Avet, Danica - Ain't No Bull [The Veil 4] (Siren Publishing Classic) (4 page)

“Hey, lady? Who are you?” he asked again, snapping his fingers in front of her face.

“Isola Malone,” she introduced herself, staring into the deep wells of his eyes. She was certain she was a puddle of goo at his feet, but he grabbed her hand, shaking it.

“Grant Strickland.” His eyes twinkled at her. “What are you doing here?”

“I played a song I shouldn’t have, forwarded an e-mail I shouldn’t have, and some other stuff they suspect I’ve done but there’s no solid evidence of, so they sent me away to learn ‘self-control,’” she told him using air quotes. “I’m stuck in this hellhole for a year at least. Unless one of the psycho nymphs tells on me, in which case it’ll be longer.” She shrugged at his bemused expression.

He shook his head. “I meant why are you in my house this morning?”

“Oh! Ha, sorry.” She paused, trying to play it cool. Yeah, she so wasn’t. Saga would kick her ass if she were here. As though the thought of her mentor was a lifeline, she grabbed it and stopped drowning in the blue of his eyes. “Um, right. I remembered something from last night and wanted to know if you’d like to compare notes.”

One sleek, golden eyebrow rose. “So you broke into my house, accosted me in my sleep, so we could work together?”

Izzy shrugged. “If you don’t want to, that’s fine. The next time you’re carried off by the Lilliputians, I won’t interfere.”

Turning, she crossed to the door. It really was none of her business if the man wanted to be some kind of freaky sacrifice for the nymphs. She shouldn’t have even offered to help him considering she was supposed to be laying low for the next year or so.

Something grabbed the loop of her pants, pulling her back. Surprised, Izzy allowed the bull to tug her back into the room.

“Hold on there, darlin’,” he said, amusement coloring his words. “I didn’t say ‘no.’ I was just makin’ sure I didn’t mistake your intentions.”

She slapped his hand away, doing her best to ignore the trail of fire his thumb left on her exposed back. Randy bull! Turning back to him, she crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at him. She so wanted to climb him like
Mount Everest
! He was just delicious. That gold ring in his septum taunted her. She wanted to grab it, hold on, and fuck him senseless.

Izzy took a big step back. There would be no sex between them. Even if she wasn’t in exile, he hadn’t earned the privilege of getting busy with an Amazon. She snorted at him, ignoring the way his eyebrow rose. No indeed, if anything he’d be put straight to manual labor. No one wanted stupid daughters.

“Do you think I have evil plans for your virtue, or something, bull boy?” She scoffed, waving her hand when his mouth opened. “Don’t worry, I won’t ravish you. I want to know what those nymphs were planning to do with you. That’s all. Do we have a deal?”

* * * *

Grant glared down at the woman in front of him. Didn’t she know you didn’t challenge a bull for anything? He damned well wanted her to ravish him. Or better yet, they could ravish each other, over and over again until he was too exhausted to move, or hear her endless chatter.

Scrubbing a hand over the stubble on his chin, he stared at her. She didn’t budge. A spark of admiration flared to life somewhere inside him. She wasn’t anything like the cow-swans his mother and sisters were always trying to fix him up with. They were all eager to be one of the Strickland Harem, but he didn’t want anything to do with them. Not yet. Not until he was ready to settle down, which wouldn’t be for another twenty or thirty years, or so. In the meantime, he planned to have some fun.

Besides, he would like to know what those nymphs were up to. It just wasn’t as important as finding out what this Amazon felt like inside and out.

“Sure. You’re welcome to stay here if you want.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him skeptically. “Are you sure you trust me not to jump your bones in the middle of the night?”

He couldn’t resist leaning forward until they were inches apart. “Honey, you’re welcome to jump my bones morning, noon, and night.”

Chapter Five

Hoo, doggie! The man was hot. Barely able to restrain the urge to fan herself, Izzy nodded primly. Saga would be laughing her ass off right about now. There wasn’t a prim bone in Izzy’s body. Normally, if she were attracted to a man she was shameless in her attempts to get his attention, but she was going to show her Amazon sisters she had some self-restraint.

