Page 66 of Hot Summer Nights

She lives with a guy? Well, not for long. There’s no way I’m letting my princess live with some guy who isn’t me.

I scowl at the guy who leers at Stella as she walks out from behind me. I growl when I see his eyes run over the length of her and pull her back behind me so that his beady eyes can no longer see what’s mine.

“Kit! Knock it off!” She huffs.

She tries to step past me again and I block her, my eyes locked on a scrap of fabric that I can see peeking out from under Larry’s leg. I storm across the room towards him, fists clenched tight at my sides and I almost smile when I see his eyes widen with fear.

Yeah, asshole. You should be afraid of me. Very, very afraid.

I reach under his leg, ripping the scrap of lacy fabric out and shoving it in his face.

“What the hell is this?” I growl.

“Those are my panties!” Stella yells from behind me, sounding outraged.

“Why the hell do you have them?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at him even further as I get up in his face.

“I-I,” Larry stutters and my fists clench even tighter as Stella makes her way over to us.

“Have you been stealing my panties, you fucking creep?” She yells and I growl as I watch the pervs eyes dart around the room.

That would be a yes.

“Stella. Go pack a bag. You’re staying with me,” I command and for once, she doesn’t argue.

I watch her spin on her heel and head into a room off to the left before I get back into Larry’s face.

“You don’t go near her ever again. Is that clear?” I growl.

He nods his head frantically and I stand right as Stella comes out carrying two bags. She drops them on the ground before she heads back into the room for the third. I walk over to her, picking up the two bags in one hand and grabbing the third from her hands. I nod for her to walk ahead of me, shooting one last warning glare at her ex-roommate as we head out the door. I toss Stella’s bags in the back of my truck before I help her inside. I lean on her seat, cupping her face and turning her head so that she meets my eyes.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I never liked that guy and I knew that he was a perv. I guess I should have noticed that some of my panties were missing,”

I growl, wanting to go back inside and take care of the guy but my desire to get Stella as far away from here is stronger and I nod at her before I lean in, pressing a quick claiming kiss to her lips. She seems stunned by my action but she doesn’t pull away. I buckle her in and close her door before I round the hood and slide behind the wheel, starting the truck and taking her back to where she belongs.

Our house.

FIVE

Stella

We ridein silence back to Kit’s place. He parks the car in the garage and helps me out of the truck before he grabs my bags out of the back. Luckily, I never really unpacked so getting my things was quick and easy. I follow him up to the side door, pushing it open and holding it for him as he walks through.

I should probably tell him that I’ll take one of the guest rooms but the truth is that I don’t want to sleep in one of those rooms. I want to sleep pressed up against him like I did last night. I know that he wouldn’t listen to me anyway and if I tried to sneak off to sleep in a different room, it wouldn’t take long before he came looking for me and dragged me back to his bed. I smile at the thought as I follow him up the stairs and down the hallway to his room.

He drops my bags on the bed, unzipping them and grabbing shirts and jeans out. I stand by the door and watch as he walks over to the dresser, moving some of his clothes around so that he can fit some of my clothes inside. He makes trip after trip, depositing my clothes in the dresser and then moving onto the closet. Finally, he grabs my pouch of beauty stuff and carries it down the hallway, setting it up along the counter and in the shower. I follow after him, noticing how natural it feels to see my stuff sitting alongside his. It feels right and for a second, my mind flashes back to what he just said. Maybe we really are connected. Things are moving so fast and it feels like I should be nervous or worried about what’s going to happen, but for once, I’m not.

Kit surveys his work, standing with his hands on his hips as he makes sure that all of my stuff is put away. He stacks my suitcases up in the closet before he comes back out to look at me. He walks across the room, bending down and sweeping me up in his arms before he continues on. He carries me over to the bed, tucking me in like he did last night.

“You look tired, Princess. Why don’t you take a nap?”

I roll over, grabbing my phone off of the nightstand and checking the time. I sigh when I see that it’s already three pm. I wonder where the day went and then realize that I must have gotten lost in Kit.

“I have to be at work in three hours,” I say, trying to sit up.

“I’ll wake you,” he says, pushing me back down and tucking the blankets tighter around me. “You need your rest.”