I step back from the drawers and look them up and down to make sure everything is where it should be. Then, turning, I carefully unzip Ryan’s duffel and peek at his things. “They taught us how to survive. And right now, I’m barely keeping my head above water. You’re stressing me out, because you’re funny and silly and witty and so fucking beautiful, looking at you feels like a sin. But you’re also your brother’s sister, and nothing in my entire life has ever left me so damn conflicted.”
“Glad it’s not just me, then. Also, your loan application bounced back because there was a misnomer in your Social Security number. If you could come down to the bank at yournext convenience, I need you to fix that up and have the change certified. Then I can send the application out again and get the loan sorted for you.”
“That’s annoying.” I drag a pair of boots from the bag and turn them over to check the soles for a tiny, almost-invisible slit cut into the rubber. Who knows; a soldier might slide a chip in there. A key. A clue, maybe, that spells out ‘the thing you’re looking for is taped behind a photo frame to your left.’ And because I think it, I set the untampered boots down and glance around the room for photos. “I can swing by just before the close of business. Is that cool?”
“Sure.” She takes a quiet bite of her lunch. “I finish at five, so be here at ten-to, and I can get that settled for you.”
“Really?” I wander to a large painting on the wall—a thick, beveled frame surrounding a riverbank scene most would only see in hotels. Which makes it suspicious as fuck, hanging from a soldier’s bedroom wall. “You won’t even stay back for me? Am I so unimportant?”
She scoffs. “I’m happy to, but you need Edwin to certify the change to your documents, and he leaves at five. If you’re late, poor Edwin will have to stay back. Or worse, you risk missing him altogether. In which case…”
“I’ll be there before five.” I fake a chuckle, but grit my teeth as I pull the painting away from the wall and run my fingers along the taped backing.Keys. Code. Cards.Give me something! “Maybe skip your afternoon snack, so we can head to dinner right after we’re done at the bank.”
“You won’t even allow me a chance to go home and get changed?” she admonishes. “No date-night dress for you? Nomakeup and fresh hair?” She tut-tuts. “Shame on you, Mr. Castro.”
“Shame onmefor not nudging you toward performative date-night standards, wasting hours of your evening primping and preparing to look good, purely for the male gaze, so at the end, I can pretend to be a gentleman, when all along, I’m only thinking about which panties you chose for me to discover later?” I make no fucking discoveries behind the frame, so I set it back and carefully straighten it. “Shame onme, Nova?Really?”
“I don’t have date-night panties,” she giggles. “I just have panties. Men get what they get, and if they have the audacity to complain, they get my fist down their throat.”
I step back from the wall and turn in search of my next target. “Has anyone ever made it to the fist down the throat stage?” I start toward the bedside table that matches the wardrobe and drawers. Carefully pulling the knob, I slow already-slow movements when wood scrapes noisily. “Has any man ever had the nuts to complain about your underwear?”
“No.” Her voice is stronger now, at least. Her sniffles, mostly dried up. “I’m what some callparticularin my choice of male companions. Another commonly used derogatory term is frigid. Orthis bitch thinks she’s too good for me.”
I wish we were on a video call, purely so I could see her face while she hoovers her lunch and talks about rejecting assholes. Which is a ridiculous thought, considering where the fuck I am and what I’m doing.
“My brother took his job as my keeper seriously,” she adds. “Which made high school especially perilous for anyone who looked my way. And then my early adult years were, in some ways, better, but worse. Because by this point, my hormonedump, where I was most likely to do stupid shit, was passing. I was able to approach dating with a more critical eye. Casual sex is fine. I enjoy it, really. But if something crazy were to happen—the life-altering, we’re never going to escape each other, stuck together for the next eighteen years kind of crazy—then I needed to know I could handle that time with that person.”
“You mean if you got knocked up?” I slide notebooks and random side-drawer junky things across to see what’s beneath. “You weren’t planning on having a kid, but on the off-chance protection failed and those super sperm motherfuckers struck gold?”
“Right.Just in case. So, someone like Aaron Dixon, for example. Is he nice? Sure. Is he ugly? Not terribly. Would he be good in bed?” She pauses on that one, considering. “I doubt it. But would I want to carry his child and be stuck to that family for the rest of my life?”
My lips turn up in a nasty sneer at the very thought. “Fuck no.”
“Exactly. So even if we were to double or triple up on protection, which is something I do anyway, the chance of something permanent happening is still there. Small, sure. But the chance exists.”
“Wait.” I set everything back in its place and inch the drawer closed, then I stand tall and rest my hand on my hip. “You were throwing yourself at me just a few minutes ago, Ms. Nichols. Are you saying I’m worth the risk of a lifetime sentence?”
“I’m saying I’m going through some shit right now, you’re buying the house next to mine anyway, and you probably-sorta-not really come with my brother’s blessing.”
“Probably-sorta-not really,” I scoff.Fuck me, she couldn’t be more wrong. “Charming.”
“You’re not ugly. You’re tall and broad.” She ticks each detail off as if she carries a list. “You speak of your sister with love, which means you’re kind and protective. You possess life skills, thanks to good old Uncle Sam. You can fix my electrical issues on command. And your butt looks nice in jeans.”
“My butt?” I forget my mission and twist to glance back at my ass. “You think so?”
“Mmm,” she happily sighs. “I’ll triple-protect, no matter what. But if something crazy happened and the universe decided to screw me over, I’d choose you to marry and eventually divorce long before I chose Aaron Dixon.”
“Oh, well. Shit.” I frown. “I feel… special.”
“You should. I haven’t taken the risk with anyone in a while, and the last time I did, we ran into that tiny penis situation, which was a horrifying letdown.”
“You’re shaming an entire demographic of men, you know that?” I shake my head and lower into a crouch, grinning as I carefully drag the bottom drawer out. “They can’t help what they were born with, Nova. But you’re out here making breeding decisions based on genes. If everyone thought like you, the small-penis folks would go extinct.”
“Like I said,” she snickers. “You can have a small penis and a fantastic personality. Or a crappy personality and a way to make me lose my mind so I don’t notice. You don’t get to be annoyingandunderwhelming. Though I wonder, Mr. Castro.” Her smile is audible, so I see it in my mind and hear it through the line. “I sometimes wonder if you insist on defending the sadly under-packed because you, too, are lacking downstairs.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Yet, my cock swells until my zipper becomes a prison. I’m working and flirting with my target at the same time.I’m going to hell. “Maybe I’m insecure and terrified you’ll reject me once we’re naked.”
“Which is probably why you insist on dinner only,” she ponders. “Holding hands. You want to woo me with your personality so that when you pull your dick out, I won’t scream and run away.”
