Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 133849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
“He’s brooding. It’s a thing he does,” Grim said.
“Really? You know I’m not the one called Grim, buddy,” Josh pointed out.
Grim shrugged and set Nic’s glass back on the side table. “And yet you are a broody bastard. I’m not the one everyone’s afraid of.”
“Afraid?” Nicole started to bring her head up.
Grim eased it back down. He’d changed into sweatpants and a T-shirt. They were his “I can get out of these very easily” clothes. “Not like he’ll beat them up afraid. Josh can be sunny and happy-go-lucky seeming.”
“But then he threatened a whole bunch of people who were leaving church,” she said almost sagely.
She was forgetting a few salient facts. “They were being mean to you. I won’t let anyone be mean to you.”
Her eyes closed as though she was perfectly content. “You can’t stop everyone.”
“Now that, my sweet pet, feels like a challenge.” He liked a challenge. He still wasn’t sure if he was going to kick Alyssa’s overly privileged ass out of his company come Monday morning. She could find another job. Maybe the church would hire her. He might kick her momma out, too. On principle. If she’d wanted to keep her job, she should have taught her daughter to 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 of people I don’t know think of me. I spent a whole lot of my life with people thinking I’m some kind of doormat. Being a Jezebel is a lot more fun than a doormat.”
He was so interested in her past. Which she rarely talked about. She was good at trying to divert his attention. He’d played her game up until now, but it was time to start being ruthless. Up until now he’d been willing 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 wanted everything. 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 the sun in his sky. Grim relaxed around her.
Grim was going to get his fucking heart broken if she did what she said she was going to do and left.
“Who would think you’re a doormat?” Grim asked, his fingers running through her hair. She was still in her rope dress, but he’d released her hands and they were under her cheek. She looked sweet and sleepy and a bit angelic to him. Though most angels wouldn’t lie around naked, their body spread out over two men.
She yawned, and her eyes closed. “All of Childswood.”
Grim’s eyes met his. A freaking clue. “I thought you were from Chicago.”
Her eyes opened, and it was easy to see she was awake now. “Oh, it’s my high school. Childswood High. I wasn’t popular.”
He needed to ease her back down. If she thought they were probing, she would come up with an excuse to leave. He wanted her here and happy. Napping would be excellent since then she wouldn’t notice when he slipped away.
It was time to start solving the mystery of Nicole Mason. He knew it was quick, but he was sure. She was the right one for him, and it didn’t matter what she was running from. He would handle it.
But he had to make sure he didn’t become the thing she was running from.
“I was incredibly popular.” He winked at her, giving her a slightly arrogant smirk sure to make her believe he was thinking about himself again. “I was the star of the baseball team.”
Grim snorted. “He was terrible at baseball. He couldn’t catch to save his life. Now he was excellent at throwing his body in front of running backs. And his golf game is adequate. I was obviously the baseball hero. 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 totally into Jenga.”
She rolled so she could fully look up at Grim. “You know this 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 make up 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 light side in Grim that Josh had worried was gone forever. “I assure you his parents never used the word shame around him.”
“Untrue. There was plenty of shame heaped on me during the brief time I rebelled,” Josh reminded him.
Grim nodded. “Yes. It was a terrible time. I thought your dad might disown you.”
Nicole’s eyes went wide, and she lifted her head to look at Josh. “What did you do?”