Page 38 of Act of Brotherhood
“I do,” he said, a smile touching his lips as he stayed close to her. He selected a merlot from the rack, but he lowered it leisurely, savoring the moment and the closeness he had to Nicolette.
Her hand found his upper thigh and she squeezed, pulling him closer. Garth set the bottle of wine on the counter and put his hands on Nicolette’s hips. “Tell me where your opener is, and I’ll handle this while you get cleaned up.”
“Huh?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at him. She blinked and then gasped. “Oh, right. Cupcakes. Clean up. I knew there was something I was going to do. In my defense, you feel really good right there.”
He chortled and rubbed against her backside, his dick pushing at the confines of his jeans. When she swayed her hips just right, it was his turn to get lost in the moment. He groaned and jerked her to him tighter. He growled against her ear lightly. “You should go now.”
She nodded but didn’t move.
“Nicolette.”
“Do you feel it?” she asked, squeezing his thigh more. “The heat?”
“Yes,” he managed, only barely in control of himself. This woman was going to be his undoing. He took a step back, knowing someone had to be the voice of reason. That or they both needed to be naked, stat.
Either would work.
Chapter Nine
Nicolette hadto fight to tear her gaze from Garth’s chiseled body. She’d thought the guy in the scary movie who could turn into a wolf had been hot. Now that she’d seen Garth without his shirt on, she realized the other guy wasn’t really all that.
The guy before her was all that and more.
Much more.
She nearly bit her fist at the sight of him shirtless. The phrase “wet-panty material” made a whole lot more sense to her now than it had before. There wasn’t a spot on the man that didn’t seem to be honed to perfection. A myriad of tattoos covered his chest and abdomen. She looked harder at one of the tattoos and tipped her head, trying to make sense of it. When she realized it was a hammer like the god Thor was said to have, she grinned. There was hope she really would get a real live Viking naked very soon.
Garth cleared his throat and Nicolette’s cheeks heated.
“Sorry. I was admiring your, um, tattoos. I’m going to get cleaned up. I’ll be right back.” She got the wine bottle opener out of the drawer and practically threw it at the man before scurrying out of the kitchen and through the living room. She grabbed her cell phone on the way up the stairs and called Clara at once before she’d hit the landing.
Clara answered on the third ring. “What’s shakin’ bacon?”
“I’m pretty sure I brought a Viking god that I just met home with me to have sex. That was after I cupcaked him.”
Dead silence greeted her.
It ticked on for a few seconds as Nicolette yanked her cupcake-covered T-shirt off and tossed it onto her bathroom floor. “Are you there?”
“Yes. I’m trying to figure out if I had a brain aneurysm or if I heard you right,” returned Clara.
“Clara!” Nicolette squeaked. “I need your advice right now.”
“On what part? The bringing-home-a-guy-to-have-sex-with or the Viking-cake bit?”
“Not a Viking cake. A Vikingcoveredin cake—erm, cupcake,” stressed Nicolette.
“Okay then. I heard that right the first time,” answered Clara. “I leave you alone for like a day and you’ve already brought a stranger home with you. Girl, for real. An ounce of self-preservation goes a long way.”
“He doesn’t feel dangerous to me,” Nicolette said softly as she rifled through her dresser drawer for another T-shirt.
Clara sighed loudly. “On a good note, your gut is pretty much never wrong. On another good note, if he’s covered in the cupcakes you ordered for your class, there’s a higher-than-average chance the cupcakes will kill him, and that would mean he’d be too dead to be a threat to you.”
“Not funny,” snapped Nicolette before huffing and grabbing her go-to favorite T-shirt from high school. She pulled it on and then eased her hair from the back of it. “Am I nuts? I really want this guy in a dirty, dirty way.”
Clara laughed. “It’s about time you wanted a guy that way, but could you wait until I’m in the same country, so someone is close in the event your gut is wrong? Call your uncle and let him know you have someone there.”
“What do you mean in the same country? You told me you were flying to Colorado.”
