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“Now that, my sweet pet, feels like a challenge.” He liked achallenge. He still wasn’t sure if he was going to kick Alyssa’s overlyprivileged ass out of his company come Monday morning. She could find anotherjob. Maybe the church would hire her. He might kick her momma out, too. Onprinciple. If she’d wanted to keep her job, she should have taught her daughterto not be so awful.
Nicole’s eyes opened again, and she looked properly wary.“Josh, don’t do anything. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care what a bunch ofpeople I don’t know think of me. I spent a whole lot of my life with peoplethinking I’m some kind of doormat. Being a Jezebel is a lot more fun than adoormat.”
He was so interested in her past. Which she rarely talkedabout. She was good at trying to divert his attention. He’d played her game upuntil now, but it was time to start being ruthless. Up until now he’d beenwilling to go along with the whole “this is only for a couple of weeks” thing.
He didn’t want a couple of weeks with her. He wantedeverything. And there was zero chance Grim wasn’t falling for her. Falling?Hell, that boy was already gone. He was staring down at her like she was thesun in his sky. Grim relaxed around her.
Grim was going to get his fucking heartbroken if she did what she said she was going to do and left.
“Who would think you’re a doormat?” Grim asked, his fingersrunning through her hair. She was still in her rope dress, but he’d releasedher hands and they were under her cheek. She looked sweet and sleepy and a bitangelic to him. Though most angels wouldn’t lie around naked, their body spreadout over two men.
She yawned, and her eyes closed. “All of Childswood.”
Grim’s eyes met his. A freaking clue. “I thought you werefrom Chicago.”
Her eyes opened, and it was easy to see she was awake now.“Oh, it’s my high school. Childswood High. I wasn’tpopular.”
He needed to ease her back down. If she thought they wereprobing, she would come up with an excuse to leave. He wanted her here andhappy. Napping would be excellent since then she wouldn’t notice when heslipped away.
It was time to start solving the mystery of Nicole Mason. Heknew it was quick, but he was sure. She was the right one for him, and itdidn’t matter what she was running from. He would handle it.
But he had to make sure he didn’t become the thing she wasrunning from.
“I was incredibly popular.” He winked at her, giving her aslightly arrogant smirk sure to make her believe he was thinking about himselfagain. “I was the star of the baseball team.”
Grim snorted. “He was terrible at baseball. He couldn’tcatch to save his life. Now he was excellent at throwing his body in front ofrunning backs. And his golf game is adequate. I was obviously the baseballhero. Or I would have been if my stepfather hadn’t decide it was Satan’s game.Pretty much any game was Satan’s game. Strangely except Jenga. He was totallyinto Jenga.”
She rolled so she could fully look up at Grim. “You knowthis is why you’re a pervert. You had an unhealthy relationship with sex…well,from what I can tell, with everything, and now you feel like you have to makeup for it.”
“Okay, then how do you explain Mr. Good Sex over there,”Grim argued with a wink. He was so flirty with her. She brought out a lightside in Grim that Josh had worried was gone forever. “I assure you his parentsnever used the word shame around him.”
“Untrue. There was plenty of shame heaped on me during thebrief time I rebelled,” Josh reminded him.
Grim nodded. “Yes. It was a terrible time. I thought yourdad might disown you.”
Nicole’s eyes went wide, and she lifted her head to look atJosh. “What did you do?”
She whispered the question like it was a secret.
He wasn’t the one keeping secrets. He took her feet in hishands, squeezing lightly until she sighed and bit her bottom lip. She was themost sensual thing. “I rebelled against my father in the most heinous way Icould. I thought about going to Texas A&M for college.”
It had been a brief thing, and mostly to see if his fatherwould lose his mind. He had.
“You see we’re a Longhorn family,” Grim explained. “AndLonghorns and Aggies are a little like the Hatfieldsand McCoys. We take our college football seriously.During the season, I make it a point to never wear maroon because it makes mydad…makes Jack’s eye twitch.”
He’d been right the first time, but the fact that Grim hadactually gotten the words out proved how fucking good Nicole was for him. Herubbed her feet and her eyes closed again.
“Football. It’s always football,” she said quietly.
“It used to be our favorite pastime,” Grim said. “Now it’storturing you.”
He tweaked her nipple, and she yelped before giggling andsettling back in.
She was asleep in minutes, and Josh was able to ease frombeneath her feet.
“I think I’m going to make a beer run,” he said. “I stealanymore of the dads’ and Momma will start talking about rehab. Livie will sayI’m getting a beer belly.”
A brow rose over Grim’s eyes. The one that said he didn’tbuy what Josh was selling. “You think we need more? Maybe we should take iteasy.”
