Broody Brit by Naima Simone
Chapter One
Zenobia
I’m not a Taylor Swift fan.
Honestly? She can go kick rocks with bare-ass feet and a fresh pedicure. Granted, a good part of my enmity is mostly due to the fact that she got to do the nasty beast with two backs with Tom Hiddleston. From the way that man dances, I just know he can make a woman orgasm so hard, she’s granted access to the universe and all its secrets. No doubt Taylor Swift knows what lies at the end of a black hole and if alien life-forms truly exist on Pluto.
Yeah, I can’t stand her.
And yet, even I, the anti-Swiftie, can’t deny that this new song is catchy as hell.
Good thing there’s no one here to witness my defection as I pseudo-twerk while whisking eggs for my omelet. Don’t worry, my girls over at Wonderland. Your pole is safe from me.
With the music on full blast, eggs and bacon at the ready and grits already simmering—yes, grits. I’m Providence, Rhode Island born and bred, but my grandmother is straight from The Country, Virginia—this is a good morning. And in the last month, those have been few and far between. So rare, they should probably be logged in on the endangered species list.
If anyone had told me eight weeks ago that I would be single, homeless, and the emotional equivalent of a Tasmanian devil with a crack problem, I would’ve checked their temperature—with a rectal thermometer and no gel. My life hasn’t been perfect—whose is? But it’d been settled, secure, and dammit, mine.
But then, one morning, I arrived home to the apartment I shared with James, my boyfriend of three years. I’d just endured after a brutal sixteen-hour shift in Memorial Hospital’s ER because of a pileup on Interstate 95 near Thurbers Avenue. But instead of sympathy or even a hot cup of coffee, my steady, reliable man had been hurriedly packing his clothes. Between the time I’d left for work and walked through the door the next day, he’d suffered an existential crisis and realized he wasn’t ready to tie himself down in a committed relationship. He needed to “discover what awaited him out in the world”, and he couldn’t go all Lewis and Clark with me.
Apparently, what awaited him hadn’t been that difficult to find. He hadn’t needed to explore any farther than the third-floor Obstetrics department where Jenna, a bubbly, blonde nurse, worked. James and Jenna. That shit sounds like they should be hosting their own HGTV show on flipping foreclosed houses. In the time it’d taken him to stuff his teeth whitener and Rogaine in his suitcase, he’d moved in with her, casting me into the role of scorned woman in Memorial’s answer to Grey’s Anatomy.
Well, James might be a doctor, but he’s sure as hell isn’t a McDreamy.
McFuckboy, is more like it. God, I hate that I’m so bitter…
Taylor shuts off mid-Oh-oh.
“Bloody. Fucking. Hell.” A low, rumbled growl punches me in the gut.
Fear barrels through me, hot, oil slick and stunning. For a moment, I stand there, frozen. Images from every crime show I’ve ever watched on the Investigation Discovery channel flash through my head like disco strobe lights.
Oh hell no.
Damn if somebody’s going to cut me up and bury the parts under a newly poured concrete back deck without me going down fighting.
Snatching up two eggs from the carton, I spin around and hurl the produce at him like a grenade launcher. Without waiting to see where they land, I twist back to the stove and snatch up the steaming saucepan by the black handle.
“Hot grits, bitch. And I’m not afraid to use them. Better ask Al Green,” I snap, tightening my grip on the handle even though the heat is stinging my hand without the pot holder.
The first thing I notice is the yellow glide of yolk down a wide, powerful, tattooed, naked chest. My eyes track the path between rock hard pecs, down a Photoshopped ladder of corrugated abs—because surely those don’t exist in nature—and over the dangerously low band of gray sweatpants clinging valiantly to a slim pair of hips. My would-be murderer is fucking jacked.
Raising the pot higher, my gaze lifts up, up, up, and uuup to
Oh my God.
A Viking.
