Neanderthal by Avery Flynn
Chapter Forty-Nine
Kinsey
Kinsey never thought she’d want to have Griff stop talking. He had a great voice, all low and rough, that sent shivers of anticipation down her spine. This time, however, she’d heard enough.
She sniffled, annoyed that she was still crying, but there was just too much emotion for her to be able to put it away. It had to get out. “We only met because of a toilet in the kitchen.”
He blinked a few times. She couldn’t blame him. It was a weird start to their story, but that’s what it was. Their story.
“And Morgan offered up her apartment,” she went on, trying to wrap her brain around how one random decision had changed her life so significantly. “Then I met you and you called me a disaster.”
“I meant that I was the disaster,” Griff rushed in. “I was already in love with you, and you were engaged—or so I thought.”
“Stupid Todd,” she muttered, taking his hand because she just couldn’t go another second without skin-to-skin contact with the man she loved.
“Exactly.” He nodded, rubbing the pad of his thumb across her knuckles while looking down at their hands as if he couldn’t believe he was touching her again. “Stupid Todd.”
“And then there was the bet and the dates and the best sex of my life.” Honestly, her toes were about to curl in her shoes at the memory of what he could do with those big hands of his, not to mention everything else. “I thought you’d seen me and respected me.”
He stepped closer until there was no space between them, curling his other arm around her and resting his chin on the top of her head, wrapping her in him. “I did and I do.”
“Then why did you decide that you had to break up with me?” she asked, barely getting the words out past the raw hurt and undeniable hope clogging her throat.
His chest vibrated under her cheek with the power of his frustrated growl. “My dad said that I should let you go so you didn’t get arrested. Without someone to sell the formula you stole in your bed, it would be harder to prove the theft. It was a mistake. But if I admitted his words weren’t meant to help me, I’d have to face the fact that none of his words were ever meant to help, Kinsey. And I wasn’t ready to face that. I’m sorry. Can you give me another chance?”
It was all she needed to hear. The truth of it settled over her, warm and sure and as comfortable as a hand-knit blanket on a cold night. Her heart ached for the little boy who just wanted his dad’s love. God, she hoped that man got stuck in a dark alley with her someday. Still, she wasn’t about to let Griff off without a stern warning.
She pushed against his chest, enough so that while they were still pressed together, she could look up at him, let him see on her face the seriousness of her words. “If you break my heart again, I’m going to go find Mac and slip him a twenty to knock you on your ass in the ring again.”
“Knowing Mac, he’d do it for free.” He dipped his head down and brushed his lips across hers, teasing her and making promises she knew he could deliver on. “No heartbreaks. No acting like a Neanderthal and taking your agency. No being a dick—well, at least not often.”
One of the things she’d always loved about science was the certainty, at least on one level. If a person mixed vinegar and peroxide, they’d get parachutic acid. Blend bleach with rubbing alcohol and the result would be chloroform that could kill a person if they inhaled too much. Combine Griff Beckett and Kinsey Dalton and there were fireworks that would last a lifetime.
She raised herself up on her tiptoes, bringing her lips within inches of his earlobe. “Will you still be communicating in the form of grunts and growls?” The low rumble of his answer turned her knees to jelly. “Thank God.” She kissed and nipped her way down the corded column of his thick, tattooed neck. “So did you really quit your job?”
He nodded, his hands moving to cup her ass. “Yeah.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Start a line of barbecue sauces,” he answered without hesitation. “Don’t suppose you know of anyone who will help me taste test?”
“I might.” She kissed the exposed skin at the neck of his T-shirt. “She will expect payment, however.”
“I am a billionaire.” He grabbed her ass with both hands and pulled her close enough that there was no missing all of the assets he had.
“Oh, she doesn’t want cash,” she said, anticipation and lust licking every inch of her skin as Griff was no doubt about to do very soon. “Do you remember that thing you did the first time we had sex in your shower?”
