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Her damn pride was almost as tough as his. Objectively, he could understand that and respect it. But right now it was getting in his way and that was unacceptable.
Like the damn deductible for her insurance payout. He knew she didn’t have that kind of money to spend, but would she ask for help? No. She blamed him for the fire, but would refuse to allow him to pay for the blasted deductible. What the hell kind of sense did that make?
Lucas laughed and brought Griffin out of his thoughts.
“Damn, cuz, you’re living a rough life here, aren’t you?” He shuddered dramatically. “She’s riding you every day, isn’t she?”
“As often as possible,” Griffin muttered, his mind providing images of Nicole rising up over him in the night, holding his body in hers, riding him to an explosive—
“Look,” Lucas said agreeably, unknowingly shattering Griffin’s thoughts, “I know what life is like when you’re living with a woman who’s mad at you for some damn thing or other. How about I help you out? We had a job wrap up last night. So I can put an extra crew on Nicole’s job, wrap it up faster.”
Faster. Get Nicole back into her own home that much sooner. In theory, a good thing. In reality, not. When she was back home, whatever was between them would end. That was their new agreement. If she was back in her familiar world, it would reset their relationship—or whatever the hell it was—and there’d be no more nights with her.
Their summer affair would be over.
His hand fisted around the bottle of beer. Griffin wasn’t ready for it to be over. On the heels of that realization came a quick mental disclaimer: it wasn’t that he wanted a permanent thing with Nicole. Nothing like that. But he did want more than a measly few days.
“No,” he heard himself say. Lucas looked at him with surprise.
“Seriously? Why the hell not?”
Good question. “Because there’s no hurry,” he muttered, “that’s why not.”
“Uh-huh.” Lucas took a drink of his beer and leaned against the kitchen counter. “Sell that to somebody else, because I’m not buying it.”
Griffin gave his cousin the nearly legendary King freezing stare, designed to shake anyone who dared cross a King. Problem was, it didn’t work on the family. Lucas merely shook his head in pity.
“Fine. You don’t have to buy it, Lucas.”
“Right.” He snorted. “You’re trying to freeze me out, and it’s not working.”
“What will?” Griffin asked.
“Nothing,” Lucas assured him unnecessarily. “So, the thing is, you’re in no hurry to get Nicole out of here, even though she’s making you miserable.”
Miserable?
Hell, she was making him nuts.
He looked away from his cousin and let his gaze slide across Rafe and Katie’s sun-washed kitchen. This place had become a second home to him over the past week or more. And memories were crashing over him. Nicole and him here, in this kitchen, having ice cream at midnight and laughing like a couple of kids. Him, plopping a naked Nicole down on the edge of the counter and her legs coming around his waist, pulling him deep into her heat until neither of them could have said where one of them ended and the other began.
Yeah, she was making him crazy.
And he didn’t want it to end.
At least not yet.
Frowning at his cousin, Griffin told him, “Don’t make anything out of this.”
“Oh, it’s already been made, and I’m not the one who did it,” his cousin said with a smirk. “You think I can’t read your face? Poker was never your game, Griff. Garrett’s the one with the unreadable expression. Yours is an open book.”
Irritation flooded him. He was a damn security expert, for God’s sake. He made a living by being hard to read. What the hell was Nicole doing to him? “Well, quit reading it.”
“Too late now,” Lucas said, hooting with laughter. “Damn, cuz. With Katie’s best friend?”
Some of the King family brawls were legendary. Once Adam and Travis had a knock-down, drag-out fight that went on for nearly eight hours. It had started at a family picnic, when Travis told Adam he had no skill for horse breeding. A lie of course. Adam had a string of some of the best horses in California—hell, anywhere. But Travis liked to get a dig in, and once Adam cut loose, the two of them battled while the rest of the cousins at the picnic made a damn fortune in bets.
