Finding the Right Girl (A Nice GUY to Love spin-off) (22 page)

He was freaking
carved
.

“Praise the gods of Olympus,” she murmured, an ache developing deep at the center of her body.

He grinned, and his eyes twinkled with flirtation and heat.

He also had more ink than the simple tire treads circling his left bicep and the stylized checkered flag flowing down his right calf. He had something covering his right shoulder, too.

“Is that…” she started, narrowing her eyes at the image, taking in the detail, the definition of shadow, the sheer artistic beauty of it, “a Terminator tatt?”

“Not exactly, but the same principle.” Wes’s gaze darted to his shoulder. “You like it?”

“What’s a Terminator tatt?” Lexi asked.

Her friend’s voice pulled Rubi’s gaze from Wes. She frowned at Lexi, crouched on the floor behind him.

“What are you doing?”

“Fitting this…” --she huffed a breath as she struggled with something behind his back-- “to Wes.”

Lexi stepped out from behind him, her hand running along a strip of metal against his thigh Rubi hadn’t noticed, then lowered to her knees in front of Wes and repeated the move with deep concentration.

Rubi had seen her friend do this hundreds of times over the years while fitting wedding gowns or measuring for alterations. But today, something about witnessing it, while imagining herself in Lexi’s place for a totally different reason, made the ache in Rubi’s body spread lower.

She lifted her brows, grinning. “Might want to get off your knees before Jax comes in, Lex.”

Wes’s smile grew lopsided. “I’m totally down with you taking her place, Russo.”

“Great idea,” Lexi said glancing over her shoulder at Rubi. “Can you come hold this so I can get a better look at the back?”

An absurd chuckle floated from her throat. “You’ve
got
to be kidding.”

“What’s the problem?” Wes challenged with that cocky grin. “Afraid you might like it?”

Irritation burned the back of her neck. The man knew she had a competitive streak. “I know what you’re doing, Lawson.”

One golden brow rose.

“Rubi,” Lexi said, “we’re not getting out of here until this is done.”

“Fine.” When she sauntered forward holding Wes’s taunting gaze, Lexi stepped behind him. Rubi let the heat she used at the club slide into her grin. Maybe showing him a little more of her dark side would give him second thoughts about that earlier request for a date. “I guess it will be my undiluted pleasure…whether I want it or not.”

Rubi pressed both hands flat against his bare chest. His skin was damp and warm and soft, the muscle beneath hard and radiating heat. A stream of liquid fire rolled through her body. His nipples tightened with her touch, stirring the craving she’d been restraining for weeks. She ran her tongue over her bottom lip, wishing she could stroke it across the deep brown nub.

As if Wes had the magical power of focus, everything outside her field of vision dimmed. Lexi’s self-directed mutters melted into nothing. The other guys’ chatter dissipated. The noise outside faded.

Even at five-nine, wearing three-inch heels, she had to tilt her head to look into his eyes. His gaze was heavy-lidded, but sharp, serious and scorching. Those full lips had lost their grin and his jaw ticked with pent up energy. There was definitely a more intense side to this easy-going country-boy—one that coaxed her interest and ramped her desire.

She balanced herself with pressure against his chest and slowly lowered. Keeping her gaze pinned to his, her hands slid down the hard wet muscle. God, he was utterly delicious.

Curling her fingers into the waistband of what she could see now were shorts beneath—
too bad
—she used his body to steady her as she rocked to her knees.

His gaze had transitioned into something primal. Something hungry. Predatory. Rubi let herself imagine what he’d do to her now if they were alone. How he’d slide his big hands into her hair, guide her mouth to his cock and draw her forward until he was buried to her throat. A telltale tickle signaled growing moisture between her thighs.

Speaking to Lexi while holding Wes’s smoldering gaze, Rubi added heavy suggestion into her voice. “What do you need?”

A touch of satisfaction, of power, flicked one corner of his mouth.