“That’s acceptable. It’ll save me fixing up the longhouse back at the Black Dog Camp.” She peered over his shoulder at the house. “You do have more rooms, right?”

His sexy mouth curved into a smile so dangerous it got her adrenaline pumping. He hooked his thumbs through his belt loops, those long fingers framing the bulge in his jeans. “Afraid you won’t be able to resist me, sugar?”

“Afraid? Ha! I’m not scared of anything, bull boy. If we’re bunking together, I’ll toss my razor so you can feel my prickly legs all night.” Liar! She wouldn’t be able to resist him if they shared a bed, which wasn’t happening anyway, she told herself. She’d sleep on the damn sofa if she had to.

He laughed in her face. “You can skip shaving if you think it’ll keep you safe, Isola, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

She gritted her teeth. “Izzy. My name is Izzy,” she snarled. No one called her Isola without risking life and limb. She’d never understood how her mother, one of the most feared Amazons of her time, could have named her only daughter Isola. Like she was some fucking fragile flower or something. It was disgusting.

Those massive shoulders lifted in a shrug that did interesting things to his chest. Her eyes fell to the mass of flesh in front of her nose and her mouth watered. Short attention span much? She imagined licking every square inch of that skin. He’d probably taste like sweat and man and…no, she was not going there.

“I like Isola better,” the stupid man said, turning away from her. “I’ll show you the guest room.”

Like a lemming, she followed him across the living room. He showed her to a room right next to his. She’d thought it was a bathroom. Instead, it was a good-sized bedroom—fully furnished. The bed wasn’t as wide as his was, though it certainly was long enough for her.

“This is the bathroom.” He opened the door across from the bed. “It connects to my room, so if you need someone to scrub your back, just holler.”

Izzy rolled her eyes. “Do you share your room with an older, smarter brother?” Her sugar tone was enough to give her cavities.

The frown he gave her was priceless, and she mentally gave herself a point.

“I don’t have any older brothers.”

“Younger, smarter brothers?”

“No,” he growled, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

She feigned a heavy sigh. “Oh well. I suppose I’ll just have to scrub my own back.” Izzy slapped her hands together. “Well, I’ll just go get my stuff! See ya in a bit!”

Beating tracks out the house before the bull could wring her neck she barely made it to her SUV before she started laughing. The look on his face had been just too much. Really, he thought he was going to be able to charm her? Ha!

* * * *

He watched her laughing to herself as she drove away. She was certifiable. Grant shook his head sadly. Poor deluded female. She thought she was so swift, but little did she know Grant Strickland was the type of male who made goals and fulfilled them. She was his latest goal and he would conquer her.

Moseying back into the house, he booted up his computer while he took a shower. He’d better get some work done if he was going to spend time wooing the Amazon. After a shower that took less than ten minutes, he was sitting in front of his laptop reading reports from some of his employees.

Strickland Securities was already getting a lot of press in the industry for providing protection for the Ball and they’d had a recent flood of inquiries. The concern for protection was paramount in most Veilerians’ lives, but when you add in the mishmash of different species on the lookout for mates, treaties that needed to be hashed out, and it could get bad. The Ball was where most unions were created, whether they were the romantic kind or the diplomatic kind. His job was to keep everyone calm and safe from any outside attacks.

He frowned. His friends with the Veilerian Protection Agency had mentioned things were quiet from the Eturians. He didn’t like how they’d gone off the radar only a month earlier. The bastards were trouble and there was no doubt in Grant’s mind that if the Eturians were quiet, it was only because they had something serious planned. Grant just hoped the “something serious” didn’t happen on his watch.

The phone rang, distracting him from reading about an upcoming job.

“Strickland.”

“Grant Torrance Strickland! Some madwoman almost drove me off the road!” His mother’s strident voice came through the receiver, prompting him to remove it from his ear.

