“Put your seatbelt on,” he ordered as he started the truck.

I ignored him.

“Nikki,” he said with a sigh. “Put it on.”

I didn’t.

Growling in exasperation, he unbuckled his own seatbelt, reached across me.

His forearm caressed my breast, and my nipple tightened.

The traitorous bitch.

Once he had a hold of the belt, he reached it around me and buckled it into place next to my hip.

He smelled good. Not that I would admit that.

And my nipples were still tingling.

Michael went back to his seat, rolled down the window, and started backing up.

“Thanks!” He yelled at the two men watching us leave.

I snorted.

Screw them, too.

I’d be talking with James’ wife, too. I was fairly sure I could find some dirt on him to wipe that smirk off his face.

“What crawled up your ass?” He asked once we were on the road.

I turned my head to look out the window and stayed silent.

“Stop being childish and talk to me. What you did today could’ve turned out a lot different. You’re lucky it was your brother to pull you over and not someone that didn’t know you. Things could’ve gone to shit easily,” he growled.

I turned to him then.

“You wanna know childish? How about your wife telling everyone at work that I’m a piss poor employee, and then tattling on me because I’m wearing the wrong shoes. The same ‘rule,’ and I say rule with the upmost reluctance because nobody follows it, that everyone breaks. Which I then get sent home for,” I snarled.

He blinked. “She’s not my wife.”

“Well, you fucked her and you were married to her. Nearly the same thing,” I told him.

“It’s not nearly the same thing. I’ve been divorced from Joslin for way over two years. We have no relationship whatsoever, and she’s marrying my brother,” Michael said matter of factly.

I tried hard not to react to the fact that she was marrying Michael’s brother, but failed.

“She’s what?” I yelled.

Well if that didn’t take the wind out of my sails, I didn’t know what would.

Michael shot me an amused look, and it only made that fire burning down in my belly become hotter.

He was so sexy.

His black hair was shaved tightly to his head on the sides, and had about a half inch on top, and his face was clean shaven, though it hadn’t been last night. He was back in his trademark black t-shirt, and a pair of jeans covered his legs.

“Yeah, you heard right,” he nodded.

I blinked and turned back towards my window.

She was such a hoe!

Bryan. At least three doctors that I knew. And Michael’s brother? For real?

How did the woman have that much energy?

“I thought you had to work today,” I said accusingly, not turning away from the view.

“I do. At twelve. It’s only nine thirty in the morning,” he answered. “I was up there to come see you, when I didn’t find you at your apartment, but Joslin was telling me you were sent home.”

I clenched my hands into fists.

“She is such a bitch,” I snarled.

He snorted. “And you’re just now figuring this out?”

I snorted. “You were touching her.”

He sighed. “There’s something wrong with her. She doesn’t understand the word ‘no.’ She’s devious and vindictive. I’ve learned over the years that the easiest way to deal with her is just let her have what she wants. Or, at least, let her think she got what she wants. Gentleness seems to throw her off, so that’s why I do that. I’ve learned to be just as manipulative as she is out of necessity.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, I think if you want to continue this relationship, you are going to need to figure out how to not touch her, because I don’t like it. Not even a little bit.”

He smiled, revealing brilliant white teeth.

“Noted,” he agreed immediately.

Then he turned back to the road, and I was left contemplating my brashness of stealing his truck.

“I sometimes don’t think before I act,” I admitted softly, looking at my hands.

He snorted. “That’s an understatement.”

“I’ll try not to steal your truck again,” I said softly.

“You won’t have the opportunity to steal my truck again,” he laughed.

I raised my brow at him.

“You think?” I asked.

He smiled. “I know.”

When we pulled up to my apartment, I pulled out my keys and offered them to him.

He took them, thankful that he hadn’t asked, and started up the stairs.

I’d realized over the course of our four month dating life, and again last night, that Michael liked to be cautious.

It didn’t matter if we were gone ten minutes or five hours, when we got back to my place, he was going to take a look through the house to be sure that everything was fine before he left me.

I followed behind him, bemused, and walked into the door just as he was coming out of the kitchen and disappearing into the bedroom.

I had a one bedroom apartment that I loved to hate.

I was on the top right of a four apartment unit, and I hated every second of it.

The neighbor to my right stole my parking spot. The neighbor to my bottom left liked to take my clothes out of the shared laundry room. And the neighbor directly below me liked to have loud, wall banging sex. Not that I knew how he did it since I was above him, and I was fairly sure he couldn’t fuck on the ceilings.

Regardless, he did it, and I was impressed. But also a little sleep deprived at times.

The interior of the apartment was nothing special. White generic walls, beige carpeting. Plain crappy countertops and appliances that should’ve been updated last decade.

My furniture, however, was nice.

I spent a lot of time at home, and I wanted to be comfortable while I did it.

Which was why I’d spent nearly an entire paycheck on my couch, and the next paycheck on my TV.

My bed wasn’t as nice as my couch, which was why I found myself sleeping on the couch more often than not.

“What’d you get sent home for?” Michael asked, breaking into my thoughts.

I turned to him and crossed my arms over my breasts.

“I couldn’t find my ‘appropriate’ shoes for work this morning, so I wore my regular tennis shoes, which Joslin immediately brought up to our boss, and I got sent home to change them. Although that was over an hour and a half ago, so I might not have a job to go back to,” I admitted.

He moved forward, running his hand along the back of the couch.

Visions of our one single night together started to filter through my brain, and I barely restrained the urge to cross my legs to try to circumvent the throb between my legs.

“You’ll have a job to go back to,” Michael told me. “As for your shoes, those are in my truck in the backseat. You took them off last night and forgot to take them in with you. Which was what I was bringing back to you when you stole my truck.”

I laughed.

That man! How freakin’ funny he was!

“That would’ve saved me a lot of time and heartache,” I told him. “Why didn’t you just text me?” I asked.

“You told me to lose your number, remember? Since I’d never memorized it, and you deleted it from my phone, I didn’t have it. Unless I wanted to call Nico, and today was his day to take a standardized test with the department, athough it was canceled, thank God. So I wouldn’t have been able to do that. So I brought them to you instead,” he explained, his eyes eating me up.

I sighed.

Turning to my kitchen, I put my bag down on the table and went to the fridge to grab my lunch, which I’d forgotten and shoved it into my bag.

“Well I guess you didn’t have to bring me all the way home then. I’ll just have to go change my clothes now because I feel like I swam in a cesspool after being in the back of Nico’s cop car,” I said, heading to my bedroom.

Stripping my shirt off on the way, I tossed it to the floor of my bedroom and went to my closet for a new one.