Page 65 of Wayward

“That’s a deal.”

I hadn’t slept so well in years.

NINE

I had an idea in my mind of how I thought the renovations on the house were going to go. For starters, though I’d told both Gale and Ada that I was going to start making calls the following morning, I assumed it would take weeks for someone to get out and look at the house, beginning with a home inspector. Not only was the house in a tiny coastal town in Oregon, so someone had to come all the way here, likely from Portland, but the backlog had to be immense to begin with. What I couldn’t have anticipated was how important the Farley name would prove to be.

I thought perhaps a handful of people knew that Ada was tied to a great fortune, but it turned out that people in the know, builders for example, not only knew the name Farley, but it made them jump just as Lenkov had once upon a time. Back in the day, people moved for me out of fear. They moved now purely for the promise of cash. They knew all about the Farley fortune, and once I started making calls, I got confirmations from pretty much everyone.

I was an early riser and took Misha out, fed him, then jumped in the shower. I could hear my phone pinging, and when I was standing in front of the mirror ten minutes later, I was stunned at how quickly my inbox had filled up.

There was a soft knock at the door.

“Yeah?” I called out.

Gale opened the door, I assumed to say something to me, but instead he just stood there, staring.

“You all right?” I asked, concerned.

“I—yeah,” he said, leaning for a second on the doorframe and then swallowing hard.

“Gale?”

“Jesus, Maks, look at you.”

I had no idea what was going on.

He squinted at me. “Has no man ever told you that, between your face and your body, you’re absolutely gorgeous?”

I shrugged. “It wasn’t like that,” I confessed. “The men I was with…it was fast and secret, so there was a lot of fucking but no time for how you’re looking at me right now.”

“I see,” he said, rushing over to me. “Well, then let me be the first to tell you that you are a stunning creature, Maks Gorev. I want to run my hands and mouth over every square inch of you.”

I felt the heat spread over my face and neck, and turned my head because he just said things—nice things—to my face and expected that I could look at him and be able to meet his gaze like that was normal.

“You know,” he whispered, leaning close and kissing the side of my neck, “watching you stand here, blushing, is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I will punch you so hard, you won’t be able to stand up,” I growled at him.

He chuckled, and then surprised me. I thought he’d grab hold of my ass, try and pull the towel off, maybe grope me, but instead he wrapped me in his arms and hugged me.

I was enfolded, clutched tight to his chest, and he pressed his face down into my bare shoulder. I had no idea what to do with such easy human contact. Fast, heated, one and done, that was my usual. Normally, I was lucky to get a name. This whole slow roll of passion was brand new.

“Just so you know,” he said into my skin, “you don’t have to wait for me to touch you first. Whatever you want, a kiss, to hold my hand, a hug”—he squeezed me tight—“you just do that, all right?”

Before Gale, I couldn’t remember a lover ever hugging me, holding me. And we hadn’t even been to bed yet. Or we’d been to bed, but we’d both passed out. There wasn’t any sex. But now, here he was, treating me like I was special.

“Let’s start off right,” Gale said.

“Meaning what?” I asked, looking up at him as he let me go and took a step back.

“Meaning that even though I want you so bad it’s hard to breathe around it, I also want to give you time to discover what it means to have someone really want you.”

“I’m missing something.”

“We’re gonna date. I’m gonna woo you.”

What? “Woo me?”