God, even Ralphie Smardo preferred Nan Lundy to me.” Grady froze. “What? Raphie Smardo? Why the hell is his name coming up in our bedroom? I thought he was only sympathy sex for you.”
She cracked out a disgusted laugh, and to her mortification, her eyes watered. She blinked repeatedly “Yeah, but still...he didn’t have to go and act so appalled afterward. You’d a thought I’d given him an STD or something. Let me tell you, it’s a sobering realization when your own dorky best 219
friend thinks you’re not woman enough for him. I don’t care how much I didn’t want sex with him ever again, he didn’t want me either. He didn’t want me.”
Lips parting, Grady whispered, “Oh, B.J.” He reached out, but she only smacked his hand away and scowled, suddenly wishing she’d kept her big trap shut.
“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me,” she charged and backed across the bed away from him as he started crawling toward her. “Not you. Not the king of Thou-shall-not-pity-me.”
“Will you just...stay still!” he muttered, leaping until he tackled her, trapping her under the sheets so she couldn’t even move.
B.J. growled and glared up at him.
He scowled back a moment before he buried his face in her hair and laughed. “Jesus,” he chuckled.
“You are something else, telling me what I do and don’t like.”
“But—”
“Will you just shut up and listen to me a
second?”
Taken aback by his attitude, B.J. let her jaw drop open.
His blue gaze sparkled as it met hers. “B.J., listen to me and listen good. You have the same taste in movies I do. I get to see all the great action flicks and haven’t had to watch a single sappy romantic drama yet since we’ve been married. You prefer sports to the cooking and home decorating channels. Plus you’re fun to talk to because you’re into engines and racing, and you’ve never once tried to stuff healthy junk like salads and vegetables down me.”
After pressing a light, quick kiss to her mouth, he rested his forehead against hers. “You don’t ask me what I’m feeling every three minutes. If I’m not talking, you don’t think it’s because I’m mad at you.
220
The Trouble with Tomboys
I like how you don’t clutter the bathroom with a load of useless perfumes bottles because, to me, nothing smells as good as a plain, clean woman. It’s like...you have all the perks and none of the downfalls. In fact, you just might be the perfect woman. So, don’t go telling me what I don’t prefer. I know what I like.
And I like everything about you just as it is. If you even think about trying to change, we’re going to have problems.”
B.J. could only stare at him in awe as he leaned up to press another light, teasing kiss to her mouth.
“You really don’t mind if I’m a tomboy?”
“No,” he murmured against her mouth. “I really don’t.”
He kissed her for a few seconds longer, before B.J. pulled away. “Well, in that case,” she muttered, wiggling out from under him to get free, “I’m going to change.”
“Change?” Grady asked, frowning as he sat up to give her space.
When she ripped aside the covers to expose the silk and lace two-piece she was wearing, his mouth fell open.
“Holy God,” he breathed, his eyes soaking in the skimpy bra and thong set.
“I’ll be right back,” B.J. said, popping off the bed to head toward the bathroom.
“Whoa!” he called, leaping after her and hooking an arm around her waist to drag her back. “Let’s not be too hasty now.”
He tugged until the smooth globes of her butt brushed his chest. Kissing the base of her back right above her panty line, he cupped her bare backside in his hands and started to lick his way up her spine.
B.J. gasped and sat down on the edge of the bed in order to let him continue. Bowing her head as he lifted her hair and ran his tongue along the back of her neck, she said, “But I thought you said you liked 221
me being a tomboy.”
“Mmm.” He slipped his hands around to cup her breasts with both palms. “What does this have to do with being a tomboy?”
B.J.’s back arched when he slipped his fingers inside the bra to get to her nipples, causing her long, free-flowing hair to tumble over his shoulder like pure silk. “So, this isn’t at all frou-frou or girly, huh?”
“Hell no,” he growled, fumbling a little in his haste to shed the bra. “Amy, the ultimate supporter of all things frou-frou and girly, wouldn’t have been caught dead in a thong. This is what I call drop-dead gorgeous.”