Chapter Nine

Grim stood over Nicole, brushing back her hair. "It's just a meal. They aren't scary. I promise."

"I don't know that it's appropriate for me to meet your parents. And I'm not dressed for it. I'm dressed like I'm going out to breakfast with hopes of being asked to stay to work for the lunch rush." She looked adorable in her jeans and shirt, her hair now pulled back in a ponytail. She looked young and sweet, and now that he knew how well her ass took an anal plug, she was even more beautiful than she'd been before.

He was in a romantic mood. Though he was afraid Josh was going to fuck everything up. He'd understood Josh wasn't merely running into town to grab some beer. They'd talked briefly today about visiting the auto shop to see what was up with her car. They'd discussed trying to fix the car themselves and hoping they could still convince her to hang around with them or at least let them come with her to Austin for a while.

And they'd talked about quietly sabotaging her efforts to get her car fixed. Not a fair thing to do, but he didn't believe she really had a job.

He'd been thinking about it all afternoon. Nic was her own person and had every right to make her own decisions, and he and Josh were being what Livie liked to call alpha holes.

But damn it, he wasn't going to let her go when he genuinely believed he was good for her. She'd fallen asleep wrapped in his ropes and clung to him. She'd kissed him like he was everything she wanted.

"I think you look beautiful," he said, lowering his head to hers and breathing her in. She smelled like his soap, and it did something for him.

Her hands came up to run along his neck. "Thank you but I'm still not sure I should walk into your parents' house looking like this. Rich people have expectations."

Now they were getting somewhere. Josh had mentioned she'd gone stiff when she'd realized how wealthy his family was. "They're not like that. I assure you Sam will be in jeans and a T-shirt, and Jack will either be in the same or a Western shirt. They don't dress for dinner. We always have Sunday dinner all together, and Josh and I want you to get to know our family."

"But I won't be here for long. I have to go to Austin."

"Austin's only a couple of hours away," Grim replied. "I don't understand why you moving means this has to end."

"Somehow I don't think you'll want to spend all your time driving," she said. "Besides, I'll be working so I won't be able to drop everything to see you."

"I would respect your work. And I don't mind a drive," he insisted. "What I do mind is the thought of not seeing you again. I know it's fast, but I feel something with you I've never felt with a woman."

Her arms tightened around him. "I feel the same about you and Josh. But I have to go to Austin. I can't back out of my job. It's important to me."

"Which is why I'll drive to Austin," he promised. "It's not far away. Didn't you say you were off this weekend?"

She nodded. "Yes, but I sometimes hang around in case Christa needs me, or I'll try to work out at The Barn."

"Come to the club with me and Josh." He knew he should talk it over with Josh, but they were going to Subversion, and he couldn't see them playing with anyone except Nicole. If she wasn't there, he didn't see a point in going. "If you don't want to go, we'll stay here with you."

"I don't want to ruin your plans."

"Baby, we made plans to go to the club a long time before we met you. It's a lifestyle club, so we go there to let off some steam." He was trying to be delicate, but he wanted to make one thing plain to her. "I'm not interested in letting off steam with anyone but you. So if you can't come, there's no reason for us to go. It's two days, Nicole. Two days out of time. Two days where we get to lock out the world and be who we are. I want those two days with you."

She reached up to run her hand over his cheek. "I want it, too. Yes, I can go. But it's probably the only time. I have to concentrate on work soon."

He stared at her, taking in how her eyes had flecks of gold and her hair had deep tones of brown. He wanted her to trust him. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

She took a long breath, and when she brought her head up, there was a smile on her face. One he didn't trust. "Not at all, and you're right. I'm being inflexible. There's no real reason this has to be completely over, though I don't know how well I'll do long distance."

Was she placating him? "If there's something you need to tell me, I'll listen, and you should understand I won't judge you."

Her face flushed but she shook her head and stepped back. "I'm an open book. I'm not interesting, as your parents are apparently about to discover. I'm afraid I mostly can talk about the café and cleaning things. I've gotten good at cleaning things."

