Crumbling it in my hand, I growl all the way to where she always is. That damn couch.
“When I make my app is none of your business, Marion!”
I stop in my tracks and blink at the sight of her. Did she wear that sundress to drive me nuts? The girl is stunning. She’s got it hiked up so she can prop her leg. Her long, shiny, brown hair is piled high in a messy bun that makes her elegant neck appear even longer. Without looking up from a book she’s reading, she says, “You can’t live off Jack forever.”
With all of my strength I throw the balled-up paper at the wall above her head. She doesn’t flinch. I knew she wouldn’t. Marion is made of diamonds and coal.
“I was up until four!”
She cocks a curious eyebrow. “You were?”
“Yes! But you go to bed like an old person and wouldn’t know that!”
“Maybe you’re lying.”
I shout, “I’m not fucking lying!”
She flips a page. “People lie.”
“Not me!” I start to march off to our shower, but my temper wins. “You know what, Marion!? I was up all night researching everything I could about how to make this successful so I don’t make Jack wait for years to get his money back. I read every fucking article I could until my eyes wouldn’t stay open. I took notes!” Yanking open the drawer in her coffee table, I pull out a composition notebook and show her, violently flipping through page after page of my exhausted scrawl. “Just so you know, it’s not easy to start a business from scratch. You can’t just make an app and hope people will find it! There are so many details you have to figure out for success to even be possible. And when I finally couldn’t suck up any more information inside my thick fucking head,” I jam a finger at the side of it. “I went to sleep! Is that alright with you?”
Her chin quivers. “I didn’t know.”
“Oh God, don’t cry. You know I hate it when you cry. Which is all the fucking time!”
“I’m healing!”
“I know. Nothing changes the fact that you are made of ice and I have been sent on a mission from Hell.”
“Ice and hell don’t work together in a metaphor.”
“Shut up!”
“They cancel each other out. Because, you know, the melting.”
“Please, for the love of God, stop!”
“And bringing up God right after Hell in an argument just makes you sound not so bright.”
“Maybe it makes me sound pissed, ever think of that? Maybe, Ms. Ballericicle, just maybe I’m so pissed off that I’m not thinking straight?! Because you really drive me nuts, Mar! You drive me out of my mind nuts!”
I wait for her witty reply. Or biting retort. But she stuns me by saying a quiet, “You called me Mar.”
We stare at each other.
Suddenly I’m lunging onto the couch, pulling her into my arms. Our mouths collide and she moans into me as I kiss her hard, opening her jaw with my jaw and claiming her tongue as mine to keep. Marion’s fingers dig into my hair, fisting it and fighting me even as she yields. My groin aches, lust spilling fire into my veins.
And this is when there’s a knock at the door?
No.
Fucking.
Way.
“Don’t answer it,” she moans, searching my eyes for a second before we crash-kiss again.
“Troy?!” Jack shouts. “Mar? You home?”
We pull apart, panting as we look at the door. Is he psychic?!!
She calls out to him a quick, “Yes!” that betrays nothing of what just happened. Meeting my eyes, she apologizes, which is a fucking miracle. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. I wouldn’t keep him out either,” I confess, smoothing back her hair. “You might want to fix this.”
She nods and untangles the bun I’d almost ripped the elastic from, letting her long hair flow over her shoulders as those huge eyes land on the front door.
I’m staring, aren’t I?
Get ahold of yourself, Troy.
She’ll still be here.
You live with her.
God help you.
I fix my own hair as I stroll to let my friend in. “Coming.”
As soon as he sees me, he knows. I swear he knows, and he is not happy. Jack pushes past me, sweeping me roughly out of the way with his arm. Finding Marion on the couch still dressed, her hair normal, gives him pause. Until he sees that her lips are pinker from my kiss.
Spinning on me, he glares, shoves his hands into his hair and paces. “I asked for this.”
We’re staring at Jack’s inner battle. He has the craziest timing. Does he know when I’m about to get close to her?
Last time, Mar and I were just having a good time. But we were talking about her climbing those poles and things might have turned up fifty notches if he hadn’t interrupted.
We’d never gotten back to that chemistry before today. The fighting was our cells crackling this whole time, and I want to continue what we started.
But my friend who is the reason I’m able to embark on a whole new path is at this very moment trying to talk himself out of ripping my head off. Why’d he have to pick today to visit?
Somehow he knew.
Go check on her.
Troy is going to…
“What the fuck is happening?” he demands, his muscular arms opening wide so that both index fingers are pointing at us. “Just making sure I got this right. Did I just walk in on you guys?”
Marion’s attitude flares back up. “Isn’t that what you wanted?!”
His head swirls from her to me. Jack is standing between where I’m at the door and where she sits on the couch. The red ottoman is next to his left foot and he kicks it over. Like a flash, he’s pushing me out of the way again so he can get out. But he doesn’t have to ram me on the way. I don’t know what to do. My primal side wants to push back. But the friend side, the grateful side, it’s not going to do that.
Not to Jack.
He’s giving me so much.
The man is a fucking saint in my eyes because two years ago I didn’t even know him. And to top it off, his helping me aside, I like him. What’s not to like?
“Jack, hang on!” I reassure her before I follow him out the door, “Mar, I’ll be right back.”
In the building’s hallway, he slows like he wants a solution if I’ve got one to offer. He’s barely holding his temper in check. “It’s cool, Troy. I’m fine with this. I wanted her to like you.” Frustration lowers his voice. “At least she won’t like me anymore. I knew she was just coming onto me because she needed someone to hold her. What woman doesn’t need a man to hold her? It had nothing to do with me. What the fuck was I thinking?”
“Hey!” Mar shouts.
We turn around and see her in the doorway, barefoot in the sundress, cast just inside the frame that she holds with one hand to steady herself.
Jack’s head tilts, and I can see how torn up he is.
Respect holds my tongue. This is deeper than what I’ve got with her. I just came into the picture. I see that now.
Mar points at him. “Jack, I more than like you.”
I’ve never seen him melt, but softness hits the Goliath’s shoulders instantly. “Mar,” he rasps, “I know you love me. Like a father. I get it.”