It Wasn't Me

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “The fact that you’re planning out sex with me is a real turn-on, baby,” he rumbled, low and deep. “But we’re not missing any of this auction. You’d kick yourself for it later.”

  I would.

  It was surprising that he could see how serious I was about the entire thing. I was even more surprised that he would make sure that I went, despite obviously wanting to do the exact opposite.

  “What else do we need to talk about before we get home?” Jonah asked suddenly, changing the subject with a quickness that said if he didn’t—and I didn’t—he’d be doing something he didn’t want to do.

  I smiled.

  “My dog and cat get home next Wednesday,” I said. “You’re sure that it’ll be okay to have them at your house?”

  He smiled then.

  “Our house.”

  Hearing those words come out of his mouth made my heart leap.

  “It’s your house, Jonah.” I shook my head. “Even if we don’t make it, it’s always going to be your house. This is all going to be done totally amicable because I’m not a bitch who’ll take a man to the cleaners. The world is complicated enough.”

  His shoulders drooped slightly.

  “I don’t want to go into this with the idea that we’re not going to make it,” he said. “I want you to actually try. So I don’t want you to think about ‘what ifs’ for now.”

  I frowned. “Why do you feel so strongly about this? Most men would be freakin’ the hell out right now.”

  He dipped another chunk of pretzel into the cheese sauce before popping it into his mouth and chewing.

  I watched a piece of cheese drip into his beard and leaned forward with my napkin and wiped it away.

  His lips twitched.

  “My parents…shit, this is a long story.” He shook his head. “Okay, so I spent the first fifteen years of my life thinking one thing—that the man that I grew up with was my father.”

  I blinked.

  Then blinked again.

  “Ummm…” I paused. “What?”

  His lips formed a small smile.

  “Okay, so when I was fifteen, I had a half-brother. Lachlan Downy Senior.” He waited for me to nod before continuing. “My sister, Aspen, and I grew up thinking that the man we grew up with was our father. He was cruel, and an awful all-around person. We highly disliked him, but since he was our father, we tolerated it. What our father did not tolerate was Downy.”

  I bobbed my head as I nibbled on another piece of pretzel.

  He took a sip of his coffee before continuing.

  “But shit hits the fan when Aspen finds her now husband. She finds out that our father wasn’t really our father. Our father is really Downy’s father. Condensed version, before he was shipped off for war, they stored some of his sperm. When my mom and ‘father’ couldn’t have children, my mother instead used my real father’s sperm to get pregnant, making Downy, Aspen, and I full siblings and not half.”

  I shook my head.

  “That’s complicated and messy,” he admitted. “Anyway, long story short, with my messed-up home life, I’m not really comfortable with not giving this marriage a full shot. I want to go into this thinking that we’re going to make it. I don’t know you well, but what I do know of you, I like. A lot. Do I wish we’d have gone about this a different way? Hell yeah. But we didn’t. And I’m hoping that we can try to make it work. If it ever becomes too much…well, at least we gave it a try, you know?”

  I understood exactly.

  Was our marriage under the right circumstances? Probably not. But was giving up before we’d even given it a try something I was willing to do? No.

  “I do know,” I said softly. “And I’m willing to try if you are.”

  His smile was quick but genuine.

  “As for your dog and cat? Well, hopefully they get along with mine. Because mine are sweet. They’ll enjoy having someone to play with,” he said.

  “How many do you have?” I asked, unsure why I hadn’t asked before.

  “Two cats and a dog,” he said. “You met one of the cats already. She stays at my house and my house only. My mom comes over to feed and check on her every couple of days. The other two go to my mom’s.”

  “Why?” I wondered.

  He grinned. “Because Pickles hates my mom’s cat. Like, super hates. Pickles will straight up attack her cat if it gets anywhere near her, and since Pickles is the intruder, we decided it’d be best to leave her at home and my mom just come there. We tried leaving the other cat at home with Pickles the last time I went out of town, but we came home to Pickles guarding the food bowl and refusing to allow Morton anywhere close to it.”

  “Pickles sounds like a bitch,” I shared.

  Jonah grinned. “She is. But I still like her. She’s all prickly, kind of like me.”

  The smile that crossed my face was nothing short of blinding.

  “You can relate to a cat?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Tell me about your animals,” he ordered, bringing his coffee cup once again to his lips.

  I started telling him about Hans Solo and Princess Francesca.

  “You named your dog Princess Francesca?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I call her Princess for short. But yeah, I did. They’re both rescues. Princess only has one ear and a half tail. She’s kind of rough looking, but she’s super sweet.”

  He crossed one of his arms over his belly and continued sipping away, giving me every ounce of his attention.

  He didn’t once glance at the table full of bachelorettes, women that kept getting louder and louder as the time went on. Nor did his eyes stray to the band that was set up in the middle of the strip about two blocks down.

  Nope, eyes laser focused on me.

  I kind of liked it.

  “Hans is a Border Collie Sheep Dog mix. She’s all big and fluffy and a mess. I have to have her groomed twice a month so she doesn’t end up in tangled knots,” I said. “She’s all chill and shit. I’ve never met a dog like her before.”

