Blinking up at him, I saw the mixture of frustration and lust on his face as he watched me come back online. I could finally wiggle my toes again, so it probably wouldn’t be long until the rest of me could do the same.
Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, with him still holding me up, I grinned up at him. “You blew my mind.”
One side of his mouth ticked up in a grin. “Noticed that. You feeling better now?”
“A bit like overcooked spaghetti, but I’ll get there.”
Chuckling, he reached over for the over washed, soft as hell, flannel shirt of his that I’d fallen in love with, which was hanging on the back of the door. It was too low for me to sit on and still be able to see the mirror properly, so I hadn’t used it when I’d come through.
He pulled it over my head and gently helped me get my broken arm into a sleeve and then worked on the other one before doing up enough buttons to cover my cleavage. On the floor beside us were the shorts I’d been wearing earlier, so he picked them up and pulled them up my legs before helping me down off the countertop.
“You can do whatever you want to me after our guests leave later, pretty girl. But in case I forget to say it, I love the underwear.” He tapped me on the butt and steered me toward the door. We were just going through it when he whispered, “And I love you, too. I even love your obsession with poop powder and how you want to show our boy how to use it.”
“That boy’s in trouble. He didn’t even warn me that you were coming through the door with company,” I huffed, glaring at Clyde, who was trotting happily ahead of us.
Stopping me halfway down the hallway, Garrett threw his head back and burst out laughing. “Baby, he came out to greet me at the fucking door. How deep in your head were you?”
Sex. It’d totally fried my brain.
I probably should’ve been embarrassed that we’d just done what we’d done while I had Hurst, DB, Jarrod, Bond, Canon, Reid, Raoul, Logan, Carter, and Alejandro in my living room, but none of them looked like they’d heard anything.
The thing was, it was just as well it had, otherwise if I’d have heard what they had to tell me without having it and all of the distractions it brought to me in my life, I would have had a panic attack.
I stayed calm and didn’t freak out when they told me that the man who had a deep-seated hatred for my family had been seen ten miles away from us. If that wasn’t bad enough, five strangers in town seemed to be taking a great interest in the residences, and the door to my old place had been kicked down last night, too. With that information, any embarrassment just left, and I was left with a feeling of dread.
My new safe haven wasn’t safe for me anymore, neither were the people in it.
I was staring at the floor when I heard a deep voice sigh and say, “Hold her broken arm.”
A hand reached in and grabbed it, but I lifted it voluntarily without volition. Then, it felt like an elephant landed in my lap, knocking the breath out of me when they accidentally tipped into my stomach.
Not giving me a moment to recover, Canon bounced slightly, making me squeak. “Good, I’ve got your attention. You walked in here with pink cheeks ten minutes ago looking like a girl who had it all. Now you’re withdrawing and thinking too hard.”
“Totally smelled burning over here,” Bond added from where he was sitting across the room. “Maybe it was Reid’s ass.”
“Nope, I used the poop powder in the bathroom, so I smell like roses, man,” Reid told him proudly.
Over Canon’s shoulder, I saw some of the men turn to look in the direction of the bathroom, their expressions intrigued.
“Anyway,” Canon huffed. “We know from the shit that went down with Katy that shit happens. It can happen in a big way, it can happen in a little way, but it always happens. To win, you need to hold your head high and fucking fight. If you curl up into a little ball or admit defeat before you’ve even fought, you’re doing yourself an injustice, and the Zuri Hadid I know wouldn’t do that.”
Chewing on my lip, I thought about what he was saying. He was right, I knew he was right, but a girl was entitled to a moment of self-pity, right? It’s not like I’d just found out that something I wanted to order was out of stock. This was a big fucking deal, and I was a normal human fucking being.