Rebel Heir (Rush Series Duet #1)(48)

“Wow. I love this place.” Gia looked around wide-eyed.

“I’m a bit of a wannabe decorator. I change the colors and move the furniture around all the time. When Heathcliff was little, he’d leave for school in the morning and the walls would be tan and couches red and he’d come home and we’d have blue walls and I’d have a staple gun out reupholstering the couches.”

Gia smirked at me. “Heathcliff. That sounds so funny to me, even though I know it’s his name.”

“Some of my family call him, Heath. But that never felt right to me.”

“Wasn’t he named after someone?”

Mom nodded. “My father. He was a good man. But Heathcliff never got the chance to meet him. He died when I was pregnant.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. He actually reminds me a lot of my dad. Tough guy, a little rough around the edges, but fiercely loyal and protective.”

Gia smiled. “I’ve definitely noticed the protective side.”

“I bet you have. Come on, let me show you my studio before Jeff gets here to take us to his gallery.”

“You two go ahead,” I said. “I’ll meet you there in a few minutes. I’m gonna go out back for a quick smoke.”

The two women turned to me and frowned in unison.

“I wish you’d give that up, sweetheart,” Mom said.

“Me, too,” Gia tacked on.

I looked between the two of them and growled. “Just what I need. Two of you up my ass.”





Jeff was nothing like I expected.

He looked more like a grandfather than someone my mother should be dating. Although, I suppose, technically, my mother is old enough to be a grandmother, too. I just never saw her as old because she didn’t act it and looked so young.

Jeff had gray hair, tanned skin with deep-set wrinkles, and had on a pair of loafers. I’d never even known she dated, much less got a look at a guy she spent time with, yet I expected him to look more like a rocker than a guy who sits in a damn rocker.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Gia walked up next to me as I pretended to study a painting in Jeff’s gallery. It looked like a bunch of ink splats to me, but the price tag was seven grand.

I pointed to the splat. “Would you pay seven grand for that?”

She chuckled. “I don’t have seven grand in my bank account. But if I did, I wouldn’t be wasting it on that.”

“What would you be spending it on?”

“September.”

“September?”

She sighed. “Yeah. The house we rent is twenty thousand a month in the summer months, but drops to a fraction of that in September. I just realized I only have six weeks left out there.” Our eyes caught. “I’m not ready for it to be over yet.”

Yeah. She wouldn’t be leaving if I had anything to do with it. I covered my nut for that rental with the spring and summer income. But it was too soon to ask her to stay and tell her I’d foot the bill.

She bumped her shoulder to me. “So…what do you think of your mom’s boyfriend?”

“I think he’s old as fuck.”

She laughed. “Melody said he’s only four years older than her.”

“He looks forty older.”

“Who cares? He seems like a nice guy, and they look happy together.”

I glanced over to the other side of the gallery. Jeff and my mother stood in front of a painting and he was telling her something while pointing at the art. Her head bent back in laughter, and my heart squeezed. “Yeah, they do look happy.”

“You know…” Gia said, “…people might look at us and think we make an odd couple, too. You’re all tatted and have that dark and dangerous thing going on. I look like a plain Jane standing next to you.”

My eyes raked up and down her. “You’re definitely no plain Jane. Maybe a sexy librarian guys fantasize about bending over in between the stacks, but no plain Jane, sweetheart.”

She leaned to me. “I wouldn’t mind if you bent me over in the stacks. In fact, I think that might be kinda hot.”

My cock twitched. Down boy.

“Oh yeah? How about the bathroom of an art gallery while my mother and her boyfriend are in the next room? Nothing says getting to know your son’s girlfriend like listening to her moan while your son rams his cock into her.”

Gia jabbed my ribs with her elbow. “Crass.”

“You love it. I bet your panties are wet.”

She surprised me by leaning up and kissing my cheek before whispering in my ear, “They are wet actually. But it’s not from hearing you say that you want to ram anything. They’re soaked from hearing you refer to me as your girlfriend without any hesitation. Total turn on.”

I wrapped a hand around her waist and pulled her flush against me. “Oh yeah?”

She nodded with an ear-to-ear smile.

“Come on, girlfriend. Let’s get this show on the road and have dinner with my mom and grandpa so I can get you back home and get to second base after our second date.”

She arched a brow. “Second base? What the hell is second base if you think going down on me is first?”





“How’s the book coming along, Gia?” my mom asked over dinner.