all around with its comfortable bouncy mattress was a great place to fuck.
And obviously sleep.
He felt like he’d slept for a year. Refreshed, his brain settled.
He heard some murmuring coming through the wall, female, Rebel, and then from Diesel . . .
“Just make them for him tomorrow. We brought donuts. We didn’t commit murder.”
Rush grinned and swung out of the bed.
Avoiding the chandelier, he yanked on his clothes, including his boots.
He left the tiny room to go into the tiny bathroom, which looked like it was paneled in barn wood that had been painted cream a hundred years ago. A short claw footed tub with a distressed gray side. Pedestal sink. Big window at the foot of the tub he thanked fuck was obscured by Essence’s jungle because it looked right into the bath. Shelf under it on which she had an antique oval standing mirror and a bunch of bottles with some conch shells. Tall wicker basket beside it stuffed with an enormous amount of dried wildflowers.
There was a wall partitioning the toilet, which weirdly was at the front of the room. That wall, as well as the walls in the bath area, had some stenciling in the upper corners.
He would have thought the room was a total wash. That small room that gave a feel of a funky outhouse with that little tub you couldn’t even stretch out in (even if he took baths, which he didn’t) if there wasn’t a shower room tucked off to the other side of the toilet. It had obviously been added on because it made the shape of the room wonky and it explained a weird wall in the living room.
That was all of Rebel’s cottage. A decent-sized living room, big kitchen, small foyer, tiny bedroom, diminutive bathroom. All of it surrounded by greenery, stuffed full of personality and mystifying style.
And Rush had to admit he liked it. He’d felt last night like they were alone in more ways than simply being alone. They had privacy. They were on their own little island, tucked in a forest away from people and traffic and the shit of life.
It was what he wanted in his mountain house when he got to that point.
It was another thing Rebel offered him now.
And having it, he decided, with Valenzuela out of the picture and half the threat gone, this was where they’d hang until it was all over.
He used the toilet, washed his hands, splashed water on his face and found some mouthwash to rinse.
Then he walked out, going into her headache of a kitchen she’d told him last night Essence had decided the paint job.
At least there was that.
The minute he walked in, he saw Rebel wearing a strapless cream, what looked like a bikini, top that had a tie in the middle of her tits that was cinched to show even more skin, low-slung, wide-leg pajama pants in a muted pastel paisley and a see-through cream—he didn’t know what the fuck it was—but it was a robe-like thing with little balls on the ends.
She turned to him and snapped accusingly, “D and Mad brought donuts.”
And they did.
There was a big LaMar’s box open on the kitchen table. D was biting into a chocolate-covered Bavarian cream, the cream oozing out the side, and Maddox was taking a swallow from a coffee mug, a half-eaten cinnamon twist in his other hand.
Rush knew his girl wanted to cook for him and was not pleased her shot was thwarted again, but he was glad for the quick breakfast.
He had to get home, shower, put on clean clothes and meet his dad and brothers at the Compound to roll out for the sit down with Valenzuela. A sit down he was looking forward to, seeing that asshole cowed and listening to him share he was slinking away.
That said, he’d prefer it if they were alone so he could explore that top and the stretch of flesh from the valley of her tits to lower belly it exposed. At least for a few minutes.
He figured fifteen of them would do it.
His mind went off all of this when he took in the look on Rebel’s face.
“Baby, I’ll eat your biscuit sandwiches tomorrow,” he assured.
“Yes,” she spat, turning her glare to her brother and his man, “you will.”
“Yo, bro,” Maddox greeted, completely unaffected by Rebel’s snit.
“Hey, man,” D said with his mouth full, also obviously unaffected.