Chapter 566 Chapter 566
Day two. Blaise glared at the coffee in her cup. She’d barely survived the day before and now she had to do it all over again.
Griffin had accepted sleeping on the couch after she said that she needed to keep watch. And she had for the most part of the night but seemed to watch him more than out the windows. The longer she was around him and his scent, the worse it seemed to be getting. She could even smell him over the gun oil when she was cleaning hers. It was crazy, but she thought she could even taste his scent—how did that work?
Right now, he was in the shower and she was standing there trying not to think about that. Her cat had no problem thinking about him naked. She set the cup down with a clunk on the counter. She needed to go for a run, but then he’d be left here alone. Her cat was perfectly content here, with him and she didn’t need an instruction manual for her animal to know it had nothing to do with his safety. The creature wanted to bite him. What was she supposed to do with that?
Blaise decided she would shift and do a couple of laps around the perimeter, she just needed to get her lusty cat to agree. It was weird her animal was so interested in someone, usually, except in her cycle, she could care less about males.
Grabbing her run pack off the hook, she headed for the door.
Griffin stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He held his clothes bunched up in his hand, “I forgot to take the change of clothes Blair gave me in with me.”
Blaise stood there; no words would form on her tongue. How did a man that was confined to an apartment have such a toned body? Her eyes tracked the water dripping from his hair onto his shoulder. It rolled down over the muscle and then deviated to the center of his chest to continue its journey. “Uh, I’ll grab them.” She almost tripped over her feet turning around to grab the bag in the corner.
When she turned, he held up the clothes, “can we wash these or give them a rinse?” His arm flexed with the motion, and she felt her mouth fill with salvia.
Swallowing it, she nodded, “yeah, then we can, uh, hang them on the rack to dry.”
He grinned, “thanks.” He bunched them up under his arm and held his other hand out for the bag she forgot she was holding.
She lurched forward and held it out. “I can give those a rinse,” she pointed to the clothes under his arm. What? Since when did she volunteer to do someone else’s wash? She really needed to go for a run and clear her head.
He gave her a surprised look and handed her the clothes.
When the bathroom door closed, she looked at the clothes she held. Turning abruptly, she hurried to the kitchen and dropped them in the sink—before she followed through with the thought of sniffing them, because that was just weird, smelling a man’s dirty clothes. She wanted to set fire to them and fill her nostrils with the rancid smell of burning fabric, so she could stop acting so strange. This mating stuff was going to kill her. Flipping the tap on, she pulled out her phone and checked for messages. None.
Huffing out a breath, she text Kenzo and asked if there was any news. She was tempted to just send 123 to make him call, but that was her team’s version of 911 and she wasn’t ready to sink that low.
Turning the tap off, she spun around, she needed to check the power levels, her systems were set up for one person, not two.
“These will take some time to get used to.”
She glanced at him and then looked away quickly. Blair had given him some jeans and they hugged all the right parts perfectly. She cleared her throat, “once things settle down, I’m sure someone can take you shopping,” she opened the panel on the wall, but couldn’t focus on the numbers in front of her, “buy what you’d prefer to wear.”
“My father didn’t think jeans were appropriate to wear.”
She blinked, “Oh.” His father was very wrong.
“Is everything all right?”
She hesitantly looked back at him, hoping her thoughts weren’t clear on her face. He motioned to the panel, “uh,” she turned away, “yeah, just checking how things are holding up with two of us using the hot water and power.”
“Is it? Holding up?”
She stared at the numbers, willing her brain to function. “As long as no storms roll in, we should be okay.” She glanced at the box in the corner. Closing the panel, she motioned to it, “I have a backup power supply, I’ve been meaning to set up.” She went over and opened it and pulled out the cables. “I haven’t been home long enough to get it done.”
“I can help you do it.” He came over and looked in the box, “I don’t know what it is, but I follow instructions very well.”
She turned to answer him to find with him looking down at her, they were face to face. She dropped the cables and stepped back. “Sure. Yeah. That would save me running up and down the stairs.”
He grinned, “so what is it?”
“Oh, backup generator.” She glanced at it, “a little one, in case the storms are bad this year.” She smirked, “I sat here with no power for two days last year.”
“How did you stay warm?”
She shrugged, “our animals have built-in heat.”
“That explains why I feel hot when I should be cold.”
She looked down at his bare feet, “or stomp around without your boots on and smack people off trees.”
His smile was slow, “I did that.”
“Yes, you did.” She quirked an eyebrow at him, “do you regret it?”
He sobered, “no.”
“I need to thank you again for breaking us out of that tin can.”
“Staying in it wasn’t an option, and what would happen if we had, also wasn’t an option.”
She nodded slowly, “I agree with that.”
They stood there looking at each other and not even realizing it was happening.
He cleared his throat, “so how do we set this up?”
She blinked, “oh, I’m going to set it up at the bottom, there’s a storage space under the first section of stairs, so I don’t have to haul gas up here.”
He nodded, “what can I do?”