"What's your game?" I asked, taking slow, deep, deliberate breaths that were managing to help my mind focus past the desire that was still sparking like a live wire through me.
"My game is giving this a shot."
"This?" I repeated, brows together. "There can be no this. I'm leaving, Mark. I'm out of here in a couple of days."
"So spend those couple of days with me," he offered, shrugging. And, God, I was so, so tempted. But, being in the somewhat fragile, needy emotional state I was in lately, I had a feeling that a couple of days were not going to feel like enough. I was running the risk of getting attached. I couldn't have that. "Fine," he said as if reading my train of thought. "Just commit to one."
"One what?"
"One day. That's all I'm going to ask. One day where you aren't doing your 'I want you, but no' thing. Give it a shot for the one day. See where it goes. You want more after that, then we'll go from there." When I didn't answer, both wanting that more than I could say, but also terrified of it as well, his head ducked slightly, getting closer to me. "Say yes, Scotti."
I took a deep, steadying breath.
Because I knew what the answer was going to be.
Really, there was only one answer to a sexy Mallick brother asking you to give him one day of your time. Especially when that one day likely offered at least one world-class orgasm that you were desperately in need of.
"Yes."
"Tomorrow. Noon."
With that, he turned to walk away.
"Wait... whoa... noon?" I asked, confused. Since when was noon a date hour?
"Yeah, babe. If I only get one day with you, I'm taking up the whole fucking thing," he said with his boyish smile in place again, before turning and leaving.
It was maybe a full two minutes later when the stupid girly smile left my face that I realized one thing.
He was going to pick me up.
At the shack.
Where my brothers all were.
That, well, that was not going to be good.
Wonderful.FIVEScotti"Whoa, wait," Nixon said, looking at me like I sprouted another head and it was speaking in tongues. "What the fuck do you mean you have a date with the only guy around here who could pick you out of a lineup as an armed fucking robber?"
So they weren't taking the news well.
Which was expected.
Honestly, their reaction was even valid.
"Yes, I, a grown ass woman, have a date with a man who has known our crash pad for over a week and hasn't called the cops on us. Which might have something to do with the fact that he is a criminal himself and doesn't do shit like turn other criminals in."
"Christ, Scott, I know you're hard-up for a guy lately," Atlas piped in, always the least delicate of all my brothers, "but this is a shit where you eat kind of situation, don't you think?"
Again, a somewhat fair point.
See, I knew they would flip.
Because if the tables were turned, I would have flipped too. Actually, my fit would be a lot more dramatic to be sure.
Though, on the other hand, a part of me didn't want to hear it. Because as misguided as it may have been to feel this way, I was so excited that I felt like I was buzzing. Which was silly, but I was going on a real, live date. I hadn't had a date in years.
"Look, what do you want from me here?" I tried, going for trying to trick them with reason. "You want me to turn him down and piss him off? We don't know him. For all we know, he has a huge ego and wouldn't tolerate that."
"So, what?" Atlas asked, looking almost offended. "You're going to whore yourself out to keep him from maybe, possibly going to the cops about us? Scott, we'd never let that happen. We would rather leave."
Damn him for being so level-headed.
"Oh, for God's sake. I wasn't going to sleep with him to keep him from turning us in. Jesus. Do you really think that low of me?"
"So what, then?" Nixon asked. "You're just going to lead him on? Because that will end so well."
"Okay. I've had about enough of this," I declared, standing, putting my coffee cup into the deep sink. It was about ten in the morning. I had kept the news to myself mostly because they had been out late and I had pretended to be asleep when they got in to avoid telling them, knowing it would go this way. And I had wanted to hold onto my excitement as long as possible. "I need to go get done. He's going to be here at noon. If you want to give him the third degree or chain him up in the garage, that's up to you. But I need to get myself together in case you decide it might just be the smartest decision to let me spend the afternoon with him and get a feel for where he's at."