Текст книги "Bad Boy's Baby"

Автор книги: Sosie Frost

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

She paced, biting a lip swollen from my kisses and twisting her fingers in the long curls that deserved to be spread over a pillow, not tied within a low ponytail. I rose from the bed. I didn’t know what hurt more—my head or my fucking cock. I grabbed my shirt and duffle bag.

“Take the room,” I said.

Shay looked at me, still panting from the breathless excitement of what almost happened.

Should have happened.

Goddamn it.

“Really?” She said.

“Yeah. I don’t care where I crash. Take it.”

She nodded, swallowing her victory with the grace of a champion. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, enjoy it.” I tapped on the door frame, catching her eye with a sworn promise. “But remember one thing.”

She crossed her arms. “What’s that?”

I savored her form one last time, searing it into a memory I’d have to use up later. “The next time I step foot in this room, it’ll be cause you invited me. And then?” I winked. “We won’t be getting much sleep.”

Chapter Eight – Shay

“Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line. Did you know you can do all your billing by e-mail? Just log into your account via the login portal—”

That was it. I was done.

A girl could only take so many automated operators before snapping. I’d chuck the phone in the garbage disposal. I muted the call before shouting.

 “How in the world am I supposed to log in when I called for internet setup!”

Two hours on hold just to get the internet switched into my name. The damn house was too big for one router, so we had a system of three linked up with triangulated signals and boosters and effects straight out of Star Trek. And we still couldn’t get anything to work because nothing had transferred to my name yet.

The ISP was only the latest in the line of uncooperative customer service agents. The power supplier was less than pleased by my father’s photocopied death certificate. The gas company insinuated I lied because no one living in a thirty thousand square foot mansion would be managing the transfer herself. And the municipality reminded me of the nastygram in the mail. Apparently, my father built his brick fence four inches too high and this somehow posed a threat to the township’s development ordinance.

If only the brick could grind like my teeth. I’d wear it down in only a couple nights.

I checked the time. I was supposed to be back at the college in less than an hour to deal with student teaching arrangements for the next semester. Since I was living at the mansion, I had to finagle a new assignment, one closer to home but out of my assigned school district.

That didn’t make my advisor happy.

Music pumped from the stairs. I stared over the kitchen counter as Zach strutted past me to get another Gatorade from the fridge. I averted my eyes.

“Don’t you ever wear a shirt?” I asked.

Zach flexed as he drank. He showed off his perfect body, and it wasn’t an accident. Zach loved nothing more than teasing me with the one temptation I wholeheartedly denied.

I hated that he had no shame about it. What he lacked in humility, he packed in sheer, brute muscle. I never met a man more focused on fitness and strength than him. It must have been a SEAL thing. I tried not to imagine him in the gym.

Shirtless. Lifting weights. Grunting.  Sweating.

“Like what you see?” Zach offered me his dimpled grin.

Great. I stared. I checked my chin for drool. No wetness there. Wish I could say the same about other places.

I put the phone on speakerphone while the company blared tinny music at me. I handed Zach a glass before he took another drink directly from the milk carton.

“Please,” I said. “That’s gross.”

His eyes revealed him—an impish green that promised only trouble, aggravation, and another night alone in bed, regretting ever sending him away.

“You’d had worse,” he teased.

And he’d never let me live it down. I wagged the glass. “You’re a guest, not a puppy. I shouldn’t have to housebreak you.”

“I’d love to see you get a collar on me.”

Nope. Wasn’t playing. Too aggravated with the phone call. I groaned again.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

“Life.”

“Care to be more specific?”

I ended the call. Those were two hours I’d never recover. “I’ve gotta go to the campus to rearrange my schedule, and I still haven’t sorted out the internet.”

Zach shrugged. “I’ll do it.”

Yeah, right. “I can do it when I get back.”

“Let me. I live here too.”

I arched an eyebrow.

He smirked. “For a little bit. Or, until you beg me to stay.”

“Unlikely.”

He crossed his arms. The muscles bulged. He didn’t even notice. “My mom was also on the deed and utilities. I can handle this one. I’ll get your name on it too.”

I didn’t have time to argue. Or the patience. Or the strength. Hanging near Zach 24/7 wore me down. He was sweet. He was charming.

And he was the sexiest man I ever saw.

I tried to keep the distance between us, but he knew just how to get under my skin. It was better than under my sheets, but just barely. He liked teasing as much as he liked fooling around, but it only wound me up. Zach had more control over his urges than I did.