  “My dog, Lobo, is pretty chill, too. Maybe they can be lazy together,” he said.

  I felt contentment start to sink into my bones, and was about to tell him so, but our food arrived.

  “Anything else?” the waiter asked, eyes bouncing back and forth between me and Jonah.

  “Nope. Nothing for now,” Jonah said. “Thank you.”

  Clearly dismissed, the waiter walked away, this time only taking one glance over his shoulder.

  “What happens if someone takes a bite of your food?” he asked. “And why the no sharing rule?”

  I shrugged. “I think it stems from always having to share with my sister. I’m a twin.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “I had to share everything with her. My clothes. My toys. My bedroom at first. It wasn’t bad or anything, and I love my sister dearly, but I’m all protective over my food. She can have everything else in the world without a second thought, but not my food,” I expounded.

  “What happens if I take a bite of your waffle?” he asked, pointing at my plate with his fork.

  I thought about that for a few seconds.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “The thought of giving you a bite isn’t abhorrent to me. Which it would be with anyone else…try.”

  So he did. He forked up the juicy middle part that I was about to eat and popped it into his mouth.

  Other than the sadness of not getting to eat the middle part that was the best part, nothing else bugged me.

  Huh. Interesting.

  “I’m not super angry right now like I would’ve been had someone else done it,” I admitted. “Though you just literally forked up the best part on the entire plate. I was thinking you were going to fork off another piece that I hadn’t fixed up for myself.”

  He chuckled as he went back to his own plate of food.

  And only when he offered me the middle o
ut of his pancake did I truly feel like this was going to work.

  If I could allow him to eat off my plate, then we could probably do anything.

  Chapter 8

  I want to lose weight, but I don’t want to get caught up in one of those ‘eat right and exercise’ scams.

  -Text from Piper to Jonah

  Jonah

  “You’re going to Facetime your dad so he can watch the bidding?” I asked the woman at my side.

  “It’s his money,” she muttered. “I’m not spending that much on a car without his approval.”

  I leaned back into my chair and watched as she pulled up her father’s name and called him.

  Moments later, I could see his face on the screen.

  “Your car is about to be up, Dad,” she stated, having to raise her voice slightly due to the din of noise that surrounded us. “I probably won’t be able to hear you well when the auction starts, so if you want me to bid, raise your hand. Okay?”

  Her father’s face split into a grin, and he gave her a thumb up.

  We’d been at the auction for an hour, and in that hour, I’d learned a lot about the woman at my side.

  For instance, she loved American muscle cars. A lot. The older and shinier, the better.

  “Bidding for the 1964 Chevy Nova will begin at fifty thousand,” the announcer started.

  And then we were off.

  Three minutes and sixteen seconds later, Sam had his Nova. For eighty-nine thousand dollars.

  I winced.

  That was a lot of fuckin’ money.

  “You got it, Dad.” Piper was practically bouncing in her seat. “Are you happy?”

  Sam nodded on the screen.

  “Okay,” she said. “Well, I gotta go pay. Someone is already headed my way. I’ll call you when I’m done making arrangements.”

  It wasn’t until intermission, and our thirty minutes to find something to eat fast, that I asked her what the big deal was about that particular car.

  “It was in a movie called Bullitt,” she said, shrugging. “My dad apparently liked the movie and loved the car.”

  Interesting.

  “What’s your dream car?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “A Chevelle, maybe? I love the Roadrunner and all, but it’s definitely not my favorite. One day I’ll have one. I’m going to paint it purple with those bass boat sparkles on it.”

  Laughing at the thought of going up to a paint and body shop and asking for them to paint a vehicle ‘bass boat purple’ had me grinning like an idiot.

  What else had me grinning like an idiot? The fact that I wanted to go up to a paint and body shop and ask them to paint the Chevelle I found her bass boat purple.

  ***

  Piper

  We arrived at the hotel hours later, exhausted, hungry, and on the verge of collapse.

  Well, I was, anyway. Him? He didn’t even look tired.

  He’d said he was tired, but he was still moving with a lethal grace that was all Jonah.

  I’d been around many men in my life. All of them alpha males that were deadly and cautious.

  But Jonah? There was just something about him that made me feel like he was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for something to happen no matter where we might be. A tenseness that never quite left him until we were in the enclosed shelter of wherever he considered ‘safe.’

  And the entire day we’d been in a large crowd of people. His eyes had shifted here and there and everywhere. I didn’t think that he ever just…chilled.

  He sighed when the cool air of our hotel room hit him in the face.

  “God,” he groaned. “This is the place.”

  Despite it being fairly early in the year, it was still hot as balls in Vegas. Hot as balls being over ninety-five degrees. Sure, it was eighty already back home, but we had our cool nights. The thing was, Vegas never got cool.

  Not even remotely.

  Jonah shrugged his soaked t-shirt off the moment the hotel room door closed behind us, then walked to the mini-fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer.

  “Where did that come from?” I asked curiously.