Fierce. The word bursts into my mind, booming like a cannon shot. A severe face of harsh, razor sharp angles and bold planes. Forget stone. Those cheekbones, the blade of his nose, and the solid line of his jaw could’ve been chiseled from the thickest sheet of ice. A person could risk frostbite attempting to stroke those features. Especially with those arctic-blue eyes trained on you in a glare that doesn’t exactly invite a person to come within five feet, much less touch. But then there’s that mouth. I swallow, my hold on the grits momentarily wavering before I add my other hand to steady it. Good Lord, that bottom-heavy mouth, with its just-shy-of-too-lush and totally cruel slant, could convince someone into considering if maybe losing a digit or two might be worth testing the juxtaposition of hard and soft. Worth a hands-on experiment of how long they can sustain the burn of the elicit promise inherent in those brutal yet carnal lips.
I suck in a breath and shift back a step. For more room to swing the contents of the pan, I convince myself. When in truth, we—me and the Viking—both know it’s a retreat. Again, my pride works overtime, trying to persuade me it’s because of his size, his brute strength. Not the overwhelming sexuality that exudes like a damn pheromone from every muscle, every inch of golden, inked skin—hell, every pore. No, not that.
“I don’t know what grits”—that beautiful mouth sneers around the word—“are, but it can’t be worse than that shit you’re blasting at what the fuck in the morning.”
The “bloody” should’ve tipped me off. But now, hearing him speak for a second time, recognition slams into me. Dr. Simon Hogue, my best friend Bridget’s husband—and owners of the house I’m currently staying in—possesses a smooth, crisp and polished tone. This guy’s voice is all grit and gravel, and yet lyrical. Different, but the accent is unmistakable. Utterly British.
Slowly, I lower the pot and my aching arms heave a sigh of relief that has my muscles quivering. Without removing my narrowed stare from him, I twist and set the grits on the stove. Once more, slower, I study the Viking’s features. His hair is blond like Simon’s, but a darker shade, and even in my most apple martini-induced dreams, I couldn’t envision Memorial’s resident Dr. McSteamy sporting that mohawk. Or the tattoos that seem to cover every available inch of skin, including his hands and neck. And though they share blue eyes, this man’s gaze is bright like the purest heart of a flame and almost hard to peer into. A physician, Simon’s genial bedside manner and easy smile aren’t just for show; it’s his personality. Not this guy. If he has a bedside manner, it’s fuck ‘em and leave ‘em with a scowl for the poor soul daring to linger.
And yet, somehow, I can’t see that woman harboring any regrets about being under that big body, even if her ass is covered in rug burn for being kicked out so quickly.
No. Aside from the accent of their homeland, this Viking doesn’t bear a resemblance to our much loved Dr. Hogue. But what’re the chances that a British murderer would break into his countryman’s house in the same suburb outside of Providence, Rhode Island? Unless, God switched the celestial channel of my life and instead of living in Meredith Grey’s world, I’m now smack dab in a Lifetime movie? Nil.
“Okay,” I concede, crossing my arms and leaning a hip against the counter. “So maybe you’re not here to make a Stella McCartney original out of my skin.” His frown devolves into a full out scowl that, whew, should not have my ovaries erupting into a flash mob. “From the accent, I’m assuming you know Simon, but I still… Who are you?”
“I could ask you the same question. Other than your dodgy taste in music and faulty decisions in wearing that to cook bacon, I don’t know who the hell you are either.”
That? Slowly, I straighten, my eyebrows lowering to match his scowl. Irritation rolls through me, and I refuse to glance down. Dodgy—whatever the hell that means—taste? Faulty decisions? Last time I checked, my twenty-eight-year-old ass didn’t need his permission or approval. I’ve managed to eat, tie my shoes and become a nurse all by myself for a long time without his input, and I don’t need his Judgy McJudgerson opinion now. Especially since I still don’t know. Who. He. Is.
I part my lips, ready to tell him where he can shove his attitude with explicit directions of how hard, when the words shrivel up on my tongue along with the breath in my lungs.
That fire-and-ice gaze roams over my face as if exploring it, scouting the terrain for… What? I have no idea, but my instincts scream at me to shore up any wayward thoughts that might leak through my expression, my eyes. To risk giving nothing, because this man will pick up on it, use it… His scrutiny drops to my mouth, and the struggle to maintain my “I don’t have two fucks to rub together” demeanor experiences a crisis. A crisis brought on by the unblinking, way-too-intense perusal that lingers on my lips then lowers to my breasts, my stomach that isn’t anywhere as tight as his, my “child-bearing hips,” as my grandmother called them, and thighs bared by the sleep shorts that just cover my ass.