He hated that she put some space between them, hated how she was smiling at him but he could see he'd upset her calm.

She seemed to shake it off, and she glanced in the mirror. "I wish I had some lip gloss. Where did I leave my purse?"

Shit. She might figure out something was missing. He'd seen Josh steal her keys. He wasn't sure if he was going to look through her car or her motel room, but he knew she would notice if those keys weren't in her bag.

Where the hell was Josh?

"Like I said, you look beautiful." He turned her around and lowered his head to hers as he heard the back door open.

Relief flooded through his system. Josh was back and in the nick of time. He kissed Nic, holding her tight and giving Josh time to cover his tracks.

She couldn't know what he'd done. She would run, and Grim would get his stupid heart crushed because she was the one. He knew it deep in his bones.

"Hey, sorry I'm late. I had to go to two different stores to get beer. The gas station was out, so I went to the grocer. You two find something to do?" There was a smirk on his face as he leaned against the doorjamb. His best friend looked completely innocent. Well, innocent when it came to stealing and putting his nose where she didn't want it. Not so innocent when it came to his eyes going over every inch of Nicole's body. "Though I'll admit I liked your rope dress better. But I suppose you can't wear it to dinner. If you do it, then the dads are going to want to do the same with Mom, and we need boundaries. So many boundaries."

Nic's jaw dropped. "You knew they would invite me to dinner?"

Josh shrugged. "You're here at six p.m. on a Sunday, and there's a seat at the table for you. So many of my friends have had Sunday dinner with my family. It's no big deal. They'll barely notice you're there. They'll ask a few polite questions and then my dads will discuss how the Cowboys played and what their playoff chances are, and Mom and Liv will talk about the latest book they've read. You might want to listen in. Those conversations can get wild."

"Josh, do they think I'm a friend or do they think I'm the chick you both slept with last night?" Nic asked, her lips in a frown. "From what I can tell, everyone in town likely knows by now. You carried me away."

"Did you?" Grim wished he'd been there. "See, that seems gallant of you."

He would have picked her up and cradled her to his chest and been her knight in shining armor. Everyone would have known Nicole was protected by him.

"He threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes," she corrected, and seemed to include Grim in her general displeasure. "Sort of like you carried me around like luggage."

Grim frowned Josh's way. "You're supposed to treat her like a lady. When you need to abduct her because she's being stubborn, you pick her up gently and cradle her against your chest. So everyone sees her pretty face."

Josh shrugged him off. "Well, at the time her face was more angry, and I was worried about her use of language. They got to see her pretty ass. You're the one who carted her around this afternoon, so maybe don't judge."

"There is a time and place, brother. When she's in my ropes, I get to do whatever I like. When she's on the street and we're in the vanilla world, we should kidnap her like gentlemen."

Nicole's head dropped, her hands covering her face as she laughed. "You're both crazy." She swung her head up, the frown replaced with a joyous smile. "And you can't kidnap me. Also, Grim is right. There is a time and a place, and I liked the rope thing way more than I thought I would. It was a nice way to spend the day."

Josh had come in the back door, so he would have walked by Nic's purse. He would have put back whatever he'd taken. Grim kissed Nic's forehead. He'd pushed her enough for the day. "Go get your lip gloss. We need to head up to the big house."

Josh looked down at his watch. "Damn. It's later than I thought."

"Yeah, I should probably get home." Nic kept looking for a way out.

He didn't intend to give her one. "They're lovely people, and I'm pretty sure tonight is enchilada night. You do not want to miss Benita's enchiladas. They're delicious."

She turned to Josh, a pleading look on her face. "You really want me to meet your parents?"

He moved in and cupped her chin, staring down at her in that overly serious way of his. "Now more than ever."

She sighed. "Fine. I'll be ready in a minute."

Grim waited until he heard her walking down the hall toward the bathroom. "What did you find?"

Josh kept his voice low. "She's been living in her car, and I think she slipped up earlier."

He knew exactly what Josh was talking about. "Childswood. It's not a high school. I would bet it's the name of the town she's from."

