Page 47 of Gather the Storm

She looked up at me, and for a minute, it felt like the world stopped turning.

Like shesawme.

“I’m not sure I believe that, Wolf.”

And that was when I knew I was really fucked.

Chapter 24

Daisy

It was a surprisingly good day. Fun, even.

Shopping at the lumber yard had been exhilarating, piling the flatbed cart with tarps and sledgehammers, goggles and gloves, a wheelbarrow and tons of five-gallon buckets.

We would need lumber eventually, but right now I was focused on demo. Building would come later.

Wolf seemed to recover from his weird coolness toward Gray, and we’d had fun picking out the stuff on my demo list. I had a dumpster coming the next day. Then we could start tearing out the broken plaster and the tacky 1980s upgrades.

I took the opportunity to browse the kitchen cabinets on display and to check out the tile selection. I knew what I wanted for every room in the house, but I was still pricing some of it out, trying to decide where to source everything.

Wolf was surprisingly patient, and not just patient, but interested. He was honest about what he liked and interested in my choices too, and I was surprised to find myself having fun with him.

Careful, Daisy.

Where was the caution tape when you needed it?

I paid with the credit card I’d gotten exclusively for the renovation and saved the receipt. Providing receipts to Leon Shah, my mom’s lawyer and the executor of her estate, was a condition of my inheritance. Basically, I would spend on the house and send the receipts to Leon and he would reimburse me — provided the funds had been used for the house — from the money my mom had left me.

Having the truck was a luxury. I knew Jace hadn’t bought it for me — he probably just hadn’t wanted to deal with rentals every time we need something big — but it was still nice not to have to worry about the time while we loaded up.

“Hungry?” Wolf asked when we finally closed the tailgate.

“Actually, yes,” I said, surprised to find it was true. After nearly four hours in the home store, my bagel was a distant memory.

“What else do we have to do today?” he asked.

“Epic grocery store shop,” I said.

I needed food — real food — and a lot of it to feed my giant new roommates.

“You know what they say,” Wolf said, walking around to the driver’s side of the truck, “never food shop on an empty stomach.”

I smiled and felt my heart lift at the sight of his grin, his blue eyes shimmering in the sunlight.

His sculpted biceps didn’t hurt either.

We headed for Screamin’ Syd’s for cheeseburgers — indisputably the best burgers in town, including the overpriced Wagyu at Chasen’s, a fancy bistro at the other end of Main Street — and I watched as Wolf greeted everyone at the bar like an old friend.

He wasn’t technically a member of the Blades’ MC, but he and Otis had been hanging around with Jace forever so Wolf knew everyone. They seemed happy to see him, probably because doing time was no biggie to members of the club.

Finally he joined me at the table and we ordered two cheeseburgers with fries.

Wolf leaned back, looking sexy and relaxed as he took a swig of his beer.

“How does it feel to be back?” I asked.

His lips were moist from the beer and I had to force myself not to stare. I had the strangest impulse to lick the beads of moisture from his lips. Heat rushed to my cunt and I pressed my thighs together and tried to ignore it, which didn’t get any easier when he swiped his thumb across his lip.

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