Page 100 of X's and O's

“No,” she whispered.

I knew it. “You saving that for me, sweetheart?”

She didn’t reply, but the way her body melted into mine told me everything I needed to know. She wanted me just as bad as I wanted her. There was an attraction there that was practically palpable.

Fucking hell, if Tweedledum and Tweedledumber weren’t making a racket in my house right now, I would have happily shown her exactly what I’d planned to do to her before Levi had interrupted our dinner. I grabbed an old hockey stick from the pile of junk sitting on the porch and shoved it through the door handle at an angle that would prevent the door from opening. “Meet me tonight,” I urged. “Let me earn that money.”

She glanced past me, uncertainty in her expression. “I…I don’t know. X and I…”

I’d never had anything against X, other than the fact he was annoying as fuck. But suddenly I was planning all the ways I could brutally murder him.

At least it wasn’t Levi. That would have been worse. I had no attachment to him the way I did to X. He’d be easier to murder.

Wouldn’t Gray have a field day with that revelation. That I actually cared about X.

“Did he ask you to be his girlfriend?” I asked Violet.

She hesitated. “He’s been calling me his wife…”

“Not the same thing, is it?”

“No,” she admitted. Her lips pulled into a line. “I don’t want to cause drama though. Clearly you two are friends—”

“I’ll deal with X. Just say you’ll meet me later tonight.”

I didn’t want her to say no. She’d been all I’d been able to think about for the last few days. Maybe it was the fact we’d been interrupted so I’d never gotten to see the whole thing through. That had never happened to me before.

But it had also been a very long time since I was actually physically attracted to a woman who’d booked my services. Not to mention actually enjoying her company as well. I’d been on enough pointless dates to know that the combination of the two was rare.

And dangerous.

Because a woman like that had the potential to break your goddamn heart when she was no longer yours. I knew all too well how that felt, and it wasn’t something I wanted to repeat.

But I couldn’t walk away either. So I did what I always did.

Made it all about the physical and ignored that something deep inside me wanted more. I leaned in, lips touching that sensitive spot beneath her ear again. “Let me show you what you like, Violet. Let me show you what you deserve from a man, so you never settle for less.”

She shivered.

“Say yes,” I whispered.

“Yes.”

Iwatched Violet’s ass sway as she walked back to her Uber. Once she was inside, I turned around and dismantled the barricade to open the door.

Levi and X both glared at me.

“We’re going to need to have a conversation about what just happened here,” X declared without any of his usual wit or sarcasm.

I sniggered. “I got the girl, X. At least for tonight.”

“Only because you locked us in the house,” Levi muttered.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “You could have walked out the back door and around to the front. But you didn’t. Fight harder next time if you truly want her.”

He glared at me. “I was trying not to be an asshole like I was the other night. If I’d come out there and had to watch you fucking whispering in her ear, I probably would have punched you in the face again.”

I glared back at him, getting really fucking sick of his shit. “Am I supposed to thank you for not doing that?”