Dangerous Exes (Page 15)

He stared me down. “What if they’re clean socks I put on while looking for my shoes?”

“What if you wait to put on your gross socks until after you locate your shoes?”

“Ah, an answer for everything.” He was so close to me I could see the flecks of gold in his clear blue eyes.

I shrugged and backed against the couch. “So, what are we going to do for another”—I checked my watch—“hour and forty-two minutes?”

His eyes dragged down my body before returning to my face. “I could think of a few things.”

I gulped.

But he didn’t act on anything and instead nodded to the TV. “We could binge-watch a show, I’ll even let you make little structured discussion sheets with a highlighter . . .”

I smacked him on the leg as my eyes lit up.

“Oh God, I love that you’re actually excited about taking notes.”

“It’s calming!”

“So why don’t you color? It’s the new thing! Coloring books, markers . . .”

“It’s like coloring.” I adjusted the blanket. “With labels.”

His eyes narrowed. “You have a label maker, don’t you?”

“It only makes sense, so I don’t have to look inside my containers.”

“Or drawers?” he said.

I didn’t answer.

He moved so fast, one minute he was sitting next to me, the next he was in my bedroom, a look of extreme disappointment on his face. He shook his head and pointed to the label on the top drawer of my dresser. “Lingerie.”

My face burned red.

He licked his lips. “What? You think you might forget it’s the first drawer?”

I crossed my arms. “Really want to get into this, Mr. Black-and-White Everything—”

He held up his hands in surrender. “So how about that show?”

“I pick first?”

He walked with me back into the living room. I grabbed my laptop and popped it open.

“No TV?” He frowned.

I shrugged. “No need.”

I didn’t realize how close we’d have to sit.

Or how good he would smell.

Or how many sex scenes would be in the new American Gods show.

But there it was.

Sex.

Me.

A too-hot blanket.

And Jessie’s massive body next to mine.

I fell asleep that way, against something warm.

And woke up with a blanket covering my body and a smile on my face.

Chapter Fifteen

JESSIE

Two weeks ago, if someone had told me that I’d be walking into Tiffany’s ready to pick out a ring for my new fiancée, I would have laughed in their face and then gotten drunk at the nearest bar.

Marriage hadn’t been good to me.

It had been a nasty little bastard I never wanted to face again.

And yet, there I was.

Hand in hand with possibly the most intimidating woman I’d ever met, pasting a fake smile on my face.

Fuck how history repeated itself.

“You don’t have to look so excited,” she said through clenched teeth, and then she winked and wrapped her arms around my neck and just hung there, her white blouse open enough for me to see her right breast and pale, silky-smooth skin. “I’ll let you cop a feel if your smile reaches here.” She tapped the side of my temple and grinned wider. “Come on, pumpkin, it will be just like junior high only this time the girl is letting you, and you aren’t begging for a look at her boobs.”

I wrapped my arms tightly around her waist. “What makes you think I had to beg?”

She scrunched up her nose. “I had you pegged as the creepy nerdy kid who stared at girls during lunchtime while playing with Star Trek action figures—am I that far off base?”

I leaned down and brushed my nose across her cheek as I whispered in her ear, “Try GI Joes.”

Isla licked her lips and gripped my biceps. “They mentored you well.”

I was smiling before I realized it as she clung to my bicep like she was getting ready to take a swing from it and shout to the world how big, bad, and strong I was. The longer I thought about it, the harder I smiled.

“There it is.” She released my arm.

My smile fell.

Vanessa had never touched me because she wanted me—at least that’s what I’d come to realize—she touched me because she wanted something from me.

There was a big difference in the way a woman touched you for her needs, or touched you for your own.

Isla touched me for me.

“Alright.” Isla tapped her ear as someone got out of a car and took a picture of us. “You got your earpiece in?”

“I still don’t understand why I need Colin to coach me through a fucking proposal, I know how to propose.”

Isla covered her smile with her hand. “So what was your plan then? Let me guess, get down on one knee, say something like I can’t imagine my life without you?”

I felt my face heat. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Everything,” she huffed as I opened the door for her and pressed my hand to the small of her back.

“How so?”

One of the managers weaved her way toward us, a tight bun pulled low on her head, her lipstick bright red, and her eyes lasered in on us with such intensity I almost saw dollar signs in her gaze. I’d called ahead to let them know we were coming, but beyond that, everything needed to look real, like we were just looking.

Isla turned and faced me, her eyes searching mine. “Because, Jessie, life is supposed to be shared, it’s a partnership. Things don’t work out when you feel the need to fully depend on that other person for your own happiness. The fact is, you should be able to imagine your life without the person you love—the difference is, you shouldn’t want to. Get it?”

My jaw went slack as the manager clasped her hands in front of us. “I’m Janie, I’ll be personally escorting you around our lovely store this evening. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve already prepared a few of our favorite pieces for your inspection.”

I almost snorted at the word inspection.

What? Like we were buying a house?

After the first price tag, I imagined I could buy three houses, but it didn’t matter, this was part of it. Besides, unless Isla fled the country, the ring was going to be returned.

Maybe I’d handcuff her every night to my bedpost just in case.

I squirmed at the thought.

Heat filled my veins, causing a bead of sweat to run down the back of my neck. I cleared my throat as Janie pulled out another ring.

“Shit, that’s a lot of money,” Colin said in my ear as I inspected the three-carat piece. It had a center princess-cut stone in a vintage two-prong band, but it felt too . . . normal.

And our situation was anything but normal.

“I like this,” Isla said in that professional voice I was starting to hate. It seemed fake, like she was trying to please everyone else in the universe but herself.

“It’s not her,” I found myself saying without hesitation, and Janie and Isla shared a look.

“He’s sweet,” Janie said while Isla narrowed her eyes at me as if to say What’s the big deal? Just pick a ring out!

“You think you know me so well . . .” Her voice held a teasing note, a challenge.

I crossed my arms. “I better since I’m sharing a life with you, isn’t that what you said earlier?”

Her face flushed before she motioned to the rings. “Then pick.”