Page 79 of Reaper's Claim

“I’m not lying. Reaper and I are good. Friends, but not friends, you know what I mean?”

“I don’t think even a trained psychiatrist would know what you mean.”

I rolled my eyes. “Why does it matter anyway?”

“Because,” She took a step closer to me, lowering her voice. “You’re currently giving that poor boy the sexy kitten eyes. I’m just interested in what he did to deserve them.”

“I am not!” I was outraged. Idid notdo sexy kitten eyes. I grabbed her arm while pulling her away from the bar and out of sight of men eating their breakfast.

Kim giggled as I led her outside. “Gee, Abby, talk about an overreaction.”

“Well, you accused me of something I don’t do.”

“Why, because you are above the sexy kitten stare down?” She couldn’t hold back the laughter. “Gee, what happened last night?”

“Nothing.”

“Lying again!” She pointed a finger at me. “You are on a roll this morning.”

“We had sex, ok!” I blurted it out and slapped a hand over my mouth. Why the hell did I just say that to her!

Her expression went from amused to serious in a moment. “Abby, please tell me you are joking.”

Okay, I wasn’t expecting that reaction.

“No, I’m not.” I crossed my arms, feeling defensive. “You can’t lecture me, ok? It’s not like you haven’t done a bad guy before.”

“I wasn’t going to say that, but come on, Abby. This is Reaper.”

“And you’re hot for Trigger.”

“Yeah, I am.” Regret captured her face. “And you have no idea what I would do for him not to have this pull on me. All I’m going to say is, think about it before you get in any deeper. Men like them, like Dad, they live on this shit, you know. Pulling women in and making them theirs.”

“Reaper’s not like that.”

“Really? Because from what I heard, he stalked you to the point of moving in with his brother.”

How the hell did she know that! “Did Dad tell you that?”

“I may have been listening to your conversation with Dad.”

Of course she was.

“Well, then you know why he did it. He did it for Dad.”

“Yeah, that’s my point. He was willing to listen to his president and break your privacy.”

“Kim. Drop it.” I wasn’t getting into this with her. I wasn’t about to justify my actions.

I could see that she didn’t want to. It was clear she had more to say. Instead, she nodded her head and sighed.

“I guess we are all free to make our own mistakes, right?” She reached into her pocket, pulling out her phone. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you later and Abby, if you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

I don’t remember a time in my life that I had heard Kim say that, and it was somewhat sad how much safer I felt hearing it.

“I’ll see you later.” I opened the pub door and headed back inside.

I suppose the moral of this story is I needed to be more careful when it came to Reaper. I couldn’t be gawking at him. Though it was so hard to not admire his beautifully crafted body, especially in that black tank top. It was cruel seeing all that ink and muscle on display.

---