Demon Hunting with a Dixie Deb - Lexi George Page 0,103
heart. Angered and hurt by her imagined infidelity, he’d taken refuge in the run-down inn and refused her calls, retreating into the dark recesses of the dank motel room to drink himself into a lovelorn stupor. She could see him now, flopped on the cheap mattress and polyester bedspread, bloated on junk food from the vending machine and drunk as Cooter Brown.
She turned off the engine, steeling herself for the coming scene. Kind but firm, Sassy. You can do this.
“Stay here,” she told Grim.
She marched up to room number ten and rapped on the door. There was no answer. A steady thumping accompanied by tortured groaning came from inside.
Wesley was exercising. That was a good sign, right? Cheered, Sassy adjusted her mental image of him. Wes hadn’t given in to despair. He was going for an endorphin high. Good for him for being positive and proactive. Vigorous physical exertion was much healthier than drowning one’s sorrows in demon rum.
She raised her hand to knock again, and a large masculine hand wrapped around her wrist.
Sassy looked up at Grim with a mixture of relief and annoyance. “I told you to stay in the car.”
“I paid you no heed.”
“What a surprise.”
Grim tugged on her wrist. “Come. Let us leave this place. I am famished.”
“How can you be hungry? You ate an hour ago.”
He tugged on one of her ringlets. “I am a man of large appetites.”
He was giving her that look again. The one that made her weak and willing.
The moaning inside the motel room increased.
With an effort, Sassy shook off Grim’s seductive spell.
“Mother-of-pearl, I have to do something before Wes gives himself a heart attack.”
Sassy put her hand on the knob and froze at a feminine squeal.
“That’s it. Ride ’em, cowboy,” a woman cried. “Come for Mama.”
Sassy snatched her hand off the door like it was red hot. Wes was exercising, all right. Just not the kind of workout she’d imagined.
“I can’t believe it.” Pink and red sparks of anger whizzed around Sassy’s head. “I am such an idiot.”
“You are not an idiot,” Grim said. “He is a beslubbering, useless dog pizzle not worth the sweat on a gnat’s wing. Give me leave and I will thrash the swag-bellied measle within an inch of his life.”
“You knew.” Sassy’s skin glowed like a banked furnace. “That’s why you tried to get me to leave. I’ve been kicking myself for hurting him and the whole time he’s been with someone.”
She blew the door open with a wave of her hand and was slapped in the face by the odors of sex, mildewed carpet, and industrial-strength toilet bowl freshener. Clothes and takeout containers littered the floor. Wes was on his knees on the rumpled bed going at it doggy-style with a chubby woman, her large breasts swaying as Wes pounded her from behind. He was naked but for a black cowboy hat and a pair of black and turquoise tooled-leather cowboy boots.
Shock replaced anger. Wes. In cowboy boots and a hat. It boggled the mind. The closest he’d come to a cow in his life was the dairy aisle at Publix.
“Sassy.” Wes shoved the woman face down onto the bed and jumped to his feet. “I can explain. It’s not what it looks like.”
Wes looked three kinds of ridiculous in the hat and boots. Mr. Happy bobbed hello and promptly deflated.
“Really? Because it looks an awful lot like you’re having sex with my real estate agent. Correction—make that my former real estate agent.” Sassy spared the naked woman on the bed the merest of glances. “Hello, Dab. How long have you been slamming my fiancé?”
Wes grabbed a pillow and slapped it over his junk. “Seriously, Sassy. I am shocked by your language.”
“Seriously, Wes, is that my engagement ring she’s wearing?” Sassy pointed to the sparkler on Dab’s ring finger. “Your grandmother’s ring, the one you were supposed to be having sized for me?”
“She . . . uh . . . wanted to try it on before I took it to the jewelry store.”
“And you let her because you wanted to have sex with her, a woman you hardly know.”
“He knows me plenty.” Dab tucked the sheet under her arms and gave Sassy a defiant glare. “We’ve been together since December. Since Wes drove to Hannah for you, little Miss Fairhope, and hired me to put the house on the market.”
“Since December?” Sassy’s jaw went slack. She stared at Wes. “She’s married. And she’s ten years older than you.”