We lay there for a long time, chattin’ and then readin’ from The Prince, arguing playfully over the semantics of power and possession, but the conversation turned, as it was probably always goin’ to, to the club and SS Danner.
“I can’t help feeling so badly for Susan,” she murmured, drawing imaginary illustrations over the raised topography of my abs. “Can you imagine what it must be like to realize the man you once loved has turned into a man only worthy of hate?”
“Couldn’t have happened to a better woman too. She used to treat us just like her grandkids. Remember H.R.’s birthday like it was yesterday, Susan bakin’ the cake in the middle of the night so she wouldn’t see it, the smile on her face when Harleigh Rose actually gave her a hug in thanks. She’s always been a good woman.”
“And she’s sick to top it all off.”
We sighed in tandem, one of those little intimacies of bein’ so in sync with each other after so long that I revelled in.
“Goods things happen to bad people all the time, Cress. Just the way’a the world.”
She was quiet, the quality of her silence like an extra weight on my chest so I propped a hand behind my head, dropped the book in the grass, and palmed her cheek. “What’s going on in that crazy beautiful head?”
“We have to find a way to prove Danner killed Gibson and failing that, what? At least get him put away for police corruption?”
“Somethin’ like that,” I agreed.
She bit her lips, starin’ at the ring I’d put on her finger and the way the emerald caught the light. “I just have this feeling about it. Like you’re going to do something outrageous.”
I tried not to still, consciously dragging air through my lungs in a nice easy rhythm of breath.
Because I’d considered it.
The outrageous.
How I could ensure Zeus would be free to see his kids grow old, so he wouldn’t have to miss even one more moment of their lives the way he’d had to miss years of mine.
In fact, there was a seed of an idea germinating in the dark, fertile soil at the back of my brain. I didn’t know the shape of size of the bloom it would produce, but I didn’t stop its growth.
My first thought every morning was Cress.
My second, my family.
So, it was no wonder I was willin’ to do whatever the fuck it took to see them all happy and safe.
But I couldn’t tell that to my Cress.
If she thought there was a sacrifice to be made, my girl would demand to be the one to make it.
And that would never fuckin’ do.
So, I did the only thing a man could ever really do to take his woman’s mind off somethin’.
I rolled her back onto the grass and closed her mouth and the conversation with a searin’ kiss.
Cressida
* * *
“I can’t believe you and King have sex in public so much,” Benny whispered, his hand to his mouth. “You’re such animals!”
Loulou laughed as she bounced a fussing Angel in her arms. “Public sex is hot as fuck.”
Harleigh Rose shuddered. “What have we talked about? No sex talk about my dad and brother, okay? It wigs me out.”
I patted her on the head as I stepped over her legs propped up on the coffee table in Paradise Found and folded into the couch beside her.
“Told you that you’d find a man who felt the same way about it, and now that you have Lion, you can’t tell me you guys don’t want crazy hot, monkey sex,” I teased.
She tossed her hair flippantly and crossed her combat booted feet as if she couldn’t be fussed to talk about it, but there was a blush in her cheeks she wore just for him.
“I’m more of a lady than you two,” she accused, pointing a finger at Lou and I. “Seriously, the amount you talk about bangin’ should be criminal.”
“Some of the things we do are illegal in some countries,” Loulou agreed, a gorgeous smile lighting up her face in a way none of us had seen in a while.
She was a new mum to twins, which would have been hard under any circumstances, but having a husband wrongly imprisoned and taking care of two babies would have tested the patience of a saint.
It was a good thing Loulou was about as close to one of those as I knew.
“Did he really drink champagne off you?” Benny asked, his voice dreamy as he propped his head in his hands. “It’s like something out of a book.”
H.R. snorted. “More like a porno.”
All of us laughed, and it felt so good to hear the harmony of our humour. It had been such a long time since I’d been able to hang out with both my Garro girls, and I’d missed the sisterhood.