"I called Harlow."

Grim nodded, approving of the decision. If he'd called in her dads, they would loop in Jack and Sam. This was his and Josh's problem. "Good. I got Nicole to agree to come to Austin with us later this week, but it was a close thing. I think she plans on leaving us when her car is fixed. But she doesn't want to. She feels like she has to. It's almost like she thinks she's protecting us."

"Well, she'll find out it's a two-way street." Josh glanced down the hallway. "I have no intention of allowing her to leave. Something's going on, and when we figure it out, we solve the problem for her and then she won't have a need to leave. Her car is going to be harder to fix than she thinks. Al hasn't even ordered the part yet. It's an old car, so he might have trouble finding one."

"You have to be careful tonight. She's skittish," Grim warned him. "We need more time with her."

"Yeah, I've got a plan for that, too," Josh said.

He shouldn't be surprised. He'd been thinking about the problem. "We bring her back here after dinner and fuck her until she falls asleep, and then one of us drives her to work in the morning and picks her up and brings her right back here."

Josh nodded. "Great minds do think alike, brother.

"She's nervous about meeting the parents."

Josh waved the worry off. "I happen to know they're going to find a lot to talk about. Now before she gets back you should know your brothers spent the afternoon preaching something about wickedness causing the apocalypse, and the apocalypse is the bred heifers dying."

"They're not going to die. I got to them fast enough." The last thing he needed was his bio brothers causing trouble right now.

"Do they think it's the eighteen hundreds and Grim's a witch?" Nic was smiling again, a grin lighting up her whole face. "Oh, or is it me? Am I the wickedness killing the cattle off?"

Josh moved into her space, his hands going to her hips. "Hey, if there is wickedness here, it's almost surely me."

"Yeah, but you're the rich kid. Your wickedness will be overlooked. Grim and me are the ones in danger," she replied, but it was easy to see this conversation wasn't bothering her.

She'd said she was an open book, and she was when it came to her emotional state. He could tell when she was nervous, when she was happy, when she felt safe.

"Then I'm going to have to protect you both," Josh said.

He held her close and looked back at Grim, his gaze a vow.

They would both protect her. From everything.

* * * *

"So, Nicole, what is it you do for a living?"

Abigail Barnes-Fleetwood looked damn good for her age. She had auburn hair and green eyes and looked like an older version of her daughter, who was sitting across the table from Nicole.

The elegant table in the stunningly luxurious house. It might be a ranch house, but these weren't hard-scrabble ranchers. This was a wealthy family, and their home showed it.

It was almost like she was back in Childswood, sitting in the dining room of her mother-in-law's house. She'd been forced to sit there every holiday and listen to all the reasons why she wasn't good enough to be one of them. She wasn't well educated. She wasn't amusing or charming or any of the other -ings that would make her suitable.

She'd given them time to get used to her and then she'd told Micah she would never step foot into his parents' house again.

She'd spent two days in the hospital and was there at the next mandatory dinner party.

She'd been asked a question. It was best to answer and not anger anyone. "I'm waitressing right now, but I start a job in Austin in a couple of weeks. I'm going to work in the marketing department of a small corporation."

Nice. Neat. Easily malleable for most situations. She'd sat up late at night constructing the reply. It was general enough to not tempt someone to ask more questions. It sounded boring and normal, and most people let it go.

"Which corporation? I know a lot of the Austin business world." Jack Barnes sat at the head of the table. There was zero doubt the man was the authority figure of the family.

She felt herself flush and her stomach churn. "It's a start-up. I'm one of their first employees."

"What does the company make? Or are they a service provider?" Jack asked.

She forced herself to take a drink of the sweet tea she'd requested. It had tasted delicious only moments before. "They sell restaurant equipment."

It was all she could think of. She'd heard Christa complaining about the company that provided her refrigerators.

She knew absolutely nothing about buying or selling restaurant equipment.

Sam nodded as he scooped up some refried beans. "So you're going into sales."

