Chapter Nine

Chelle

Somehow Chelle’s lips still tingled from that kiss.

It was hours after she’d said, “I do.” Thirty minutes had passed since the last guest left. Minutes ago, she’d taken off her wedding dress and had put on her ultra-moisturizing under-eye patches. Then she’d followed that up by shoving her hair into a half-assed bun that skipped messy and went straight into just survived a hurricane.

Still, she couldn’t get that kiss out of her head.

No one—absolutely no one—had ever kissed her like that before. It was as if Nash wanted to wipe her memory of every other man she’d ever been with. It had been amazing and she wanted more. Of course, she couldn’t have more, because it had been a pity kiss meant to shut up her asshole of an uncle.

And yet…

Butterflies were doing synchronized loop-de-loops in her stomach, and she stopped in the middle of buttoning up the pajama shirt that matched her black-and-white dragon pajama pants and brought her fingertips to her lips. Closing her eyes, she gave in to the sizzle that had her whole body a little trembly and put herself back in that moment as music poured in through her earbuds.

They hadn’t had a first dance. Instead, after the ceremony, they’d had a very civilized cocktail party—if she didn’t count the fact that Sir Hiss had spent the whole time stalking Nash’s cousin Dixon as if he had pockets full of catnip treats. Then everyone had gone home and she’d gone into hiding.

Okay. She’d told Nash she needed a bath to recharge and then a book to unwind before she could even think about talking to another human being ever again, but they both knew she was running away because she had no idea what to do with the man staying in her guest room for the next month.

She’d figure out the answer to that tomorrow. Tonight, she was going to forget about that kiss. Somehow. Someway. She’d figure it out.

“Fuck!”

Nash’s curse came through over the Game of Thrones soundtrack (don’t get her started on that last season) and she yanked out one of her earbuds. It took her a second to work out what the scraping and soft thumps coming from the living room meant, but when she did, she marched over to her bedroom door and flung it open.

That.

Giant.

Prick.

He thought he could ignore her and rearrange her life as if her wishes didn’t even matter? No effing way. She’d lived through that already. It wasn’t going to happen again. Ever.

Was she hyping herself up for exactly what she spent her entire real life avoiding—confrontation? Fuck yes, she was—she had to.

She could do it.

She could do it.

She could do it.

She repeated her mantra in her head as she walked down the hall, the pugs sprinting ahead of her into the living room, eager to investigate the noise. If she was the heroine in one of her books, she would have a fire-and-brimstone-worthy ass chewing already coming together in her mind like the perfect scene in one of her books. Too bad this was real life and she was just a human woman who was trying to learn new habits in her forties—exactly when every part of her wanted her to stay in her comfort zone. What she wouldn’t do to have a flaming sword or the acid venom her nymph assassins always carried instead of a shaky inner voice talking to her like she was a train in a kids’ book.

The words of her mantra scattered like cockroaches when the lights came on, though, the moment she walked through the curved archway dividing her living room from the hallway. She whacked her shin on the corner of the coffee table and stopped dead in her tracks—but not because of the pain.

No, she jolted to a halt because of what she saw.

There in the middle of her living room (where the couch was now in the wrong place even if it did look better there) Nash stood shirtless in a pair of low-slung gray sweatpants. His sleepwear gave just enough of a hint as to what he was packing beneath them in commando form to make her mouth go dry and her nipples tighten into hard points.

She could do him.

Shut up, brain! That is not the mantra!

His abs and biceps weren’t chiseled like a guy who spent every spare moment of his day either in the gym, working out, or pounding protein shakes. No. Instead of having the show muscles of a gym bro, he had a hard-as-fuck tank of a bod with a solid chest, thick, strong arms, and powerful shoulders. It was like looking up and finding that she was on the shirtless, burly, blue-collar lumberjack side of TikTok or something. And she was soooooooo here for it—or at least she would be if she didn’t remember at that moment that she was supposed to be annoyed enough to go nymph assassin on his very fine ass.

“What are you doing?” she asked once she found her voice and got her eyes to focus on his face, instead of appreciating how his high, round ass kept those gray sweatpants in place.

