Page 75 of Tracking Luxe

“Ay dios mio, save me from ill-mannered gorillas.” Huffed Luxe, drawing Grinder’s eyes at last to see the scowl etched deep, she bumped Steele’s arm off her and took a step forward, turning towards him. “Thanks for the key. I’ll be at your place in a while.”

And she walked off, ignoring Grinder altogether.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Hi, my name is Nathan Frazier, and I’m a dumb, jealous motherfucker.” - Grinder

Diffusing the weird situation bouncing between the two men Luxe didn’t walk too far before she heard Nathan heavy on her heels. He rounded in front, stopping her in her tracks.

Talk about a visceral stare.

It was as intimate as a private caress slipping over bare skin, those dark eyes hooded with long black lashes pinned her in place. Her stomach tugged.Ay dios, he was so, so handsome with his tall swaggering gait and she really liked the dark gray coveralls hanging around his waist, giving her peeks of his hard belly, all the sculpted muscles on display for her own enjoyment, she thought. A handsome working man with dirt under his nails. She’d forgotten the effect he had on her as air whooshed out of her lungs.

She might faint or do something equally mortifying and lick his face.

The energy coming off him was gasoline straight to her veins, his heat radiated all down one side of her body almost as if they were already touching. That whole macho chest beating posturing was never her cup of sweet tea … usually. She’d be lying out of her ass if she said seeing Nathan with jealousy grating his rough voice box was something she didn’t enjoy.

He was either claiming her or he just did hate Jamie and enjoyed poking him.

“Hey,chico, how’s it going?”Now that was a great question, self-high five. Much better than the one swirling around her head.Will you get over here and let me smell your neck, you, sexy bastard.She followed it with; “What was that macho crap all about?”

He really did have the best smell.

Masculine and spicy with a hint of sugar in there somewhere. She’d rolled her nose up and down his throat for those glorious hours spent together moaning how gorgeous he smelled.

“How’s it going?How’s it going?” the repeat got slightly higher in his velvety baritone and Luxe’s brows shot up into her hair from the look of thunder crossing his expression.

Maybe she should have gone with asking to sniff him?

Behind her she heard. “Oh, fuck, the kids are about to have a domestic, this is gonna be good, Rider. Sit back and watch the pocket-rocket demolish your boy.” Chuckled Jamie helpfully and Luxe glared at him, shifting her whole body towards Nathan but his eyes weren’t on her now.

They were all about Jamie.

The stare was death all over with not even a chance of resuscitation. A shiver trickled down her spine, hot all over, it was instinct to move into his body and calm him, to ease whatever discomfort he was experiencing, laying both hands on his chest, he was breathing rapidly. “Don’t,” she said for his ears only. “Nathan. Don’t.” His head cranked down, their eyes meeting and holding, his nostrils flaring like he was a thoroughbred, his chest inflating harder until he took one gusty breath and exhaled slowly.

How extraordinary to calm a man like this, she thought. She felt it happen, the way his body relaxed under her stroking hands, shoulders that were tense dropped and he moved to rest their foreheads together. Luxe braced to have him closer, unconsciously leaning into him. She was drunk on this one intimate touch.

Oh, shit. Did that modest, animalistic observation of calming for her have to tickle every erogenous zone she had?

“Look at that. Our boy just got tamed.” She turned to see who owned the snide rusty voice. Luxe snapped out of her daydream of yanking his head down and licking straight into his mouth.

A guy with very little hair was their smirking heckler.

Just as if Grinder hadn’t wanted their connection severed she felt him all over her back pushing into her, keeping her close. Luxe was busy gaping because it was the most curious thing to see a man cradling two kittens in his shovel sized hands, one tiny kitten head caught between two fingers, it lazed on his palm. A man looking as he did with the humongous, frankly vulgar, tattoo across his neck, she blurted the first thing to come to mind. “Is he going to hurt those kittens?”

She wasn’t a member of PETA but she’d once clobbered two young boys for taunting a park squirrel with rocks, the little shits had thought it was funny. Luxe was six at the time. In that same protective vain she wouldn’t stand by if someone was about to be cruel to animals right in front of her, she took a step towards mister menacing who turned the coldest eyes on her, only to have Nathan’s hand sliding around her middle stopping her.

The shiver goose bumped her flesh.

Dangerous was the first word to come to mind as she held the blue eyes of the kitten holder. “I’m more likely to hurt you than these.” He told her, voice like a train wreckage. All rust and granite.

“Oh. Well then.Bueno.” Not that she was pleased for his confession, but still, yay for saving kittens, she supposed.

He let one of the kittens crawl up his black shirt, it was mewling as it butted his little head against the guy’s chiseled jaw looking for affection, it barely appeared to be a few days old, the other one still cradled in his hand, he stroked a finger over the tiny head, all the while glaring empty-like at Luxe.

“Not very bright your girl, Grinder.”

“Shut your trap, Lawless. Come on, Luxe.” He told his buddy as he tried to direct Luxe out the way she’d come.

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