Nic felt like there was a spotlight on her, like she was a one-woman show and the audience would decide if she got another booking or closed down all in one night. Of course they wouldn't simply close her down if they figured out who she was. They would call the police and have her arrested.

"I think Nicole would be great at sales." Olivia had been playing the role of cheerleader.

"Is sales what you did in Chicago?" Abigail asked politely.

The parents seemed nice, but it was obvious they were feeling her out. She'd hoped they would view her as a passing fancy, but she was definitely getting vet-the-new-girlfriend vibes off them. "No. I waitressed in Chicago. And I'm not in sales. I'm in marketing. That's what my degree is in."

Well, it would be if she'd been allowed to finish her last year of college. She'd been dumb and gotten married.

She'd put her last year of college off because he'd said he wanted to spend more time with her. She could go back later, he'd promised.

He'd lied. It was what Micah did best.

"Do you have a place to stay in Austin?" Jack was one of the most intimidating men she'd ever seen. And she'd been in the room with a murderer.

Somehow Nicole thought Jack Barnes would have handled the situation better than she had. "I'll stay with a friend until I can find an apartment."

"Why didn't your friend come get you when your car broke down?" Sam asked.

"Because she's incredibly stubborn and doesn't like taking handouts." Josh seemed to take charge. He was an awful lot like the man who had to be his biological dad, but maybe he seemed less scary to her because she knew how cuddly he was. "Kind of like some other people I know."

"I didn't take handouts, son," Jack said with a slightly shady grin.

"No, you took blackmail payments," Sam shot back.

"Sam," Abigail chided. "New friends."

Olivia leaned over, whispering Nic's way. "Dad's sperm donor was a married politician. When he tracked him down, he got the money to buy this ranch in exchange for him staying quiet about the circumstances of his birth."

"Years later, his father got caught doing all kinds of shady shit. He died in jail, but we did get a real nice uncle out of it," Josh said like it was a normal thing to confide.

"Yeah, Lucas is awesome," Grim acknowledged. "But I'm still trying to figure out how Abby's daughter married Jack's brother and it's okay. It still feels weird to me. Like how does that tree work?"

"It's also weird because Lucas is Dad's half brother," Olivia added. "So he's our uncle but also our brother-in-law."

"The branches get real twisty," Josh agreed.

"It's perfectly legal," Abigail said, eyeing her kids. "And you know it. There's not a bit of blood between them."

"No, but Uncle Aidan sure is," Josh quipped. "And why do we call him uncle? Because he is really just our brother-in-law. You want to take that one, Dad?"

Jack laughed, the sound booming through the room. "Fine. I'll quit asking questions." He smiled Nicole's way, and the man was so beautiful when he smiled. It made her understand how gorgeous Josh would still be thirty years from now. "Nicole, my children are pointing out that maybe we should ease into getting to know each other. They think I'm being too nosy. I don't mean anything by my questions beyond sheer curiosity."

She could almost believe him. Almost. "It's all right."

"I thought they were doing that thing where they hit a new friend with all the weirdness of our family in one go to see if she or he can handle it," Sam said. "More than one newbie has fled in terror."

She had to smile at the thought. Though she was still trying to wrap her mind around the stepdaughter marrying half brother thing, and apparently someone else had been thrown in, too. This was a complex family. "I'm made of stronger stuff, sir."

"Just Sam is fine," Sam Fleetwood said with a sunny smile. "The Sir thing does not work with me."

"Sam," Jack said, his name a warning.

"Yes, Jack." Sam had the sweetest smirk on his face as he looked to Jack like he had a secret. "I'll behave."

It hit Nic what he'd meant. "Oh, because I meant polite sir because you're a guy and you meant capital S sir because you're a…" What the hell was she saying? "I mean. Of course, I'll call you Sam. It's a nice name."

"She blushes frequently, Josh. She's never going to be able to play poker," Jack pointed out with a chuckle. "But she's also correct." Jack looked to Josh and Grim. "Am I going to get in trouble for going down this road?"

What road? She didn't want to be on a road.

