“Red!” He splays his hand against the car window, and his expression is the same kind of tortured it was when he didn’t want to stop kissing me at the roadhouse.
“Come back inside,” he says again. And he looks nothing at all like a Sunday school kid when he adds, “Spend Christmas with me.”
CHAPTER 10
RED
So that’s how I end up agreeing to spend Christmas week with a biker.
Griff says I don’t have to have sex with him on my period. He also offers to triple pay my lost wages from the roadhouse! And, after some inner hand-wringing, I agree to his terms.
I’m aware he’s a criminal—that I’m getting paid in crime money. But Allie let me know before I took the job that her step-uncle was just as shady as any of the 1% bikers who frequent his roadhouse.
“It’s good money. Like better money than anybody could ever make without an advanced degree,” she told me before agreeing to set up a job interview that consisted of Nestor telling me to take my top off and turn in each direction. “But you’ve got to check every moral you have at the door.”
So that’s what I did after I got the job. And that’s what I do when Griff hires me to “keep me company, and maybe cook and shit until you’re done bleeding and we can finish what we started.”
My stomach flips at his words. And Boring Bernice has some thoughts. A lot of them.
But at this point, my curiosity wins out over my fear. Why would someone who looks like Griff triple-pay me, of all people, to keep him company when he could go to the roadhouse any time before Christmas and find a girl who’s not on her period to one-night stand?
After making our agreement, he turns and shows me to a room opposite the bathroom, where I discovered my time of the month had come early. It’s small but cozy, with a quilt laid out on a sled bed. There’s a small drawer set that looks like it’s made of the same honey-blond wood as the floors and walls. And there’s even a single French door leading outside.
He leans against the wall. “This is where you’ll sleep.”
I don’t realize how nervous I was about the nighttime arrangements until I find myself exhaling a small sigh of relief. “Thanks for giving me my own room.”
He shrugs. “No way I’ll be able to respect your no-period fucking boundary if you're sleeping in the same bed as me.”
I swallow. I’m really not used to, or comfortable with, being addressed so directly when it comes to things like sex—or my period. But a small thrill goes through me. A biker who wouldn’t have looked at me twice when I was Boring Bernice is basically saying he couldn’t be trusted to keep his hands off me if we were to sleep in the same bed.
Griff steps forward and tilts his head. “Is that a hard no, by the way? I don’t know what you’re into yet, and we still need to have a conversation about your boundaries.”
My boundaries? He’s standing so close now. Still shirtless. Still tall and powerful with a body chiseled to perfection. My mind fills up with static.
But I manage to squeeze out, “Um, yes, that’s a firm boundary. A really, really firm boundary.”
“That’s too bad.” His voice is gruff with humor, but he has a frustrated look in his eyes. Like a wolf who’s been chained up.
And I have to ask, “Do you have a lot of period sex. I mean, with other girls?”
“No. Never,” he answers. “But you're not other girls.”
His eyes blaze again as he says that, and he stares down at me in that wolfish way. Like he'd eat me alive. If I let him.
“Okay, I’m out,” he says, turning to leave.
I watch him go with his mention of boundaries ringing in my head. Why did he think we needed to have a whole conversation about it?
I don’t know whether to anticipate that answer or fear it.
The way Griff’s body is cut, I figured he'd be one of those guys who got up at the crack of dawn to run around the lake like Rocky or something. But I don’t hear him come out of his room the next day until after one p.m.
I immediately switch off the Law and Order marathon I’m watching and rush to the kitchen. He might not have been serious about me cooking for him, but it’s the least I can do, considering how much he’s paying me to stay here with him this week. And maybe it will make me feel less awkward?
Here's hoping.
Griff appears in the front room as I’m pouring more of the pancake batter I made earlier onto the griddle plate I found in one of the pull-out cabinet drawers.