Page 9 of German

Damn it!Of all the times I could have bumped into Nathan, it had to be while I was working out with my new bodyguard in tow!Fuck my life, I thought.“Um, well, he works for my father,” I explained poorly.

Though my answer was ambiguous at best, Nathan accepted it and nodded slowly.“Okay, well, I better get back to working out.It was nice seeing you.”

I could practically feel the satisfied look on German’s face as the younger man gave up, turned, and walked away.When he was halfway over to the weight bench, I glared daggers at my smug companion.

“Are you working out or not?”German repeated, totally remorseless over what he’d just done.

Not saying a word, I turned and stalked off toward the locker room.The gym had suddenly lost its appeal and I wanted to go home to bask in my personal humiliation.

German was waiting for me near the exit after I’d collected my belongings.Our drive home was as quiet as our ride over to the gym.

As we were turning onto my street, German unexpectedly spoke.“He’s a loser.”

Startled by the sudden noise, I struggled to figure out what, or whom, he was even talking about.

“The kid at the gym,” he clarified after a pause.

“He’s not a loser.Or a kid,” I nearly growled back.“And he was about to ask me out until you scared him away!”

German snorted.“No, he wasn’t.”

Now I was pissed.Who was this stranger to tell me about a man I’d known since we’d been in diapers?“What do you know about it?”

Glancing over at me, German took a left turn onto my private street.“I might know shit about relationships, Maddy, but I sure as fuck know about men and women.”

This time, it was my turn to snort.“Oh yeah?Why did he come over to talk to me then?Did he just want me to explain to him how best to use the arm press?”I snarked.“He’s been working up his courage to ask me out for months.And today, he was going to do it.Until he met you!”

German turned the narrative around on me then.“And that’s what you want?A little boy who can’t summon the courage to ask out a girl he’s liked for months?That’s pathetic, Maddy, and you know it.”

I’m not saying he didn’t have a point.I’m just saying I didn’t want to hear it.“Nathan’s careful and probably doesn’t want to move too fast for my sake,” I replied testily, defending the man as much as I was defending my interest in him.“And he’s not a little boy, either.”

“Really?”German’s gaze collided with mine then.“I bet he’s never changed a tire, or his own oil, in his entire life.I’d be willing to bet that Richie Rich hasn’t gotten his hands dirty even once in his whole, overprivileged existence.”

German smoothly downshifted into second gear then and I tried to ignore how well he handled the stick shift.Even more embarrassing, I found myself considering how well he handled other things with those big hands of his.

Wondering why the hell my mind was even in the gutter after being so disappointed by Nathan, I licked my lips and brushed my ponytail nervously over my shoulder.“What does that have to do with anything?I haven’t done any of those things either.”

German gave me a pointed look that said thatwashis point.“Trust me.He’s not interested.If he were, he would have asked you out weeks ago.A man doesn’t wait to go after the things he really wants.He just does it.”

I’m not going to deny that statement stung.It did, and much deeper than I would have cared to admit.“Wow, thanks for that awesome insight, friend!”

German drove the car through the front gate and parked it inside the garage.Turning to me, his hot gaze drilled deep down into mine.“Don’t get it twisted, Maddy.He’s interested.He’s a fucking man who isn’t blind and you look how you look.”

Swallowing hard, I tried not to read too deeply into that comment.But someone needed to tell my girlie parts that, because the traitorous bitch was fluttering over the strange compliment.Shifting in my seat, my thighs rubbed together as I tried to ignore how flushed and turned on I was right now.German’s penetrating stare, mingled with his sinful good looks and all-consuming alpha male presence, weren’t helping matters any, either.

“Richie-Rich might be into you, Maddy, but he’s just not interested in you the same way you are in him.”

German’s words were humbling, to say the least.“You got all that from a ten-second conversation at the gym?”I returned defensively.

“I didn’t have to hear a fucking word that loser said to know what his intentions are,” German countered.“A man’s actions tell me everything I need to know about him.”

I was irrationally angry now.“Oh yeah?And what do you “just know” about Nathan Ellington the Third?Please enlighten me, German.You seem to know so much more about life than the rest of us.”

“Besides that he has the name of a supervillain from a bad comic book?”he asked snidely.

I rolled my eyes at that.“Yeah, besides that.”

“It ain’t pretty.You sure you still want to hear it?”

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