“It’s a busy weekend. I’m heading out of town on Sunday.” Family responsibilities didn’t erase the commitments he’d already made to several clients. Luckily a lot of what he did could be done from any location.
“Anywhere exciting?”
“Not really.” He didn’t want to lie, but he also didn’t want Kenzi to worry.
“Drop by in th
e afternoon at least. Please. Andrew and Helene are up for the weekend. You know how much Mom and Dad love having all of us together.”
They do and I can work on the plane. “You win. I’ll be there. If I could put in a request, though. Please not charades again.”
Kenzi laughed. “Dax said the same thing. I, on the other hand, think it’s hilarious to watch you try to look cool while acting out movie titles.”
“Yes, well, we have a word for that same experience—torture.” He smiled as he spoke, though, because there was a time when every exchange with his family had been strained. Game night had been Asher’s wife’s suggestion while they were dating, and it had helped to heal his family. A couple times a month he and his siblings gathered at their parents’ house and talked about nothing of importance. Impossible as it was to imagine that something so frivolous could achieve anything, game night had brought his family closer together. Considering what his family was dealing with now, that closeness was especially important.
“Emily suggested Bullshit. It’s a game where you say what you’re discarding but don’t show the cards. If someone doesn’t believe you they call bullshit, and if you lied you have to pick up the pile.”
“So it’s a test of how well we lie.”
“It’s a game, Grant. Children play it. No one is going to judge you for being the world’s worst liar—much. I mean, we’ll tease you about it, mercilessly probably, but it’ll all be in fun.”
“Sounds like a good time,” Grant said wryly.
“See,” Kenzi joked, “a little white lie now and then won’t kill you.”
I should work on that skill. I’ll need the poker face when I introduce myself as Mr. Enynaim. Rather than admitting that, however, he decided to tease his sister. “Have too much fun at my expense, and I’ll ask to see your checkbook. Or have you started balancing it since you got married? Maybe that’s a question for Dax.” Until recently he wouldn’t have felt comfortable enough to joke with Kenzi about her husband, but the fabric of his family was changing. Which was one more reason why he chose to be the one to find out what happened to Kent. It needed to be handled just right. Asher would have acted first and thought about the consequences later. Ian would have concealed the truth if he thought it might sully the family name. Neither would have helped his family.
With a light laugh, Kenzi said, “Dax understands my system. I don’t need to balance to the penny like some people—ahem—I won’t say who. For me, as long as I have a general idea of how much I have I’m fine.”
Grant cringed. In the past he would have given her a lengthy lecture on the importance of those pennies and how those who didn’t count them tended to lose them, but he didn’t. This was an opportunity to imagine what someone who didn’t spend their entire day, every day, crunching numbers would say in response. “If that works for you, great.”
“Save the sarcasm. I’m not as bad as I used to be. Can we talk about something else?”
He frowned. That sounded sarcastic? Dammit. I was shooting for ‘I’m cool with it.’ “Sure, what are you—?” He collided with the back of a woman who was crouched down in the middle of what should have been a clear path and momentum carried him over her, unfortunately without the benefit of his feet beneath him. Had he not learned to tuck and roll to break a fall, he would have faceplanted onto the cement. Instead he tumbled several times, finally coming to a rest on his back.
“What the—?” The swear died on his lips when a beautiful, glistening blonde bent over, grabbed his hand and hauled him to his feet before his head had a chance to stop spinning. When she dropped his hand he swayed briefly.
“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry. I wanted to meet—I mean, I dropped my phone, but I couldn’t let it fall too hard because I’ve already had the screen replaced twice. Not that I knew it was going to fall because how could I? Shit, is that your phone?” She began rushing around collecting pieces of what had indeed been his phone. “Fuck me. Of course I broke your phone. Perfect. Fucking perfect.” She looked at the broken device with the most stunning blue eyes he’d ever seen. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to swear. I do it when I get nervous.” She held out his phone to him. “I’ll buy you a new phone. Friday, after I get paid. Shit. How much does a phone like that cost? Would they have payment plans?”
“It’s insured. No need.” He accepted the pieces while studying the woman before him. She was thin, but with more muscle than women he was used to. Her hair was barely contained by an elastic that was off-center on the back of her head. She looked like she cared more about the workout than attracting male admirers, and that was hot. Outside of his family, women in his circle couldn’t pass a window or mirror without preening. She was real—raw. Regular?
