17

Knox

I’m still feeling like a fucking rock star for that performance under Parker’s desk when we get to her apartment with take-out tacos from a Mexican place around the corner. Not organic, which I can’t help but rib her about since she works for Crunchy. Still a good cause, she reminds me, since it’s a second-generation mom-and-pop store with a clientele who won’t pay organic prices.

I like that about her—she’s conscientious without being pretentious. The world’s not black and white.

She pauses outside her apartment and gives me a funny look.

“I don’t care if it’s messy,” I tell her.

The funny look doesn’t go away. And now I really want to know what’s behind that door. “Are you a secret hoarder?”

“No.”

“Have an ex’s body chopped up and buried under the floorboards?”

“No. God, why would you go there?”

“Sorry. Listening to a romantic suspense earlier. Cynthia Eden. She’s amazing. Ah, let’s see…you have eighty-five cats and three parrots who sing dirty songs?”

She laughs. “It’s just me.”

“A-ha!” I snap his fingers. “You don’t want me to see your shrine to Tarzan.”

Her blush explodes so hard and fast I can feel the heat coming off her face.

“No,” she says quickly.

Too quickly.

I angle my body to align my hips to her belly, because the idea of Parker having a shrine to Tarzan is oddly erotic.

“Parker Parker Elliott, you do.”

“No. I told you the other night. I have a thing for the jungle.”

“You have some vines we can swing on?”

“No.”

“A jungle tree pole?”

“No.”

“Some jungle toys?”

She pokes my chest. “Quit making fun.”

“I live with my Nana. I can’t make fun.”

She shakes her head, turns the lock, and lets me in. “Not. One. Word.”

There aren’t vines hanging from the ceiling, and she doesn’t have a replica of the Nile running between her living room and kitchenette, but there’s a definite jungle safari theme. Zebra and leopard print patterns on rugs and throws. Abstract paintings of elephants and giraffes on the walls. Lush house plants add to the jungle feel, but not so many that she’s a crazy plant lady. And her end tables on either side of the couch under her window—wow.

The bases are carved baby elephants. “Not even to ask where you got those?”

She eyes me. I slide my hands down her waist to those curvy hips.

“I like it.” I press a kiss to the corner of her mouth, take the taco bag from her and set it on the two-person table at the edge of the kitchenette, and pull her body closer to mine.

“You’re trying not to make a Tarzan joke right now, aren’t you?”

“Who, me?”

Before she can answer, I suck her lower lip into my mouth. She loops an arm around my neck and kisses me back, slow and languid, as though we have all night. My balls are heavy and aching, my cock leaping to attention, and if I don’t touch her again, now, something vital deep inside me is going to break.

I love this skirt she’s wearing today—loose and flowy and so easy to hitch up to her waist so I can stroke her bare ass cheeks. God bless the man who invented the thong.

She’s pawing at my shirt, tugging it out of my jeans and running her hands up my abs to my chest, and I’m thinking about going caveman and tossing her over my shoulder to carry her to the bedroom when she suddenly freezes, then yanks her skirt down and skitters out of my reach.

“Out!” she screeches.

Before I can recover from the sudden whiplash, she pushes me into the kitchenette. I spin around, and she’s standing between me and a dude who’s not quite as tall as me, but who has the kind of square jaw and haircut that suggests he could model for a military romance cover.

And Parker’s facing him with one hand on her hip, the other pointing furiously at the door.

“Who are you?” I grab Parker by the shoulders and try to move in front of her, but she elbows me in the gut.

“Stay back,” she orders.

“This him?” the intruder asks with a nod at me.

“I swear to god, Rhett, if you SEAL your way into my apartment one more time, I will—I’ll—I’ll do something you’ll regret.”

So she knows him. That should be reassuring, but it’s not.

“You’re a cream puff,” he says to Parker.

I could second that, except I don’t like this guy, or the idea that he knows anything about Parker’s cream puff. “Who the fuck are you?” I repeat.

“Who the fuck are you?”

He doesn’t move, but there’s something lethal in his stance, like he knows there’s an army of ninjas sneaking up behind me and even if there wasn’t, he could take me out with his pinky toe.

“He’s my jackass little brother,” Parker says. “And he’s leaving.”

“No, I’m not,” the jackass little brother replies. So he doesn’t mean cream puff the same way I do. And I don’t think Parker means little brother the same way I do either, because there’s nothing little about this guy.