Lexi grabbed Rubi’s hands, moving them to a pair of round contraptions on either side of Wes’s hips. “Hold these right there.”

“Will do.”

Wes let a hand fall toward her face. He traced the tip of one finger across her forehead and lifted a strand of hair, setting it aside. The move was so sweet, so intimate, a fist balled in her stomach.

“You look good right there, Russo,” he said, his voice low, the thick heat wafting over Rubi’s skin like warm air. “Really good.”

His finger traced a tingling path down her cheek and across her jaw. Then his hand opened and his thumb swept the angle of her cheekbone. The sensation created such a decadent sensation inside her, Rubi had to fight to keep her eyes open.

“And you look good right there, Lawson.” She forced her voice light to hold the teasing edge. Letting him know he unnerved her was not an option. “Really good.”

Lexi pulled at something near the base of Wes’s spine and his hips swayed closer to Rubi’s face. His grin grew, and Rubi bit her lip against a laugh.

Footsteps sounded on the trailer’s stairs. “Are we ready for lunch?”

Jax’s question, clearly asked before he took in the scene, gave her laughter an escape route.

Wes pressed his thumb against the center of her lower lip, dragging her mouth open a little more, then murmured, “Just say the word…”

And I’ll be your lunch.

He didn’t need to say the words for her to know what he was thinking. What they were both thinking.

Excerpt from A Maine Christmas…Or Two

By

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author J.S. Scott
and
Cali MacKay

This book contains two brand new, steamy, contemporary romance Christmas stories from NY Times and USA Today Bestselling author J.S. Scott and Cali MacKay.

Although these stories are connected to both authors’ current series, they are easily stand-alone reads with no cliff hangers.

The Billionaire’s Angel by J.S. Scott (The Billionaire’s Obsession Christmas Story)
Considered an eccentric beast by most of the residents in Amesport, Maine, Billionaire Grady Sinclair stays isolated on his private peninsula in a grand mansion most people are afraid to approach. The arrangement suits Grady just fine, until a fearless angel lands on his doorstep, making him painfully aware of how lonely he really is, and how much he wants to keep the fiery blonde cherub for his very own. But will he have to become the monster the townspeople believe him to be in order to get his Christmas wish?

Emily Ashworth needs money, and plenty of it. As director of the Youth Center of Amesport, she either finds the funds she needs to supply Christmas presents and other items she needs to purchase to give the kids of Amesport a Christmas, or they won’t have one at all. Desperate, she ventures to the Amesport Peninsula to ask the wealthiest person in the area to provide a Christmas for her misplaced, abused, or troubled kids, and to help keep the doors of the much-needed refuge open. Emily is shocked when she meets Grady, and surprisingly more attracted to him than she has ever been to any man. He might have seemed like a barbarian in the beginning, but Emily quickly learns that Grady is nothing like she’d imagined. Was the monster of Amesport truly the very devil, or just a lonely man who needs the gift of love for Christmas?
A Mermaid Isle Christmas by Cali MacKay –

Once Aidan Nordson made his fortune, he was finally able to leave behind the world that left him broken and scarred. Escaping to Mermaid Isle, all he wants is to be left alone to live his life and deal with his demons, but when a blizzard hits and strands Chloe Madison at his door, the gorgeous and feisty brunette stirs feelings in him he’d rather push away. Forced together by fate and circumstance, can Aidan let go of the past that haunts him so he can learn to love again or will the storm in his heart swallow him in its darkness?

The Billionaire’s Angel
(c) J. S. Scott

Emily couldn’t see well, but she squinted into the swirling snow and pushed her glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose. Passing several private driveways, she kept on going, knowing Grady’s home was the very last one.

The road ended at his house, and Emily forged ahead, parking her truck in the circular driveway and turning off the engine.

I must be insane!

Before she had time to think about what she was doing and leave, Emily grabbed her purse and slammed the door of the truck closed. Glad she was dressed in a sweater and jeans for the weather, she just wished she was also wearing a pair of boots, her sneakers slipping and sliding in the fresh, wet snow.

