Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Blaise slid his hand to the back of my head, tangling his fingers in my hair. “I take care of you.”
“But you shouldn’t financially. I can’t let you keep doing that.”
He scowled. “We’ll talk about this after breakfast.”
This was going to be a fight. He’d just gotten back, and I didn’t want to fight. But he’d pushed me to tell him what was wrong, and this was better than telling him there was a chance I could be pregnant.
His hand grabbed mine, and he started toward the house. I went willingly, silently praying I didn’t vomit at the smells when the door opened. I inhaled slowly and then sighed in relief. Blaise kept my hand in his as we walked into the kitchen. The others were already around the table with their plates piled high.
Gage held up a hand and saluted me, then stuck a forkful of pancakes in his mouth. Huck nodded his head my way in greeting. Levi was too busy cramming his mouth with scrambled eggs to care who had entered.
Had they eaten since they’d been gone? They looked like ravenous wolves.
“What do you want?” Blaise asked me.
I glanced over to see Gina setting his plate of food at the table.
“I’ll go fix mine,” I told him.
His hand tightened on mine. “Not today,” he said.
“I’ll get you some of everything,” Gina told me.
I looked over at her and hated to know she was making my plate after cooking all of this alone. “I can do it,” I said.
“No.” Blaise’s voice was hard. “Not leaving my side.”
I sighed, and Gina winked at me. “I got it.”
We were going to have to discuss this later too.
“No bacon,” I told her then.
When I turned back to the table, I saw Huck studying me with a frown. Dang Huck and his nosy self.
“Angel,” Gina said with surprise.
Blaise stiffened beside me.
“I didn’t expect you to join us. Come here and tell me what you want to eat,” Gina told her.
Blaise let go of my hand and took a biscuit from his plate, then handed it to me. “Eat this.” It sounded more like a command than a request.
I took it and didn’t argue. He was tense because Angel was in the room and we were together.
“Should I leave?” I whispered. “Or move to the other side of the table?”
He shook his head. “No.”
Okay then. This wasn’t awkward at all. I could feel the others glancing over at me, and I knew they were wondering what was going to happen.
“You can sit on the other side of Blaise,” Gina told her.
I glanced up from the biscuit I’d taken a small bite of to see Angel’s eyes locked on Blaise.
“You were gone.” She said it so softly that I barely heard her.
“Work, Angel,” Blaise said to her, but his voice was gentle.
She shifted her eyes from him to me quickly. “She came back,” Angel whispered, but her gaze was locked on me now.
I felt Blaise’s hand slide over the top of my leg and squeeze. “Yes, she did,” he replied.
Angel’s eyes darted back to Blaise, but she said nothing else.
“Eat, Angel,” Blaise instructed her, but his voice wasn’t hard or commanding.
I didn’t want to be jealous of the gentle way he spoke to her. He had to speak to her that way. If he spoke to her harshly, then I doubted she could handle it.
She reminded me of a beautiful porcelain doll. If she hadn’t been shot, would Blaise have ever come looking for me? Would he have ever loved me? I dropped my eyes back to the biscuit and mentally scolded myself for letting my thoughts go there. Those were pointless and made me sound shallow and self-centered.
A plate was placed in front of me then, and I lifted my gaze up to Gina. “Thank you,” I said, and she flashed me an apologetic smile.
This awkwardness was going to have to stop when Angel was in the room. It wasn’t fair to her. This was her home. I had to find a way to make it work.
“Damn, you can cook, woman,” Levi said as he reached for his coffee. “I was fucking starving.”
“You ate three chocolate bars and had a bag of chips three hours ago,” Huck pointed out.
Levi shrugged. “Those were snacks. We’ve not had real food in days.”
I wondered where they had been, but I didn’t ask. I knew by now that wasn’t something we discussed.
“Eat,” Blaise said to me, and I lifted my eyes to meet his. “You need some energy.”
I frowned. “What for?”
He smirked, then raised his eyebrows.
Oh.
I picked up the fork and cut into my pancakes, then put a bite into my mouth. Blaise’s hand remained on my thigh as he ate. He spoke to Angel a few times, and I couldn’t hear her whispered reply over Gage’s voice, saying he was planning to go somewhere called Devil’s Lair later today. He wanted Huck and Levi to go with him, but he never mentioned Blaise.