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As my throat bobbed, Jameson smiled slowly, rolling his full bottom lip between his teeth, the expression laced with arrogance, before saying, “See? You’d even believe it. So, make it whatever you want, Skittles. If it’ll piss him off more, we can be engaged. Or, maybe we don’t pretend to be serious—you’ve only been here a handful of weeks. Maybe we’re just fucking.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Blech. Could you be any more crude?”
“Yes. Would you like that?”
“Stop that.”
“Or what, Skittles? Look, I’m just trying to lighten the mood. Shit’s been particularly tense today. Laugh with me, now and then.”
“I think you have that backward.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“I still don’t think this is a good idea. I’ll just stay at Rhyett’s. What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that limp-dick-twat-waffle knows Rhyett is back in Florida and will think you’re alone there, and I’d like to give him a reason for my face to star in his nightmares. Starting with the idea of me standing guard over you.”
When I reclaimed the oxygen that came cackling out of my lungs whenlimp-dick-twat-wafflecame out of Jameson Rhodes’ mouth, I shook my head. “You hate me. Why on earth would you let me—nay, force me to—move into your house?”
“Look. You were going to be next door, anyway. If you need anything at Rhyett’s, you have keys to both places. At least here, I can know you’re safe. See it with my own two eyes. Thisploy, as you call it, only needs to go on until that sleazeball is off the island. Which will be what? A few days before he knows he lost? Max has always hopped between our houses after long nights hanging out. It’s the same with Broderick. They crash in my guest rooms more often than not. Nobody local will bat an eye at them being here.”
“But I won’t ever be alone,” I said, repeating his explanation for the strategy.
“Exactly.”
“And what if we have to sell it?”
“Sell what?”
“The house, Jameson. Don’t you know it’s a seller’s market? Jesus, Rhodes, the fake relationship you dangled in front of Eric like a red flag with a bull.”
He deadpanned, amusement sparkling in those intense eyes. “Sometimes you just know?”
“What?”
He chuckled. “Sometimes you just know when you’ve found the one. You thinkIwaved a red flag? I thought he’d have an aneurysm. It was fucking brilliant. Almost clever enough to get me my hit.”
My stomach twisted. Yeah, okay, that was stupid on my part, but God, it felt good to piss him off with three real men standing beside me. “Your…hit?” I asked, scowling at him.
“I just needed him to clock me once to wipe that smug look off his face for good. Fucker would be drinking out of a straw, and that wasbeforeI knew what he put you through.”
“You sound like Alex.”
“Another ex?” he questioned dryly.
I laughed, shaking my head. “Little brother. Always hated Eric. He’s all bluster about this shit.”
Jameson’s rough fingers clamped around my chin, turning me to face him on the couch beside me. “I don’t bluster.”
Bursting out laughing, I tugged out of his grasp, hating the heat he sent dancing, hating the way the old Noel stirred in my chest.
“You think I’m kidding?”
“Men are all talk—”
“Well, I’m not. You’re staying with me, Noel McShane, because out of all my brothers, I have always been the scary motherfucker. I didn’t start fights, but I certainly ended them. I didn’t start trouble, but it sure as shit came to a screeching halt when I entered a room. And it won’t take him long in this town to realize exactly who he’s dealing with.”
Swallowing was suddenly impossible. Whispering to horses, taming a mountain lion, bending the air kind of impossible. I’d never had an actual alpha male. Toxic masculinity had been a slimy companion for the last few years, but this…protective, cautious, chivalrous, secretly teddy-bear-soft energy? That was new.
