Make Me

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  She held her hand out for the bags once I was through, but I ignored her outstretched hand and kept walking.

  When I got to the door, I started coughing again.

  My keys were slipped from my fingers and I was pushed inside moments later.

  The alarm started going off, and I quickly punched in the code through watering eyes.

  “Nice place,” I heard said through my coughing fit.

  By the time I was finished, Royal was standing next to me with a cup of what I assumed was tea.

  Taking a healthy swallow, I groaned when it soothed the burn of my throat that was left behind by the coughing.

  “You need to do a breathing treatment or something,” she said. “That’s not normal.”

  I shrugged.

  “I have that available as an option,” I admitted. “And might consider it later. But I’m okay for now.”

  She looked at me skeptically and rolled her eyes.

  “Saylor and I were childhood friends,” I said. “She used to make cakes like the one you had all the time when I was growing up. I used to be a taste tester when they were shit.”

  A half-smile formed on her face, and I gestured for her to follow me into the kitchen.

  “I didn’t know that she was in Longview, though,” I admitted. “My parents didn’t tell me.”

  She took a seat at the counter where I ate at—I didn’t see the point of owning a kitchen table when there was a perfectly good bar overhang that stools fit under—and stared at me.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I’m full of cake right now.”

  I wasn’t, but I’d give it an hour and hope that she got hungry. I didn’t see the point of cooking just for myself. Which was why I lived off of TV dinners half the time.

  “You have a nice place,” she said softly, taking a look around.

  I took it all in through her eyes.

  I lived in a one-bedroom cabin when I wasn’t undercover. It was six hundred and forty square feet.

  I’d built it from the studs out.

  After looking around and not seeing anything that I wanted, I’d purchased a small cabin from a local retailer and then had finished it out. I’d done the walls, the sheetrock, the paint, and the kitchen all by myself. The wiring I’d intended to do by myself, too, but in the end, I’d thought it would be best to let a professional do it since I really didn’t have any idea what I was doing.

  I’d subcontracted out the plumbing and the bathroom, too.

  I still wasn’t all the way finished.

  The floor needed to be done—and I’d been planning on doing that for about six months now—and I was living out of boxes because I hadn’t had a chance to hang the shelves in the closet just yet.

  “Did you build this yourself?” she asked, looking around.

  “I did mostly everything.” I knocked on the countertops.

  They were concrete and I was proud as fuck that I was able to do them all on my own.

  “It looks really good,” she said. “When I heard you say one bedroom, I thought it would be like one big, open floorplan. But you have everything here, just in a miniature version.”

  I nodded once. “Yep.”

  “I really like it,” she said, looking at the colors of the walls.

  “I got my mom to pick out the colors,” I admitted. “I wasn’t sure what was in, and if I’d done the picking, everything would’ve been shades of gray. But I’m glad that she chose the beige. It looks great with the exposed wood.”

  I was honestly so proud of this tiny cabin. It was the first thing that I’d done completely on my own—well, mostly.

  “Good choice,” she said. “What’s next to finish?”

  I pointed at the molding in the corner of the room.

  “That,” I pointed. “I need to do all of the flooring, then put the molding and the trim up.”

  When I glanced at her, she looked almost excited.

  “Can I help?” she asked.

  I thought about saying yes based solely on the enthusiasm in which she’d injected into the question, but I wasn’t up to doing anything today.

  Maybe lying down and dying.

  My body was starting to shut down.

  Now that I was home, all I could think about was lying in the bed and not moving for at least twelve hours.

  Or, more accurately, eight.

  I had to work tomorrow, and it was going to suck.

  I groaned when I remembered all of my medications in my saddlebags.

  “Tomorrow,” I admitted. “When I get home. Maybe if I’m feeling better.”

  She instantly looked worried.

  “Are you feeling okay now?” she asked.

  No, I was feeling like a pile of dog shit, and the longer that the day went on, the worse it was getting.

  Tomorrow at work was going to be interesting.

  “I’m okay,” I lied. “I’m just tired.”

  Lies.

  I literally felt like death warmed over.

  When I started for the door, she didn’t stop me.

  In fact, she didn’t say a word and she didn’t follow me.

  When I came back, it was to find her searching through my kitchen.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked when I put my things down onto the counter.

  She looked over at the multitude of prescriptions and then at me.

  “Something to make for dinner,” she admitted. “I thought you might need something to eat.”

  I did, actually.

  But I didn’t want anything heavy.

  Which she proved to understand moments later when she pulled out a couple of packages of Ramen Noodles.

  “This good?” she asked.

  I nodded, thankful that I didn’t have to have a long-winded conversation.

  “Perfect,” I admitted sheepishly. “I’m not all that hungry.”

  And Ramen was my favorite.

  It was also one of my comfort foods.

  I didn’t complain a bit as she made dinner—which came with no mess.

  She cleaned as she went, throwing away trash and wiping away splatters of water as the noodles cooked. Hell, she even washed the pot almost immediately after pouring my noodles into a bowl and placing it in front of me.