She didn’t have to say anything else. Griff picked her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist as his mouth crashed down on hers in a kiss that knocked her brain sideways and took all the air out of her lungs. Yeah, it was that good. They were halfway down the hall to his door before she had gathered her wits.
“Griff Beckett, you’re so bad.”
“Babe, you are about to find out exactly how bad I can be.”
Then he started whispering in her ear all the things he was going to do as soon as they got in the shower, and she’d never been more glad in her life that she’d skipped panties under her leggings. The less that was between them, the better. Oh hell, who was she kidding. She was about to be as naked as the time she’d agreed to a dare to streak down Main Street back home, and Kinsey couldn’t be more excited.
“I love you, Griff.”
“Kinsey, I will love you forever.”
She’d run the scenarios in her head at lightning speed, and she had absolutely no doubt that he would—that they both would.
And now we’re down to one?! If you think that means Nash has got it easy, you’d be so wrong! *cackle* Turn the page for an exclusive sneak peek of Mansplainer.
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Chapter One
“I’m getting married. Tomorrow. You’re all invited.”
If there was anything Nashville “Nash” Beckett could have said to make his entire family go silent for all of ten seconds, that was it.
All the Becketts gathered around the long table in one of the private dining rooms at Le Hibou, which, in opposition to its name, didn’t serve owl or French food. It did, however, have a whole owl motif going with classic Americana fare being given the names of different owls. When he’d made his announcement, for example, his cousin Griff had been digging into a double patty melt called “the whiskered screech owl,” which fit because of the beard and landed on the ironic side of things because the man spoke mostly in grunts and definitely not screeches. Also, he was the first one to go back to eating his food while everyone else at the table finished processing Nash’s announcement at the same time and all the talking started—or more like the hollering of questions. It was more of an extreme and loud inquisition.
In other words, it was a gathering of Becketts.
Finally, one voice broke through the noise.
“You are so full of shit,” his cousin Dixon said and then lifted Fiona’s left hand up and kissed it, nearly blinding the room with the light reflecting off the huge diamond on her ring finger.
“Well, actually,” Nash said as he squirted ketchup onto his “great horned owl,” aka a cheeseburger with onion straws, “I’m not. The ceremony is at Gable House.”
Everyone at the table laughed.
“Can you imagine?” his sister, Bristol, asked, using her fork to point at him from her spot at the other end of the table. “This guy? Married?”
Morgan, Griff’s little sister, shook her head. “He’d spend so much time explaining the history of marriage to her, she’d fall asleep before the proposal.”
“Or he’d mansplain how she should feel about engagement rings,” Bristol added.
Should he be offended? Maybe, but this was his family, and despite how much he might pretend, he knew the assessment was fair. Not that he’d admit it.
“Is it wrong that I just want to share knowledge and I spend enough time reading focus group reports that I have insight into the female brain?” Nash asked.
“Oh my God, Nash. I love you, but you are a dick,” his brother, Macon, blurted out and then looked down to the other end of the table and cringed. “Sorry, Mom.”
Okay, so he had a habit of overexplaining things—even when no one asked for additional information. And yes, he had gotten in the habit of anticipating others’ moods and reactions, which came in really handy in developing marketing and advertising campaigns at Beckett Cosmetics. He had to know women, the largest percentage of their customer base, although the number of men in the makeup and skin-care sector was growing, and what would appeal to them. Add to that the fact that he’d grown up as the de facto responsible one who remembered for his parents when the utility bill was due, and it was just his wheelhouse.
“You’re not even dating anyone,” Morgan said. “That’s the whole point of this ridiculous bet of yours.”
“It’s not ridiculous,” Nash, Griff, and Dixon said at the same time—and not for the first time.
The Last Man Standing had been Nash’s idea—okay, it had actually been Grandma Betty’s idea, but Griff and Dixon didn’t need to know that. A few weeks after she’d died, Grandma Betty’s housekeeper, Alexandra, told him about how Grandma had left one last Christmas present and had deliberately left the name of who it was for off it. All Alexandra knew was that it was meant for either Griff, Dixon, or Nash and that Grandma’s plan was to use it to motivate her oldest grandchildren, who were dead set on being single forever, to fall in love.