“It’s Taco Tuesday,” he adds.

Again, he probably doesn’t mean that the same way I do.

Parker’s still pointing at the door, and she’s thrusting her finger harder with every word. “Go get your own tacos.”

Somehow, I think she might mean that the same way I do.

“Mom wants to meet him. It’s my job to make that happen.”

Pretty sure I understood that one perfectly. I hold out a hand. “Knox Moretti,” I say.

“Don’t—” Parker starts, then stops herself with a sigh when her brother grips my hand and squeezes like my hand is a stress ball and he has so much stress that his stress is overstressed and nothing short of turning my hand to a squishy, bloody pulp will relieve his pent-up frustrations.

“Rhett Elliott,” little brother says. “You’re Mr. Romance. You’re in trouble.”

In so many ways, but I assume he’s talking about me being in trouble for putting a finger on his sister. “Your sister’s an intelligent woman who doesn’t need your approval to date men.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

Parker shoves him. He doesn’t budge. “Let go, Rhett.”

His grip tightens to diamond-crushing strength. Could I keep up? Yes. Am I going to play his game and try to suffocate his hand right back? Not a fucking chance I’ll give him that satisfaction.

Still, I’m holding my hand with one finger extended. Harder to crush that way.

“Pansy-ass handshake,” he says.

“I save my pissing contests for worthy opponents.”

Parker growls at both of us. “Knox doesn’t keep farm animals, the only time he’s pulled out his phone on a date was to show me his virtual bookshelves, and he doesn’t know about Brooks, so let go.” She punctuates the demand with a pinch to the back of his elbow, and his grip loosens.

I do actually know about their brother Brooks, but I keep my mouth shut.

“He’s in trouble at work,” Rhett says, and again, I’m caught off-guard.

“Quit stalking my boyfriends. I really wish Mom had been the kind to eat her young.” She turns to me. “What kind of trouble? Is this about your blog?”

This time, it’s not my favorite parts going stiff. “He tells you I’m in trouble and you blindly believe it?”

“It’s easier that way.”

“I’m a fucking god,” Rhett says.

“You’re a pain in my ass,” Parker snaps. “All four of you are.”

He treats her to a noogie. She gets him in the solar plexus with an elbow and he actually oofs and angles out of reach. She turns back at me expectantly. “Are you in trouble at work?”

That was what the flowers were for. “The Times called my regional manager asking for an interview.”

Her light brows furrow. “About the dick piece?”

“About the dick piece.”

“So the Times thinks your personal blog is sanctioned by the library now?”

She’s quick. I nod.

“They’re serious about being dicks.”

“Yep.” Because an official library blog won’t call any reporter a dick. For any reason. Welcome to my suddenly very gray world.

“You’re doing the interview, of course,” she tells me. “You basically have to if you want to keep your job. And you do want to keep your job, don’t you?”

I cut a glance at her brother, who’s gone totally still in a creepy way with an ugly gleam in his eyes. As though he knows what the problem is—that I have a playboy reputation and suddenly need his sister to play my doting girlfriend just as much as she needs me to play her doting boyfriend—and he’s just waiting for me to say it so he can justify trying to crush another part of my anatomy.

“Yep,” I say instead.

Parker studies me.

I don’t blink.

She turns to her brother. “Rhett, get out before I tell Mom you knocked up Stacy Benson in high school.”

He doesn’t move. If the threat’s registering, he has a top-notch game face.

“And who broke the Mary in her nativity set.”

“Fucker,” he mutters. He moves toward the couch.

Parker snaps her fingers. “Out the door.”

“So fucking picky.”

But he obeys, and Parker follows him. On his way out, he makes eye contact with me one last time. Hurt her and you’ll wish you’d died is pretty much the message I get.

I send back a same to you, asshole, and the door shuts on him. She flips the lock, slides the chain, and locks the deadbolt, then follows it with one of the chairs jammed under the knob.

“Will that keep him out?” I ask.

“It’ll slow him down. But the window’s the bigger threat. Fucking SEAL.”

I’ve read a lot of SEAL books, but I’ve never read one exactly like Parker’s brother. “Tacos?” I say.

Because much as I didn’t want my blog turning into business instead of pleasure, it has. Lucky me, I have a workaholic fake girlfriend to help me through it.