She sat up straighter, his tone pushing her least favorite button. “Then I’ll pay for the gas to get back to Dallas.”
He shoved off the dresser, rising to his full height, a smirk hiding beneath his five o’clock shadow. “And my grandmother would flip in her grave. Women in my world don’t pay for anything.”
Her hackles rose. “Well, now wa—”
He took her hand and rubbed a thumb across the top of it, his touch incinerating the thoughts in her brain. “You’ve had a rough twenty-four hours. I don’t need your money. And you don’t owe me anything. Though I do have one small request, Ms….”
“Beaumonde.”
“Beau— Wait a second,” he said, cutting off whatever he’d been planning to ask her and dropping her hand like she’d become contagious. “Do you know Max Beaumonde?”
She frowned, trying to pull herself from the hypnotic state his touch had induced. “Yes. He’s my older brother.”
Grant tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling. “Ah, hell. Of course he is.”
Charli had no idea if her head injury was messing with her focus, but she had trouble following the shift in Grant’s demeanor and the conversation. “You know him?”
Grant sniffed. “Yeah, you could say that. He’s got a bullet lodged in his shoulder that was meant for me.”
Charli stared at him, the words taking a few moments to register. “You’re Ice?”
A dark cloud seemed to cross over Grant’s face. “Was. Gotta love those army nicknames.”
Her brother had told her stories about his army buddy, Ice. Had told her the guy had gotten his name because nothing seemed to get to him or scare him. But when one of their missions had gone awry, Max had ended up being the one to protect Ice from a fatal shot. Her brother had gotten a medal for it, but no one in her family had ever met the guy Max had saved.
“Wow, Max will be thrilled to know you’re only a state away. He lives in Baton Rouge.”
Grant went to the tray of food, turning his back to her. He busied himself pouring a bottle of water into a glass. “He knows where I am. We’ve kept in touch. He’s mentioned he had a sister a few times, but I assumed you were in Louisiana with the rest of his family.”
The air in the room had changed directions—awkwardness replacing the electricity she’d felt moments before when he’d held her hand. She cleared her throat. “Uh, you were saying you had a request for me?”
He headed back her way and set the glass of water on the bedside table. “Never mind. Wasn’t important. Now you rest up, and I’ll check on you later tonight. My cell number is next to the phone if you need anything.”
What she needed was him touching her again, but apparently that buzz of sexual energy had only been one-sided.
“Grant?”
He turned around in the doorway. “Yes, ma’am?”
“If you do talk to my brother anytime soon, don’t mention this, okay? His heart’s in the right place, but he’s a little…overprotective.” And bossy and overbearing. And thinks she can’t handle the big, bad city alone.Author: Roni Loren
“Yeah, sure, no problem.” Grant’s gaze traced down the length of her, lines of strain around his mouth. She thought she heard him mutter—who could blame him?—but he walked out before she could ask.
Grant shifted on the too-short couch, trying to find a comfortable position, but only ended up twisting his blanket into a knot around his thighs. With a groan, he yanked off the blanket and sat up. The clock had already crossed over to four a.m., so falling asleep had sort of lost its point anyway. He rolled his shoulders, trying to coax out the tension that had embedded there the moment he’d caught Charli looking at him with interest in her eyes.
Charli-freaking-Beaumonde. He’d been on the verge of asking her out—a stupid move in the first place because he didn’t mess with women who weren’t part of the scene. That was setting up disaster from step one. Nothing like springing on a vanilla person—Hey, I’m a dominant and a sexual sadist. Oh, and I run a BDSM resort where I have submissives offering themselves to me daily. Yeah, fun conversation.
But it would’ve been even worse if he had found out afterward that she was Max’s sister. The guy had saved Grant’s life and was a real friend—even if they didn’t talk often these days. And Grant knew that Max’s protective streak ran deep enough to rival his own.
That killer protective instinct was why Max had been there the day Grant had ended up walking right into a trap. Grant had wandered from camp, needing to be alone after realizing it was the one-year anniversary of something he couldn’t bear to remember but couldn’t ever forget. He’d been numb and honestly not caring if he lived or died—but Max had followed. Had watched Grant’s back and, ultimately, had jumped in front of him when Grant had found himself on the bad end of an enemy soldier’s gun.
Max had risked his life without hesitation to protect him. So Grant could only imagine how protective and not-cool-with-it Max would be if Grant had made a move on his baby sister.
No, Grant had to do the right thing. Even if that meant he’d gone to bed with a headache and a case of blue balls. He just needed to get Charli back to her own place and out of his line of sight. Then he needed to get over his picky tendencies and take up one of the submissives at The Ranch on her offer and indulge his starved libido.
He’d let himself go too long and had gotten to the point where he wasn’t thinking straight—where he’d actually considered asking a girl on a date.
He didn’t do dating. Or relationships. Or vanilla. What exactly had he thought he would do with a girl like Charli? Take her out for a movie and then what? The minute she found out how dark his cowboy hat could get, she’d hightail it like a jackrabbit running from a bobcat.