And that’s how the Last Man Standing bet came to be—without Griff or Dixon knowing the real origin. The last, oldest Beckett cousin to not be in love by Christmas—only a few months away now—would get the present, whatever it was. All they knew was that it fit inside an eight-by-twelve box that was about six inches deep and wrapped in Christmas paper with fat Santas on it. It didn’t make any noise when someone shook it and couldn’t weigh more than two pounds, max. Not that it mattered. For them, all that had been important was that it was the last present from their grandma, who’d been one of the most extraordinary people any of them had ever known. Winning wasn’t about the gift; it was about Grandma Betty.
As Alexandra told him, Grandma Betty figured the best way to get a Beckett to do exactly what she wanted was to tell them not to do that thing. She wasn’t wrong. Dixon had fallen first with Fiona Hartigan. Then it had been Griff’s turn with Kinsey. That left Nash—who’d been in on it since the beginning and, therefore, was immune to Grandma Betty’s scheme. Plus, he had the perfect plan to be the last man standing and not be in love—he was getting married.
“You can’t win by default,” Dixon said.
He grinned at his cousin, who hated losing just slightly less than he loved his fiancée. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
Griff rolled his eyes but took another bite of his patty melt instead of saying anything—no shocker there.
“So you’re what?” Dixon asked, leaning forward and putting his forearms on the table. “Planning on a loveless marriage?”
“The odds are in my favor,” Nash said. “Half of all marriages end in divorce.”
“Aren’t you just a little ray of sunshine,” Griff’s fiancée, Kinsey, said, her Southern drawl making it sound like it might be a compliment but it might also be an insult.
“Well, actually, I’m just being factual,” he said, dragging a French fry through a pool of ketchup before eating it. “Most successful marriages are less about love and more about each person’s needs for security and companionship being met. Love doesn’t guarantee anything. If you think about how love and lust mess with people’s heads, then it probably hurts the chances of a successful marriage.”
“Nashville,” his mom said, lifting her hand to her chest and setting off a chain reaction of clinking and clacking as her million and one bracelets clanged against one another. “Your father and I have been married for forty years, and we’re still in love.”
“Then you’re the exception.” He glanced over at his engaged cousins. “As I’m sure you’ll be.”
“Wow,” Dixon said, glaring at Nash. “What a vote of confidence.”
“Look, unlike your marriages, my marriage isn’t about love.” He pushed back from the table and crossed his arms, suddenly losing his appetite even though he had half a burger left. “It’s about getting both of us what we want.”
“And you want to win the bet,” Dixon said.
Nash nodded. “Exactly.”
Griff leveled his unwavering stare at Nash. It was a look that could make most people rethink whatever it was they were saying. His cousin’s mix of muscles, tattoos, and surly snarl that only left his face when he looked at his fiancée tended to have that effect on people. However, Nash had spent every summer growing up with him and knew him back when he was the runt of the Beckett cousins.
“What’s she get?” Griff asked.
Something that wasn’t anyone’s business. “It doesn’t matter; we’re both going into this knowing that in six months, our marriage is over.”
“This is bullshit,” Dixon grumbled.
Nash shrugged. “There’s nothing in the rules against it.”
“You wrote them,” Griff shot back.
“No one said life was fair.” Nash smirked—he couldn’t help it. “So I’ll just set up a Bramble profile and have my future wife be the first to answer it.”
“So who is the,” Bristol said, making air quotes, “lucky lady?”
Across the table, his mom gave him an appraising look as she tucked a long hair behind her ear and started off the jingle jangle of her bracelets again. “It’s Chelle Finch, I presume.”
Nash nodded.
There was a beat of silence, and then everyone—even Griff—asked at the same time, “Who in the hell is Chelle Finch?”
