargo pants and a black jacket with reflective stripes. It wasn’t a full firefighter’s jacket or coveralls—that gear they gave you when you signed a volunteer firefighter’s contract—but it would help cut down on scorch marks and minor burns at investigation sites.
The rest of my stuff was piled in the bedroom until Elliot finished the new set of dresser drawers he was making for us.
It felt like I belonged here, in the house.
I flipped on the TV, finding the Wild Card games—the Packers didn’t play until later, but I knew Elliot liked watching the other games because he actually understood how the outcomes of the different leagues meant anything to the other teams. I was learning, and I knew that he actually cared whether or not the Saints won or lost, even if they weren’t playing Green Bay.
I fell asleep, although I don’t remember that part.
I do remember lips on mine, faintly sweetened by the taste of soda that Elliot only got when he bought fast food.
I slid my hand around the back of his neck and held him where he was so that I could deepen the kiss, and I felt him rumble a soft moan into my mouth. There was the soft crinkle of slightly damp paper, and then Elliot’s hands framed my face as he kissed me harder, claiming my tongue with his. And then, when I was breathless andveryawake, he pulled away.
“Cold fried chicken is gross,” he told me, then lifted up the bag. “Dinner first.” He grinned. “You can be dessert.”
“I have something to show you,”Elliot said, the fingers on his right hand toying with my hair. I was lying on the couch again, having finished my chicken and fries and the coleslaw that I was pretending counted as a real vegetable, my head pillowed on Elliot’s thigh.
“Is it your cock?” I asked him, earning a soft laugh.
“You’ve seen that before,” he replied. “And you will see it again, soon, I promise. But this is new.”
“You got it pierced?”
“Fuck, no. Shit.No.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Not into that?”
“I will put metal through my ears, and—for you—I would put metal through my nose, my lip, my eyebrow, my goddamn bellybutton. But I am not putting metal through my dick, okay?”
I was still laughing. “I don’t need you to put metal through anything,” I assured him. “I love you just the way you are.”
“I hope so,” he replied, and that mischievous twinkle that I loved came back into his eyes. “Do you want to see?”
I nodded.
He grinned at me, then stripped off his shirt and held out his left arm.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
The skin on his arm was pink and angry—the tattoo was fresh, so new he must have just taken the bandages off. I’d been so distracted by moving all of my shit that I hadn’t noticed the extra padding under the long-sleeved compression shirt he’d been wearing day and night since the surgeon had taken out his stitches.
The first tiny paw print—a wolf’s—was in the center of his forearm, just below the moon and star that represented Hart. They gradually increased in size as they traced a path around his arm, disappearing behind the birch trees, around the back of his bicep, up across his shoulder, past the fresh scarring from his collarbone surgery, until they stopped in a life-sized imprint tattooed directly over his heart.
