Page 74 of Tactically Acquired

His glare sliced through me like a knife. God, that man cared about me so much, and I loved him for that, but geez, he didn’t know when to unclench.

“One morning without? You were just in an accident. You had a concussion!”

“I’m well aware. And by the way, shouting is not helping,” I reminded him. Though the headache was dull at the moment, it was still marching in the back of my head.

He instantly lowered his voice as Baldy watched on, pretending not to be interested. “Look, you scared me, okay?”

“I know, and it’s not like I wanted it to happen. It just did.”

“But it can’t,” he argued. “You’re all I have, Audrey.” His jaw clenched hard as he stood there for a moment, just breathing hard. I slid off the stool and walked over to him, wrapping my arms around his waist.

“I’m not all you have. You still have your mom.”

“You know what I mean,” he grumbled. “Don’t make me do this alone.”

He could be so dramatic when he wanted to. I knew he was only looking out for me, but still…I needed him to let go just a little and let me live.

I stepped back and looked up into his beautiful eyes. “So, how about that smoothie?”

“You really want one?” he asked.

“Of course.”

His lips twitched as he pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Liar.”

As he got to work, I went back to my seat and popped another cherry tomato in my mouth, watching Slider cut up the last of the vegetables with the paper towel wrapped around his finger. It looked awkward at best, but he did it with such ease, as if he was made to do this.

“So, about this cooking thing…”

“I thought we were done talking about this,” he retorted, his eyes flicking to Spencer. Yeah, I knew we weren’t done talking about that yet.

“You might have thought that, but you haven’t told me where you learned to cook.”

His jaw hardened as he chopped harder and faster. Man, he was like a beast. You would think he was working out. “I wanted to be a chef,” he mumbled.

“You what?” I asked, sure I had heard him wrong.

He slammed the knife down and glared at me. “I wanted to be a chef, alright?”

I stared at him in awe. That was…”How did you end up in…this?”

He shrugged, getting back to work. “I was in culinary school. Until I wasn’t.”

That was vague, to say the least. “And what led you to not be in culinary school?”

“Is this twenty questions?”

“It will be if you don’t just answer.”

“She’ll never stop asking,” Spencer muttered, earning a scathing look from me.

“Jesus, why the fuck do you need to know all this stuff?”

“Well, call me crazy, but when I woke up this morning, there was a very hard cock pressed against my ass and a strong hand stroking my nipples. I’d like to know more about the man who brought me to orgasm while I was taking a shower.”

His jaw dropped, along with the knife, but it was Spencer’s voice that broke the moment.

“Really, Audrey? I thought you were dead yesterday, and this morning, you’re already hitting on the man protecting you?”

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