Handcuffs

Chapter Eight - Shopping

“Come on, wake up,” a deep voice rumbled under my ear. Strong arms were wrapped around my tired frame, and they were gently shaking me awake. My eyes fluttered open slowly to see the dark hazel eyes of Diesel staring down at me. I scrunched my face up in confusion, trying to remember how exactly I had ended up snuggled with Diesel as I slept.

Yawning tiredly, I placed my head back on Diesel’s chest. “When did you get here,” I mumbled quietly. His chest shook under me in silent laughter.

“Well, Hunter got up a few hours ago. I came up to wake you up so Kade and I could take you out,” he smirked. “Not my fault you pulled me into bed like a little koala.” I let out a small whine and smacked his chest lightly, too tired to do anything else.

“What time is it?” I asked, rolling onto my back. Diesel’s arms stayed wrapped around me tightly, but he allowed me to roll off of him. I stared at the ceiling, inspecting every aspect of Hunter’s ceiling. Anything to distract myself from how good Diesel smells. He had a girlfriend, obviously, and all of the brothers still seemed to have the insane notion in their head that Ryder and I belonged together. Diesel would never in a million years actually consider acting upon what I wanted to do with him - not that I would voice it aloud to him.

“About noon,” he said simply. “We should get going if we want to get you a new wardrobe all picked out.”

I took a deep breath before asking the question that I only had speculation as to what the answer was. “How do you guys have all the money for this?” I could feel Diesel tense, and there was a pause in the conversation for a minute as he thought out his answer.

“Well, we own Halley Inc,” he started. He met my eyes, knowing that that wasn’t the answer I was looking for. “It’s very successful. We have my grandfather to thank for it.” I gave him a knowing look, and he sighed, pausing once again. “And then we have certain abilities and talents that run through our family.” Diesel tapped my nose lightly, giving me a small grin. “But you don’t need to worry your pretty little head about those. We’ve elected to keep you out of it. To keep you safe.”

I nodded slowly as Diesel sat up with a small grunt. “Come on, lets get you dressed.” He walked over to what appeared to be a desk, and grabbed a small pile of clothes that was sitting on top of it. He unfolded a black dress shirt and laid it across the foot of the bed, giving me a mischievous grin. “You can wear one of my shirts.”

Crawling out of bed, I saw that he placed a sort of spiked belt next to it. “Who’s is that?” I asked.

“Kylie’s,” he said simply.

I tried not to blush as he laid out a set of my rather ratty undergarments and clucked his tongue. “We’ll need to buy you proper ones,” he said as if it was no big deal. He turned to me once everything was laid out. “It’ll be a little big on you, but if you cinch it to the smallest hole it should be fine.” His hand cupped the side of my neck as he pulled me towards him and kissed my forehead. “Get dressed. We’ll leave after you’ve eaten something.”

He left the room and I looked towards the clothes warily before slowly pulling them on. Diesel’s shirt fell almost to my knees, and Kylie’s belt helped it from looking quite like it was swallowing me so much.

I slipped my tattered boots onto my feet before throwing my sleeping clothes into Hunter’s hamper - it was all getting washed anyway after all, right?

Making my way out of Hunter’s room and down the stairs, I found both Kade and Diesel sitting at the island, with Ryder leaning against the counter by the fridge. I refused to meet his eyes as I scrambled up on a stool between the two other brothers, making them laugh at my struggling.