One good fight and my suppressed emotions and memories would boil over. We’d have another disastrous kiss.

Which would lead to a good kiss.

And then even more.

It couldn’t happen. As far as I was concerned, Zach’s stay in the mansion was a business arrangement. Strictly business until I got my trust and he shipped out wherever they needed superheroes with egos bigger than the country they defended.

“Okay, fine.” I pointed the phone at him. “Make sure I’m listed as the primary contact. I’ll be back in a couple hours after I fix my schedule. Don’t burn the house down while I’m gone.”

“You can count on me.”

He mock saluted and then drank straight from the milk carton.

Damn it, I nearly smiled. I escaped from the kitchen as quickly as I could without looking suspicious.

Bad idea. Very bad idea. Worst possible idea.

I repeated the words in a quick cadence. It didn’t help. I sought refuge in my car and headed back to the campus. I tried not to think about Zach. I got to the main gate before his grin popped into my head again.

Not too bad for a first attempt. I made it half a mile, but it wasn’t enough. My fingers curled over the steering wheel as I chastised myself. I’d have to try harder.

“No way,” I murmured. “You are not trying anything Hard. Not ever again.”

No matter how much my idiotic body wanted it.

Step-brother. Stealing your inheritance. Worst possible idea.

God, he was a great kisser.

I rolled onto campus a mess of nerves, stress, and a horrid combination of shame and unfulfilled need.

The few students taking their summer classes stared at my sleek Mercedes, but I swore they glared at me, like they knew what I did. I checked to make sure I didn’t wear a giant sign looped over my body, sandwich-board style.

Come see the amazing brother-fucker. Gaze upon the most regretted life decision since the twerking Miley Cyrus!

I kept my head down and blouse buttoned, trying to look as non-sexual deviant-y as possible. Of course, that meant every hound from the dining hall to the education building tried their luck. But baby didn’t sound as good coming from the twiggy idiots playing ultimate Frisbee in the middle of the admissions hall. I ducked below a wobbly pass and burst into my advisor’s office.

Professor Sweeten was anything but sweet. She graded on favorites, changed editions of the textbook every year so the incoming students couldn’t buy used books, and hated anyone who ever disagreed with her opinions. Granting her tenure was like giving the devil the keys to the church and wondering why the collection plate was empty. And cracked. And covered in sulfur.

“Good afternoon, Professor Sweeten.” I gave her my best smile. “Thank you for meeting with me. How are you—”

“What do you want?”

She couldn’t even bother to raise her wrinkled head to look me in the eye. She hacked—a smoker’s wheeze that sounded like it might have hurt, bless her shriveled heart.

“Um…I emailed earlier this week and asked if it were possible to change assignments for my student teaching position in the fall—”

“Oh, you.” She pushed the plastic frame of her glasses low on her nose and glanced at me. “I remember you. May Franklin.”

“Shay.”

“Right. You listen to me young lady. In any other circumstances with any other students, the answer would be a crystal clear N-O. Is that understood? You are assigned where you’re assigned. If you were a real teacher, this would be your job. You would be expected to move if you wanted to earn your salary and put food on your table. That’s what being an adult means.”

Oh, she was lucky I wore my heels or I would have thrown down right in her office.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“I don’t care who your father is. Was.”

That made two of us. “What does he have to do with this?”

Professor Sweeten scoffed. “Hard to deny a student’s request when her father donated enough money to build a new wing for the library. You can have your reassignment. The best charter school in Buckhead is a dream job to those who earn the opportunity. Fortunately, with just the click of a pen, it’s yours. Congratulations.”

“Excuse me?”

“Pay attention, Miss Franklin. You may think you can waltz in here and buy your way into whatever position you want, but that’s not how my class works.”

She was kidding. She had to be. Anger prickled at my temples, but the indignation hadn’t hit my mouth yet.

Yet.

Professor Sweeten tossed the reassignment form to me. “By the end of this semester, you’ll be lucky if you can afford a passing grade.”

I folded the paper and tucked it neatly into my purse. “With all due respect, ma’am, you haven’t seen the size of my bank account.”

I didn’t let her speak and slammed the door behind me. Her bookshelves rattled, and I could only hope I entombed her with her educational ethics books.

How dare she?

How dare anyone insinuate that I was buying my way through school?

So my father bought my car. So he paid outright for my tuition. So he ensured I had enough for books and the best meal plans and other amenities.

I sunk into the leather interior of my Mercedes. The HD display lit up under my fingertips.

The car had air-conditioned seats.

