Page 38 of Stitch
“Stitch, I don’t know what this is between us, but I want it. Every minute of it. Every second. If this is all we get, we’re going to make the most of it.”
He adjusted his jeans, and winced again.
“Jesus… think of non-sexy stuff, uh… fuck me, right now I can’t come up with anything. You’re too fucking sexy, babe.”
I giggled. “Do you want me to get Reacher back? Or Ice? Who’d turn you off the fastest?”
Stitch laughed out loud, and reached for my hand.
“Yeah, that helps. Keep naming people I’d never want to bone.”
I glanced around me. “I don’t really know their names, but uh… let’s see… Oh! Let’s look at your bucket list, we should do something from there. I mean, there’s nothing sexy on there.”
He reached for his pocket and then cursed. Oh right. His phone was in pieces in my bedroom, or at the very least, it wouldn’t work now.
Twenty-One
Breaking my phone wasnot my finest hour, and it was definitely something I deeply regretted, because of how it had affected Camille. She’d rallied since she broke out of whatever the fuck that state was that she was in, but I knew it could happen again. I settled her at the bar with Tommy, and asked her to order us something to eat, while I sorted a phone.
I headed straight for Ice’s room, and banged on the door. Lissa wrenched it open instantly, a panicked look on her face, and fuck, I should have thought this through. Of course she’d have assumed something was wrong with Camille.
“Is she okay?”
I deserved that, for sure. “I’m sorry, darlin’, your girl is fine. She’s just ordering us some breakfast, or I dunno, lunch. What time is it?”
“Still early, dickhead. What do you want?” Lissa backed out of the way as Ice approached me, that usual snarky look on his face. I opened my mouth to speak, and he handed me something; a smartphone.
“Figured this would be what you’d want. I’ve synced it up to yours, so you should have most things. Anything you lost, though, well that’ll serve you right for smashing yours, right?”
Ever gracious, this guy. Still, he pre-empted my request, and saved me from being away from Camille for too long.
“Thank you, honestly. Uh… Lissa, can I get a minute with my brother here?”
Ice folded his arms, shaking his head at me.
“Nosecrets with us, man. She stays.”
I stepped inside and closed the door. I could understand him wanting to keep his old lady involved, but things worked a certain way around here, and I was his VP, dammit.
“Club business, Ice.”
“Bullshit, it’s about Cammy, and she stays.” Fucker thought he knew it all, didn’t he?
“Okay, yeah, that’s cool. Not like I’m your VP or anything, and you’re supposed to show me some measure of fucking respect. That extremely thorough background check you did on Camille, I need to see it.”
Lissa gasped, and turned to slap at Ice’s chest.
“You did what?!” I smirked, because he brought this on himself, didn’t he?
“Jesus! Thanks, man.” He turned to explain to her, while I ran a hand through my hair, and groaned with frustration at the delay I thought we’d managed to avoid.
“Come on, will you? I need it now.”
Ice caught Lissa’s hand and kissed it, and that simple gesture of love, of fucking belonging to each other, hurt me. It burned in my chest like it could destroy me. I wanted that, and I wasn’t going to fucking get it.
“Listen, man. I get it. You like her, and you want to know her better, maybe understand what shit she has in her past, but it’s her business. It stays in the file where it’s safe from everyone’s eyes.”
I bit back a frustrated curse, because I wasn’t letting that shit happen again so soon after earlier. I had better control of myself, of my temper, than this, or at least I always had before everything.
