Wild Like the Wind (Page 35)

Hound got up to sitting and let himself watch as she settled back in, stretching just an arm behind her to tag his pillow and pull it over her so she could hug and curl into it on her side.

She looked good in his bed.

Then again, she’d look good in any bed because she looked good any time.

He rolled the other way, did his morning gig and moved his ass to Jean’s.

It was not a shower day so he had her taken care of, in her chair and was in the kitchen when she remarked, “I didn’t hear Keely leave last night.”

“She didn’t,” Hound grunted to the skillet he put on the burner.

“She didn’t?”

“Nope.”

“She’s still over there?”

He grinned at the carton of eggs he pulled out the fridge. “Think we went over the fact you know about these modern-times, man-woman gigs, Jean bug.”

“I do know,” she stated tartly. “What’s she doing?”

“Snoozin’.”

“Does she not eat breakfast?” Jean asked.

Hound turned to her. “Say again?”

“Shepherd, I’d like to get to know your girl. We could do that over sandwiches and Jeopardy! but I get tired in the afternoons. I’m bright-eyed now. So before you crack those eggs, get home and ask her if she’d like to join us,” she ended all this on an order.

He was considering the “tired in the afternoons” mention, something he suspected due to her naps, but not something she’d ever spoken about.

He was not liking what his consideration was bringing up when she prompted, “Well? Or, even though the cat’s out of the bag, are you still keeping me all to yourself, leaving your girl right next door when you make excellent eggs.”

With the back of her chair to the kitchen, she was peering around her seat at him.

“Jean—” he started.

“Please go get Keely, Shepherd,” she requested quietly.

Shit.

Fuck.

“Right,” he muttered, stalked to the door, out of it, down the hall to his place.

He went in, moved down the hall and saw that Keely was what he said she was. Snoozing. In fact, she was dead to the world curled around his pillow.

He sat on the bed and put a hand to her hip.

Her body did a soft jump, her eyes opened and she turned her head on the pillow.

“Hey,” she mumbled. “Everything okay?”

“Jean wants to know if you’d like to have breakfast with her.”

She stared at him, sleep receding, then it was him that jumped and it wasn’t light, when the covers and his pillow hit his side with a slap.

She scrambled out of the bed the other way and said, “I’ll . . . I . . . a shower might take too long. I just need to, uh . . . brush my teeth and drag a comb through my hair and . . .”

She trailed off and turned at the door of the bathroom to look at him.

Hound had tugged the covers off him but other than that was unmoving from his spot on the bed, watching her.

“Do you . . . are you gonna wait or do you want me to just go over and knock on the door?”

Fuck, she really wanted to have breakfast with Jean.

“She gets why you did what you did, babe,” he told her.

“I . . . well, I hope so, but, um . . . I need to get dressed.”

Then she disappeared in the bathroom.

Hound dropped his keys on his (new) nightstand at the base of his (new) lamp then went to the bathroom door.

She was brushing her teeth so vigorously, her bare ass shook while she did it.

His cock started to respond so he looked into her eyes in the mirror.

“Keys on the nightstand, Keekee. Lock this place up when you come over. Knock first but you can come in after that.”

She nodded, still brushing.

He grinned at her.

She lifted a hand, gathered the sheet of her hair behind her neck, and bent over the basin.

That jutted her sweet ass his way.

Christ.

He walked back to Jean.

Her eyes were on him the instant he walked back through her door.

She looked hesitant but excited.

“Is she coming?” she asked.

“She’s brushing her teeth.”

Jean beamed.

Fuck.

Hound moved to get back to business in the kitchen, announcing, “She’s nervous.”

“I’ll settle her down,” Jean told Saturday morning TV that she’d now turned down.

Hound had nothing to say to that and nothing to say at all because this was not something he expected to happen, or expected he’d want to happen, some part of him thought it shouldn’t happen, and another part thought it should.

Faster than he figured she would, even in the tizzy he’d left her in (or maybe because of the tizzy he left her in), there came a knock on the door.

Hound turned from the toaster to the door to see it open slowly, not far, and only Keely’s head coming in.

She glanced at Hound before she found Jean.

“I . . . is it okay if I come in?”

“Of course, dear,” Jean replied.

She pushed the door open, came in, closed the door, but stopped there, and it sucked she was cute in her anxiety and not because she was anxious. Because it sucked Hound found it cute.

“Let’s put this to bed, shall we?” Jean said immediately to Keely. “We didn’t meet under great circumstances but you apologized, and it says nothing about the person who receives a sincere apology if they don’t accept it, set what happened aside and simply carry on. I accepted it. I set what happened aside. And now we’re carrying on. So, Keely, tell Hound how you like your eggs. And do you like lox?”

Keely stood there and stared at her.

“Also, please sit down,” Jean invited.

Slowly, Keely moved to the couch and sat her ass down where Hound usually sat.

“Shep can make eggs?” Keely asked.

“Very good ones,” Jean replied.

“I do all the cooking for us,” Keely told her.

Hound watched Jean lean over the arm of her chair toward Keely and say conspiratorially, but loudly, “He makes sandwiches and soups for lunch, which are rather nice. But I cannot say his dinners are as good as his eggs.”

“I heard that,” he grunted, and decided to just let this be.

Jean wanted it.

Keely wanted it.

Right now they were his two girls.

So who was he to say dick about it?

He returned his attention to the toaster.

“Please do not take that as me being ungrateful, motek,” she said to his back.

“Whatever,” he muttered.

“Shep loves my cooking. So do my boys. When I cook for him, I can make more for you so he can bring it over for dinner.”

“I must admit, I had some of your leftover spaghetti a few weeks back and it was on the tip of my tongue to ask Shepherd if he would share more of what you had left over.”

“I’ll totally make more,” Keely said, and Hound heard the smile her voice.

“That’s very sweet,” Jean replied, and Hound heard the smile in hers.

“Can I ask, what does motek mean?” That was Keely.

“It means ‘darling’ in Hebrew,” Jean explained.

“You’re Jewish?” Keely asked.

“The mezuzah usually gives it away,” Jean said on an amused cluck.

“I hadn’t noticed it when I walked in.” Hound looked to Keely to see her twisted to look at the door. She twisted back. “Wow. It’s beautiful.”