Sassy Ever After: Sassy and a little Bad-Assy (Kindle Worlds Novella) (6 page)

“So, swords and hammers, huh? Any other weapons I should know about?”

Not taking the time to think, Nikki did what she usually did. She spoke with no filter.

“Yeah, my mouth. As in, if you don’t get the hell off my porch in the next minute, I’m going to start screaming for the cops and tell everyone you are harassing me.”

The infuriating man didn’t skip a beat. “Baby, any time you want to use that mouth on me, feel free to do so. But I’d rather you scream my name instead of screaming for the cops.”

Shocked by his response, Nikki’s jaw dropped open. It wasn’t often she talked with someone who could take what she gave them and give her shit right back.

“I can’t believe you just said that to me!” she finally sputtered.

Running a hand through his hair, suddenly seeming more nervous than cocky, he said, “You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that to you yet. Look, I came here to apologize to you and your grandfather for yesterday, not to cause problems. Think we can let bygones be bygones here?”

Slightly amused by the bouncer who had quick wit, Nikki pretended to sniff in disdain just to give him a hard time. “I suppose. Now, on you go. Scurry back to your bar or wherever it is you shifter types like to get furry. As you can see, I’ve got my hands full here.”

He crossed his arms back over his chest and rumbled, “What if I don’t want to go just yet?”

Nikki snorted. “And you want to stay, why? So you can give me some more cheesy pickup lines? Buddy, if I wanted to hear those, all I have to do is go back and visit your bar.”

A growl burst through the air between them, and it took her a second to realize it was coming from him.

This time, it was his turn to take a deep breath. “Look, let’s not talk about you getting pickup lines, all right?” Holding out his hand, he continued, “Your name is Nikki. In case you didn’t catch it yesterday, my name is Cruz.”

Cruz kept holding his hand out in the space between them until she realized he wasn’t going to give up, so she placed her hand in his big one to give him a quick handshake. That handshake turned into something else altogether. What exactly, Nikki couldn’t say. What she could outline was how warm his skin felt against her own and the strength in his fingers as he gingerly brought her hand up to his face and pressed his lips to the back of her hand. Not to mention, the way a slow heat started to move through her entire body.

Instant attraction. Chemistry.

Whatever it was, it damn near knocked her on her ass.

It wasn’t love at first sight by any means, but it was definitely something more primitive or instinctual. It felt like, at the touch of his lips on her skin, Nikki’s entire nerve system lit up like one of those old-time pinball games. If she had lights and music in her system, they would have gone off loudly enough to wake up the neighborhood. It was perhaps the craziest thing she had ever encountered in her entire life, and that was saying something since she was pretty sure her entire family was certifiable.

Apparently, she wasn’t the only one affected by the touch. Cruz’s eyes seemed to glow a bit, making the dark chocolate depths of his gaze molten. Damn, the man was dangerous to her girl parts.

Trying to put her wits back in order, Nikki pulled her hand out of his grip and noticed how Cruz only seemed to let it go reluctantly.

Clearing her throat, she murmured, “Got it. I’m Nikki, you’re Cruz, and yesterday is forgiven. That cover it all?” She tried so hard to make herself sound confident and sure again, but even she heard the little waver in her voice.

Cruz shook his head. “Nope.”

“No?” she repeated, surprised.

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“Well, what do you want now?” Nikki asked, confused as hell.

She watched, rather like a fascinated school girl, as the side of his mouth slowly tipped up into a grin. “I don’t think I can have what I want just yet, pretty girl. Perhaps you can give me what I need, though?”

“What’s that?” she croaked.

“Time with you.” His words were firm and unrepentant.

“Why do you want time with me?”

“You want the truth, or do you want pretty words?”

Nikki rolled her eyes. “Pretty words aren’t always true, and true words aren’t always pretty, so hit me with the truth, big guy. I’m sure I can take it.”

“You know I’m a wolf shifter, yes?”

Nikki nodded.

“Do you know what a true mate is?”

She told him no.

At the shake of her head, Cruz began to explain, “Fate, mother nature, God—whoever you want to pin it on—gives each shifter one true mate during their lifetime. As the stories of my kind go, biologically, true mates are perfectly compatible. After they accept one another, they merge on a soul level, becoming emotionally bound to the other. In essence, true mates are what humans call soul mates.”

Perplexed about where he was going with this, Nikki asked, “And …? What does this have to do with me?”

“You’re my true mate.”

Those four words seemed to echo in the air around her, or maybe it was in her head. Nikki wasn’t quite sure, because suddenly, she was a wee bit lightheaded and a whole lot of confused.

Cruz stepped closer to her. “You said yourself that the truth isn’t always pretty. I’m not sure how you feel about what I just told you, but I’m going to be straight with you here. This scares the shit out of me … for very good reasons that are all my own. That doesn’t mean I’m willing to just walk away from the one person who was made for me.”

She started to waver a bit on her feet, and Cruz grabbed her shoulders in a firm hold to help keep her straight.

