“You’re glowing, Bren. Damned glowing…”

Her dad was right, and looking at him watching his daughter, he knew it. He had a slight smile holding firm. It’d been there the entire time. The only time it faded, and it wasn’t gone all the way, was when Channing entered the scene.

“We’ll take care of Bren.”

“I know. That’s not what I’m worried about.”

His gaze was still hard on his dad. It was more than obvious whom he was worried about hurting his sister.

“We’ll watch for that, too.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t sound appeased, not by a long shot.

BREN

My dad went to Roussou.

Channing went to Roussou.

And my life, weird as it sounds, had a new normal. Again.

The next two weeks, things were boring. Really boring. The only blip of action was that Sunday had her baby, a little girl she named Drayana. Zellman told us after a call to her that she was already calling her baby Dray, and I had to speculate that the nickname was purposeful. It wasn’t long after that phone call that Zellman decided he wanted to head back and ‘be there’ in case Sunday needed anything.

He was still bringing girls home. He was still heading out to parties, and enjoying college life, but Zellman didn’t hear from Sunday one day, and that’d been enough for him. I had no clue if he had midterms or not, but he went to Roussou. We weren’t given any word on when he was returning either, so it was a stay-tuned kind of situation.

As for my work, I was part of the team, but they had benched me because of my concussion.

I also met Bonbon, who decided to come back for a visit.

She walked in, her hair wild and looked like she combed it with a fork. Her eyes were dancing all around, and she stopped, seeing me. “Who are you?”

“I’m—”

She flicked her head to the side, grimaced, and cursed loudly. “FUCKING APESHIT HAIRY BALLS!” Then she looked back at me, her eyeballs taking a second to center on me. After that, she breezed by and said, “My angels said to be nice to you so stay out of my way, kid. Unless you have a fork and a tail, and if that’s the way you party, let’s go a few rounds.”

Everyone was right. She was nuts.

The first day she came in, she was another version of Bonnie, except with graying and white hair. She liked to wear old polo shirts, and mom jeans, with socks and sneakers. Her feet smelled. A lot. It wasn’t a coincidence that the day Bonbon came into the office, it became mandatory to keep the windows open and the fans at full blast. Air needed to be circulated out windows ASAP, and the air-conditioner tended to let the stink stay confined indoors.

Besides always muttering to herself, always shoving her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, she mostly stayed away from me. That wasn’t to say the same for anyone else. She mooned over Big. She brought cookies in for Burly. She watched Brock, sniffed her nose at Hawk, and there was usually an argument behind closed doors once a day with either Bonnie or Gramps. They rotated, apparently.

But Trundle and me, she stayed away from. I wasn’t even sure she knew I was there.

As for my concussion, I had stayed home for the first week. I was allowed back into the office the last few days of my second week, and I only did paperwork. And that meant, if I had to copy, scan, or print something, I was their girl. I ran errands, too. Coffee. Lunch. I ordered pizza if they asked me to. I answered the phones, too, because there was no way they were going to let Bonbon do that.

Someone called in once, and before anyone else could pick up, she answered it, “9-1-1 operations.” And then she hung up, saw us all watching her, and laughed. “They’ll call back, but I made them shit their pants first.”

I kinda loved her after that, but from a distance. A far, far distance.

Big seemed intrigued. Burly stopped accepting her cookies.

As for Cross and me, he was kissing his way up my body right now.

Shoving my legs open, he slid inside, and we were good. We were really good.

“Fuck,” he panted against my throat. “You feel so good.”

Pleasure was licking up my spine, and I ground against him. I scraped my nails down his back in response, and he shivered, as I knew he would. Winding my legs around his waist, I moved against him, almost damn purring. “Fuck me, Cross.”

I was panting right alongside him, the throb in my body deep and demanding.

He growled, rearing back.

Taking my legs, he lifted them up and moved to fit between them, resting them against his shoulders. Then he moved back in, hitting at a much deeper angle. I was gasping, my vision growing black from the sensations hitting me.

He rubbed my clit, and fireworks. Fire-fucking-works, I’m telling you.