Nash squatted down and pet the dogs, who were all bug-eyed in love with him. “Fixing things.”

“Excuse me?”

“It was all wrong.” He stood up, crossing his arms and bracing his legs as if he was ready for a battle. “But don’t worry, I’m fixing it. How you had it really messed with the traffic flow of the room. Plus, I noticed after the wedding that Sir Hiss didn’t have a no-dog-zone climbing spot after the bookshelves. However, if they bracket the big window like this, he can go from one to the couch to the other and then take the fireplace mantle to the chair, and then bam, he’s made the circle to the third bookshelf in its original spot.”

“That could be the case,” she said, not liking that she had to admit (only to herself, thank you very much) that he was right about that, along with moving the couch over a bit that way and the chair nudged a few feet this way. “But I liked it the way it was.”

“And I saw how you hit your shin on the coffee table three times today because it’s in an awkward space,” he countered, his gaze going over her body as if he was memorizing it for later.

“The room was filled to the gills with your family.” She fought to keep her hand from going to that third button on her shirt and closing it. Usually, she was alone, so there wasn’t anyone to guard from getting a large flash of cleavage. The girls needed to air out after a day spent locked in an underwire prison. Nighttime was their time to be free. “Normally, I don’t have anyone here.”

“Really?” He lifted an eyebrow. “You did it when you walked in here just now.”

Fuck. Way to go, Michelle.

“I was distracted,” she said, fumbling for an answer that didn’t make her sound totally inept.

“By what?” he asked, clearly knowing the answer already.

She should have shot back a response, but then he put his hands on his hips, the move edging the waistband of his gray sweatpants down another inch or two. Maybe she was looking really hard or maybe the light coming in from the streetlamps was just right for her to notice the dusting of light brown hair on his chest and the slightly darker line of hair that disappeared beneath his waistband. She needed to drag her gaze upward. Logically, she knew this was true. She only made it as far as his bare chest before getting stuck there.

If she was a character in one of her books, this would be a sign that a spell had been cast and that she needed to watch out. However, she was not a nymph in one of her fantasy stories. She was a woman in her forties with a BMI that made her doctor give her the side-eye, in a short-term marriage of convenience with a guy she barely knew.

This wasn’t real life. It sure as hell wasn’t the beginning of a real marriage (AKA death by gold band).

She’d seen what happened to the women who went into marriage fresh and optimistic and walked away tired, worn, and cynical. Even if this wasn’t a fictional marriage, she had decided she was too old and set in her ways to let a man mess with her shit. For once in her life, she was going to put her foot down. She wouldn’t go with the flow. She wouldn’t just accept that this was the way things had to be. She was going to take a page from her characters’ book and be a badass.

Kinda.

Sorta.

Okay, this was her first test, and she wouldn’t fail in sticking up for doing things her way just because a half-naked Nash made her breath catch and her heart speed up.

“Oh,” he said, taking a few steps closer. “Were you distracted by me?”

He came to a stop only a few feet from her, and she couldn’t help but notice that pale freckles dotted his broad shoulders and cascaded down until they were hidden by his chest hair.

The satyrs in her books should definitely have more freckles.

She let out a shaky breath as a sense of uber-awareness of Nash washed over her and pocketed the image for later—yes, she was a weak person.

“Not in the least.” Why did her voice sound so squeaky all of the sudden? “I was worried about your ankle.”

“It’s all better today.” He balanced all of his weight on his right foot for a few seconds before putting his left foot back down. “And anyway, that answer didn’t sound anything like the truth.”

Because it was a gigantic lie.

Okay, if her heart could stop fluttering like that for half a second, she could come up with something to distract him with. She was the queen of winging it when writing her books. This should be easy. All she had to do was think of Nash as the annoying satyr with freckles on his shoulders and she’d be fine.

Okay, brain, any minute now.

No, don’t look down at the outline of his dick again.

ACK! Not at his broad chest, either.

His face—nope that’s not gonna work, either.

Okay, that spot on the wall to the left of his ear. Perfect. That’s the one. Now, do your magic thing, brain.

Thank God, it did.