  Everything was spick and span before she sat down to enjoy her almost-cool-enough-to-eat noodles.

  I looked at the kitchen, then at her.

  “You always clean before you sit down to eat?” I questioned.

  She shrugged. “Yes. Then I don’t have to do it afterward. When I was younger, my dad would literally make me stop eating to clean up a mess. And if it was bad enough, he’d make me throw my food away altogether and clean up. I learned to adapt.”

  She was beginning to make me hate the guy.

  She’d only told me very little about the man, but what I did know about him, I didn’t like.

  And, after the phone call I’d listened in on this afternoon, I knew that it was likely I never would.

  I stood up and opened the drawer that I kept my chopsticks in, then walked back around to the seat I’d just vacated.

  When I was about to sit down, she stared at me and said, “You know how to use chopsticks?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Can you teach me?” she asked.

  I’d rather eat my food and fall dead into bed.

  But the excitement on her face was contagious, and she wasn’t asking a lot.

  So I handed her my pair of chopsticks and went back for another pair.

  When I sat down, I carefully taught her how to eat with them, how to hold them, and then thoroughly enjoyed myself as I watched her make a mess.

  “This is hard,” she said after about five minutes.

  I gave her another pointer and she readjusted her fingers, successfully bringing up one single noodle to her mouth.

  But I had
to give her credit. She didn’t once quit.

  And though it took her a good fifteen minutes longer than it should have to eat, she didn’t stop until the last noodle was slurped up.

  “My father would’ve killed me if I ate like that in front of him,” she admitted.

  “In some cultures, it’s acceptable to slurp your noodles. It actually shows that you enjoy your food,” I told her.

  She looked at me with a look of wonder on her face.

  A look that stayed there as I picked up her bowl and mine and returned them to the sink. Once they were washed and in the drying rack next to the sink, I walked back with a wet rag and wiped up the spots we were eating at before tossing it across the kitchen and into the sink.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  I gestured to my medications.

  “Now I take those, some NyQuil, and pass the fuck out for eight hours,” I told her.

  Her lip twitched at the corner.

  “What about a cough suppressant?” she asked.

  I pulled out the NyQuil from the cabinet over the sink and checked the label.

  “It has one in it,” I said.

  She helped me line my prescription bottles up and throw away the trash.

  “You have to take all of these?” she asked in surprise.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Steroid, antibiotic, and an asthma medication that I’ll drop off once I start feeling better.”

  “Jesus.” She shook her head. “That’s a lot of meds.”

  It was.

  But I was used to it.

  “If you want to go ahead and get into the bathroom and change—take a shower—I’d get on that. I fucked up and wired the lights to the bathroom to the lights in the bedroom,” I admitted.

  Her lips formed into a small smile.

  “Guess everyone’s not perfect,” she said.

  “Actually,” I shook my head. “It was my idea. The electrician advised me against it, but I saw no reason not to have the two connected. It was only as I was thinking on it later that I decided that it probably wasn’t the best idea.”

  She shrugged. “Oh, well.”

  Oh well was right.

  When she disappeared into the bathroom and took a quick shower, I took a shot of NyQuil straight from the bottle, dosed myself on the rest of my medications, collected my clothes to change into and waited for her to come out.

  It took a lot not to collapse onto the bed and go straight to sleep.

  But I was glad that I was sitting where I was when she came out in what I originally thought was only a t-shirt.

  I nearly swallowed my tongue and felt things lower start to stir at the sight.

  She was wearing a plain white t-shirt. Her hair was down and wet around her shoulders in a tangled mess, and she looked all wet and pink from the shower.

  “I forgot my brush,” she said as she brought the hem of her t-shirt up and wiped away a droplet of water that ran down her forehead.

  I looked down at her lower half and groaned when I saw the short shorts that were covering her ass.

  “I have one in the cabinet in there,” I said.

  She immediately turned around, giving me a great view of her ass.

  And her panty lines.

  She was wearing those cheeky underwear that went up over the curve of her ass. And the shorts were so tight on her butt that I could see the little lace indentions of her underwear.

  My dick got harder.

  Chapter 10

  Read books and do squats. Grow your mind and butt.

  -Coffee Cup

  Royal

  When I made it back into the bathroom for the brush, I was hyperventilating.

  There was no way in hell I was going to be able to sleep next to that man tonight.

  I’d been having a hard time since I’d gotten onto the back of his bike, but seeing the look on his face as I’d walked out of the bathroom? Yeah, it was almost impossible for me to ignore that.

  I felt a presence with me in the bathroom, and I looked up into the mirror to find him walking inside.

  The bathroom wasn’t small, per se, but it also wasn’t big enough for two—at least not when it came to Justice’s shoulders.

  But he came inside anyway and walked over to the shower, reaching inside with one hand and cranking it on with a flick of his fingers.

  He didn’t turn it on low like I expected, either. He turned it on high.

