Page 145 of Nothing to Fear

She hadn’t so much as brushed her hair and everyone else looked so glamorous.

“Christmas! If this is still going on at Christmastime, we’re having Christmas upstairs. Just us, family only, no hangers-on, guests or outsiders.”

“You’ve never met an outsider in your life,” Tripp said. “As soon as you meet them, you make friends with them.”

“Yeah, like you’re the Grinch,” Roxie retorted. “You know what I mean, people we trust. People we know aren’t crazy, psychotic stalkers. I’ll make a list.”

“Check it twice,” Tripp said, laughing at his own joke.

Some of his brothers joined in.

“What a terrible job,” Roxie said, “being the one who writes the lists.”

“You’d give presents to the naughty ones and corrupt the nice,” Zairn said, pulling out a chair that, with a brow twitch, he got Roxie to sit in.

“Nice is overrated. No,” Roxie said, reaching for the wine glass Zairn was still filling. “Jane is nice. She’s been on the nice list her whole life. She’s nice with merit, with honors, top of her class. I wonder what people have to do to be on the naughty list. No one’s good all the time.”

“Except Jane,” Tripp said.

Roxie nodded, gesturing with her wine glass as it approached her lips. “Except Jane.”

Tripp frowned. “Where’s Toria? She going to jump out on us?”

“She and Sway are doing some spa immersion thing that takes like six hours or something, I don’t know.”

“Toria’s your co-defendant when it comes to corrupting the innocent,” Zairn said, sitting next to his woman.

“Uh, liar, we lived with Jane for a million years and she’s still good.”

“She also, at your request, broke into her boyfriend’s place of work.”

“For Lilya.”

“And used sex to distract him so you and Lilya could go sleuthing.”

“You men don’t care if we use sex. You get sex out the deal, what’s the problem?”

“I should warn Knox to keep you away from their kids.”

Roxie swooped her glass up to rest on her lower lip. “Something you can’t do for yourself, Skippy.”

“No, unfortunately, you know all my secrets and our genetic material has already been fused.”

“Oh,” Roxie said, lowering the glass an inch. “That’s a hot word.”

Zairn leaned right up close to her ear. “Fused?”

Roxie shivered and laughed. “Turn me on all you want, Casanova, I live in this building.”

“You two are all sex, all the time,” Brandt whined, sinking into his own seat.

Her blonde friend checked herself out. “Uh, I am not having sex this second.”

Zairn licked his fingertips, which then quickly disappeared under the table. “Give me a second to change that.”

On another laugh, Roxie swatted at his hand. “You want me to drag you through to Tripp’s place and force you to finish it like a man?”

“My place? What about right here? There are two beds in this suite.”

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