Milla
Three days. Three days I’d woken up with Justice by my side or pressed against my side, or with his tongue on me. But in any case, he spent three nights at my place, and as wonderful as it was, he needed to go. His gator might need to be near me, but it needed the bayou just as much, and there was not much worse than an ornery gator.
“Justice, you need to go spend some time at Shotgun Row,” I spit out after hemming and hawing most of the time it took me to make breakfast. I put the plate of slightly overcooked scrambled eggs in front of him, not that he noticed, his eyes searching mine for something. “Your gator, asshole.”
“My gator’s asshole is just fine.” He stuck out his tongue before shoveling a scoop of eggs in his mouth. There was no way he was enjoying my sad excuses for a breakfast, but he’d never say anything about it. His gator would never allow it, especially after I pushed for him to get some swamp time, something he’d probably tried to get for at least an entire day beforehand.
“Good to know.” I stuck my tongue out in return before grabbing my coffee and toast off of the counter and joining him at my table. It was nice, us just being us.
There was still some shit between us we needed to work through, but neither of us was ready to deal with that kind of reality yet. We had spent the past three days in a sweaty pile of bliss only taking a break for food, neither of us bringing up the M word, as I now referred to mating in my head. Mating had to wait until we hashed out our past, or more accurately what Justice was holding onto from the past, something that was somehow tied to me. I didn’t want to push, but it was going to need to be dealt with. The fire had worked some sort of happiness spell over him, but that wouldn’t last if we didn’t adult-up and have the freaking conversation.
“Thinking too hard.”
“You said hard.” I winked, before pretending to check out his junk, which I totally would have if it were in view. He’d been right, I was thinking too hard, but his gator time was more important in that moment.
“Damnit, female, now I am.”
Oh yeah, I did that.
“How am I supposed to go home with this?” He stood up, twirling his hips so that I could witness his cock swaying in his boxers. It was all I could do to not crack up at his antics, or drop to my knees. One of the two.
“That what?” I took a sip of my coffee as if he couldn’t smell my arousal.
“This.” He twirled around an extra time before pointing to his cock.
“You mean my boner.” I raised my eyebrows up and down, letting my arousal seep into the word my. It was mine after all. All of him was, even if he hadn’t fully accepted it yet.
“Female, you are going to kill me if you keep talking like that while looking at me like that.” He took a small step forward, as if I were his prey and I was about to run. There was going to be no running. Biting possibly, but no running.
“Killing you wasn’t what I had in mind.” I infused all the heat I could into my voice, not that it was challenging, given the truth of my words.
“It wasn’t, was it?”
“Nope. I was thinking more along the lines of being helpful.” I closed the distance between us, with my hand on his chest, feeling the beating of his heart against his rib cage.
“Helpful?” He swallowed deeply.
“With your little problem.” I shrugged, very much enjoying our little game.
“Who are you calling little?” He removed my hand from his chest bringing it slower as he continued to banter. “You can barely wrap your lips around me.”
“Didn’t stop me from swallowing you—”
“Reaper,” Justice snapped back as he announced Marie’s entrance. It was adorable in a sense. He wasn’t jumping away out of fear that she came for him, which would be a very natural fear. No, he was blushing from head to toe, embarrassed he got caught by the grandmotherly figure who happened to work as a liaison for the dead.
“Don’t you knock,” I snapped, for I, too, was embarrassed and then the fear that should have hit earlier came flooding in. “Shit, you’re not here for one of us, are you?”
“Ignore her, Marie.” Justice took my hand, pulling me to his side. “She’s just—ow.”
Because sometimes a gator needs a smack.
“Justice, you completely deserved that,” Marie teased, not even pretending to hold in her laughter.
“You’re here for Milla I assume?”
Marie nodded.
“Then I’m going to head back to my place, let my gator loose for a while. Maybe see if I can find a good log for my special order.”
Any fear I had dissipated in that moment. Justice wouldn’t leave me in danger; his gator would never allow it. I would get used to the whole reaper thing, but it still sketched me out a little bit.
“Bye.” He leaned over and pecked my cheek.
“Bye,” I mimicked.
“What? You’re not on a kiss good-bye level, yet?” Marie tsked as the door closed behind Justice.
“Marie, you think it might have had something to do with a reaper hanging out, watching him? Speaking of which, why are you here?”
“That, my new friend, is what I was going to ask you?”
Fuck.