Page 50 of Knockout (Whiskey Dolls 2)

He chuckled and continued with his thought. “Given that, maybe we should take this slow. No pressure.”

I nodded in agreement. We liked each other, we’d both admitted that. We wanted to see where this was going. There really wasn’t any need for labels or vows of commitment at this point. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I was ready for all that myself. This was brand new, and I wanted to take some time to enjoy the start of a new potential relationship. The start had always been my favorite part, after all.

“No pressure,” I repeated, voicing my approval. “We’ll just date like normal people.”

“Plus sex,” he stated, his expression growing serious.

I let out a little harrumph and rolled my eyes. “Well, that’s a given. I mean, we should get gold medals for last night. It would be blasphemous to stop now.”

The white of his teeth stood out, stark against the midnight scruff, thicker than usual, coating his chin. “Precisely.”

“But no sleeping with other people,” I said firmly, poking my nail into his firm chest. “I’m all for taking things slow, but when I’m sleeping with a man, he’s theonlyone I’m sleeping with. And I expect that same level of exclusivity in return.” There was that forthrightness. For me, this was the make-or-break condition; best to be upfront about it. If he couldn’t get on board with that, we needed to call this thing off now. I wasn’t the type of woman who got a kick out of juggling multiple men at once, and I was self-aware enough to admit that I didn’t like sharing all that much.

“That’s a given,” he gritted, jealousy sparking in his inky blue eyes. “No one else while we’re together.”

“And maybe we shouldn’t tell your gram,” I added as an afterthought. “I love that woman, don’t get me wrong, but if she knew what was happening between us—”

“There’d be an engagement announcement in the papers tomorrow morning.”

A giggle worked its way up my throat. “Exactly. And that doesn’t really say ‘no pressure.’ Should we shake on it?” I joked.

That heat returned to his gaze, and I felt exactly what it meant when he shifted above me and the steel of his erection pressed against my hip. “I can think of a much more enjoyable way to seal our agreement.”

My chest stuttered on a choppy inhale as warmth bloomed in my core. My voice came out low and breathy as I asked, “Oh? What did you have in mind?”

The kiss he laid on me just then started at a ten and quickly ramped up to a twenty in seconds. My nipples tightened in anticipation, arousal dampening my folds in preparation for what was to come—hopefully soon.

But before we had a chance to get to thereallygood stuff, we were interrupted by a hard knock on his front door.

A growl of annoyance barreled up his throat. “Ignore it,” he clipped just before taking the kiss even deeper and shifting to cover me completely. I opened my legs instantly to accommodate his hips, more than ready for the fun to start when another knock came, this one even louder as it carried through his living room and into the bedroom.

Jude dropped his head to my shoulder with a huff. “Someone better be fucking dead.”

“Joodle Bug! Yoo-hoo! Open up!”

At the sound of his grandmother’s voice, my eyes nearly bugged out of my head. “Oh my God,” I whispered in a sudden state of panic as Jude’s head shot up and we both whipped our necks in the direction of his front door. “It’s so much worse.”

22

Jude

This couldn’t be happening.

Talk about a living nightmare. I’d been hard as stone, just seconds from sliding into my woman, and my fuckinggrandmotherwas shouting my door down first thing in the goddamn morning. I couldn’t remember ever losing a boner faster in all my life. If I didn’t love the woman to death and feel like I owed her for helping me become the man I was, I’d kill her and bury her body where it would never be found!

“Jude!” The anxiousness in Layla’s whispered voice pulled my focus to her, and it took everything I had no to crack up at the alarm etched into every inch of her gorgeous face. “What do we do? We can’t just leave her out there.”

“Not like it would matter,” I grumbled as I ignored my body’s protests and forced myself from between Layla’s luscious thighs and off the bed. “The devil woman has a fucking key,” I seethed as I yanked a drawer open and pulled out a pair of clean underwear. I quickly pulled them on, then a pair of sleep pants, and raked a hand through my hair as another persistent knock sounded. “I’m coming!” I barked. “Give me a minute, will you!”

I turned back to find Layla had sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest, covering those perfect tits as she stared at the open doorway in fright. “Just stay in here,” I told her. “I’ll get rid of her, okay? She won’t even know you’re back here.”

She turned those breathtaking gray eyes to me, finally smiling for the first time since our ill-timed interruption. “When you say ‘take care of her’ you don’t mean you’re going to kill her, do you?”

Okay, so this woman knew me way too well. “Are you kidding? With all these nosy assholes we live around? Not a chance I’d get away with it right now. But Iamseriously contemplating throwing her ass into an old folks home. It’s the least she deserves right now.”

“I’m not getting any younger out here!” Gram shouted, probably waking up every one of my neighbors.

“Maybe if I chain the door and make her wait out there long enough, she’ll die of natural causes.”

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