They untangled themselves from each other and then smiled at me warmly.
“Hi, Pepper. Nice to meet you." Miko said, getting up to give me a hug before doing the same to Char.
“Hey, pretty girls.” Liam said with a kiss on each of our cheeks.
“It’s nice meeting you both.” I said, my eyes bounced between the three, taking in their beauty.
“You too, welcome to Brookview. We would love to take you out some time to get to know you better if you’re not busy.” He said with a bright white smile. “Char you know you’re invited too so stop pouting,” Liam said laughing at Char, whose bottom lip was poked out.
“Well, thank you cousin in-law I thought I was left out,” she giggled.
“Girl, you know they love you." Miko told her.
“Okay now that we made that clear let me go look for the other two troublemakers. We’ll leave y’all to it.” Char said, pulling me out of the room.
I followed Char through the den to find Alestar and Gunner outside smoking on the deck with two girls who were laughing a little hard at something he had just said, they were both barefoot in nothing but string bikinis not at all appropriate for an intimate get together in my opinion. Gunner and Alestar were shirtless, in swim trunks like they had already been in the water.
“Who invited these hoes?”
I noticed that the girl closest to Gunner was being overly familiar and for some reason it was causing this weird feeling in my belly.
“Why the fuck is that bitch touchin our nigga?”
I rolled my eyes at Nyx’s dramatics, standing just inside the door, not wanting to disturb their conversation. Char clearly had other ideas because she walked straight up to Alestar and took her spot at his side. He didn’t miss a beat as he draped his arm around her and pressed a soft kiss on her forehead. Gunnerlooked around the half-naked girl in front of him and his eyes caught mine, and my mouth watered.
He held out his hand for me to come to him and my feet moved with a mind of their own like I was being drawn to him by a magnet. My mind was screaming what the fuck, but my body was on that hoe shit. I could hear Char and Nyx snickering as I took his hand. And he used it to pull me around the girl that hadn’t moved, right between his legs, looping his arms around my waist. He smelled so fucking good as he held me close.
And then someone cleared their throat, and I remembered the girl standing behind me. I turned and saw the girl who no one had introduced, eyeing me like she wanted to slit my throat. But if she knew what was good for her, she’d run far away from me.
“Hi, I’m Missy and this is my sister Mattie. And you are?” she asked with a tight-lipped smile. Her sister waved at me and gave me a kind smile unlike Missy.
“Her name is Pepper.” Char said like she was waiting for her to try it.
“I’m sure she can speak for herself Char.” She said, turning to me. “You’re new…where did you come from?”
“You know this bitch don’t like us, right? Please tell me you brought the box cutter?”
“Lil baby, Missy is Aren’s assistant, but she helps Alestar and I with our projects too.” Gunner said, like he could feel my energy shift and wanted to clear the air. Little did he know I wasn’t worried about ol’ girl.
“Nice to meet you both.” I said and then turned my attention back to Gunner. But I didn’t miss the scowl on Missy’s face.
“Why you got on this little ass skirt? Showing everybody what’s mine." Gunner asked, returning all of his attention to me, looking down at my sundress like he wanted to rip it off.
“I didn’t know that this was your body,” I said, staring into his eyes. “There wasn’t anyone here that was checking out my body anyway, so what are you saying?” I asked.
“I’m saying that I don’t want anyone else to see what belongs to me.”
“Oh, really.” I said, feeling heat rise in my cheeks.
“Yeah, really.” He said, kissing me on the forehead.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Missy leaning over to whisper something in her sister's ear as she shot daggers at me from where she had moved beside the back door. From here I couldn’t make out what she was saying but I could tell from the look she was giving me that it wasn’t anything good. Wanting to enjoy my night I decided to ignore her.
“Where is sage? I didn’t see her when we got here.” I asked.
“She’s at the groomers. I'll pick her up tomorrow. I got to keep my girl looking good.” He smirked.
Come take a walk with me, lil baby.” He said taking my hand in his and guiding me out the door side stepping Missy and her sister. I rolled my eyes at Char waggling her eyebrows at me as we went.