She wanted to enjoy this excellent food. She wanted to be excited about meeting her boyfriends' parents. She wanted to be able to believe she had some kind of future with Josh and Grim.

"She's okay with the lifestyle, Dad. She's taking to it well, and that's all I will say about the subject," Josh explained.

"We're taking her to Austin this weekend." Grim seemed decidedly ungrim. He was practically cheery.

They'd told his parents they were taking her to a sex club. Not in so many words, but it was obviously a code.

She felt a warm hand on her wrist. Abby gave her a soft smile. "Sweetie, parents always know. If you were vanilla and Josh had told me you were going away on a trip, I would expect you would be intimate. It's a part of life, and a good part of it. No one's going to ask invasive questions about it, but know we support you as you explore this lifestyle, and there's no judgment at all here. I've been in your position. It can feel odd to be so open, but I think you'll find it's freeing once you embrace the idea there's no shame in loving someone the way they need to be loved, in allowing yourself to be loved the way you need to be."

She was not going to cry. She was absolutely not going to cry.

In mere moments Abigail Barnes had been more of a mother than she'd ever had. Nic was certain she hadn't meant to be, but a deep well of longing opened inside her. Had she ever truly been loved?

It felt like it when Josh tossed her over his shoulder or when Grim grinned down at her and offered her a chocolate because he'd tied her hands together. The sex was phenomenal, but it was the sweetness of those in-between moments that were getting to her.

It was the genuine intimacy of being with them that made her long for something more.

But she couldn't cry here at the table. There would be questions, and she couldn't answer them.

I'm crying because I'm falling in love with your sons, and I can't be with them because I'm wanted for murder and someday they're going to do a true crime show about it and you'll see my face and be so shocked.

You'll be ashamed to even know me.

But I didn't do it. I didn't.

She couldn't say any of those things so she choked the emotion down, shoving it as deep as she could. "Thanks. I'm looking forward to going to Austin, though I hope Christa doesn't need me."

"You deserve time off," Grim insisted.

"When was the last time you didn't work?" Josh asked. "You get off work and go looking for more work."

"Well, today counts. I wasn't allowed to work today," she pointed out.

Abby smiled as though she understood what it meant to deal with bossy men. "I think Christa can do without you for a few days. If she needs someone to fill in, I still have my old uniform."

Sam winked her way. "Damn straight you do, baby, and you still look good in it."

Olivia groaned. "Pops, no. Don't. I'm trying to eat."

Sam simply upped the wattage on that smile of his. "Daughter, how do you think you got here?"

"Oh, we are not going there." Josh's head was shaking. "Momma, what have you been reading lately? I noticed Nic likes to read."

It was news to her. "You did?"

He nodded her way. "You had a couple of paperbacks in your room. Momma and Livie are big readers, though you should understand they pretty much only read one thing."

"Not true," Liv said, a hand on her chest as though to say what me? "I read a lot of things. I read suspense."

"Where the detective solves a murder as he's railing the heroine," Grim explained.

"I read fantasy." Abby seemed to pick up on her daughter's vibe.

"Where a bunch of fairies rail the heroine," Josh added.

"Oh, I recently read a science fiction where the heroine's spaceship lands in a prison colony," Liv said with a grin. "And she totally gets railed hard. But I mean they were unjustly imprisoned."

"So what we're saying is we read a lot of super spicy romance," Abby explained. "And the boys make fun of us, but we don't care."

"That's what I read, and I'm pretty sure I read the prison colony one." Nic felt infinitely more relaxed talking about books. "Have you ever read the Texas Temptress series?"

Both women got very excited.

"Every single one," Abby declared.

"Which is weird because they're written by my sister," Josh said with a grimace. "And those are some hardcore books. From what I've heard."

Nicole ignored him, looking to Abby because this was world-shaking information. "Your daughter is an author? Your daughter wrote Dallas Delights?"

"And that is how our sister became more interesting to our girlfriend than we are." Grim sighed.

"Hush, son," Abby said. "The women are speaking now."

But she said it with a grin on her face.

And for the first time in forever, Nic felt like she belonged.