I banged my head against the wheel. I knew what it looked like, but I wasn’t buying my way through life. I worked my butt off!

Still, it was going to be hard to convince anyone while I sipped a mai tai from the comforts of a resort-styled infinity pool overlooking my tennis courts and gardens. Not impossible, but the golden spoon in my mouth garbled my defense.

Damn it.

At least I had the reassignment, though a two-hour commute would have been Momma’s way of telling me to take my lumps before the lord himself started flipping tables in my kitchen.

I couldn’t worry about the gig or Professor Sweeten. I still had enough time this afternoon to wrestle with Dad’s investment portfolio. The stocks transferred smoothly but the retirement funds needed a bit of finagling. I had no idea what I was doing with any of it.

Suddenly, lounging in the pool all afternoon didn’t sound so bad. If Zach didn’t steal it. The man was a literal seal and spent most of his time swimming laps. If he could keep to one side of the resort-styled pool, he might have been good company. As much as it pained me to say it, he had been fun so far.

Zach could reach the top shelves in the kitchen for the popcorn. And he didn’t mind binge watching entire seasons of shows at once on Netflix. He also killed a house centipede for me, which should have canonized him as a goddamned saint.

He hadn’t made a pass at me. Hadn’t tried to kiss me. And he let me hold the remote.

So far, the sexual deviant was a perfect gentleman. His promise rang in my head.

The next time he came into my bedroom, he wasn’t leaving till morning.

Thoughts like that didn’t make the trip home any better. I pumped the radio and tried to think of anything but how fun a forbidden all-nighter would be.

Sin. Disaster. Perversion.

Muscle. Power. His lips…

That offer.

I screeched the car to a halt before I made it to the garage. I parked behind a little, red Porsche that hadn’t been there when I left.

Who drove the midlife-crisis-mobile?

I edged out of the car, and my heels clicked against the walkway. The front door abruptly opened.

A little blonde bunny slipped outside. She squeezed Zach’s hand goodbye.

Oh. He had to be kidding me.

I crossed my arms and let my arched eyebrow do the talking. Blondie got the hint. She fluttered her hair over her shoulder and batted her eyelashes at Zach. Her baby-blues stared at him with some intelligence, but she was still screwing around with a guy in a house that didn’t belong to either of them.

He was such an asshole. My shoes were too good to kick his ass out.

First a snotty professor who insulted my character, and now a step-brother man-whore who disrespected my home, inheritance, and my father’s estate?

No wonder he earned his nickname. The bastard got hard for anything that let him get close enough. If his petty officer waggled near me again, he’d be wise to go on high alert—defcon one. One word, and I’d go nuclear.

“Zach.” The blonde had a soft, sultry voice, and she wore a perfume to match. I’d never get that rosy scent out of the furniture. “Promise me you’ll do as I say.”

He smiled, but the dimples didn’t dig in deep. The dog knew he got caught. I was surprised he could even feel shame.

“Always, Gretchen.”

She hummed. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“Because if I listened, I’d never have to call you again.”

“You’re probably right.” She donned a pair of designer glasses and glanced me over before turning back to him. “I’ll see you next week.”

I pushed past him into the house. He scheduled his sexcapades in front of me!

Goddamn it. He teased me with a promise of a night of blind, perfect, passionate sex to mirror the amazing night we had before. Had I less willpower, morals, and a hell of a lot more alcohol in me, who knew what might have happened!

I didn’t care how many centipedes he dispatched for me. He was a no good, perverted, fiend who probably had a girl in every port. Now I was sure of it. He wanted to get with me so he could humiliate me and take my family’s money. Unbelievable.

The front door closed. I stormed into the kitchen. His dirty dishes cluttered the sink, including a glass with a lipstick print on it.

Gross.

Zach followed me. He should have crawled on his knees to apologize.

“This isn’t how it looks,” he said.

I turned, facing a man who thought only with his cock.  “Oh, so you didn’t invite Goldilocks over to my house?”

“Our house.”

“Don’t start.”

“Look, Gretchen is a close friend of mine. She was helping me with—”

“Stop,” I said. “I don’t need the details. I know exactly what she helped you with. The same thing I helped you with two weeks ago.”

“Shay—”

“You know what?” I took a cleansing breath. “You’re a grown man. You’re entitled to do whatever or whoever you like to do.”