“I don’t care what it sounded like,” she said, dialing into that dismissive tone her dad had used with her for her entire life that didn’t, not even a little bit, sound like it should be coming out of her mouth. “But since I’m up, we might as well work out the details for how we’re going to do this for the next month. Number one, no moving my furniture around.”

He looked around the chaos that was once her everything-in-its-place living room. “Fine.”

“And we each stick to our own space within the apartment.” She drew an invisible line in the air with her finger, dividing the room in two. That part of her apartment was his dance space and over here would be hers. “That shouldn’t be hard, since you’ll be at Beckett Cosmetics all day and I like to read in bed at night.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“What, now you’re trying to tell me I can’t read in bed?” She planted her hands on her hips and glared at Nash. There was no way, not after growing up with the book police yanking any book that even hinted of a world where people rebelled against authority. She didn’t have a lot of lines that were labeled do not cross, but that was for sure one of them. “Do you have some bullshit mansplaining spiel about shit-erature and how it gives people unrealistic expectations about life and how people should treat them?”

“I meant the me going to the office part.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants and rocked back on his heels, managing to look like some kind of bashful thirst trap. “We allow our staff to work from home, if they want, from Thanksgiving to after New Year’s so everyone can have some extra downtime around the holidays. As the top three executives in the company, my cousins and I lead by example. I haven’t been in the office after turkey day in five years.”

Chelle’s jaw dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

A whole month of this? There weren’t enough batteries. Her fingers were going to get whatever the knuckle version of lockjaw was.

“So you’re going to be here all the time?” she asked, pressing her hand to the base of her neck, where her pulse was going fast enough to break a land-speed record.

Nash grinned at her, showing off the double dimples of disaster for her panties. “Pretty much.”

Oh God.

This couldn’t get worse.

Beyond the epic levels of horniness he inspired, how in the hell was she supposed to get any writing done?

She had a system, a process. It involved everyone in the world leaving her the fuck alone, and it was glorious. She did foundation work in the afternoon, but the mornings were reserved for fighting magical evil, thrilling side quests, and stand-in-front-of-the-open-freezer sex scenes.

How in the hell was she supposed to focus with Nash around all the time?

“You won’t even know I’m here,” he said.

The low timbre of his voice danced along her skin, teasing her senses and giving her all sorts of ideas that she had no business having about her temporary husband.

“I seriously doubt that,” she said as she headed back to her room, Groucho and Mary prancing along at her heels.

“Chelle,” he called out.

She stopped and turned. “Yes?”

“About that kiss.” He looked her in the eyes, holding her gaze and locking her in place. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It was nothing.” She clenched her hands to keep from touching her lips again. “I’d already forgotten all about it.” How she didn’t just burst into you’re-a-big-liar flames on the spot she had no clue. She really was too old to be this turned on by a pity kiss. Fuck. Time to get back to familiar ground, and a normal living room. She took a deep breath, girded her loins, and let it rip. “Please put all of my furniture back.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He tipped his chin but didn’t bother to smother the teasing grin on his face. “One question. What about the coffee table? Another six inches that way and you won’t be in danger of hitting it.”

She blinked in confusion as her head spun at his personality transplant. “Are you…asking my permission?”

Why did she sound so confused about that? It was definitely stated as a question, but…no one ever really asked her anything. Even at the foundation she just took orders from the board and did her best to take their limited vision and help as many people as possible. No one asked what she thought or if she knew how they could do things better or her opinion or for her permission.

“I am.” Something intense flashed in his eyes as his gaze went from her mouth down to the deep V of her not-closed-all-the-way pajama top, and his dimples deepened as if he knew exactly what he was doing to her at that moment. “I should do that as part of the don’t-be-a-mansplaining-asshole lessons, right?”

Hot, slick desire rushed through her before she could even try to squash it. All she could do was remind herself that Nash Becket was not for her. He was cocky and full of himself and a know-it-all. He was the last man she could or should ever want.

Too bad, you do anyway.

Shut up, brain.

“Fine,” she said, starting for her door again before she combusted right in front of him. “Put the coffee table where you want.”

And then she shut the door to her room and went straight for the shower, because she was a woman who needed to cover her body in ice water to get a mansplainer out of her head before she did something even more foolish than marrying him.