The house was massive, and she gaped at the heavy oak doors in front of her, wanting to run away as fast as her slippery shoes would take her.

“What kind of single guy owns a house this humungous?” she whispered in awe.

Answering herself, she said, “A man who has enough money to donate for the Youth Center.”

With that thought in mind, she strode determinedly forward and pressed the doorbell harder than she needed to, causing her feet to slide out from under her and land ungracefully in a heap on Grady Sinclair’s doorstep.

That was a fabulous and graceful entrance, Emily. Impress him with your professionalism.

Disgusted with herself, she scrambled for purchase on the icy stone porch, trying to hastily get to her feet before he answered the door, but she slid again and landed flat on her rear end, flinching as her tailbone hit the unyielding surface. “Damn!”

Abruptly, the door swung open, and Emily Sinclair got her first look at the beast from an undignified position on her frozen ass.

Her glasses were wet and foggy, but he looked like no beast she had ever seen. He did, however, look pretty fierce, dark, and dangerous. Without saying a word, Grady Sinclair stuck his hand out as though he completely expected her to take it. She did, grasping his hand as he pulled her to her feet like she was as light as a feather. Trying to straighten up quickly to regain some modicum of dignity, she gawked up at him. She was tall for a woman, but he dwarfed her, towering over her menacingly. He was dressed informally in a tan thermal shirt that stretched across rippling muscles and a massive chest. He was sporting a pair of jeans that looked worn, and he filled them out in a way she’d never seen a man wear a pair of jeans before.

Holy crap!
Grady Sinclair was hot. Scorching hot. His dark hair was mussed, and he had a just-rolled-out-of-bed look that made her want to drag him back to a bedroom. Any bedroom. He looked like he hadn’t shaved today, and the dark, masculine stubble on his jaw just added to the testosterone waves she swore she could almost feel pulsating from his magnificent body and entering hers, making her squirm just a little at her body’s reaction to him.

She drew in a deep breath as his gray-eyed stare seemed to assess her, and finally came to rest on her face. “Hi,” she said weakly, unable to form any intelligent words right at the moment. Her brain was mush and her cheeks flushed pink with mortification. This just wasn’t the businesslike, graceful entrance she had hoped for, and her lustful reaction to Grady Sinclair had her uncharacteristically flustered.

I need to get it together. I’m acting like an idiot. I need this donation.

He grabbed a fistful of her jacket and tugged her inside, closing the door behind her. Plucking the glasses from her face, he used his shirt to clean them before he handed them back to her. “You don’t look like one of Evan’s usual women,” he said gruffly. “Bedroom is upstairs.” He pointed his thumb toward the spiral staircase on the far side of the enormous front room.

Emily stared at him blankly for a moment, and then slanted her gaze toward the living room to try to clear her head. She certainly couldn’t seem to think straight when she was looking directly at
him.

Bedroom? What the hell is he talking about? Evan’s women?

“I think you have me mistaken for someone else. I don’t know you, and I’m not acquainted with Evan. I came to ask a favor.”
Who does he think I am?

“And you’re offering
your
favors for a favor, right?” he asked grimly, his graveled baritone almost disapproving.

Her head jerked back to his face. “What? No. What kind of favor?” she replied suspiciously.

“My brother Evan told me I needed to get laid, which generally is followed by a woman arriving here at my house. I usually just send the women away with a check. But I’ve decided I’ll take you,” he said huskily.

Emily gulped. “Someone sends you women…as in prostitutes?” Good God, the last thing Grady Sinclair needed was a hooker. She couldn’t think of one single woman who would actually turn him down. “Do I look like a whore?” she asked irritably, suddenly offended by the fact that he’d thought she was for sale. But she felt a shiver of need slide down her spine and land right between her thighs at the thought that he actually wanted her, and what he might do to her if she
was
actually a woman for hire. She wasn’t beautiful and she was curvy, her ample figure a little more than most men found attractive.