Page 84 of Missiletoe
It needed to happen, though. Especially since after I did it, Paris decided that Gareth was trustworthy enough for me to give tiny, nonsexy hugs to. I’d explained in detail to Paris about Gareth’s need to have someone to be soft around on multiple occasions, but until I’d stood up to Gareth, Paris had been unwilling to bend.
I think Paris had been slightly worried Gareth would snatch me up and run off to fuck me into submitting to him or something.
To date, Vale is still firmly on theno hugslist. Paris has refused to relent on it for some reason.
“Where are Gareth and Paris?” Baz asked, shaking me out of the horrible memory of my extremely brave act of standing up to Gareth.
He was rubbing his belly and wincing, but he got zero sympathy from me. Stuffing three huge cupcakes inside a small body all in one go was going to come with consequences.
“I’d like to know that too, actually. They both went into the kennel to bring out the dogs, but it’s been a while. They should have been back by now.”
“Adam, stay by the door until Paris gets back,” Apple ordered.
Apple wouldn’t have dared to bring his precious Adam to the shelter if Paris hadn’t demonstrated his control over animals.
I was glad he did, because Apple had freaked out over the invisible kitten incident. I wanted my new babies to be able to be with us all the time and not just when Paris and I lived at the shelter, so I used the invisibility ray on them and brought them to my house.
I mean, they were just kittens. How was I supposed to know they would cause so much trouble?
I’m still confused about how five kittens managed to go in eight different directions, but somehow, they did. Apple lost his shit when Moriarty (it was probably him, anyway—it’s hard to tell who’s who when they’re invisible.) climbed Adam like a tree. In hindsight, it would probably scare anyone to have something with tiny claws climb up them but not be able to see it.
If Paris hadn’t magically corralled them all into a neat little row, it would have taken ages to round them all up. Once I managed to make them all visible again, Paris had them put on a dance number with the mice. Oda Nobunaga had outshone every animal in the group. I was so proud of my little guy.
It was nice to be able to see their cute little faces again, even though I could only see them part of the time. I don’t think I got the setting right on my invisibility ray, because sometimes they went invisible again.
I don’t mind, it’s pretty fun to have them pop in and out on us like that, but Apple is still pretty pissed about it. He has Paris under strict orders to keep them in my wing of the house or else he won’t help me with any future projects ever again.
Speaking of the hottest magical man in the universe, I really wanted my Paris back by my side. Aside from the fact that he’d warm up my freezing body in no time, he would also give me love and pets and food and maybe even let me crawl inside his sweater with him to listen to his wonderfully steady heartbeat.
I love listening to it. It reminds me that he’s real and mine and better than anything in the world.
I jumped up from my bed, sending Trixie flying one way and Baz flying the other, and ran into the kennel.
My sudden appearance made Gareth and Paris jerk apart guiltily, but not before I saw what they’d been up to.
“Arm wrestling again? Seriously?”
They kept trying to complete some kind of secret, alpha-dog ritual, but they’d been interrupted every time before getting a chance to finish.
“Damn it, Vix, I almost had him,” Gareth snarled.
“No, you didn’t,” I laughed, coming over to snuggle up tomyParis.
Gareth said that every time. Every time they tried to arm wrestle, Gareth would get Paris down three-fourths of the way and then get stuck those last few inches. They would have settled their pissing contest ages ago, but their little man-off contest took forever, so they inevitably got interrupted before getting a chance to finish.
I had a sneaking suspicion they would never get to finish. Maybe I should just ask Paris to lose on purpose so Gareth could get over it and move on.
Paris isn’t going to try to take over our group. He’s content with being the boss dog at the shelter and in the bedroom. Otherwise, he’s happy to go along with whatever our family wants to do.
Unfortunately, Gareth only deals in absolutes, so he isn’t going to let it go until it had been decided who was the strongest.
Yes, I saidisn’t. Because they still haven’t settled it!
God help whoever manages to steal Gareth’s heart. He’s going to be an insufferable tyrant. I just hope whoever it is really liked bossy Daddies. He may not look like it, but Gareth has all the makings of an amazing daddy.
Control freak? Check.
Need to keep his family safe? Double check.
