The following scene was previously available as a part of the limited edition, multi-author
Small Town Christmas collection!
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Six months-ish later…
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I need a favor.
Knox had two simultaneous reactions to seeing Fiona Grady's name flash across his phone screen as the text came in.
One, he sighed. The woman was a lot of work. She made his life much more chaotic. Something he did not welcome.
Two, his body tightened. Particularly one part right behind his fly.
Dammit.
Hearing or seeing her name made his body respond like he was a fourteen-year-old boy with a crush.
The woman had him twisted up. And worse, she knew it.
He picked up his phone and studied the message.
He was a twenty-eight-year-old man. And not just any man. He was a fucking grump. On purpose. And Fiona knew that as well. In fact, he was especially grumpy with her. She was an animal rights activist who had never met a furry or feathered creature she didn't want to cuddle and coo at.
It wasn’t her love for animals that annoyed him, of course. It was the fact that she’d started bringing many of her rescues to Autre, Louisiana to live over the past eighteen months in the petting zoo that had slowly turned into an animal park that had slowly turned into a sanctuary for abused, abandoned, and neglected animals.
As Autre’s city manager and right-hand man to the mayor, Knox’s job had become more difficult because of those changes. There were more people underfoot now—visitors to the park, media, school groups, animal rights groups. There was also more paperwork crossing his desk with permits and licensing. There were more events too. Fundraisers, holiday parties, even a couple of protests from groups that believed all animals needed to be free in the wild. Hell, he even had more potholes to deal with now because of the increase in traffic.
And it was all Fiona Grady’s fault.
She was so not his type.
So why did she turn him on more than he ever had been before?
Hello???????
He felt the corner of his mouth tip up as her next text came across his screen.
She turned him on because she had three very important things going for her.
One, she was fucking gorgeous. She had long, dark hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a smile that was quick, bright, and full of mischief. Which he shouldn’t like but worked on him like a drug.
Two, she was fierce. She was petite and barely stood five-foot-one, but her personality and attitude were huge. She never backed down from his growls. He could bitch and bark at her and she hardly blinked.
For some reason he liked that.
She could always back her shit up. She might kick down a door to get to an abused animal and go toe to toe with the abuser, but she also knew the law, would have the correct permits, and would always win if someone tried to take her on.
Fuck, her boldness and her brain got him going.
Three, she lived almost seven hundred miles away. That was good. However twisted up she made him, most of the time she was too far away for him to do anything stupid about it.
I have a scar from the last time I did you a favor, he finally typed into his phone.
That was not entirely accurate. He had dirty fucking dreams from the last time he’d done her a favor.
And the favor before that.
It was the one before that where he’d been scarred.
Fiona Grady's favors had, so far, ranged from helping her unload a camel from the back of a truck, to tossing a hunk of meat over a fence to a hungry tiger, to helping bandage a gash on her lower back where a pissed off ostrich had tried to take a bite out of her, to letting her nap in his bed.
The first two, where he’d interacted with the animals directly, had been crazy—and definitely new additions to his resume—but it was those last two that had been haunting him.
To do first aid on the ostrich bite, she'd had to lower her jeans and show him a good portion of her sweet, well-toned left butt cheek. Not to mention the tattoo that curved over her left hip bone and read, All great changes are preceded by chaos.
He thought about that fucking tattoo every damned day.
She absolutely made him feel chaotic. When she was around, he felt it swirling in his head, his gut…his chest.
Then there’d been the day she’d napped in his bed.
Whenever Fiona came to town, she stayed with Griffin Foster and Charlie Landry but, in Fiona's own words, Landrys couldn't even take their shoes off quietly. She'd been wiped out from a huge animal rescue and then the long road trip from Georgia and she'd asked if she could sack out on his couch for a couple of hours. He'd said she should absolutely use a bed.
He hadn’t specifically mentioned the guestroom, because he’d assumed she’d figure out that was where the guests slept at his house.
But no. He’d found her four hours later in his king-sized bed with the blackout drapes pulled over the windows. Under his sheets. Bare naked. Sound asleep the way only someone who felt completely comfortable and safe could sleep.
His pillowcase had smelled like her for a week. Sure, he could've washed it, but… then it wouldn’t have smelled like her.
He hadn't jerked off that much in a week since he'd been a teenager.
Mine's bigger than yours, she replied in her next text.
He felt his whole mouth smile. It was true that the scar she had on her lower back from that ostrich was bigger than the one on Knox’s hand from snagging it on the fence when he’d thrown twelve pounds of meat to the tiger.
His smile died a moment later as he realized that there was no way he was saying no to whatever Fiona was texting him about right now.
Which was a huge red flag. He had no problem saying no to anyone.
That included his boss, the mayor, Kennedy Landry. And his mother. And his grandmother. And the mayor’s grandmother.
And he truly might be the only person to ever say no to Ellie Landry.
It wasn’t an easy thing to do, he would admit, but he could do it.
Of course, whenever he did, he had to go without gumbo for a week or so. That meant he carefully chose his battles. Still, once in a while even Ellie Landry needed to have someone put his foot down.
So did Fiona Grady.
The fact that he had difficulty doing that made her living in Florida and him living in Louisiana a very, very good thing.
He liked her. He wanted her. And he absolutely did not want to be involved with her. Or anyone. But especially her.
Fiona Grady was…a lot. And Knox didn’t want a lot. He very stubbornly and very purposely kept his life as simple as he possibly could. Fiona was gorgeous, funny, fascinating, smart, bold, and feisty. But she was not simple.
What do you need? he reluctantly asked.
It's probably easier if I show you.
He braced himself. She was going to send him a photo and God only knew what might flash across his screen next.
She’d never sent him naked photos, but a man could hope.
No, he meant a man could hope she wouldn't. He did not need a photo of Fiona naked. He had plenty of ideas in his head about what that looked like as it was.
And why did his mind keep going to dirty thoughts? She wasn't sexting him. They had a working relationship. Kind of. She had a partnership with the animal park and sanctuary in town (i.e., she was the one behind most of the animals that now called Autre home) and he was the city manager who got to deal with all the consequences of Autre now having an animal park and sanctuary.