Everything for Us (A Bad Boys Novel) Read Free Page B

unwelcome one.
    Ignoring it as though there weren’t a gash in my side, I sit up and throw my legs over the side of the bed. My head swims a little and I stay put until it settles.
    What the hell did that bastard have on that knife? Did he dip it in just enough poison to piss me off, but not kill me?
    Standing, I make my way unsteadily to the bathroom to take a piss before facing a house full of people I don’t trust. I need to be at my best, and it irritates the shit out of me that I’m still hurting and that I’m dizzy. That means weakness, and weakness of any kind is something I don’t tolerate. At all.
    I feel a little more like myself after I splash some water on my face and let my body adjust to being in an upright position. As I meet the reflection of my eyes in the mirror, I will myself to feel better. I don’t have time to be sick or hurt or sore. Therefore I will not. Still, the dull ache in my side ensures that I’m as surly as ever when my nose leads me to the kitchen.
    I feel like growling when I see Marissa in front of the stove, putting pieces of sausage on a paper towel to drain. She’s so damn sexy, even doing something as mundane and domestic as cooking. But that’s not what bothers me. It’s the fact that I
like
seeing her doing such a simple caretaking activity. I’ve been away for a long time—away from civilization as I always knew it, away from home and love and life as I knew it. I learned not to miss it.
    Until now.
    I steel myself against feeling anything other than the desire to tear her pants off, put her up on the counter, and eat
her
for breakfast before the toast pops up. I remind myself that Marissa’s obvious interest in me is all fine and good as long as it stays purely physical. On my end, anyway. I don’t care what happens on her end. I can’t.
    But me? I have to care about how involved I get. And the instant I start feeling anything . . . deeper, I’m out the door. I haven’t needed a woman in my life for years. Other than in the most physical, carnal way possible, that is. And I don’t ever plan to let one drag me into feeling
anything
other than lust.
    She looks over her shoulder and laughs at something, and I notice Olivia sitting at the island. As Marissa turns back toward the stove, her eyes stumble to a stop on me. Her smile climbs a notch on the brilliance scale and she greets me. “Good morning.”
    I grunt at her and walk to the fridge. I open it and make a show of looking around inside before I close it. Channeling everything into anger, like I’ve done for the last seven years, I lean my hip against the counter and give Marissa my full attention.
    “So why the ass-kissing?”
    Her smile wavers for a second before she returns to the sausage. It’s so quiet in the kitchen, the sizzle of the last few pieces of sausage in the still-hot skillet is almost deafening.
    “Nash, that’s completely unfair. You—”
    Marissa cuts Olivia off. “Olivia, it’s all right.”
    After a long pause, during which Olivia obviously has to swallow some angry comments she was about to foist on me, she clears her throat. “Well, I guess I’ll go change and get Cash, then I’ll come set the table, ’kay?”
    She doesn’t wait for an answer; she just gets up and walks out. She’s stiff as a board when she passes me and I imagine if she looked up, I’d see sparks shooting from her eyes.
    Fiery little thing.
    And I like fiery. To a point.
    Fiery can be irrational and unstable, though, which really does nothing for me in a woman. I guess that’s one of the few things I’ve retained of my former self. I value an intelligent woman who knows what she wants. Except in bed. I like fiery in bed. Fiery and willing. There’s nothing better than a woman who’s game for anything.
    The clatter of the spatula draws my attention back to Marissa. Her lips are set into a thin, tight line, which makes me think she’s got something to say.
    And I’m right.
    “You don’t know the