“Listen to me—”

“I don’t care what you do, Zach. Drink the milk out of the carton. Invite over all your friends. But you will stay out of my way.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, from now on, we’re two separate people in this house. I’ll live my life, and you’ll have yours. I’m done with you.” I shoved the dirty plate and two glasses into his arms. “You can buy your own food, wash your own dishes, and keep out of my rooms. I want nothing to do with you.”

He laughed. “You think you’re just going to…ignore me? We live together, Shay.”

“No. We share the same house. That’s it.”

“The least you can do is hear me out.”

“Oh, now you want to talk?” I poked at his chest. “Where was that initiative two weeks ago? We needed to have a very important conversation before you decided to fuck your sister.”

“For Christ’s sake, you’re my step-sister.”

“You’re only after what doesn’t belong to you. And not just me. This house. The money.”

He had the audacity to get irritated. “The house and money are legally mine.”

“Not for long. Once you’re gone, I’ll be glad to get your ass-print off my furniture.”

I left him with his dishes. He yelled after me.

“So you’re giving me the silent treatment?”

That was the plan.

“It won’t work, Shay.”

Watch me. I didn’t answer. He didn’t deserve it.

He chuckled from the kitchen, setting the plates back in the sink.

Unwashed.

“This is going to be a fun game, Shay. Just you wait. You’ll break before I do.”

Like hell. Nothing else was going to break around here. Not my resolve. Not my anger.

And not my heart…even if a tiny fragment already cracked.

Used and hurt.

Chapter Nine – Shay

Sex dreams didn’t count as incest…right?

I mean, people couldn’t control what they dreamed about. What flashed in my head wouldn’t damn me forever as a perverted, reprehensible sex-fiend. It just meant that the heart-pounding, muscle-rending, core-clenching visions were the result of my subconscious—a part of my mind that was much more deviant than I realized.

I tried to avoid Zach, but three days of radio silence was hardly a punishment. We still lived in the same space, and the mansion somehow shrunk to the size of a walk-in closet. We bumped on the stairs. Brushed hands in the garage. Accidentally blessed each other when we sneezed in the hall.

Zach grinned whenever he saw me, and I fell for the dimples every time.

I stayed away from him during the day. But at night?

My dream had us meeting in the garden, embracing under the roses, and committing delicious sins right there in the dirt. It was where we belonged. We were sex-crazed, immoral menaces, and it nearly ruined our lives.

Zach thought our indiscretions were harmless. After all, our parents weren’t married that long. It was easy for us to rationalize, but if our friends or families found out? That was a shame I couldn’t confront yet.

Hell, I couldn’t even approach Zach after having the sexiest dream of my life. I hid in my room all day just to steer clear of him. I longed to busy myself with lesson plans, but nothing for my classes or student teaching gig had been assigned yet. I checked the calendar. Four months until I graduated from college, one semester early, all thanks to Dad. He bought me a couple extra credits my freshman and sophomore year because I planned to get out into the real world as soon as possible.

Everyone—even my family and friends—assumed I wanted to inherit my trust early.

They thought I was in it for the money, and I hated having that reputation. I wasn’t a money-hungry, trust-fund baby, step-brother humper. That was not the legacy I wanted to leave on this world.

Fortunately, I could get rid of the step-brother easy enough. As soon as I got my trust, I’d buy his stake in the mansion, and he’d be out of my life quicker than I could say skeleton in the closet.

But first, I had to live with the man-whore. Except who was I to judge him? I slept with him, a complete stranger, just to have a quick, one-night stand. It was the greatest sex of my life, but it didn’t make me a pillar of morality.

Still, there was a big difference between me and Zach. He was an unrepentant playboy who propositioned me, was rejected, and then immediately leapt into bed with the first bimbo he could find.

A woman he brought into my house.

It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did.

I abandoned my laptop and ducked into a cold shower. It didn’t dull the fire in my belly or the dreamy, forbidden fantasy that swirled in my mind. He wasn’t worth my anger. Hell, he hardly deserved the passing glance I gave him when we headed to bed last night.

I just needed to clear my head. I spent entirely too much time thinking about that ass.

Literally.

I was supposed to be enjoying myself. I had two weeks until my student teaching job began, and I deserved a vacation from the insanity that was weddings, funerals, inheritances, and incest.

My stomach grumbled. Momma always said she could tell a proper lady in two ways—how graceful she acted in the face of adversity, and the quality of her shrimp and grits.

Well, I already humiliated myself with my current adversary, including indulging in activities in the bedroom I wasn’t sure had real names. The least I could do was have a home-cooked meal.

I showered, dressed, and spent too much time and money at the grocery store. Zach and I had a new agreement.

