Good thing he was partnered up with Gigi. She was cool in the face of Darcy’s threats and all the never ending shit that had just been dumped in their laps. Looking at her now, that resilient charge ahead I can do anything expression on her face was surprisingly comforting. Though he supposed growing up in the Sanctuary, facing an apocalypse every other Tuesday would make all this crap going on rather matter of fact. He wonderedwhat she was thinking about? Was she making mental shopping lists for her catering business? Or was she wishing she’d never been partnered with him, given all the baggage he was hauling around?
Saint Medard, was she regretting the sex?
“So…?” Time to bite the bullet and find out what she was thinking.
“Do you want to start in here or the bathroom? I’d better throw those sheets in the washer first before we start cleaning. They’ll take the longest.”
“Don’t you think we should talk, about what Darcy said? At least discuss the logistics of having to be this so-called big romantic distraction?”
“What’s to discuss? We act loved up. Do the candlelight dinner and walk on the beach thing. And in private spend the next ten days trying to work out how to keep everyone safe at the baby shower.”
“And what about…” Nico waved a hand towards the bedroom. “… the other stuff?”
“Sex?” Gigi blinked as if she were only just recalling they’d spent the night together. Bloody Hell, that was hard on his ego. “Oh, business as usual, don’t you agree?”
Okay, she wanted them back on strictly business partner terms. Damn, every cell in his body, now that he’d had a taste of Gigi carnally craved more. And it had nothing to do with that darn just detectable pulsing pull she exuded. That was nothing but a slippery path of feelings, and declarations of love, or insanity, as he’d now come to know it.
No, all he wanted was a few more bouts between the sheets with her. Burn out whatever this thing was between them, which was purely of a physical nature. No nasty emotions to see here. Nico admittedly disappointed Gigi didn’t agree. Business like? Yeah, his cock was going to take some convincing.
Gigi was still talking. “I mean, as stress relievers go, I believe we’ve lucked onto a winning formula. And I don’t think you’d disagree that the next six days are going to be nothing but problems, my family watching us like hawks, and lots of lots of stress. So behind closed doors, we fuck, we frolic. Keeping things strictly fun, no-strings, no future in it - fucking. And once the Love Deity times three threat has been eradicated, we go our separate ways. Agreed?”
Nico nodded. He was so on board with that plan, he probably resembled a bobble head doll. Gigi DeWitt wanted to use him as a stress relieving sex toy for the next ten days. Blessed be all the Saints.
Chapter Sixteen
“He doesn’t have opposable thumbs.”
“I’m aware.”
“And a different one every day? Where does he get them from?”
“I don’t know.”
“Doesn’t it drive you nuts?” Nico was staring at Canary, currently sitting on the coffee table, his dark purple coat glossy, his tiny nose twitching. The glittering square cut solitaire diamond necklace he was rocking glittering brightly in the afternoon sunshine. “You do realise that’s a real diamond?”
“I had a suspicion.”
“It’s got to be worth upwards of two million dollars. Do you think he stole it?”
Gigi handed Nico a cup of green tea before taking a seat across from him. If they’d been a real couple she would have sat beside him on the couch, snuggled into all that warmth he exuded. Heavens, why couldn’t she get warm? The only time she ever felt normal these days, well, not normal, in fact, overheated if anything, was in bed with Nico. Nope, don’t go there.
She was having to work surprisingly hard at keeping her and Nico’s interactions compartmentalised. In public she played the besotted girlfriend role. Chatting effortlessly. Laughing with him. Reaching out and touching him without having to think about it. Take his hand. Leaning in for a kiss anytime that sexy sparkle in Nico’s gorgeous eyes flared, demanding some kind of acknowledgement.
Then there was the booty hook up arrangement they had going. Easy, perhaps too easy to switch off her brain as soon as the bedroom door was closed, shedding her clothes, stripping Nico,though he was generally way ahead of her. Falling onto the bed in a tangle of limbs, lips and heat, blessed heat.
Shivering slightly, despite the blue sweater she was wearing on this gorgeous sunny day, Gigi clutched her warm mug of tea tighter. Trying not to, but completely failing to not overthink the hardest part of their current arrangement. How to act when it was just the two of them alone, not in the bedroom. Not lovers. Not faux girlfriend and boyfriend.
In fact, no claim on him at all, except their business partnership, to expose and destroy a couple of Lurve demi-goddesses trying to use them as vehicles to wreck chaos in the Sanctuary and help snatch a sun powered up baby about to be born any day.
“So you think my magical construct poison detecting bunny, without opposable thumbs, is a secret elite cat burglar? Breaking into impenetrable security vaults in his spare time? How would he abscond with his ill-gotten gains?”
“That’s easy. He’d just swallow everything and regurgitate it later. For that matter, he doesn’t even need thumbs to access a vault, he could just open his mouth and yak up some kind of metal dissolving solvent, melting the door away.”
“Sounds like you have the mystery solved.”
“Except without thumbs how does he put the damn necklaces on?”
“Annnndd we come back full circle to, I don’t know where the jewellery comes from, or for that matter, where it goes. It just is. And speaking of ongoing mysteries, any luck with your fire-touched powers?”
