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“I’m lucky, I know. I see my privilege. I have amazing parents, and they have the resources to give me a huge gift like this. But ... I drove from Chicago this morning, home for the first time since Christmas. And when I got here, the first thing my family did, right after hello, was show me how they’d moved me out of the house I grew up in, while I wasn’t looking. I’ve been in town since this afternoon, and I still haven’t been inside the house I grew up in.” Gia looked into Zaxx’s crystal blue eyes and pulled into the light the thing that had been rotting inside her all day. “I think I hate this wonderful thing they did for me. It hurts.”
Something changed in his eyes, the blue seemed to deepen, but he didn’t say anything. He simply peered into her, giving her that intense, enigmatic look. He brushed her hair back, then rested his hand against the side of her neck, letting his thumb graze the edge of her jaw.
“You think I’m an ungrateful princess, right?” Gia said when his focused quiet had gone on longer than she could bear. “Entitled as fuck.”
He shook his head. “No, I get it. I hadn’t thought about it like that, I just saw a really cool present, but I get it. You were looking forward to home, and this isn’t that.”
Relief settled around her heart like a blanket, and she nodded. That was exactly it.
“They didn’t do it to throw you out,” he said. “I know you know that. And I know I don’t have to tell you how hard your folks love you.”
“No, you don’t. That’s why this is fucking with my head so much—they did it because they love me. They did it to make me happy. Usually when I don’t like something, even a gift, I’m honest about it, but”—she threw out an arm to encompass the room around them—“Fuck, this was so much work and so much money. I guess the whole club was in on it in some way, too. How do I say I don’t want what my whole fucking family worked so hard to give me?”
“If you’re honestly asking—”
“I am. If you have an answer, that would make one of us.”
“I don’t think you can, G. It’s not like this is a shirt you can take back to the store. It’s here to stay. I think you have to figure out a way to want it.”
Gia laughed with a weary glimmer of humor. She saw it the same way, which was why she felt trapped. “I was hoping for a different answer.”
“Sorry. But ... I do have an idea about how you could start working on liking this place.” As he finished his thought, he leaned in, replacing his thumb with his lips, leaving gentle kisses in a trail from her chin to her ear. At her ear, he whispered, “We could make some pretty great memories here, if you want.”
Well, look at this guy. He’d stood toe to toe with her in an argument without flailing or letting it darken his mood or weaken their still-forming connection. He was honest and direct, and he was compassionate as well. Also seriously hot—all the hotter now, as she began to know him.
“I like that plan,” she said and flung her arms around his neck. “My bed’s upstairs.”
He smiled another halogen smile. Then, with smooth grace and easy strength, he clutched her ass and lifted her up. “Point the way, princess.”
Chapter Nine
Gia was heavier than Zaxx expected. He had her and was in no danger of dropping her, but those long legs weighed him down, and her bedroom was up a funky flight of stairs. That would be a brief but intense workout, but he fully intended to carry her up to her bed and not give even the subtlest indication that he had to work for it.
As he had that thought, two or three strides from the staircase in question, he felt pressure around his feet and legs, like he was getting tangled up in something left on the floor, and almost tripped. As he looked down, trying to see and get clear of whatever it was, he felt a small, rounded weight on the top of his boot. A paw.
One of her cats. The bigger, darker one.
That was one too many challenges. Zaxx stopped and set Gia down.
“Aw,” she said in a voice replete with mischief, “I’m too much for you already?”
Zaxx laughed. “No, but your cat might be trying to kill us.”
“Cheesy!” She dropped into a crouch and picked up the big ball of orange fluff. “You’re not trying to kill us, are you? You just want some lovins.” She snugged him (her?) up to her face and buried her nose in his long fur. He gave Zaxx a smug look. Was that feline jealous? Establishing his territory?
Talking to her cat, Gia’s voice changed wildly, from a holy-fuck sexy alto with a bonus touch of rasp when she was arguing, to a baby-talk soprano with all the edges smoothed off her consonants. The fiery warrior was also a cooing cat lady. He could barely hold both versions of her in his head at the same time.
This girl was fucking fascinating. She turned every exchange into a challenge. In the few hours of this night, she’d had him revising multiple ideas and opinions, rethinking things he wanted to say and the way he wanted to say them, and she’d mostly done it without aggression of either the passive or active variety.
She’d gotten angry about the money thing—or whatever that was; he’d barely been able to keep up during that argument. But she’d been pissed at what he’d said, not at him personally. That was some nuance he’d have to examine later. He didn’t think he was capable of separating a person from their words, but he thought he admired it in her.
She reminded him a little of Zelda, except Gia had her shit together way more than his sister yet did. Also Zelda’s personality was about ninety-percent aggression. She was definitely not capable of separating person and words.
With a loud kiss to the top of the cat’s head, Gia set him down. He headed off to the sofa with the smug strut of a job well done.
“He’s cute. His name is Cheesy? Or is that a nickname?”
“It’s sort of both. They have a zillion nicknames—that’s a rough estimate—but his formal name is Cheddar Cheese.” She nodded at the pale-ginger cat who’d watched the show from the sofa and was now getting an ear bath from Cheese. “And that’s his brother, Ritz Crackers.”
