“So?We’ll all get to know each other.”
“What if she doesn’t want to stay with us?What if she finds out what we do and decides this isn’t a good fit for her?”
I closed the fridge and turned to face him.
“She doesn’t have anywhere else to go.I’m not comfortable throwing her to the wind and hoping she can justfigure it out.She doesn’t need to know what we do.It’s not like it’s everyday conversation.We’ll have to change how we do things for a little bit, but it’s not a big deal.I’m not worried about any of it.”
“I think you’re missing the most important part,” Asher said, pulling out a barstool and sitting at the island.
“What’s that?”
“You’re attracted to her.”
“So?She’s an attractive woman.”
“Yeah, one who just caught her boyfriend cheating on her.She’s going to be vulnerable, and you know what that means.”
“It won’t happen,” I assured him, already knowing where he was going with this.
It wasn’t uncommon for women to throw themselves at us, especially once they found out what we did for a living.But Violet didn’t strike me as that kind of woman.If anything, I would be more worried that she would freak out about what we did and try to high-tail it out of there.While she was assertive and stood her ground with her idiot ex-boyfriend, something about her screamedgood girlto me.I could tell that she was in a vulnerable position, but the last thing I expected was for her to try to come on to either of us.She didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who would be so bold sexually.
“You say that, but—”
“I said, it won’t happen,” I interrupted curtly, giving him a look that implied that this conversation was over.
He groaned heavily, but dropped it as I went back to the fridge to figure something out for lunch.
Twenty minutes later, I was finishing making club sandwiches when Violet came into the kitchen.Her hair was pulled into a loose pile on her head, exposing her long, slender neck.
“Lunch is ready,” I said, nodding to the table where Asher was sitting.“What would you like to drink?”
“Oh, you don’t have to go through all of this—” she started until I pinned her with a look as I set the sandwiches on the table.I tried to keep my expression firm, but soft, so I didn’t scare her off.
“We know that we don’thaveto do anything.We want to.What you’re going through is a lot, and believe it or not, we are really nice guys who like to help out.It would be our pleasure to take care of you.Our goal is to make sure you feel safe and comfortable while you focus on yourself and figure out your next step.It’s okay to stop and take a moment for yourself, Violet.Just like it’s okay to let others help you when they can,” I said carefully.
“I’m sorry,” she replied with a heavy breath.“I really do appreciate you guys letting me stay for a little bit until I figure things out.I guess I’m just kind of out of it right now.Today has really thrown me a curveball.”
She attempted to smile, but it didn’t meet her eyes as she pulled out the chair beside Asher and took a seat.
“Well, I guess it’s a good thing Asher and I both played baseball in high school, so we’re well-trained to handle curve balls,” I replied as I grabbed three bottles of water from the fridge and set them on the table.
“You both played baseball?”Her gaze shifted up, her gorgeous brown eyes locking on mine.They were the most beautiful shade of brown I’d ever seen, soft like honey with little gold flecks that you could only see if you looked closely.
“We did,” Asher agreed, forcing me to focus on something other than her.“Though I was better at it than Enzo.”
“Like hell you were,” I replied with a snort as I set a sandwich on my plate and waited for her to take one.Once she did, I took a bite and started eating.
“You guys grew up together?”she asked, taking a dainty bite before wiping the corners of her mouth and setting the sandwich on her plate.
“We’ve known each other since second grade.I was the cool kid, and he was the geek,” Asher said.
“I wasn’t ageek,” I corrected.“I just happened to excel at certain things that came in handy later in life.”Like learning how to hack and all of the secrets of the dark web.
She raised her eyebrows in question, but I just winked at her.I wasn’t ready to reveal all of my secrets just yet.A pretty blush flushed across her cheeks in an immediate response to the wink, and I took note of that.While I wasn’t trying to break my promise to Asher that I wouldn’t allow anything to happen between us, I was a man who took pride in making womenfeelcertain things.Knowing what she liked and responded to would be a good thing to keep in my back pocket—just in case.I had never been one to deny a woman pleasure, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to start with her.
“Have you guys always lived together?”she asked before taking another bite.I could see her slowly start to relax, which made me happy.
I couldn’t imagine how stressful all of this was for her.I didn’t blame her for keeping her guard up, especially after finding out her boyfriend had been cheating on her.I couldn’t deal with him the way I really wanted to, but the one thing that I could promise her was that we would always take care of her.She could take the time to reset and focus on what she wanted out of life, while having a safe place to do so.