What was mine was mine.

What was his could rot in the sun for all I cared.

I bought my own food, claimed my own rooms, and smacked his hand when he stole one of my chocolate chip cookies. We shared the house, and that was it. I’d be damned if I let him near any of my desserts.

Including me.

My car’s trunk filled with groceries. I thought hauling the bags in from the curb to my old apartment was difficult. No wonder people hired help in estates this big. I was out of breath by the time I hit the hall and struggled just to lift the plastic bags onto the island. I grunted and went back for the bottled water.

Zach watched it all in amusement. He munched on an apple over the sink, but he didn’t offer to help—the silent treatment went both ways.

He set a box of spaghetti, a giant pack of ground meat and sausage, and a can of marinara sauce on the counter. I watched as he filled a pot too small for noodles with water. He warmed a skillet for his meat and claimed the entire cutting board for his mess.

What an ass. It was no accident that he started cooking the instant I got home. He just wanted to get in my way and under my skin while I made my dinner.

The mature, responsible thing to do would have been to surrender the stove until he was done. Screw it. I wasn’t letting that bastard chase me out of my own damn kitchen.

Shrimp and grits were on the line. Wars fought for less.

I dropped the fresh shrimp on the counter—whole and raw like Momma and Gran preferred—but the sink filled with his dishes. Two glasses were rimmed with his chalky protein powder supplements. A plate smeared with mustard. The colander for his spaghetti haphazardly angled to the side so he wouldn’t have to load the dishwasher.

I scowled and piled his mess before rinsing my shrimp. He laughed, still crunching on the apple.

The serpent in the garden had more tact that him.

But I wasn’t going to scold him. He wanted that. Expected it. If he couldn’t get me to talk, he’d try to rile me up. And usually it worked.

Not this time.

No way.

If he was that bored, he could call little Miss Tasty-Cake for a romp.

I ignored him as I cleaned the shrimp, but I needed the stove to get my bacon rendering and the grits on to boil. Zach paid no attention to the chunk of meat he burned in the skillet. I turned, nearly dropping the bowl of deveined shrimp.

The gas burner cranked all the way up. His ground meat smoked and charred on the bottom while the top quivered, pink and cold.

I wasn’t about to help him fix his mess, but he’d burn the damn house down!

I cleared my throat with all the subtlety of a cough with laryngitis. Zach grinned, pitched his apple core away, and flipped the meat. Half of the charred gunk stuck to the pan.

Then he dumped the noodles into the pot.

Lord have mercy, the water wasn’t even boiling.

Did he have any idea how to cook? No wonder he ordered out, brought in pizza, chicken, and hoagies. He wasn’t bulking—he was barely surviving on his own. The boy was lucky he managed to cut a bologna sandwich in half.

Not. My. Problem. I let him do his thing.

I searched the lower cabinet for a pot to cook the grits and a skillet for the shrimp. My father had excellent foresight in ordering three crystal gravy boats for special occasions but only one suitable skillet.

Fine. Shrimp and grits. From a wok. We’d call it fusion and I could sell it at a sixty percent markup in a restaurant.

I grabbed the dish. Zach moved behind me to stir his pasta. I rose, but my butt bumped his legs.

Not his legs.

Oh, God.

I bent over, head in the damn cabinet, booty on display, and I knocked into his hips. A rush of heat that should have gone to my cheeks decided to bolt straight down to the troublemaker between my legs.

I had deliberately ignored her this morning, a punishment for the dream about Zach.

Well, that was a mistake.

I couldn’t blame my reaction on the sexy dream. This particular bout of shame and weakness was brought to me by the letter F—as in Fuck, I should not be grinding against my step-brother’s legs. Terrible, sensual thoughts popped into my head. I imagined his hands holding my hips. Fierce strokes of his namesake that hit everywhere unholy inside me.

I remembered him in both reality and the dream, everything from his dusty scent to the monster between his legs.

Hard.

My senses came back to me…and they were pissed off.

Zach was hard.

I launched forward, crashing into the cabinet. The dishes and glasses above rattled around, but the only thing broken was the spell that sleezeball put me under.

I grunted and untangled myself from the pots and pans, but Zach already turned his attention, chiseling at the crispy flecks of meat in the skillet I needed.

He whistled a little tune.

Like nothing had happened. Like nothing passed between us. Like nothing about me bending over even affected him.

And why would it? The man-whore probably humped everything from here to Washington D.C. while he was on leave—storing it up for the long winter of his deployment like a perverted little squirrel. Money and girls. All the same to him.

