“I’m serious, Noah.”
Pulling back, I made to nip at her fingers until she finally released me. “So am I, and I think I’ve already proven the validity of that statement, but I can always refresh your memory,” I said with an evil grin and a waggle of my brows. I slid my hand up the inside of her thigh, prepared to do that very thing.
“Noah!” She slapped my hand away and stood to pace the room. “My father thinks I’ve been away at college, not Noah Crawford’s House for Daughter Deflowering. How am I going to say we met?”
With a shrug, I offered up the most logical solution. “I’ll leave. That way he doesn’t have to know anything about me.”
She stopped dead in her tracks and turned on me with a finger aimed in my direction. “You’re not going anywhere! I swear, Noah. I can’t even think about—”
“Okay, calm down,” I said, cutting her rant off and throwing my hands up in surrender.
Appeased, Lanie dropped her hands to her hips and started chewing on her bottom lip. If she didn’t stop doing that, we weren’t going to make it out of there without fucking like bunnies. I stood and crossed the room, forcing her to release the meaty morsel from between her teeth and then cupping her face. “I’ll think of something. Just go back to your mother’s room and find some way to tell Polly and Dez to meet me here without your father knowing.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’m sure if the three of us put our heads together, we’ll come up with something believable.”
“Okay.”
I gave her a chaste yet soft kiss and walked her to the door.
“Hey,” I said, stopping her before she left. She turned to look at me. “I love you.”
The smile she gave me was so electric it could’ve powered the entire city of Chicago. “I love you, too.”
3: Hors D’oeuvres
Noah
We had a plan. It took us four hours to come up with it, but we finally had one. Of course, some of that time was spent waiting on my cousin Lexi, because Polly had decided we needed reinforcements.
“You’re a disgusting pig, you know that?” Lexi said to me after having sat through the explanation of why we needed her there.
Normally, I wouldn’t let anyone get away with talking to me like that, but this situation was different. Even if it hadn’t been, one chose their battles with my cousin carefully. To the public eye, Alexis Mavis was a business savvy lady who garnered much respect from men and women alike among society’s upper crust. But to those of us who knew her best, she was still that tomboy climbing trees and wading through dirty creek water in her white Sunday best to catch a toad. She said what was on her mind when it was on her mind, and she didn’t give a rat’s ass who liked it or not.
“Yes, I do,” I agreed, because it was true, but it was also irrelevant at that moment. “Regardless, it’s not like that now. I love her and she loves me, and she’s sitting in there with her father, unwilling to let me leave because she doesn’t want to have to go through all this shit by herself. Nor do I want her to. Now, are you going to help us or not?”
“Yes,” she finally agreed, and then gave me her signature bitch look. “But I’m only doing this for her because you obviously took advantage of the situation. She doesn’t deserve to go down in flames for something that you’re equally as guilty of, you enabler.”
I was fine with that, because she was right.
Lexi was actually the one who came up with the ingenious plan. I had no contribution to make because I couldn’t get the thought of Delaine wearing panties out of my head. It was a blatant disregard for my rule, a cheap shot, and she had to be punished—soon. I was looking forward to it.
“All right, team, let’s get out there and bring home the win,” Dez said. But when I made as if to leave the room, she blocked my way. She had the whole intimidating stare-down thing going on. “You and I still need to have a little chitchat, don’t you think?”
I might have been a tad afraid, because Dez looked like she’d eaten the head off a prison guard or two in her day after having fucked them stupid, praying-mantis style. Plus Lexi was poised for the tag-in.
“Can it wait? I don’t want to spend another moment away from Lanie.”
“Aww, how sweet are you?” she asked, her tone saccharine. I didn’t fall for the trick because I was a smart guy. Dez narrowed her eyes. “No, it can’t wait. You hurt her. I don’t care who you are or how much money you have—you shouldn’t be allowed to get away with that. Lanie loves you, though, so my hands are tied.” She stepped into my personal space, coming nose to nose with me. “But make her cry again and I will set fire to your testicles.”
I heard the flick of a lighter and immediately looked down to find she’d somehow managed to pickpocket and use my own damn lighter to drive her point home. I jumped back and grabbed my boys to make sure they were okay. Dez laughed, closing the lid on my lighter and slapping it to my chest.
“You should’ve seen your face!” Dez turned around and high-fived Lexi, aka my traitor of a cousin. Obviously blood was not thicker than water. Despite that, I was happy Lanie had someone else who would fight tooth and nail to protect her.
We finally made it out of Daniel’s office and were on our way toward Faye’s room when Dez sidled up to Lexi and linked arms with her. “So … sports agent, huh? You must have a lot of connections. Any chance you can get me into the Gators’ locker room? It’s sort of my lifelong dream. Okay, so maybe not my lifelong dream, but hello? Locker room, big manly men, nakedness … so my thing.”
Lexi chuckled. “Is that even a real question? Those college kids all think they’re the next big thing, so they’re usually champing at the bit to get me to visit their locker room. And FYI, they have no shame, but they do have teeny, tiny towels. So yeah, I can get you in. We should make a weekend of it.”
Dez covered her mouth with her hands and gasped. “You shut your dirty whorish mouth.”
“I will not,” Lexi laughed. “Brad isn’t keen on me making those trips without him. Not because he’s insecure, but because he knows they’re ogling what belongs to him and he’s a stingy little boy who doesn’t like to share his toys. Doesn’t matter, though, because he doesn’t get to tell me what to do. Tell you what. Since I really like you and all, I’ll set it up and give you a call. The whole trip will be my treat.”