we’d been active enough since then.
It was time to make breakfast.
I was hungry.
And I had to take care of my boyfriend.
Late that afternoon…
After breakfast.
After going to my pad to pack some things (the blood splatter was still there, but I was pretty proud of the powers I’d discovered I had that I called on to ignore it).
And after unloading my stuff at Mag’s, going to lunch, the grocery store, and back to Mag’s, whereupon I made a double batch of my cinnamon marshmallow clusters as a thank-you to the boys for throwing smoke grenades and rescuing me.
After all of that, I walked out of Mo’s old room where I’d gone to use the bathroom to see Mag stuffing his face with marshmallow clusters.
I also looked down at the cookie trays (Mag had cookie trays, I’d found, because, in his words: “I kick chocolate chip ass”—something I was keen on discovering), and I saw one half of an entire tray was decimated.
Such was my surprise, coming to a stop beside the island, I asked the question no girl should ask her brand-new boyfriend.
“How long was I in the bathroom?”
“Babe,” he said in a garbled way, seeing as his mouth was full, but even so, he had another cluster on deck in his hand to shove into it, “these are outstanding.”
“I can tell. You’ve eaten a quarter of them,” I remarked.
He grinned, cinnamon-marshmallow-toothed and not caring. I knew this because he shoved the next cluster in.
“Danny!” I snapped. “Those are for the boys!”
“Make more,” he replied, still with mouth full.
“I can’t. I’m out of cereal. And marshmallows. And butterscotch morsels.”
Though, not chocolate ones, we’d bulked up on those for future chocolate chip goodness.
“We’ll go back to the store.”
Yeesh.
“Danny, it boggles the mind I have to keep reminding you of this, but…you were shot yesterday.”
“So?”
So?
“We’ve been busy all day. You need to rest.”
“I can rest when we get back from the store, while you’re making more of these,” he replied, grabbing another freaking cluster.
“Danny!” I cried.
“Get over here. You’re bein’ cute. I need to kiss you,” he demanded.
“No.” I shook my head. “No way. You’re going to taste like cinnamon and marshmallow and butterscotch and chocolate and you and all of that in a kiss is going to mean we’ll do other things that don’t include you resting.”
He gave me a look that was a combo punch of sweet, sexy, playful and incendiary before he declared, “Now you really need to get over here.”
“Stop being sweet and hot,” I bossed.
“Stop being cute and fuckable,” he retorted.
“I see we’re at an impasse,” I remarked.
“Yeah, it’s impossible for you not to be cute or fuckable.”
“And it’s impossible for you not to be sweet and hot.”
His expression changed again, and it was not one that made my panties catch fire.
It was one that made my heart squeeze.
“Baby, come here. I promise I won’t do anything that will end up with us on the floor, goin’ at it.”
I studied him closely, and only after I ascertained the veracity of his assertion, I went there.
When I got there, he rounded me with an arm, which was good, seeing as his other one was in a sling and this meant he couldn’t eat more clusters.
For my part, I rounded him with both arms.
“Where’d you get that recipe?” he asked.
“I made it up.”
His brows rose. “Seriously?”
“I wanted something sweet, I didn’t have the patience to make cookies, and I didn’t have Rice Krispies to make treats, but I did have the marshmallows, morsels and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Those clusters are proof necessity is the mother of invention.”
“No, they’re proof you really are a genius.”
I grinned up at him.
He stared down at me.
He then stated, “Okay, I lied. I’m totally gonna start something.”
I frowned and began to pull away, warning, “Danny.”
Even one-armed, he was stronger than me.
That said, he also had other tools to use to get what he wanted.
And he used them, saying, “Baby, you pulling hurts my shoulder.”
I stopped pulling immediately.
He cinched the arm he had around me tighter, pressing me to him.
But I saw the satisfied look on his face.
“Was I hurting you?” I asked dubiously.
“Not really, but just to say, I have no shame using guilt if it means I’m gonna get laid.”
I felt my entire body twitch in surprise at his words.
This was before I dissolved into laughter.
“Christ,” he whispered in a way that made my laughter fade to just giggles. “You’re pretty normally, but when you laugh, your eyes make these little upside-down crescent moons