Page 21 of Grave Curse

Come to find out, Jake’s uncle owned the delivery service, and his uncle wanted him to learn the entire business from the ground up so he could run the company himself one day. That meant being able to do any and every job the company had to offer, and do it well.

At the time, I’d found Jake irresistible—well-mannered, ambitious, self-motivated. Just fucking perfect. He’d been so different from anything I’d grown up with that I started falling for him the moment our eyes met. I would have been completely in love with that man if he’d stuck around any longer than the summer, but one day out of the blue Jake announced he was heading home to California. No build-up, no suggestions of me going with him. Just an offhand “thanks for all the fucking, I’m out.” Then he went poof, and that was the last I ever heard from Jake.

That was when I realized men and women were fundamentally different at their core. For women, we instinctively searched for someone to love and build a future with.

For men, they were looking for a place to park their peen.

It was a wonder the human race hadn’t died out a long time ago.

“Exactly. California. And that was years ago, hon. Years.” Roxie paused as the food arrived along with our next round of drinks, and we both took a moment to fill our plates with piping-hot, savory goodness. “I’m not picking on you, I swear. I just want you to be happy.”

I couldn’t help but smile at my sweet friend. “If you leave all the mozzarella sticks to me, I’ll be happy, girlie.”

“I want you to be happy and appreciated and worshipped like the goddess you are, because I love you.”

“Aww.”

“So I did something.”

I nearly dropped the martini glass I’d just drained. “You did something? Oh shit, Roxie, you didn’t set me up with another one of Carlo’s relatives, did you? God love him, the last one had hair sticking out of the back of his collar. I couldn’t tell where the hair on his head ended and the hair on his back began. It wasn’t his fault and I’m sure he’s a great guy, but I’m telling you I could have braided that stuff, it was so thick.”

“Listen, some Italian men can be a bit on the hairy side—”

“Abit? Rox, there’s hairy, and then there’s Sasquatch, which is all great and lovely if you’re into that sort of thing. Truly, I’m not judging. For me personally, though, I prefer to feel skin to skin, and not… whatever that was.” I winced a bit, hoping I didn’t sound too mean. “And please don’t think I’m getting salty with Carlo, he’s perfect, I’m sure. Nothing wrong with a little scruff…” Like Tyr’s carefully groomed whiskers just past the point of stubble, and how it could either caress or burn, depending on the amount of pressure he exerted.

Damn it, Ginger, stop the madness already.

“Carlo is perfect, and I’m glad to hear you’ve got nothing against a little scruff, because the man I’m setting you up with looks so damn good in it your eyes are going to pop.”

“Roxie…”

“And it’s not really me who’s setting you up, Ginge.Youare the one who brought this man across your path, thanks to your generous and helpful nature. The two of you meeting was inevitable.”

I stared at her. Maybe she’d had too much to drink. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about that.” With a cat-post-canary-snack grin, my friend looked over at the bar and nodded. That seemed to be a signal for a man I hadn’t noticed at the end of the bar to rise from his seat. He kept on rising, an absolute behemoth that had to be nearly the size of Tyr, who was the biggest, baddest dude I knew.

Apparently, at least on some subconscious level, my best friend knew I had a type.

Chapter Six

Red Flag

The giant of a man took his sweet time approaching our table, and for that I was grateful. There was a lot of him to take in. Leather seemed to be his thing, his massively broad shoulders covered in a black leather biker jacket with silver zippers, his tree-trunk legs encased in black jeans that ended in black leather lace-up boots, the steel-toed kind that had their fair share of road scuff, a sure sign of someone who often rode a motorcycle.

He certainly looked like a biker—windblown wavy black hair, dark scruff shadowing his angular jaw, and a silver barbell piercing over his left brow. Tattoos covered his hands and fingers, and a glint of silver on his index finger showed me he had a penchant for skull jewelry.

If this guy was anything but a biker, I’d eat my favorite pair of platform heels.

“What’s wrong with clean-cut?” I asked the universe at large before he got too close to hear me. “An investment banker or a tennis coach, or one of those young, self-made billionaires that exist only in books. Why do I never get set up with any of those guys?”

“Because sweetheart,” Roxie said gently, “you’d chew those guys up and spit them out within a week.”

True. “Where did you even find this guy? Please don’t say across the street at the Gravediggers,” I added in my most quelling tone. Tyr didn’t like it when one of his brothers even noticed my existence. I was now so notorious within Tyr’s MC that just about every man there treated me like I was radioactive.

Roxie shook her head. “You’re the one who found him, actually.”

“Me? How?”

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