“I don’t want that for you either, Danny.”

“You know anything about fertilizers?” he asked.

“No clue,” I answered, and offered, “I could do some research for you, though.”

“That’d take the fun out of it,” he muttered.

“It’s a lot of change for you in a short period of time, a long-term relationship being over, buying Mo’s place and his stuff, meeting me, my issues, then looking at houses.”

“So Nikki’s shit already got into your head.”

“I actually didn’t remember it until just now, but maybe, yeah,” I admitted.

“Want honesty?” he asked.

I nodded.

“All right,” he began. “Your apartment is a disaster. You gotta start almost from scratch. I want you off the stage at Smithie’s because that isn’t where you wanna be and I want you in a classroom and on the way to the life you should be leading, something you want too. It’d be a lie if I said that wasn’t part of a number of reasons I decided to have a look around a real estate website. And I’d be a dick, I was with a woman I was into, she knows how into her I am, and I looked into buying a property without taking into account that her ass might be livin’ in it with me. If I get serious about this, we’ll go look at places together. Do I think it’s time for us to make what we got now official in that way? I don’t know. It feels right. I love spending time with you. But where we’re at isn’t normal. I’d want some normal in before we go down that road. That said, you gotta know, you’re definitely a consideration and a major one.”

I stared up at him.

This lasted some time.

“That freak you?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then why aren’t you talking?”

“I’m trying to decide how I’m going to give you an orgasm.”

His expression changed, it was a lovely change, then he moved Mag Fast, the TV was off and he was pulling me to his bedroom.

Mag no longer put his sling on to sleep.

Which was good.

Because in the end, I gave him two orgasms (to him giving me three), and as such, we both passed out.

Chapter Nineteen

The Miracle

Evie

I woke up on my stomach, leg hitched, eyes aimed over the edge of the bed.

It was quiet and dawn was on the room.

It was also Sunday.

Sunday.

The best day of the week.

And I thought that even though I had to strip at the end of it.

It was also a week after I came home from Smithie’s to find Mag looking for new homes on Zillow.

With me definitely a consideration.

And it’d been a good week. No kidnappings or shootings, and except for Rob texting me in a restrained way I knew he was holding himself back from begging so he could see I was okay (but more, since he mostly knew I was okay, he wanted to meet Mag and decide if he approved), no family drama.

Best of all, Lottie and Mo set a date for their wedding.

And the day we both found out, Mag asked me to be his date.

They weren’t messing around and as such, their engagement wasn’t going to be a long one.

But it was still months away, and he was so sure of us, I was so sure of us, I was going to be Mag’s date.

And he was going to be mine.

I smiled to myself and turned carefully, just in case he was still sleeping.

What assailed my eyes was that he was still sleeping. On his back, the covers down to his waist, his injured arm cocked, his hand resting between his pecs, his hair messy and falling on his forehead, eyes closed, those curly lashes resting on his cheeks.

I’d never seen him asleep, he was usually awake before me.

And it shouldn’t surprise me, but somehow it did, how he seemed a new brand of beautiful while he was sleeping.

It was on that thought, it hit me.

He was mine.

This man sleeping beside me was mine.

My boyfriend.

My lover.

My friend.

That beautiful sleeping man was mine.

And on these thoughts, I moved into him and pressed my lips against his pectoral.

I felt him stir.

But that didn’t stop me.

Oh no.

That was what I wanted.

I slid my lips up to his throat.

“Baby,” he murmured, low and sleepy, and I felt wet hit between my legs at that word coming from him like that, aimed at me.

I ran my lips over his rough jaw, pushing my body even further up.

He pressed his arm under me, curled it around, his fingers drifting along my spine and into my hair.

I headed for his lips, but I didn’t kiss him.

I looked into his sleepy, beautiful eyes and whispered, “You’re handsome when you sleep.”

“Yeah?” he whispered back.

“Yeah,” I confirmed.

He moved his hand through my hair, around to my face, where he stroked my jaw with the tips of his fingers.

He was like that, Mag was.

He touched.

Affectionate.

Loving.

Not just during sex. Not just when he was trying to butter me up.

He was a guy who held hands.

He was a guy who cuddled.

He was those two things.

Affectionate.

Loving.

“I need to go talk to my brother again,” I announced, and his brows shot together with annoyance.

“Evie.”

“I have to thank him.” I slid my hand up to his face and rubbed my thumb along the stubble at his cheek. “If he wasn’t a douche canoe, on our first date, you probably would have thought I was just some klutzy nerd that lectured you on environmental issues within minutes of meeting her and then counted down the minutes until you could be shot of her.”

His brows relaxed and his mouth softened.

“Babe, I was into you the second I laid eyes on you.”

He was?

Nice.

“Then I demonstrated I was a klutz, this I did spectacularly, after, of course, I lectured you on environmental issues,” I reminded him.

“A cute one.”

I grinned at him.

“Nothin’ wrong with havin’ fire and an opinion, Evie,” he said. “I know you got a bent to talk yourself down, think things about you aren’t as awesome as they are. But just so you know, I was into you the second I laid eyes on you, and I was only more interested in you when you started lecturing me and seriously into you when you smacked your head into the counter.”

My mind wanted to distort that.

Make it negative.

Find some reason not to believe.

But I couldn’t. There was no evidence to support it.

He was into me from the beginning and he didn’t hide it.

“I was into you the second I laid eyes on you too,” I shared.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Both his arms went around me, and in a great Mag Surge, he rolled me to my back, so he was on top.

After he got me in position, his hands went into my cami, sliding up my sides, skin on skin.

I shivered under him.

“Sunday,” I whispered.

“Sunday,” he whispered back, and the way he said that word made me know he felt the same way about lazy Sundays as me.

I loved that.