Teagan

The warmth from the heating pad is soothing under my palm as I snuggle closer to Kai’s chest. I cleaned his cracked and bloody knuckles the best I could, but the gauze already looks messy as the blood seeps through the cotton. As we lie, I can’t help but smile at the way he lightly snores. He isn’t typically a restless sleeper, but a toll has been taken on his body lately. When I woke alone this morning, I knew exactly what had taken Kai away. Last night, his first instinct was to come directly to me, but I knew that it wouldn’t be long until his curiosity was piqued with interest in Smith. What I didn’t expect was for Burke and Callen to be carrying him to my bed. I couldn’t help the way my heart warmed, seeing my brother bringing him to me. Truth be told, I never thought I’d see the day. 

“You’re dead, motherfucker,” Kai’s lashes flutter as he mumbles. 

“Do you kiss your girlfriend with that mouth?” I’m torn between wanting him to rest and disrupting his visions of a man gone from our lives. His eyes open at the sound of my voice, but he stares blankly, looking past me. So, I lean down and taste his lips, and his vulgar words do nothing to taint his sweet kiss.

“Teagan,” he rasps, finally looking at me.

“Thank you for always slaying my dragons.” My whisper is filled with awe and appreciation. Life isn’t like a fairy tale. Birds don’t help me get dressed in the morning, and I can’t depend on a glass slipper for a rare piece of magic. Yes, I spent a good deal of my life feeling like I was locked away in a tower, but Kai will always be the man who makes even the bleakest of situations a bit rosier. I’ll take him over any other sort of magic that could be imagined. Keep your pumpkin carriages and wart-riddled toads. Kai is all I need for a happily ever after.

“I’ll always be here for you.” Even though there is so much exhaustion in his voice, there is also so much conviction. It’s easy to drift off and imagine the rest of my life with Kai as I stare into his eyes.

He knows how to be the savior, but …

“Right now, I need to be here for you, and you’d better not give me any grief. The doc is coming over a little later to check you out, and I’ll be your personal nurse until you get better.”

I fight through my adoration, attempting to sound stern.

“Why would I ever give you grief about your undivided attention?” He looks at me with full-blown Casanova eyes as his hand covers mine. Over the heat from the pad, his touch is like an electric current.

He’s sexy, too damn sexy.

“Don’t give me that cocky little smirk. Yes, that smile does a number on my panties. You know it, and so do I. You’re an awful patient though, and while maybe my nurse duties will entail some dirty acts, you also need to rest and recuperate. I’m going to be on your ass twenty-four/seven, making sure you’re taking it easy. Every time you fight me on it, I will withhold any sexy scenario I’ve cooked up.”

His hand that’s over mine flips my palm, and he tickles from my wrist to the inside of my elbow. His playful eyes bounce from my lips to the movement of his fingers. “If you get to be on my ass, then I definitely get to play with yours.”

“Be good,” I scold with laughter brimming from my voice. 

“You think I got to where I am in life by being good, Teagan? It’s like you don’t know me at all.” He scoffs while he continues to light me on fire with his touch. 

“I know you, Kai, and you’ve always been good to me.” I snuggle against his side, kiss his neck, and his arms pull around me. 

“I’ll behave … on two conditions.”

I tilt my face up to see his. “What conditions?” 

“We go home, like as soon as possible. I miss my bed. This one is lumpy.” Dramatically, he makes a show of pushing down on the mattress, and I roll my eyes. 

“Easy enough.” There’s no part of me that believes his other condition will be as reasonable as the first. He’s fighting a smile too hard. “And your second condition?”

The look I shoot him when he sits up is straight evil. Yes, I understand he isn’t running a marathon, but he literally just woke up from beating a man until he knocked himself unconscious. We’re in the middle of a conversation about him taking it easy! Still, he gives me a placating grin.

“Move in with me? Once I recover, let’s start looking for a place.”

That is one holy mother of unfair but totally romantic power play.

My thoughts get caught in my throat as my response rattles around in my brain.

“You’re the worst!” Laughter bubbles from my chest as his pupils bulge. “You aren’t supposed to ask me to move in with you on a bribe!”

His fingers playfully dig into my ribs.

“We already live together! We’ve lived together for most of your life.”

Being extra careful not to crush him, I sit up, rest between his legs, and let my hands naturally gravitate toward his abs, sneaking their way under his shirt.

“You’re supposed to woo me and tell me I’m pretty and list all the reasons you want to live under the same roof as me, you big ass. You aren’t supposed to just give me those sexy eyes and pouty lips and expect me to pack a bag!”

My nails pinch his skin, lightly but still a little bit tauntingly.

“I am a wooer, babe, the mack daddy of wooers. No one woos like I do.” He pulls my hands up to his chest and tangles his fingers with mine. “Pretty isn’t an adequate word to describe you when you’re the most beautiful girl in the world, and as for the reasons I want to live with you? Well, there are many.” I don’t miss the way his thumb continuously strokes my left ring finger. “I want to wake up to you every morning and argue over who has to cook breakfast and then listen to you tease me when I inevitably burn the breakfast and we eat cereal. I want to rub your back and play with your hair after you come home from a long day of work while you tell me about all the amazing art you’ve inked onto people’s skin. Every night, I want to fall asleep next to you, living our forever.”

The fucking man can woo. Oh. Yes. He. Can.

“You paint a pretty damn tempting picture, but be honest; you want to fuck my brains out every day without being under the same roof as my brother, don’t you?”

Me? I’m not so much of a wooer.

Kai pulls my left hand to his lips and kisses my fingers before sinking his teeth into my flesh with a mischievous bite. My smile stretches from ear to ear.

“Well, yeah, that, too. Not to mention, living with Burke, we can’t walk around naked or get frisky on the couch, counter, floor, really anywhere besides our bedrooms. How am I supposed to make you breakfast in bed while in the buff?”

“Please don’t burn our new home down while you’re naked.” My sight slowly peruses his battered body, which is still very impressive despite the bruises.

“Don’t burn down our new home?” The corner of his mouth twitches with stifled elation as he prods me for an answer.

“Yes, our home,” I repeat.

“Does that mean you’ll forgive my flawed methods of proposal and move in with me?”

“Of course. Who could say no to burned breakfast at a nudist colony?”

My lips linger just a breath away from his alluring lips.

“You keep up that smart mouth, and I’ll lay you on the kitchen counter and eat breakfast off you for my first meal in the house. You’ll certainly be on fire when I’m licking the juice from a strawberry off your tits.”

I might be burning up from the mere threat.

“You can eat me for breakfast, lunch, and dinner anytime you want.” The brazen rebuttal rolls right off my tongue.

“How did I get so lucky?” Somehow, Kai manages to look at me with so much love, even while he’s clearly undressing me with his eyes. The pervert definitely has it bad for me, and I’m completely head over heels for him.

And, by the way, it’s obvious that I’m the lucky one.