  “While you were in the shower this morning, I called down to the front desk and asked them if they could stock the fridge with beer. Being in the honeymoon suite and talking to the same chick that hooked us up earlier, she was happy to oblige,” he answered as he twisted the top off the bottle of beer effortlessly. “Want one?”

  I grinned and shook my head. “No, thank you. I’m going to go take a shower. Plus, I prefer wine to beer, anyway.”

  He winked. “I’ll call Wendy up and ask her if she can hook us up with some wine.”

  “Wendy?” I chuckled as I sat down on the bed to untie my tennis shoes. “You’re on a first name basis with her?”

  He watched me untie my shoes. “Yes, I am. Why are you untying your shoes?”

  I frowned and looked down at them, then back up at him. “Umm, because that’s how I take them off?”

  “Normal people just toe them off,” he said. “Without untying them.”

  He pointed to his tennis shoes in the corner of the room.

  They were tied. There was no way he’d be able to slip his massive feet into them without untying them.

  “You’d have to untie them anyway to get them on,” I said. “I just save myself some time when I go to put them on again by untying them now instead of later.”

  “I don’t untie them,” he disagreed. “I just slip my foot into them.”

  My eyes widened. “You do not.”

  “I do, too,” he shot right back.

  “Prove it,” I ordered, pointing at them.

  He grinned and toed off his boots that he’d had on all day, then walked over to the shoes and slipped them on, one by one, without, might I add, untying the shoes.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed. “How is that even possible? Are those super loose?”

  He shook his head. “No. They’re perfect, actually.”

  Then he toed them off and kicked them back in the corner of the room.

  “Why’d you bring those, anyway?” I asked. “Do you plan on going to run later?”

  I was actually excited by the concept. I’d found that I loved running. Now, that wasn’t to say that I was a good runner, but I ran. I was slow as molasses, but it was something.

  He narrowed his eyes. “I was considering it. Why?”

  “Can I run with you?” I asked curiously.

  His eyes roamed down my body.

  “Is that what you’ve been doing to get those legs?” he asked casually.

  I looked down at my legs.

  I hadn’t really noticed them being all that ‘great.’ What I had noticed was that they were getting so big that they barely fit into even my stretchiest of jeans anymore.

  “I had a lot of free time in Germany,” I admitted. “So I taught myself how to run. I also started lifting weights and doing some core exercises. My arms are still pretty wimpy, though.”

  He looked at my arms, which I’d held up to show him in the universal sign of ‘check out these guns’ and waited for him to comment.

  He didn’t disappoint.

  “You should probably put those deadly weapons away,” he suggested teasingly. “It’s illegal to have unregistered firearms in this hotel.”

  I snickered and once again stood up from my slouch on the bed.

  My legs were tired, and my feet were hurting terribly.

  But the thought of going to run with him was making me excited.

  As long as he waited until it was closer to night time and I could run without the blazing sun shining down on me.

  “As for the shoes, I brought them to go do a workout in at the hotel gym.” He paused. “But I can go for a run with you as long as you don’t expect me to run fast. I don’t think I could keep up today. My knees hurt like a bitch.”

  “What’s wrong with your knees?
” I asked, using the side table next to the bed to hold myself steady as I bent over and removed my socks from my feet. The right way.

  “You just seriously took your socks off where you can slip them back on.” He shuddered. “Who the hell have I married? Only serial killers do that.”

  I snorted.

  “Next you’re going to tell me that you wear mismatched socks,” I said breathlessly.

  God, I loved that he was teasing me.

  I loved even more that he’d just openly admitted to being married to me, and not looking the least bit offended by it.

  “What’s wrong with mismatched socks?” he asked as he lifted his pant legs up to show me.

  That was when I lost it.

  He was wearing two different socks. Sure, with his pant legs down, they appeared to be the same, but when he lifted the hem of his jeans up and showed me his ankles, there was no doubting it in my mind.

  “You’re wearing an ankle sock and an over the calf sock. Isn’t that uncomfortable for you at all?” I wondered.

  He shrugged. “I thought they were the same when I packed them but figured out right quick that they weren’t. But since my only other pair that I brought are dirty, these socks are the winners.”

  Grinning wickedly at him, I started at the button of my jeans.

  It wasn’t until I had them shimmied down over my hips that I saw that he was no longer playful and sweet.

  No, his eyes were hot and intense as he watched my every move.

  I paused with my pants halfway over my ass.

  “What?” I licked my suddenly dry lips.

  “Don’t stop,” he ordered. “Please.”

  The rasp in his voice had my knees nearly knocking together.

  But I didn’t stop undressing.

  Slowly pushing my jeans down my overly well-endowed butt and thighs, I didn’t stop until I reached my ankles.

  Unfortunately for me, there was no sexy way to get my skinny jeans off. There was likely someone out there that managed the feat while still looking sexy, but regrettably, this was the only way that I could get them off.

  Sitting down on the bed, I hooked my fingers into the hem and stretched them so they fit over my heels. Then, when both sides were done, I stood back up and folded them nicely.

  “You’re going to hate living with me,” he said softly. “You’re going to take one look at my bedroom and scream.”