Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82371 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82371 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
“Then a breakfast date.” That seemed to deserve another excited squirm as he helped me list them off. “And then a little date with steak.”
Nodding, I frowned at Monroe, who was pretending to ignore us. “And now another breakfast date with pancakes. This will make four dates and satisfy all of his food requests. There’s nothing you can do about it.”
“But safeword.” Lorne leaned in and whispered in my ear. “He knows that.”
“He does.” Giving Monroe’s monkey a kiss, I jerked my head toward the stubborn dragon in question. “He’s just trying to make sure we take our time.”
“And don’t rush.” Lorne frowned thoughtfully and settled against my chest to think. “Logically, I understand that, but we’re mates.”
Cocking his head, Lorne peeked over at Monroe. “So we can’t rush. Anything we do is just right.”
I happened to agree—especially since we’d clearly moved past our sightly awkward beginning—but before I could point that out, Monroe sighed.
“My parents dated for a month before they announced that they were mates. They’re not the only ones like that too.” Opening his eyes, Monroe looked like he couldn’t decide if he was going to be concerned or frustrated.
“Not Kenzie or Boyd.” Lorne didn’t bring up the morning sex idea again or even the pancakes counted as a date idea, so I knew he was taking Monroe’s thoughts seriously. “I don’t know anyone in the past year that’s been mated where it hasn’t struck like lightning.”
Monroe went quiet, so I decided to chime in again. “He’s not wrong. The number of wills and things like that I’ve drawn up lately is ridiculous…and all from couples claiming to be mates, not just getting married like humans.”
For some reason that had Lorne going very still and looking confused. “What do you do? No one in town talked about that.”
Monroe laughed as Lorne made Monroe’s point for him with one simple question.
“I’m a lawyer.” In our defense, we’d spent more time talking about mating history and limits than we had boring job shit. “What do you do?”
Monroe finally stopped laughing.
Ha, he hadn’t asked either.
Lorne and I both turned to look at him expectantly and got a sigh from Monroe. “Um, he collects sparkly things? And…”
When he finally shrugged, I laughed. “See? We talked about all kinds of things but he doesn’t seem to go to work on any kind of regular basis.”
Lorne turned back to me and poked my chest. “Neither do you.”
“I work four days a week at a small firm in town. I do pretty well but I’m not looking to make partner or anything like that.” I’d tried going that route but I hadn’t enjoyed it. All it’d done was give me a nice nest egg and severe heartburn. “I did that for a while but when I moved back, I looked for something where I could have a mate and actually get to see him.”
Lorne was back to squirming and smiling. “Oh, that’s so romantic. You changed your whole life to be ready for us.”
Turning to Monroe, Lorne sighed. “Isn’t that so romantic, Daddy?”
Monroe nodded distractedly. “Yes, monkey, but you haven’t said what you do.”
No, he hadn’t.
Lorne was missing the point, so I gave him another peck. “He’s worried you don’t have a job and are broke and we didn’t know it.”
“Oh.” Looking adorably confused with a cocked head and frown, Lorne shifted and smiled. “I have a job. I’m a jewelry appraiser. I work by appointment only, so that’s why I needed to find my phone and stuff.”
We probably should’ve expected that.
Wait. What else had he lost?
What was stuff?
No. I had to stay on track.
Studying the wiggly monkey that was still stretched out over us, I poked his nose, getting a laugh from him. “You’re pretty good at that, aren’t you?”
Lorne’s very pleased wiggle said he liked the slightly roundabout praise. “Yes. I’m very good at telling people all about their sparklies.”
Hmm.
“Lorne, are you good enough at talking about sparkly things that you can take care of yourself only working a couple of times a week?” I was starting to get a picture of why he never seemed to work.
“Yes, but that’s only when I’m super busy. My preferred schedule is once a week. Working is hard.” More happy wiggles nearly had me groaning. “But sometimes people fly in sparklies from around the world. Then I work more because it’s rude to have a tea party when people are waiting for me to do grown-up things.”
Yep, our sparkly boy was probably one of the top gem appraisers in the world.
Monroe was frowning but Lorne jumped back into our original discussion before his Daddy could gather his thoughts.
“Now we know what everyone does and we know that lots of new mates have been smacked in the head lately, Daddy can stop worrying.” Lorne seemed to think that was settled, but he’d just given Monroe something else to worry about judging by the look on his face.