“Going through your suggestions on social media, thank you, Vixens, for chipping in with your ideas of better names for real-life villains, here we go. The Flaccid, Tiny Penised Pervert. FTPP. That one’s got a nice ring to it.”
I cheer, like it’s a live audience show, as the suggestions get even more ridiculous. Laughing through her tears, Jynxtries to sober up again before wrapping up the segment. “Stop empowering horrible men, that’s all I’m saying. I hope the FBI is listening.”
Biting the bullet, I drop down to my knees and crawl underneath the bed, pulling out the drawer from the very back of my storage space so I can put my lesser worn clothes back into it. It’s like a sound vacuum down there, like an interactive exhibit I saw at a museum as a child, with my father, back in better times, if you can call it that. Nothing but blackness, not even the sound of my podcast makes it through. It’s freaky beingthatalone with just my thoughts and demons, and I back out rapidly, jumping back up and rejoining the conversation.
“I bet the FBIislistening,” I murmur in response to the last thing I heard from her to my empty van. “I hope they’re taking notes too. Might be able to save some lives.”
“So what do you say, Vixens? Are we going to put up with more of this?”
“NO!” I shout, unbridled passion in my voice.
The door to my van slides open and I turn around, shrieking in surprise, only to see a very shocked Weston there, staring at my chest, rapt, jaw dropped, chin practically to his collarbone.
That fifty-degree air is mighty chilly on my bare skin, even if the way he’s taking me in will keep me warm formanynights to come. The draft from the open door caresses my skin almost as strongly as his gaze does, the heat in his stare warring with the chill, and my flesh erupts in goosebumps. After a few seconds that feel like hours, I regain my senses about the same instant he does.
“Fuck!” He slams his hands over both eyes, like he didn’t just gawk at my half-naked form long enough to be able to commission an accurate police sketch in perfect detail of every freckle on my upper body.
Let’s put it another way. If my body ever needs to be identified, Weston would probably recognize my tits before my face at the coroner’s office.
“Well don’t just stand there!” I huff, covering my freezing skin with my palms and turning my back on him. “Come in and close the door.”
He huffs out some sort of confused sound, but I hear the heavy footfalls and feel the van rock with the motion before the side door slides and latches closed.
“Are you okay?” he asks, still sounding stunned.
I grab a shirt from one of the piles on the bed at random and yank it on over my head, letting it fall into place, the cut-off edge ending just below the bottoms of my breasts.
“Clearly.”
I shut the podcast off, leaving the van quietly humming with electricity, nothing but the awkward silence and raging hormones in the air now.
Turning around to face him again, I cross my arms over my chest and stare at him, brows raised in self-defense mode. I don’t get a chance to form questions or accusations, because he lets out a sound like a growl before I can speak, shock still all over his face.
“You have your nipple pierced.” There’s no judgment in the statement. Surprise, yes. But mostly, it’s just awe, appreciation, and wonder.
“Did you win some sort of award on observation as a Boy Scout?”
He shakes his head back and forth slowly, tongue dragging over his lower lip as he keeps those heated eyes focused on my face, with some effort. “Naw, darlin’. That’s a skill I’ve been saving just for you. One of many. Should we do some cramming so I can pass the pop quiz later?”
His eyes drag down my face, jaw, and neck with a palpable pressure on my skin, awakening my nerve endings as he goes.
I drop my hands instinctively, putting them on the backs of my hips as he takes in the sight of me in this shirt. How little of me it covers, and what he can still see through it.
“Hottest tits I ever fuckin saw. Hands down.”
“I’ll add it to my award collection,” I deadpan, pointing to a shelf behind me like it’s full of trophies and plaques of my many achievements, not every measly thing I own, stowed for travel.
Weston still stands in the space in front of my door, hand to his jaw, still seemingly mesmerized.
“Did you break in just to drool at me? You’re going to leave a puddle if you keep staring.”
I’m past the point of worrying for my physical safety around this guy. My mental fortifications might need some work around him, he makes me want things that aren’t safe for me, but physically I know I’m in no danger with him.
Call it experience, or a woman’s intuition, maybe it’s my Pisces gifts, or the males I was around in my younger years. Whatever you want to chalk it up to, I can sense when a guy has danger below the surface, and in my few encounters with this man, I can already tell you that he ain’t it.
Could I see him throwing down with an asshole who overstepped some boundaries once or twice? Sure. But he’s not one of these guys with anger issues seething beneath the surface, waiting for someone to take them out on.
So whatever he came here for tonight, it was wholesome enough. I’m not getting creeper vibes from him.