Had he literally run into exactly what he was looking for?
“Thank God because I have maybe twenty bucks in my bank account.” She leaned forward and touched one of his temples lightly. “You’re bleeding. Fuck. Do you feel okay? Do you want me to call someone? An ambulance?”
He closed his hand over hers and felt a jolt of lust rock through him. Instead of talking to a regular person, imagine how much I could learn if I spent a weekend fucking one. This one. This perfectly average, unbelievably sexy, hot mess of one. “Have dinner with me.”
She blinked several times fast before answering. “Did you say dinner?”
“Or breakfast,” he suggested in what he’d been told was his sexy growl and watched her reaction closely. Did she feel it, too? This—heat? “Or both.”
She looked at their linked hands and her mouth rounded in a way that made him want to kiss her right then, right there, before he even knew her name. “You want to have dinner with me?”
“Yes.” The look in her eyes told him she wanted the same, and that’s all he needed to know.
“It’s not every day a woman literally knocks me off my feet.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she pulled her hand free. “Ha. Ha.”
Focus. What would a beer drinking, sports watching man say to this woman? How blunt would he be? He probably wouldn’t follow the three-dates-before-an-orgasm rule of etiquette. Grant stepped closer, and she bit her bottom lip. “Would you be offended if I said you look amazing in those shorts? All I can think about is tearing them off you.”
She tipped her head back as he leaned even closer. “Wow.”
“Yeah. Wow. Come home with me.” I’m ready to taste some regular.
A smile spread across her face. She threw her arms around him, but it wasn’t the passionate embrace he already fantasized about nearly a dozen times during their short acquaintance. It was the brief, tight hug one friend would give another. “I did it. You would totally have sex with me.”
He frowned.
“Audrey was right. I needed a win.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “Thank you.”
“I don’t understand.”
Her smile brightened. “I wish I were the type for a one-night stand because I am that grateful. You have no idea how much this means to me.”
Another woman slowly jogged by and tipped her head in question.
The blonde before him shot her a thumbs up. “He totally would!”
“Didn’t doubt it for a second,” the woman called back.
The blonde let out a happy sigh then sobered a little when she looked him over again. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
He didn’t feel okay. He was turned on and turned upside down. For once in his life he had no idea what was going on or what to possibly say to clear it up. “I must have hit my head harder than I thought, because I’m completely confused.”
“Oh”—she chewed her bottom lip—“because I acted like . . . because you thought I would . . . I’m sorry. It was exciting to think I could do it, but I know myself. I can’t have sex without being in a relationship, and I don’t even know you. Plus my track record lately proves my judgment is way off when it comes to men—”
He pulled her to him then and silenced her with a kiss. It wasn’t me
ant to be a deep kiss, but as soon as his lips touched hers his brain completely shut down and all of his blood headed south. Part of him expected to be smacked. He didn’t know her name. What right did he have to kiss her? When her lips parted for him, a primal need surged within him. His body wanted hers in a purely physical, animalistic way. He wanted to carry her off and fuck her in the bushes, in an alley, and he didn’t care who watched.
This was a wild side of him he hadn’t known existed. Sex had always been good, and he considered himself a considerate lover. It had always been important to him that his partner came first. This was different. His need for the woman in his arms shook him with its intensity. He hadn’t realized how cerebral he was during sex until hunger replaced thought. This was the sex he’d heard people joke about but had doubted was real.
I don’t care why she tripped me or what she’s talking about. I’m going to fuck this woman tonight. All night. And then I’m going to wake up and have her again.
Some experiences were life changing. Viviana had felt this way before—the first time she’d tasted expensive chocolate. Well, not exactly this way, but she remembered closing her eyes to better savor the taste and thinking, “Holy shit, so this is what all the fuss is about.”
Off to the side of a very public bike path, hungrily kissing a complete stranger, Viviana once again thought: So this is what all the fuss is about. She gave herself a moment to savor every unexpectedly decadent sensation.
His kiss was bold and unrestrained. It should have scared her, but instead it called to a side of her that had never been fully satisfied. She’d had tender sex, breakup sex, make-up sex. She’d even once had drunken let’s-agree-not-to-talk-about-this-tomorrow friend sex—but she’d never had this. It was as scary as it was wonderful, though. Like a swimmer being knocked off her feet by an ocean wave, if she didn’t right herself, it had the power to pull her under.
