AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The contrast between them, her creamy white skin, and the rich chocolate of her hair was arresting. Like God had a sense of humor when he made her, pasting together all the things that shouldn’t go well together into a singular messy canvas, but when he was done—her magnificently wild radiance shone up to heaven. The joke was on him.
“Yo! Walnuts!” she called again. “I’m talking to you, dick cat! Food’s on!”
She turned to me with her eyebrows pinched together, and the simple gesture was enough to break me out of my stupor.
I joined in the search, scanning the room endlessly, and unfortunately, my eyes landed on the open apartment door at the same time Cassie’s did.
Shit.
“You idiot!” she yelled, charging for the door and tearing ass out into the hall.
I followed hot on her heels, pulling her to a stop before she got to the stairwell door and spinning her to face me.
When I’d come in and heard the music, I hadn’t thought of anything but finding the source. I wasn’t used to having a pet, so closing doors wasn’t naturally ingrained. It probably would be now.
“You lost Walter!” she screamed immediately.
“You don’t know that,” I argued. “He could still be in the apartment somewhere.”
“He’s not! That little ass-licker does a lot of stupid things, but he doesn’t skimp on meal times. If you’d helped me feed him at all, you would know that!”
“Cass, calm down.”
“I will not calm down!” she screeched.
I reached out to lay a reassuring hand on her arm at the same time another tenant stepped out of the adjacent apartment.
Prim and proper, the conservative woman wrinkled her nose at Cassie’s outfit and pinched her eyes at me. “All this yelling. I thought this apartment building had a better handle on class.”
Cass turned in a flourish, cocking her head to the side and getting right in the offender’s face. “I will go Holly Holm on your ass!”
I jumped into action, wrapping my arms around her and copping a small feel in the process. She burned me with her eyes, and I tried not to smile, but as I turned back to the still open apartment door, Walter scurried out like a shot and turned the corner in a flash. Releasing Cass, I traveled the space in as few steps as my giant legs would allow, but when I rounded the bend, not a whisker or a hair remained.
Ah, fuck.
The dick cat hadn’t been missing, but he sure as fuck was now.
Bora Bora, Thursday, April 20th, Morning
Glancing at the clock on the bedside table, I could see 7:00 a.m. glowed red and bright. My internal clock was still on East Coast time, and I had started a bad habit of napping in the midafternoon sun for the past three days. Sounds of the ocean filtered through the open terrace doors, a warm breeze brushing across the room and filling it with aromas of salt water and sand.
Stupidly happy. Thoroughly well-fucked. Blissfully sated.
No doubt, I was all of those things.
The sole reason lay beside me, sprawled out on his back, with soft, white sheets barely covering his deliciously naked form. Kline was sound asleep, hair mussed up and a small grin etched across his full lips. He had passed out that way after round three—or was it four?—and that little expression of appreciation had stayed intact for the past hour. Since round four had been an oral experiment in showing him just how much I loved him, I’d say his sexy grin was a direct result of my mouth.
We had been on our honeymoon for three days, and I still needed to pinch myself to believe it was real. That he—my handsome, charming, undeniably romantic husband—was real. We still had another week and a half to enjoy our privacy in Bora Bora, but I was already feeling grumpy over the idea of returning home and leaving our little slice of tropical heaven.
I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and scrolled through numerous emails. One from my boss, Kline’s good friend Wes, urged a quick response.
From: [email protected]
Georgia,
I hope you and Kline are enjoying your honeymoon. If you can spare a few minutes away from your husband, I’d be forever in your debt if you could take a glance at this contract. If he gives you grief, just send him my way. I’d really like your opinion on this offer before we pull the trigger.
Wes Lancaster
President and Chief Executive Officer
New York Mavericks
National Football League
The contract in question was for a sports drink campaign. I couldn’t deny the drink tasted like gasoline, but the VITAsteel brand had been growing in popularity over the past three years and had made quite the name for itself in the sports industry. Professional athletes across the globe fell over themselves to land an endorsement with this company. And even though the Mavericks were knocked out in the first-round playoffs last year, I had managed to get some raised eyebrows of intrigue over at VITAsteel when I proposed a contract that included our quarterback and offensive line.
