I pulled on a black hoodie that had to belong to him or someone close to his size. It covered my fingertips and reached down to midthigh, well past the shorts I was currently wearing. It wasn’t much better than the garish outfit I had on underneath it, but it would do for this journey.
I pulled open the door after his first knock and took a quick step back to avoid getting tagged in the forehead by his falling fist, which was poised to knock again. I sucked in a quick breath that I hoped he couldn’t hear as I stood frozen on the spot while his eyes roved over me. The blue was so bright it was like opening the door to the sky. His mouth pulled down on the sides and his eyebrows shot up as his gaze skimmed along the bare length of my legs under the hoodie.
“Do you have pants on?”
His voice was gravelly and rough, much more so than usual, and I had to swallow before I could answer. I was doing a little ogling of my own and it took me a second to realize he was talking to me. Instead of his usual rumpled, button-up shirt and pressed slacks, he had on a black T-shirt that was stretched tight across muscles that looked like they were made of stone. His long legs were encased in faded jeans that had a hole in the knee and one in the thigh. The skin peeking out of the frayed material was a tawny color and looked just as hard as the rest of him. There was no softness to Titus King even when he was off duty. He had on the same boots he wore while he worked but his hair was in disarray like he hadn’t bothered to comb it down, and I had never seen the resemblance between him and his younger brother be as strong as it was right then. He looked just as harsh, just as unpredictable, as Bax ever did and it had places inside me quivering in a way that I really needed to ignore so that I could answer him and not sound like a breathless moron.
“Of course I have pants on. It’s not my fault your neighbor is a midget.”
I stepped away from the door and he followed me inside, immediately making the room feel a hundred times smaller.
“Did I say my neighbor? I meant my neighbor’s daughter. My neighbor weighs well over three hundred pounds, but her teenaged daughter is about your size, just shorter. I would’ve asked Dovie or Brysen, but I wanted to make sure we had a secure place to go before the charade starts. Dovie would have told Bax, and I’ve had enough of him being all over my ass where you’re concerned as it is. Brysen would have been game but I already pulled in all the favors I had where Race is concerned and I didn’t want to owe him any more.”
“Well, I’m glad no grown woman was trying to wear hot-pink short-shorts as actual clothing.” I lifted the hem of the hoodie to show him I did indeed have pants on, and noticed the way silver sparked in the center of his irises. “But I am going to need to get my hands on some real clothes in the near future. If the plan is to flaunt this affair in Conner’s face and to get him to come out of hiding, then I need to look like I look normally do.”
“How is that?”
He jerked his gaze away from my legs and lifted them up to look me in the eye. “How’s what?”
“How do you normally look?” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and I had to bite the tip of my tongue as the action pulled the top of his jeans down just enough that a sliver of skin was exposed between them and the edge of his T-shirt. Corrugated abs and that vee that was bound to make woman drool danced in front of my eyes. I had to count to ten to keep myself from reaching out and trying to touch the exposed skin that was dusted with just a hint of dark hair. Of course Titus wouldn’t be all baby smooth and perfectly manicured like so many men were today. He was too much of a man for that. It was just one more way in which Conner had been a sorry substitution for what I really wanted. He had been polished and primped even more than I was.
“I normally look good. I normally look like I want a man to want me. I definitely don’t look like this . . . like I’m not even trying. Conner would never buy that you were suddenly infatuated with me if it doesn’t even look like I’m making an effort. How do you think I caught his attention so fast?”
Titus did that guy thing where his lashes lowered and his eyes started at the top of my head and skimmed all the way down to my toes in a way that I could almost feel. I saw his chest rise and fall and his pulse jump a little at the side of his neck.
“You look just fine the way you are. You look better like this than most women do when they put in the effort. You don’t need to try, and if a guy makes you think you do, then he’s a dipshit. Get whatever you need and let’s get out of here.”