not.”
Sassy inhaled and counted to ten. Grim was right. Wes could take a flying leap.
She lifted her chin. “Good-bye, Wes. We’re done. The wedding is off.”
As Sassy turned to leave, Wesley’s words stopped her.
“Don’t be a child,” he said. “My father has a mistress. Lots of men have mistresses. It doesn’t mean anything. She doesn’t mean anything. She’s nobody. A little something on the side.”
“Wes,” Dab wailed. “You said you loved me.”
“Shut up.” Wes gave Sassy a cold look. “You will marry me, Sassy. My father has made some bad investments. I need your money.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll tell everyone in Fairhope I found you shacked up with two studs and a dyke. People will think you’re a slut. Your mother will never be able to hold her head up in society again.”
Bum brrum brrrumble, the sound of drums filled Sassy’s head and ears, drowning out Grim’s growl of fury. And to think, but for providence, she would have married this louse. Wind swirled through the door, knocking over the lamp and blowing the stained coverlet off the bed. Wes’s cowboy hat flew off his head and rolled across the carpet.
“You are a jackass, Wesley Eugene Bodiford,” Sassy said. “A complete unmitigated jackass, and I wouldn’t marry you for all the tea in China.”
Ping. A chime sounded and Wes sprouted donkey ears.
Sassy turned to the woman on the bed. “Keep the ring, Dab. I insist.”
Ping. The chime sounded again.
“Ow.” Dab pulled at her finger. “The ring’s stuck. It won’t come off.” Her voice rose. “What am I going to tell my husband?”
Wes gaped in the mirror. His donkey ears were beauties, long, brown, and expressive. The inner folds bristled with thick, white hair. At the moment, they were twitching in alarm.
“My ears,” Wes croaked. “What the—?”
Sassy whirled around and slammed into Grim’s broad chest. He stepped aside and she followed him onto the sidewalk.
She closed the door, muting the noise and excitement in room number ten. Someone sounded unhappy.
Make that two someones.
She smiled up at Grim. “Guess what? I’m not engaged anymore.”
“Thank the gods,” Grim said, and kissed her.
Sassy melted against Grim and kissed him back. Grim’s body tightened at her nearness. She smelled of summer roses and amber and something else, a trace of something crisp and green, floral sweetness warmed by earthy musk and the refreshing clean scent of spring grass and growing things. All things Sassy: laughter and warmth, purity and power, joy and seduction in one delectable, maddening woman.
Rage, revenge, and guilt had been Grim’s reality until this small, blithe woman had spun into his life, knocking him off balance and disordering him, shining a light on his bleak existence. In the span of a few days she had changed his world. There was no going back, with or without her. The thought of returning to the way he’d been before was unbearable. Grim’s fierce, possessive warrior spirit had railed at him to take what he wanted.
What he needed.
But the choice had to be Sassy’s . . . though he’d thought ceding her to Wesley would kill him.
Sassy had chosen, and she had chosen him.
The vise that had squeezed Grim’s chest for days eased. His knees buckled and he sat down on the pavement. He pulled her onto his lap and held her close, burying his face in her fragrant hair.
“Sassy,” he murmured. “I have suffered agonies picturing you with that worm Wesley. You cannot imagine.”
“I think I have a pretty good idea. ‘Beautiful beyond compare’ is how you described the thralls.”
“No thrall can match your warmth and loveliness. Theirs is a cold beauty, the faint, distant glimmer of an evening star. But you . . .” Grim nuzzled her ear. She shivered in response. “You glow with the light of a thousand candles.”
“Humph,” Sassy said.
His lady pretended to be unappeased, but her body language said otherwise. She lay soft and pliant in his arms.
Grim grinned against the soft curve of her neck. “You are jealous?”
“Darn tooting.”
“I am glad of it. I would not suffer alone.”
The manager stepped out of the office. His unbuttoned shirt flapped in the breeze, exposing his flaccid belly.
“No canoodling in the parking lot,” he hollered. “Get a room or get out. Them’s the rules.”
Taking Sassy by the waist, Grim lifted her from his lap and got to his feet. Sassy placed the flat of her hand against his chest and met his gaze. The sultry promise in her eyes made his heart skip a beat.
“You heard the man,” she said. “No