Page 30 of Playing With Danger

He’d come over here to talk me into accepting his offer.

He wanted me safe.

It wasn’t the same as him coming over to ask me out for another coffee or offer me a night of wild, crazy, monkey sex that would ruin me for all other men, but it was something.

And that something meant more to me than a coffee date ever would.

9

I heard my phone ring on the bathroom counter. I finished rinsing the soap off my face before I checked my watch.

Seeing it was Sophie I answered, “Hey, everything good?”

“I have a question for you,” she launched in. “How much time would I serve for progenitorcide?”

“Say what now?”

“Mothercide. Parentalcide. Creatorcide. Homicide of the woman who birthed you. Take your pick but be fast about it. I need to decide if the crime is worth the time and do you think if I explain to a jury all the ways my mother drives me batshit crazy I could get off on a technicality or extenuating circumstances? All I need is one sympathizer for a hung jury, right?”

Christ, she was cute.

“First tell me you’re okay and safe then I’ll explain to you why you don’t want to commit a felony.”

There was a stretch of silence long enough for me to twist my wrist to make sure the call hadn’t disconnected.

“Where are you? You sound like you’re in a car wash.”

“You’re on my watch and I’m in the shower.”

“The shower,” she repeated on a breath and I knew what she was thinking about.

My cock jerked at the memory. The way her eyes had roamed and lingered as she’d openly taken me in. Blatant interest she hadn’t bothered hiding, or if she had tried she failed. The way she covered that interest with humor. It wasn’t lost on me women enjoyed certain parts of my anatomy more than other parts. Over the years I’d had a lot of reactions; lust, fascination, shock, excitement, and when that happened I ceased to exist and it became all about my dick and getting them off. But not Sophie. She’d taken me in and immediately started giving me gruff. It was cute. It was funny. It was refreshing in a way I didn’t understand until I saw her at the coffee shop and she hadn’t had a personality transplant—that being turning overtly flirtatious and angling to get me into bed. I was still me and she was just her. I was the one who joked about her seeing me naked, purposely bringing it up to see what her reaction would be but also to tease her out of her heavy mood.

That had backfired, in more ways than one. The first being my reminder meant I’d gone to work wearing her coffee on my shirt. The second served only to reinforce what I’d felt the first time I’d run into her at the grocery store—a spark of interest. The third part of that was more complicated; it was nothing more than a feeling and one I couldn’t explain. Which meant I wasn’t real thrilled I couldn’t place the feeling. The only thing I knew was it felt good and right and almost inevitable. A feeling of being drawn to someone for no reason other than it was unescapable and impossible to ignore.

“Baby, not that I mind taking a shower with you on the phone but I can’t convince you homicide isn’t the way to go if you don’t talk to me. And just to point out you still haven’t confirmed everything’s okay.”

“I haven’t left my house this morning,” she said like that was an answer and bad shit didn’t happen to people in their homes. “And everything was perfectly fine until my mother called me to tell me she was on her way over. She didn’t say, but she didn’t have to because I know her. This visit won’t be a friendly mother-daughter sharing a cup of coffee in order to catch up with each other. She’s coming over to shove her opinions down my throat since she failed to convince me to give up on my business and go get what she calls a real job. But that’s actually not why I’m calling, though I was slightly interested in the penalties one would face for strangling their mother.”

I had no experience with overbearing parents. When my mother was alive she and my father had been supportive but not domineering. My dad had been firm in his guidance but only when it came to how he believed a man should behave—that being respectful, chivalrous, loyal, protective, and above all else trustworthy. However, it wasn’t a lesson in morality or duty. Neither of my parents had ever pushed their wishes or dreams onto me or my sister.

Now since my mother’s death, all guidance had ceased. I could tell my father I’d quit my job, sold all my belongings, donated the proceeds to charity, and planned to live under a bridge somewhere for the rest of my life and I doubted he’d bat an eye. He certainly wouldn’t give fatherly advice.

But I didn’t need experience with it to know her relationship with her mom was jacked.

“You could not answer your door when she arrives,” I offered as a solution. “And there’s this setting in your phone that prevents people from calling or texting.”

“She’s my mother.”

Now that I had experience with.

No matter how many times I told myself I was giving up on my father I always went back.

“I get it.”

“You do?”

This was not a shower conversation and not because it wasn’t something I discussed—ever—it was well and truly not a topic to discuss when I couldn’t give it my full attention.

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