Read Online House of Payne: Rude by Stacy Gail - Free Book Online Page A

can’t stand each other…” Her words faded out as Rude suddenly rounded the brass-topped balustrade, a couple of white sacks hanging from one hand. His ebony hair was wind-ruffled and falling onto his brow. His lean face, dominated by that chiseled jaw, was shadowed with a five-o’clock shadow that hadn’t been there this morning. Somehow his shoulders seemed bigger in his leather jacket as he moved with slow deliberation toward her. When he caught sight of her, his eyes sparked to vivid life as if a fire had been lit from within, and the heat of that fire spilled into the strangely hungry smile that appeared.
    “Aggressively masculine,” she muttered to herself, trying to remember that she didn’t like men like that. Nope. Not at all. Men who were over-the-top manly and vibrating with heart-stopping surges of testosterone left her completely and utterly cold.
    She had to stifle a shiver as he closed the distance.
    Yeah. Cold.
    Sure.
    “Sass, what did you say?” Scout’s voice came to her from far away, figuratively as well as literally. “Our connection’s terrible.”
    Her connection with Rude had always been terrible, that was for sure. Everyone knew that. So it was a complete mystery to Sass why she couldn’t tear her gaze from him as he slowed down when he got to her door. He didn’t come to a complete stop the way she’d expected him to, however. Instead of waiting for her to move aside or ask to be let in, he gently nudged her back, his free hand wrapping around the wrist she had braced on the doorjamb and moving her arm aside when it should have been an obvious deterrent.
    Maybe Marines were taught to ignore things like obvious deterrents.
    “Who’s on the phone?” Rude’s low rumble bounced her out of her thoughts, and suddenly all she was aware of was him. With his fingers still wrapped around her wrist in a hold that she instinctively knew she wouldn’t be able to get out of, he shut the door with the sacks of food hanging off his wrist, before he locked it for good measure.
    “Um.” He’d asked her a question, she was sure of it. But it was hard to focus on answering when she’d just gotten a woodsy, spicy whiff of him. “It’s Scout. I was going to hang up on her when you arrived, but for some weird reason she said she wanted to hear how you greeted me.”
    “Yeah?” A sudden devilish light danced among the flames in his eyes, and he leaned into her so that his face hovered near the phone she still held to her ear. She stilled, stunned to have his face within inches of hers. “Sass, you’re more beautiful every time I see you. I almost can’t believe you’re real.”
    “No way,” Scout breathed. “No fucking way.”
    The strange tension over the intimacy of the moment fizzled. Damn it. This was nothing but a joke to him. And to her too, of course. She made that clear by nearly spraining her face on an eye-roll, all the while ignoring the odd sense of deflation sinking through her. “Scout, don’t be impressed—”
    His nose brushed the hair over her ear, while the hand shackling her wrist pulled her inexorably closer. “Everything about you impresses me, my sweet little Sassy Pants.”
    “And you’re about to be impressed with how far I can jam this phone up your ass, my darling little Sugar Britches.”
    Rude burst out laughing, and let her go.
    “Oh, geez,” Scout said, though Sass could barely hear her through the sound of his laughter. “I get it. Ha-ha, very funny.”
    “It would be more than just funny if that was for real. It would be a clear indicator that we were both batshit crazy.” Glaring at Rude—an effort that was completely wasted on him, as he’d made a beeline for the kitchen—Sass sighed into the phone. “I’d better let you go. Have fun with your new hubby.”
    “Text me later to let me know how this latest non-date went.”
    What the hell, Sass thought as she tucked her phone away and followed in Rude’s wake. There would be nothing to