Calamity Jena (Invertary 4)

She marched into the front room that used to be Magenta’s bedroom when she lived with them, but was now a living room. Grunt was sitting on the sofa watching the BBC World News. His arm was draped over the back of the couch and his legs were stretched out in front of him. He gave Claire a wicked smile that made her insides melt. Yum. She licked her lips. No matter what Megan said, cavemen had always appealed to Claire. She liked a little possessive behaviour from her men. And there was nothing sexier than a man who had the confidence to know what he wanted. Yeah, she liked that a whole lot. If Megan and her suspicious nature weren’t in the room, Claire would have crawled into Samuel’s lap to see if he tasted as good as he looked. The soft blue shirt he wore over faded jeans rippled on his shoulders as he looked between them. His eyes turned assessing. He nodded.

“Interrogation time,” he said. “Fire away.”

With an irritated huff, Megan sat in one of the armchairs, leaving Claire with the option of sitting in the other chair or curling up beside Samuel. Tempting as it was, she figured she should resist the urge to rub herself all over him like a cat. She sat in the chair.

“Tell us about yourself,” Megan ordered.

Grunt’s lips quirked into a little smile. “I’m thirty-one, never been married. Never wanted to get married. No kids. No living family.”

“Job?” Megan’s eyes narrowed.

He didn’t look away from her. “Security. Bodyguard stuff mainly. I was in the navy until two years ago. Got out, went travelling, hung around until Joe told me he was looking for a business partner. Been working with Joe for a couple of months.”

Claire smiled at him. “You went travelling once you got out the navy? Didn’t you travel while you were in it? I would have thought you’d be fed up with seeing new places.”

“Babe.” Grunt gave her a panty-melting grin. “We went to war zones. Not a lot of tourist crap to do on your downtime.”

“Oh, yeah.” She blushed and tucked her hair behind her ear.

Megan snapped her fingers. “Focus, King Kong. Do you have any sexual diseases?”

“Megan!” Claire glared at her sister.

Megan shrugged. “What? It’s a good question.”

Although it was clear Grunt was trying not to laugh, Claire was still annoyed.

“No sexual diseases. No diseases at all. Clean bill of health.”

Megan cocked an eyebrow. “Proof?”

Claire groaned and sank back into her chair. There was nothing she could do to stop Megan. She was the one-woman reincarnation of the entire Spanish Inquisition.

“I can get some,” Grunt said.

“Good.” Megan stuck her nose in the air. “I want to see documented proof before you go near my sister.”

Claire unwrapped the cowl neck of her sweater and buried her face in it. I’m not here. I’m somewhere else. This is all a bad dream.

“Are you prone to violence?” Megan asked.

“Not unless it’s needed.”

“Would you ever hit a woman?”

Grunt growled. “I would never hit Claire.”

“Have you ever hit a woman?”

“No.” Yeah, now he sounded like a pissed-off gorilla.

“Would you ever force yourself on a woman?”

“No.” The menace in that one word made both twins’ eyes pop. “No real man forces himself on a woman. No means no.”

Claire trembled at his answer. She looked at Megan, telling her by telepathy to let the questions drop. As usual, the telepathy thing didn’t work. So much for that bloody mystical twin bond.

“Have you ever killed a man?” Megan said.