Coop straightened, then shot me a speculative look before he grinned at Frankie. “Bad things.”
“Very bad,” I agreed.
“If either of you says something like ‘math homework’ I may throw this laptop at you. Not that it will hit, because my aim currently sucks.”
I snorted and toed off my shoes before moving over to slide behind her on the sofa, and then I dragged her onto my lap, easily balancing the laptop so it didn’t fall. “Well, it might involve an equation and some variables,” I teased. She wiggled her ass a little to get more comfortable, and I just sighed. That little wiggle had become one of my favorite forms of torture.
The words on her screen leapt out at me and effectively killed the beginnings of my hard-on.
…Mitch…
“What are you working on, Baby Girl?” It came out a lot harsher than I meant it to, and she snapped the laptop closed before I could read the rest of the sentence.
“Nothing.”
Bullshit.
Coop moved to sit next to us, and he dragged Frankie’s legs over his lap so we were sitting cozy. “Easy,” he warned me before he looked at her. “We’re not being nosy.”
“Oh, I’m being fucking nosy. She’s writing about Mitch. If we’re writing about that asshole, I want to know why.” I didn’t want that asshole anywhere near her. Not even in non-verbal communication or as a sentence in a word program.
She squirmed a little under my focus. “It’s nothing, just something I’m working on.”
“If it’s nothing, then you can tell me what it is—”
Coop jabbed his elbow into my ribs, and I grunted. “Don’t be such a dick,” he ordered me.
“I’m not being a dick.” But I shut up at his nod toward Frankie. Her expression had tightened, and she’d gone a little pale. “Okay, fine. I’m being a dick.” Blowing out a breath, I pressed my forehead to her shoulder. “Sorry, Baby Girl. I do not like that asshole. I do not want you to ever have to think about him again.”
I’d still like to bury the son of a bitch.
After I broke every bone in his body.
The rush of anger had me grinding my teeth, and I didn’t miss Coop’s worried look. Forcing myself to relax, I smoothed a hand over her bare thigh. She was here. She was fine. The cast on her arm seemed to make a liar out of me, but that went in another week.
Then we’d work on building the strength up in that arm, and I was going to work on her right and left hooks. No one was putting her in that position again. Another breath, and she relaxed back against me, tilting her head until it rested against my shoulder.
“I’m okay,” she reminded me. Something she shouldn’t have to do.
“You’re better than okay,” I told her. “You’re fucking amazing.”
“Yeah, you are,” Coop added when she scrunched her nose. “No arguments. We’re right. You sit there and just accept that we are.”
That got a huff of laughter, and I pressed a kiss to her temple, fucking glad Coop was there and I hadn’t just dragged her into some fight she didn’t need to be in. Goddamn, I needed to put a muzzle on my temper.
“Erin wants me to journal some of the stuff that happened to me. Just…what I’m feeling or what I remember. Even what I think happened versus what I know.”
Why the fuck would she want her to write about it? But I bit back the question as Coop nodded. Okay, he got this part. Good. I eyed him.
“Is it helping?” was all he asked. Okay, I could use a little bit fucking more than that.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Sometimes, when I talk to her, it’s easy and it’s kind of fun. I told her about Thanksgiving.” Her smile made me smile.
Thanksgiving had been amazing. “That reminds me,” I murmured. “I do believe I owe you at least one orgasm or two.”
The flush moving up from her chest continued to delight me, but nowhere near as much as the way her ass tightened and clenched up. Oh yes, that woke my dick right the hell back up.
Coop chuckled. “I’m sure arrangements can be made.”
Damn straight they could be. “You in?”
The little catch in her breath and the way her lips parted as she dared a glance from me to him had me stroking her thigh gently. I wasn’t the only one, Coop was rubbing her calf. There were a lot of things