“Okay, I’ll send you all the details by tomorrow,” he says. “But remember your promise.”
“I will,” I say before disconnecting the call.
I do clean when I get back, it’s the polite thing to do. Then take a quick shower to do some more personal cleaning.
By the time I hear the doorbell, I’ve triple-checked that my house is free of any incriminating items, and my ‘serious shit’ phone is switched off and hidden under a floorboard in my office.
But Sam was right, I never left anything lying around, disposing of every evidence as soon as I possibly could. It’s a pain in the ass to prepare for every new mission, but that’s a fair price for avoiding prison.
Still, you can never be sure when you’ve willingly invited a werewolf with the nose of a bloodhound and hearing of…well, a wolf.
I open the door to a smiling Nicholas. It’s not a surprise. It’snevera surprise. But it still hits me hard every time, that open expression brimming with happiness. It’sannoying.
What has he got to be so happy about anyway? Doesn’t he see the worst of humanity at his job every fucking day? I’m changing my stance. It’s a sociopath I’ve invited into my home. Sam was right to worry about me.
“Are you going to stand there staring at me all night?”Nicholas asks from the door.
“You’re a sociopath,” I declare.
He laughs at my face and nudges past me to enter my house. I close the door and follow him inside. He looks around, his eyes critically assessing every surface. Maybe he’s surprised it’s possible to have clean surfaces that are not littered with useless items that even devout tourists would be ashamed to take home.
He turns to me after inspecting my living room. It’s pretty bare, with a single solitary yellow couch draped in a green throw, which goes well with the off-white walls, a large coffee table, a normal-sized television, and a large open cabinet filled with books.
“Won’t you give me a tour?” he asks.
I roll my eyes, but start walking ahead of him, showing him the rest of the rooms. My small office, an empty room I never got around to decorating, my bedroom with a large bed, blue bedspread, and a large blue closet, and the guest bedroom that’s done in salmon.
When I look back at Nicholas, once we’re in the kitchen, his mouth is hanging open. “I wasn’t expectingthat,” he says after he has composed himself.
“I like colors, sue me.”
“You have accent walls in every room and a pink room,” he sounds so surprised, I want to flip him off.
But I hold off. “It’s salmon. Sam chose most of it anyway, including the guest room, since he’s the only one who stays there. I know it sounds like an unnecessary distinction, but if you knew him, you’d know it’s so not,” I smile, thinking about the time I made that mistake and had to attend a two-hour lecture on color theory.
“Oh yeah, your friend from college,” he says, sounding weird. Suspicious?
No, he can’t be suspicious out of the blue. Maybe he has a hard time believing I have a friend who voluntarily visits me. Honestly?Same.
But Sam gets bored too easily and too often, and my hometypically becomes his escape unless he’s jetsetting to some other part of the world. The man is too rich and too smart for his own good.
He turns to me. “So, the kitchen looks pretty empty. Sam doesn’t like to cook.”
I tilt my head. Yup, I’m done with the interrogation. It's time to get this show on the road. I grab his stupid fitting T-shirt and pull him down until I can slam my mouth against his.
I push him against the wall without breaking contact. He leans back, his legs falling wider to pull me into him. His mouth attacks my lips with a punishing edge until I gasp, forgetting for a second that I was supposed to be leading this.
That and any other thought vanishes when velvet slides against my tongue again. I get on my tiptoes to feel more of his warmth against me. Not close enough.Neverenough.
I pull back. “I need you in my bed,” I say breathlessly.
He nods, takes my wrist in his large hands, and drags me to the bedroom he was just making fun of. He pushes me onto the bed without preamble. I bounce, but there’s no ricochet because he crawls over me, nipping at my jaw.
He moves down my neck, worrying my skin with his teeth before taking my mouth again in a searing kiss. I slide my hand over his back under his T-shirt, feeling his warmth.
I pull the fabric up to feel more of his skin against mine while he kisses me like he's starving. I push him back. “Take it off,” I demand, and he immediately follows.
Then pulls my T-shirt up. I help him take it off because he won't budge, his legs straddling my hips. He kisses down my skin, over my nipples, down to my abdomen, mapping my skin with his lips.
