Page 52 of Gorgeous

It pissed me off.

I don’t know why. She’s so stubborn, always pushing me past my limits. Constantly trying to talk to me.

Constantly being cute.

“Oh no.” The hiss Breck lets out shoots right over my ass, coincidentally going straight to my dick.

“I’m sorry,” she stammers out, pushing off of my butt where she was resting, her cheek against my bare cheek. At some point I lost the towel, and the blankets failed me.

Breck sits up on the side of the bed, blushing profusely. “I did not mean to fall asleep on your…” She motions to my backside where I’m still sprawled out.

Reaching for the headboard, I stretch the muscles in my arms and flash her a smile. “Sure you didn’t.”

My cocky statement sobers her quickly, and her face turns serious as she scolds me with a hand on her hip. “You’re not as gorgeous as everyone tells you,” she spits at me, totally lying to me and herself.

With a playful wink, I say, “That’s not what the drool running down the crack of my ass says.”

Her eyes go wider and her cheeks get redder than I’ve ever seen them, and she stands, gasping in horror. “I did not drool down your butt.” I make a show of reaching back and checking, and she makes a pained noise. “Fine!” she whisper-shouts. “I may have slobbered on your butt a little.”

This time I groan, thinking of her slobbering on something else of mine.

“Thank you,” I tell her solemnly. “I …” I turn my face and look at her watching me cautiously. “I should have told you I wasn’t feeling well. I didn’t handle the situation correctly.”

There. I said thank you and apologized for making her worry. I won’t ever forget her begging me not to make her watch me writhe in pain. Those words cut deep, and as much as I wanted her to leave, I didn’t want to make her hurt, too.

“You’re welcome,” she says, the pink fading from her cheeks already. “Do you still have a headache?”

I nod and decide to be honest with her when usually I would lie and blow off her concern. “A little, but it’s a dull ache I can handle.” I certainly don’t want another one of those pills. I slept the best I have in weeks, and I know you’re thinking, “And? What’s wrong with that?” Well, I’m what Anniston calls a martyr. I feel like I don’t deserve a peaceful night’s sleep from the horror and nightmares when my brothers, my team, will never sleep and dream about women and wake up with morning wood. They’ll never marry. Never have children. Never teach their sons to fish. Their daughters to shoot a gun.

They are dead, and I’m to blame.

This is my penance.

Rest and sweet dreams are not what I deserve for killing my team.

I deserve every single nightmare that plagues me.

“Cade?”

Breck’s worried tone pulls me from the memories of my fallen family. “Yeah?”

Breck moves closer to the bed, a towel in her hand. She hands it over with a timid smile. “Do you want another pill?”

I shake her off and mutter out a quiet, “Thanks but no thanks,” and grab the towel.

“Okay, well I’ll make you something to eat. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

Now that she mentions it, I am pretty hungry.

“Thank you.”

She smiles and heads to the door, pulling it closed behind her, giving me the space I need. I check my phone first and see dozens of messages from Anniston, checking up on me. I decide to just call her since I know that’s the only way she’ll believe me when I tell her I’m okay.

She answers on the second ring. “Cade.” Her voice sounds pinched like it’s all she can do to restrain herself from bombarding me with questions.

“I’m feeling much better,” I say, putting her out of her misery first thing.

She breathes out a sigh of relief on the other end of the country, and it makes me smile. “I’ve been so worried,” she admits, rustling something into the phone.

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