“I’m not asking for your hand in marriage, Nikki. I’m asking for a fresh start between us and the chance to get to know you.”

Eventually, her brain kicked back on. “Me?” she squeaked. It wasn’t exactly the seriously confident tone she would normally like to display, but hell, she had just been metaphorically knocked on her ass. This was like one of those surreal scenes in one of the paranormal romance books she sometimes liked to read. “I’m your mate?”

Cruz started to travel a consoling path up and down her upper arms with his hand. “Yes, you. So what do you say? Will you let me get to know you?”

Nikki went silent as her mind raced. She must have stayed quiet a little too long, because Cruz stopped trying to comfort her and eventually squeezed a little more tightly. The move brought her out of her fog, and she looked back at his eyes and saw there was some sort of fear there. Why would he be afraid?

His facial features turned blank, and then he said in a low, sad voice, “If you want me to leave and never come back, well, I’ll leave, but I can’t promise you I won’t come back, Nikki.”

Her heart fluttered a little in her chest at the raw uncertainty pouring through his eyes. Cruz might think he had a hell of a poker face, but his eyes said it all. What they were saying right now was that he was scared she was going to turn him away.

No matter how they had started, she couldn’t let him go like that. Perhaps Nikki didn’t know what to think about this whole true mate thing yet, but she certainly didn’t want to tell him to leave and not come back. If anything, there was something deep down in her that she didn’t understand that yearned for this man. The only way she was ever going to figure out why was if she did get to know him a little.

Swiping her tongue over her dry bottom lip, she watched as his eyes followed the movement, turning molten again. Nikki had a feeling she could stare at those gorgeous eyes all day.

“Tomorrow,” she heard herself whisper. Clearing her throat again, making her voice surer, she tried again, “Why don’t you come back tomorrow so we can talk and get to know each other?”

Cruz’s lips stretched into a smile that warmed her heart. “I would give you a good-bye kiss, pretty girl, but your grandfather and that little boy are watching us through the window.”

Well, that was like having a cold bucket of water dumped over her head.

“What?” She tried to turn her head to the side to see which window Papa Ái and Ivar were spying out of, but Cruz held her still.

He locked his gaze on hers one more time then whispered as he traced his thumb over her bottom lip, “See you tomorrow.” With that promise, Cruz turned and walked down her driveway, onto the sidewalk, and down the street.

Nikki stood there until he was out of sight. She wasn’t sure what was in more shock: her heart or her libido. Either way, all she could do was hope that neither ended up getting let down.

Chapter Six

“He’s heerrrrrreeee.”

Nikki’s back went ramrod straight at the creepy sounding statement from Olaf.

Looking over, she found the twins peeking out one of the living room windows. A chill went up her spine, but it wasn’t because she knew that the declaration meant Cruz was back to talk to her again.

“How many times do I have to ask you boys to stop trying to imitate the eerie kids in horror movies?”

Even though they weren’t supposed to watch anything above the PG rating, the obnoxious little brats had been sneaking scary movies into their room. Every day, she went into the twins’ room after they left for school and found a different movie hidden somewhere. What was worse, all the movies had kids as the main actors. At this rate, Nikki was going to avoid cornfields, pet cemeteries, and seemingly angelic looking orphans for the rest of her life.

The thing was, Nikki didn’t know if she should be more concerned about her two little brothers becoming deranged serial killers or if they were already kleptomaniacs, because she had absolutely no idea where they were getting all of these damn movies!

Flustered over both her brothers’ peculiar new habits and Cruz’s arrival, Nikki snapped, “Get away from that window, or I’m going to throw you both out of it!”

The boys turned their heads as one to look at her.

“We’re on the ground floor,” Olaf said.

“So if you throw us out, it won’t hurt us,” Erik continued.

And then, together, they both said, “But it would give us an excuse to rat you out to Mom.”

Holy shit! No wonder women went psycho with butcher knives in those scary flicks! If the twins didn’t stop that shit,
she
might go psycho.

Keeping her face as blank as possible so as to not let the little shits know how much they had unnerved her, Nikki calmly replied, “Have you checked your candy stash lately, boys? That chocolate bar I took from your new hiding spot was really good.”

Olaf’s and Erik’s eyes practically bugged out of their heads before they ran out of the living room so fast they nearly knocked her over.

As she used her crutches to steady herself, Nikki couldn’t even bring herself to be mad at the brats for almost making her fall. The small stumble was worth the opportunity to mess with their little heads. They might be way more devious than your average ten-year-old, but she loved reminding them that she was two steps ahead of them at all times.

Turning away from the twins retreating up the stairs, Nikki made her way to the front door, bracing herself on one crutch to open it. Once it swung open, she propped herself up against the doorframe and watched Cruz finish walking up her driveway. He had a bouquet of flowers in his hand, and Nikki bit her bottom lip so she wouldn’t smile like a loon.

Once he made it to the doorway, he held the flowers up to her in offering. “Saw these on my way here and thought of you.”

Looking down, she took in the gorgeous red daisies. “How did they remind you of me?” she asked curiously.