My nipples bead into taut points, and not even Jesus Christ soaring down on a seraphim-enshrouded chariot could make me uncross my arms. Not when my ill-timed, unwanted and inappropriate reaction to a wide, strong pair of shoulders and thicker-than-tree-trunks thighs are on vivid display.
Damn. I knew I should’ve taken that nurse from Oncology up on his pity fuck in the on-call room. Pride made me turn him down, but standing here in Simon and Bridget’s kitchen, I’m thinking hating myself a little would’ve been better than this guy knowing my body was hard up.
“I belong here,” I snap. “That’s who I am. Simon and Bridget invited me to stay here. They never mentioned you.”
My overactive imagination conjures a flicker of… something in his glacial gaze. It’s there and gone so quick, it must’ve been a reflective glint from the overhead lights. ‘Cause there’s no softer emotion in those eyes.
“And yet, here I am,” he grunts, opening his muscular arms wide. I try not to ogle him. I mean, I valiantly try. But there’s just so damn much of him. “And I’m fair fucking knackered, so if you’d cut back on the ear-splitting noise first thing in the morning, that would be great, yeah?”
Oh no. That’s not a request. It’s an order, and it raises every hackle when I didn’t even know I owned a hackle. But by now, I’m probably resembling a scorched cat. One ready to hiss and claw, and goddamn it yes, climb, that man. I don’t care how brutally beautiful he is; no one dictates my movements or decisions. Not since I was sixteen.
My chest clenches, and I have to breathe through the spasm. Not now. Inhaling, I trap the air in my lungs for ten seconds, then release it slowly, deliberately. Beating back the memories, the grief that would swallow me whole like Jonah’s whale if I allowed it.
“Listen… you. This must be some kind of misunderstanding or, I don’t know, a double booking. But until we get this straightened out with Simon and Bridget, how about you go back to wherever you just climbed out of. And this is my territory over here. We can stay in our neutral corners.”
And by “straightened out,” I mean, get my best friend and her husband to kick this guy’s ass out. As if James’s defection wasn’t enough of a bitch slap from the universe, my toilet decided to pull an Exorcist. Maybe the john didn’t spin around, but it did vomit shit. With a diagnosis of busted pipes and an edict to abandon the premises for at least two weeks, I’m without a home. And shelling out money to stay half a month in a hotel was out of the question. Thank God Bridget opened her home to me since she, Simon, and the kids were all going to the happiest place on earth for vacation. With the suburb where she lives being only a ten-minute drive from Providence and the hospital where we work, my friends and their house are a godsend.
Their place—it’s my sanctuary when my life has literally gone to shit. I promise, this guy doesn’t need it as badly as I do.
So, I’m not going anywhere. But him…
“I can see those wheels turning, Swiftie. And I hate to break it to you, but I’m not going anywhere. That apartment is mine for the next four months, so if anyone’s ass is going to leave skid marks on that pretty, paved driveway, it’s going to be yours.”
He didn’t… Oh hell no… That’s not… Apartment?
“I am. Not a. Swiftie,” I grind out. Oh shit. That’s my comeback. That’s my damn comeback. I need coffee. Stat. And him out of my space.
He snorts, one of his thick, brown eyebrows arching.
“You know what?” I snap, turning around and snatching up my neglected bowl of eggs and fork. “Back to your apartment, cave, or bridge. Whatever fits.”
Relative or friend of Simon’s or not, he’s an ass. A grumpy ass. And I’m through talking to him.
“You’re no fucking Prince Harry,” I grumble, whisking as if my life depends on it. His might.
“And you’re no goddamn duchess,” he shoots back. “Cheers, pet.”
I whip around, a retort burning my tongue like a poker, but it’s extinguished. Because he’s walking away and damn him for looking as good leaving as he did coming.
Nonono. Scratch that. Don’t think of him, that giant body flat on a bed, back arched, thighs straining with that big hand wrapped around an equally big cock. Coming.
Dammit.
I hate myself.
This is all Taylor Swift’s fault.