He closed his eyes, saying a quick prayer to the gods they could keep this call short. He loved his mother, he truly did, but she was almost as insane as the Amazon he hoped to get into bed.

“Are you okay?” he asked, knowing his duty even if he also knew how prone to exaggeration she was.

She took a deep breath. “No! I was on my way to your house when this madwoman came roaring out of your turnoff and nearly pushed me off the road! Are you okay? Did she attack you? Should I call your Cousin Ricky?”

Wincing, Grant banged his head on his desk. “I’m fine, Ma. What was she driving?”

Arabella Strickland huffed loudly. “It was a white Tahoe with horrible scribbles all over it. Why, I never saw such a sight in my life! How decent folk are supposed to live with filth like that, I don’t know.”

“Where are you?” he cut in before she could give him the “when I was your age” speech.

“What? Oh, I’m almost to your house. When are you going to cut down that old tree? It’s dead, you know,” she told him, babbling on and on about the tree while Grant sat in dawning horror.

Obviously the woman he was intending to fuck like a randy beast had just had a run-in with his mother, in a literal sense. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.

* * * *

Izzy honked at the old biddy crowding the road as she tore around the curve leading from Grant’s house. She flipped her off. Some people had no right driving. Taking up the whole damn road as if they owned it.

She had to be crazy, agreeing to stay at the minotaur’s house, but it was as good as place to lay low as any, especially if it meant she didn’t have to repair the longhouse. It wasn’t that she was lazy so much as she liked to conserve her energy for more important things, like plucking her eyebrows, or watching the grass grow.

Frowning at the deserted road in front of her, Izzy acknowledged that the current decision to move in with the minotaur probably wasn’t what her tribe meant by mending her wild ways. Even if she didn’t plan on sleeping with him, moving into a strange man’s house was a dumb thing to do. She could handle him, she was pretty sure, but what if he started getting ideas? Some men were like that. They thought because you had a vagina, you were put on this Earth to take care of them.

She snorted loudly. Grant was so barking up the wrong tree if he thought she was going to cook and clean for him. Everyone knew Izzy was as far from domestic goddess as black was from white. That’s why when she fought for males in the camp she used them to clean her tent. If Grant was looking for a housekeeper, he was sorely mistaken.

Roaring into the Black Dog Camp, she looked around before she got out of the car. Something didn’t feel right. Izzy slipped her dagger from the sheath and waited, listening closely for any telltale signs of attack. The weak morning sun shone down on her. She repressed a shiver as the cold swept right through her clothes. She fucking hated winter.

Snow crunched to her left.

Dropping to a knee, she flung her dagger at the sound.

Vicious Cajun French met her ears. Aw hell. She got to her feet. She’d just stabbed Fallon.

“La femme fole!”
he swore as he pulled the dagger out of his shoulder. “Why I listen to your friends when they cry to me, I don’t know.” He threw the superior weaponry on the ground, the tip buried in the snow. He glared at her. “They say, ‘Oh, Fallon! She’s probably so sad. You’re the only one who can make her feel better. Just go visit her’ and what happens? You stab me!”

Izzy shuffled her feet. She felt horrible. Fallon was a great friend now that she knew she didn’t want him sexually. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I thought you were one of the nymphs come back to finish me off.”

“Nymphs? You’re crazy. Nymphs don’t attack,
fouine
,” he told her patiently. He scrubbed a hand over his handsome face, looking tired and beat.

“What’s wrong, Fallon?” Izzy asked in sudden concern. She’d never seen him look so exhausted before. Usually, the incubus sparkled like a diamond, but today he looked wan and pale.

He shook his head, his sun-streaked hair flopping over his forehead. “It is nothing.” He took a deep breath. “So, you don’t give your friends a hug anymore?”

She smiled, crossing the camp to do just that. Enfolded in his arms, she almost felt like she was with her tribe again. The damn burning in her eyes started again and she swallowed a sniffle. She was not weak. She’d survived without a tribe of her own for years, one year without them was nothing.