Someone was screaming.

Thinking that was me.

I couldn’t tell. I was gone, goooone, and then as my body hit, jerked, climaxed, and started to tremble, he flipped me over. I was brought up to my knees. My hands were pulled together, resting against the headboard, and he slammed back inside. His body lay over mine, as he kept my hands pinned with one of his. The other was kneading my thigh, and he continued moving inside of me.

I almost fell. My legs were jelly from my own orgasm, but he wrapped one arm around me, holding me against him as he kept thrusting inside.

Stars again.

Fireworks bursting…again.

A guttural scream ripped from me, followed by his own growl, and he nipped the back of my neck as I felt him jerking inside of me.

Holy.

Fucking.

Holy.

That was it.

Holy fucking holy.

My brain cells were gone. Dunzo. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t move. Cross peppered the back of my shoulder with soft kisses as he slipped out, then he picked me up and moved me around to lie against him on the bed.

I had no function of my legs and arms right now. I was helpless to curl into his body, nuzzling into his neck. Helpless. So helpless, and I was loving it.

If I didn’t move for a week, I’d be okay with that. Perfectly content. Happily satisfied, and my bones were gone. Melted into my skin and my organs. I was a limp noodle.

Cross moved one of his legs between mine, holding me, and he was kissing my throat again. He was moving around me, so he was half-lying on top of me. I was still catching my breath, one of my hands falling to his back, when suddenly—

Bam! Bam! Bam!

-–against the door.

“I heard you all the way down in the basement. Some of us aren’t getting shit. You don’t have to pour fucking salt in the wound. Assholes!”

Cross paused, his head between my breasts, and then he started laughing.

I was still too weak to do anything except cup the back of his head. “Don’t stop,” I moaned, lifting my hips just a bit to push against his.

He groaned. “I don’t think I have any more in me, but—” He ground back against me, and he did.

He so did.

It was just the beginning, though.

I sighed after, my hand falling from him to land with a plop on the bed. “I’m dead. I’ve got no more.”

He laughed, nipping the side of my breast before lifting his head. “You do, too.” His hand moved between us, finding my clit again, and he was right. My eyes rolled to the back of my head as he brought me to a third orgasm.

Cross and I were doing just fine.

“I need to go out.”

Jordan made that announcement as he dropped into one of the chairs in the living room. Cross was working on his laptop. I was curled up next to him, lying across the rest of the couch, half leaning up against his arm.

I was texting back and forth with Tabatha, who finally reached out. I’d been trying to get ahold of her since Sunday had her baby. It wasn’t until today that she finally responded, and I was given the ultra-important mission of not telling Jordan anything she was telling me—and that the 4-1-1 was that she was dating back in Roussou. Little did she know, I wasn’t violating my crew obligation because Jordan already knew. Zellman told us everything he was finding out, it was almost too much. I mean, we hadn’t needed to know how long Drayana’s umbilical cord was, with photos and all.

“What are you thinking?”

“Bren goes back to working tomorrow in her bounty-hunter-in-training or whatever. You have tests this week, just like me.” Jordan shifted in his seat, lines sticking out around his mouth. His whole energy was edgy and frustrated. He clipped out, “There’s a huge block party on frat row. I think we should go.”

“You were banned, remember.”

“It’s a street party. They can’t ban me from a street party, and I think they dropped that. Tab’s not even here.”

True.

Cross glanced down at me.

I looked at him.

I already knew neither of us cared, but Jordan needed to go out.

No words were said.

I sat up at the same time Cross shut his laptop.

Jordan grinned. “I love you guys.”

I snorted. “We’re going to a party for you. Not a huge hardship here.” I was crossing the room, heading to go and change.

He called after me, “Parties are usually a hardship for you, Bren.”

True. I glanced back, grinning and seeing him shooting me a grin. “We owe you.”

He grunted. “Fuck yeah, you do. The animalistic sex was a bit much.”

Cross was walking by him, and without saying a word, his hand flashed out. He smacked Jordan on the back of his head but kept going.