  “You like your water hotter than hell, too?” I asked curiously.

  He turned and set his clothes down on the back of the toilet. “I like it on normal temperatures when I’m not sick.”

  My lips curved up into a smile.

  “That’s understandable,” I said. “I just haven’t seen a man that enjoys it that hot.”

  I loved it hot. The hotter, the better, actually.

  “I don’t think many do,” he said. “It feels like it’s melting my skin off.”

  Smiling now, I went back to facing the mirror.

  “I gotta take this shower,” he said. “If I don’t, I’m going to fall the fuck to sleep.”

  “Oh,” I said, taking my brush and turning slightly.

  “Don’t rush,” he said. “I didn’t hear you brush your teeth, either. Your cosmetic bag is still on the counter in the kitchen, and this glass is frosted. You won’t see anything.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to control my heart rate.

  I heard the rustling of clothes as he stripped out of them, and squeezed my eyes shut as I roughly yanked the brush through my hair.

  I hit a snarl and felt my head whip backward.

  Almost as if it was meant to be, I glanced into the mirror as he was stepping into the shower. And thanks to the angle that my head was at, I caught the barest hint of leg and ass as the door closed behind him.

  I nearly swallowed my tongue.

  I did drop his hairbrush.

  Things went fast after that.

  My heart. My feet as I nearly rushed from the room.

  My teeth getting brushed.

  My face cream getting applied.

  Hell, I’d never flossed so fast in my life.

  And when I was about to exit completely, he called out for me to stop.

  “Can you hand me my toothbrush?” he called.

  I picked up his toothbrush—it was pink—and handed it to him.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Did you have toothpaste in there?” I asked curiously.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I have toothpaste so I don’t have to move it from the shower to the sink. I keep telling myself to get an extra toothbrush, but I haven’t accomplished that feat yet.”

  I snorted. “Anything else?”

  “Nah,” he said. “Thank you.”

  I bit my lip and walked out of the bathroom then, wondering if I should slip out of my shorts and dive under the covers, or leave them on.

  It was such a dilemma that I was still contemplating what to do when the shower turned off.

  Knowing that I’d hate them if I slept in them, I pushed them off.

  Except, I underestimated how long it took a man to towel off and get clothes on, because I was pushing them down to the floor as the bathroom door flew open.

  They were at a puddle near my feet when I heard him say, “Ready for the lights to go off?”

  I flicked on my phone’s flashlight and said, “Yeah.”

  The lights went off, and I cursed.

  “Do you have an extra phone charger?” I asked.

  “There’s one plugged in on your side of the bed. It’s the extra one that I use when I happen to be on that side of the bed,” he said. “Just sayin’, but I’m a rough sleeper. I’m not sure if I’ll leave you alone, so I’ll sleep on top of the covers.”

  I plugged my phone in just as I saw him drop his sweatpants.

  “Do you have an extra blanket?” I asked, trying not to let my eyes drop down to look
anywhere lower than his nipples.

  God, and what perfect nipples they were.

  “I don’t sleep with a blanket,” he said. “I get hot.”

  I frowned, thinking that sounded like a weird answer, but chose not to say anything more because, at this point, I was just babbling.

  I dove under the covers and pulled them up to my chin, only realizing once I was under there that I hadn’t gone to the bathroom.

  “Dammit,” I groaned, throwing the covers back off.

  “What?” Justice asked.

  “I have to pee,” I said, then walked straight for the door of the bathroom.

  Once it was closed solidly behind me, I did my business, then sat there for longer than required as I thought about once again getting into bed with him.

  I didn’t know what I was thinking.

  Well, I did and I didn’t.

  I knew that this was going to lead somewhere. I wasn’t stupid.

  There was attraction underneath the surface that I could practically feel the bubbling undercurrents. I’d felt this attraction only once before, and it’d been in high school before I’d ever realized the possibilities of sex.

  I wasn’t a virgin. I’d had sex before.

  But I somehow knew that whatever it was between Justice and me was different.

  Animal magnetism.

  I reluctantly stood up and walked to the sink, washing my hands and once again dragging my feet.

  But, with no option to stay in the bathroom all night, I opened the door to the bedroom.

  “You forgot to flush.”

  I cursed and turned around, flushing and then rewashing my hands.

  He was chuckling when I made it back into the bedroom.

  “I finished, then decided to sit there and contemplate my life,” I admitted. “I would’ve remembered.”

  “Of course, you would have,” he said. “Just like I would’ve remembered to close the toilet lid every time I was reminded to do it by my mother when I was younger.”

  I rolled my eyes and was thankful that he’d turned out all the lights.

  The only thing that was illuminating the room was my phone which had yet to go to sleep.

  And, just as I was halfway across the room, it did just that.

  I cursed again, slowing my steps to an almost shuffle, as I made my way to where I thought the bed might be.

  I found it—and Justice’s foot—and yanked my hand away like I’d touched something burning hot.