So why did I let him bother me?

I gritted my teeth and slammed my wok against the stove. He turned off the burner. His sausage was still pink but the ground meat was Cajun blackened. I grimaced as he stirred the paste-like gloop that became of his noodles. The fool couldn’t even feed himself. He needed a personal chef more than a mansion.

Didn’t his parents teach him anything about the kitchen? He didn’t seem the home-maker type, and, from the bits I heard about Emily, his mother wasn’t either. She was the perpetual cleansing dieter—the one who ate a piece of ginger after every five raspberries to catch the free radicals. Her wedding menu demanded free-ranged chicken, cage-free eggs, deep-massaged beef, and non-GMO, pesticide-free, herbicide-free, taste-free salads, so fresh you could see where the caterpillars had munched.

It must have been her idea. My father used to eat McDonalds cheeseburgers he accidentally dropped on the ground.

I washed a knife and readied my ingredients, but curiosity burned me. I knew nothing about Zach’s family or his mother. I hadn’t even asked.

But nope.

I wasn’t getting involved. I didn’t care what Zach did. My only concern was that he didn’t imprint the taste of his insult to Italy into our best skillet.

I added water to my pot and opened the bag of white, stone-ground grits. My stomach rumbled in anticipation, but it sunk when I opened the fridge. I wanted to keep our food separate, but getting the label maker was probably a little overkill. I shifted the containers, moved the drinks, and searched behind Tupperware’d leftovers. Then I uttered an uncouth word and groaned.

No butter.

Thank God Gran wasn’t alive to witness this travesty. Only two sins existed in the world for her—taking the Lord’s name in vain and substituting anything for butter. Both margarine and profanity offended the baby Jesus.

 I didn’t need Zach to sneak up behind me, summoned by my groan and the frustrated shoving of his Gatorade from my shelf. He reached over my head, aiming for a can of fake cheese that would be the best part of his meal. His arm brushed mine.

My heart stopped.

No, it leapt into my throat, which was good because it prevented me from speaking to him. In the drawer with his parmesan—butter. Four glorious sticks.

The only thing more humiliating than arriving home to greet his booty-call was the temptation to break my vow of silence and ask to borrow some butter.

But the brush of his body devastated my defenses, destroyed my self-made promises, and betrayed me to the rush of shivers over every sensitive part of me.

He radiated a perfect heat. His scent promised a sexy tease. And his low hum? That rumbling cadence of his murmured song sent me reeling.

He hovered. He loomed. He invaded my space.

And all I wanted was one broken, foolish moment where our bodies would touch and I could sink into his impossible strength. My head buzzed with the hope of earning another caress from his award-worthy fingers.

Zach radiated trouble. He was the alcohol in a mixed drink of mistakes. The patient zero of a love-sick epidemic. The catalyst of a reaction that centered only on me.

It was wrong and idiotic. I knew he was as much a fiend as he was a liar.

Except, during that perfect night we spent together, he didn’t seem like any of those things. He was just…Zach. Testosterone. Sex. Passion.

He was a cocky bastard who had no problem sexing up his step-sister and stealing an inheritance from a will with ink that wasn’t even dry. So why did I still had that tickling, foolish hope that he was different? I didn’t want him to be a bad guy. I wanted to someday forgive him.

But I wasn’t that naive.

Besides, a pot of hot, creamy, cheesy grits was the next best thing to sex. I didn’t need his hands on my body, lips on my neck, or weight crushing me into the bed.

I just needed butter.

I didn’t even have to ask.

Zach leaned over me, pressing his hips against mine as though he planned to take me then, there, and in danger of breaking the eggs. He reached, and the irresponsible vixen in me hoped it was to loop his arm around my waist and have his way with me on the floor.

Instead, he rooted through his supplies and handed me a stick of butter. How it didn’t melt instantly in my hands was a modern day miracle.

I swallowed. He pulled away before I could thank him without actually speaking.

I was just lucky I hadn’t sunk to my knees and showed him how grateful I felt.

Zach whistled as he stirred the charred mess of his pasta. He added a generic can of sauce over the chaos and tossed a lid on the horror. It simmered as I started the grits and cooked my shrimp in the rendered bacon fat, onion, garlic, and enough cayenne to put hair on your chest, as Gran used to tell Grandaddy. It only took about twenty minutes to come together—enough time for Zach to burn his first batch of garlic bread and douse our toaster with brunt garlic powder caked onto the slots.