This was Huxley, for goodness’ sake. The menace who’d destroyed my fucking kelp forest. The man who made me painfully aware of just how socially awkward and useless he believed me to be.
And no matter how vulnerable he’d sounded with Champ, that didn’t make us friends. It never would.
Stupid me for forgetting.
I grabbed Rodrigo and shoved him in Hux’s arms. “Take him. Take your damned rabbit, okay? And get out of my lair.”
I wanted Hux gone, immediately. If I tried to explain the actual security vulnerability my scans had found, he’d spend more time in here confusing my sex-deprived brain, making me think about all sorts of shit that could never actually happen.
Instead, I’d use the administrator account I’d given myself when I’d accessed Hux’s system to run the script, and I’d patch the damn vulnerability myself. Hux never had to know I’d been in there again.
Hux settled the rabbit with gentle hands, but the look he shot me was hard. “Kicking me out? You have an important HOG date or something?”
I stuck out my chin. “Maybe I do. My boyfriend was asking my advice on a technical issue, actually.”
He looked deeply suspicious and maybe a little angry. “Your boyfriend? Wait, you mean Anomaly451? The HOG player you mentioned the other day? You’re official now? Have you met in person?”
“N-no. Technically, we haven’t met yet. But he’s my boyfriend,” I said stoutly. “Online. And he’s none of your business.”
“Bullshit.”
I squawked in outrage. “It is not—”
“First off,” Hux went on, leaning toward me, “there’s no such thing as an online boyfriend. Until you’re in the same room with the guy, you can’t know if you have chemistry. Do you like the way he smells? The way he smiles? The way he looks at you? The way he carries himself?”
“I— It doesn’t matter. That’s shallow stuff—”
“Does looking at him make your dick swell, even in a crowded room?” He spoke the words casually while cuddling Rodrigo to his chest, which should have made it impossible to take him seriously, but the intensity of his eyes nearly made me swallow my tongue. “Does he make you laugh? Does he know how to get under your skin? Does he make you want to be around him all day long? Does he make you think, ‘Now, that is a man who could take me apart piece by piece and put me back together’?”
“I— He—” My mouth was too dry to complete a sentence.
“No,” he concluded. “He couldn’t possibly. Because you don’t really know him. And second… It is for sure my business if someone’s fucking with family, Kevin.”
I blinked at him. “F-family? Me?”
Suddenly, a miracle happened. Jasper Huxley blushed and looked away. “You know what I mean. Champion Security and any of the people connected to it.”
My heart hadn’t slowed down since the Hux-naked-on-top-of-me scene had paraded its way through my skull, but now, my breathing ticked up to join it.
“Right. Well, Adam’s not fucking with me. He’s… he’s kind. He makes me feel capable and cared for. Unlike certain people.”
“Mmhmm. Anomaly sounds like a real prince.” Hux huffed out a laugh. “I hope for his sake he doesn’t leave his system unguarded when you’re around.”
Ughhhh. Infuriating!
“I could have done something so much worse, and you know it!” I said hotly. “If I’d actually been untrustworthy, if I’d really wanted to fuck things up for you, I could have! I was being helpful.”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks for the help, Kev.” He leaned toward me again, and this time, I held my breath so I wouldn’t get lost in the Jasper Huxley Sensory Vortex. “Stay away from me, and stay away from my shit. Got it?”
He strode out of the room, and the minute the door swung shut behind him, I pushed my chair back from the desk and leaned back in my chair.
“Henry, engage locks,” I commanded.
“Yes, sire.”
As soon as the locks snicked tight, I groaned out loud in the soundproof room.
Hux was going to drive me insane.
But before I could do anything dramatic—like, say, loot Hux’s crop of rainbow parsnips and salt his field—my alarm went off, reminding me that I had a lunch date.
I groaned again but jumped to my feet quickly because my date hated to be kept waiting.
I was so distracted by the encounter with Hux that I completely forgot to answer Adam. Instead, I ran a hand through my hair, made sure my glasses were on straight, grabbed my car keys, and got on the road to Nashville.
“I started to wonder if you forgot how to get here, it’s been so long since you were home,” Grandfather said after we sat down in the private dining room at his golf club, which was exclusively set aside for members.
“I just saw you on Saturday at Carter’s wedding,” I reminded him.
“It’s not the same,” he lamented. “When you decided you wanted to live with Carter in Licking Thicket, I figured you meant for a few weeks. But I suppose I should have known it was permanent when you took Oprah along. You always loved that stuffed duck more than was reasonable for a grown— Oh, gin and tonic for me, please, Maggie,” he told the uniformed server who had, of course, appeared at our table at the moment of peak embarrassment for me, because that was how I rolled.