“Beautiful but bold, just like you.”

Nikki blurted, “Damn, that wasn’t even cheesy this time.” Mortified she had let that slip out, she slapped her hand over her mouth. Her cheeks felt warm, and she was sure she was blushing as red as the damn daisies.

Cruz laughed, leaning forward and giving her a kiss on the forehead. “What do you want to do today?”

Pulling her hand from her mouth, Nikki motioned to her broken foot. “Unfortunately, I’m limited in date options, so I thought perhaps we could stay here… get to know each other over a board game? My family has about twenty of them, so you can have your pick.”

“Twenty?” Cruz asked in surprise.

Nikki shrugged. “We’re big on family time.”

The answer made him smile. “Sounds good. Lead the way.”

Nikki steadied herself on her crutches before she led Cruz into the living room. She heard him shut the door behind him, but she wasn’t scared to be alone with him. After all, they weren’t really alone. Papa Ái was upstairs in his room, fully aware she was having company over, and he was free to come down and join them if he wanted to. Ivar was pouting in his room on the ground floor because he thought this date meant Nikki was going to get married and have babies, a belief that was spurred on and encouraged by their grandfather’s blathering about her needing a good husband. And as if that weren’t bad enough, her whole family was here today, hovering in case they felt the need to rescue Nikki from the big bad wolf, literally.

Realistically, she knew Cruz could hurt her if he wanted to. Not just because she had a broken foot or because he was a man easily two times her size, but also because she knew he had extraordinary strength from being a shifter. Strangely, she wasn’t afraid of him, though, or being here with him. It was as if the instinctual side of her knew he wouldn’t hurt her.

That didn’t mean she still wasn’t nervous.

Settling down on one end of the couch, she waved her arm to the bookshelves on either side of their television. “Pick a game, any game you want. Five bucks says I can spank you.”

The millisecond the words were out of her mouth, Nikki realized just how bad they really sounded.

Cruz smirked at her. “Sweetheart, you can spank me anytime you want, but it’s a quid pro quo thing. So, if you get to spank me, I get to spank you later.” He winked at her as her blush grew and then turned to face the shelves of games.

It didn’t take him long to pick one. He grabbed a box and set it on the coffee table in front of her. Battleship.

Looking across the table, she gave Cruz a cocky grin. “You are so going down, buster.”

The sexy man laughed hard, and it took her a second to realize she had done it again. Giving herself a good face palm, Nikki tried to recompose herself.

Cruz shot that newfound composure to hell when he looked at her with heated eyes and said, “Quid pro quo, pretty girl.”

~~~

Damn, she’s pretty when she blushes.

Cruz watched his mate as she concentrated on her game board. Nikki got the cutest little furrow between her eyebrows while she set up the ships on her board. He already had his ships in place and was anxiously waiting for her to finish. Not that he wanted to play the board game that badly, but because he was spending time with her any way he could.

Looking up, Nikki asked, “Ready?”

He gave her a nod. “You go first.”

“D-4?”

Cruz checked his board. “Miss.”

“Dammit,” his mate mumbled.

“H-9?” Cruz shot back.

Nikki’s left eye twitched. “Hit.”

He watched as she marked the spot.

“A-10?”

He checked his board again. “Miss. H-8?”

This time, she gave him a cheeky smile. “Miss. J-2?”

“Hit,” he told her, secretly loving the way the news made her face light up.

They spent the next fifteen minutes volleying back positions until his mate not so gracefully threw her board at his head. Cruz managed to duck in time, but he couldn’t help laughing at her.

“Sore loser, huh?”

Nikki stuck her tongue out at him, but the twinkle in her eye told Cruz that it was all for show. She was playful; he liked that.

“Does this mean we’re done playing Battleship?” He stood up and collected her board and pegs from the floor. Cruz wasn’t quite sure what affliction her youngest brother had, but he didn’t want to take the chance of the boy slipping on a piece and falling.

After boxing up the Battleship boards, he turned to see Nikki giving him a calculating look.

“How about a game of Monopoly?” she asked.

“Feeling a little cutthroat now?”

“I wouldn’t say cutthroat.” With narrowed eyes, she added, “I do think some quid pro quo is in order, though, so grab that Monopoly board and prepare to go to jail … a lot.”

“But I don’t look good in orange.”

Nikki laughed. “Neither do I. That’s how I ended up with a green cast.”

Getting settled on the floor in front of the coffee table in front of her, he took out the game board. “Is green your favorite color, then?”

She shook her head. “No, yellow is.”

“Why yellow?”

Nikki shrugged. “I guess because it’s a happy color. What about you? What’s your favorite color?”

It was Cruz’s turn to shrug now. “Never had one really.”

Glancing up at his mate, he got a little lost in her eyes. There was something about them that made him feel as though he could stare into them forever and never get enough.

Without thinking, he found himself murmuring, “I’m really liking the color blue these days, though.”

Another sweet blush spread across her cheeks, and Cruz couldn’t help thinking that he might end up liking the pink color, too, as long as he got to see her wearing it just like that.