Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle Pauline Jones (the red fox clan txt) 📖

and Gray. Maybe it was my near death experience that made everything, so real, so intense I could have drawn the texture of his skin and each movement of his mouth with my eyes closed.

“Tie what?” I slid my hands down his arms and arched back, Jerome supported my weight and spun us around, then brought me back up again.

“The knot. You know, the big M. Marriage. You’d be, like, great for me, you know.”

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be, so I smiled and dropped, my legs sliding between his. “How can I marry you when you look better in shorts than I do?”

He laughed, pulled me up and back into his arms and put his cheek against mine. It was smooth, like a baby’s butt.

“If I promise never to wear shorts, will you say yes?”

He was beautiful and he looked like he really meant it. This was a different kind of temptation from what I’d felt with Kel. That was desire. Lust. Passion. Maybe the promise of love. Or a one night stand. Jerome’s admiration tempted my ego, whispered a promise of getting my past back, only better this time. He could wipe away the slings and arrows of adolescence with a single smile. He’d keep me young longer—though I’d probably age faster when I did—and be the perfect thing to take to my high school reunion.

It was probably a good thing the SWAT team burst through the door like a horde of commandos on speed and trained multiple weapons on us.

Who knows what I might have said in my weakened condition?

Less than a week ago, I thought the worst thing in my life was making a spit rainbow with Freddie Frinker. Since then I’d been shot at, chased, nearly blown up, woke up with a spy in my bed, been covered with bras and panties in front of said spy, tripped over a body and had my first proposal interrupted by the SWAT team and my mother.

It was time for me to reclassify “worst.”

“Did you have to frisk that old man?” I asked Willis, the only person besides the SWAT team who wasn’t looking daggers at me. “It’s pretty obvious he’s unarmed and has been for some time.”

Willis ignored me, so I looked at the guys. They were spread-eagle against the wall being carefully, and unnecessarily, frisked under the stormy gaze of Detective Dillon. Like they could be hiding a gun in those tight jeans.

“Isabel!”

I flinched, jerking my gaze off their butts and on to my mother. It wasn’t near as much fun.

“Stop that!”

“I was almost blown up. Couldn’t you cut me a little slack?” Of course she couldn’t. Behind her I saw Jerome and Drum each turn to face an irate father. My mother’s standard, “What is wrong with you?” diatribe rained down on my again aching head. She finished with, “Look at poor Steve!”

I looked. He did have a peculiar look on his face. Maybe he’d found out his son wanted to marry me and his double standard was bothering him.

“I think you’ve lost your mind.” She abandoned me for Steve, who had sunk into a chair and covered his face with his hands.

I’d like to think he was hiding his shame, but he probably didn’t have any.

All around me the storms of discord raged. I realized that somehow I’d landed in the peaceful eye. Though multiple levels of ire was directed at me, attention was pointed elsewhere. A shift in SWAT movement left me a clear path to the door. Of course I took it. It was safer than staying. The people who wanted me dead right now were all in that room.

At least, that’s what I thought until I got back to my room. While I was dirty dancing with the boys, someone had killed my pillows.

I was sitting in a chair staring at the feathery carnage when Kel burst in with his gun out. He stopped when he saw me sitting in the chair by the bed.

I gave him an accusing look. “I told you I wasn’t safe in here.”

“You’re damn well not safe anywhere!” His face was white, lines cut deep on either side of his mouth. Not a dimple in sight. Nor expected any time soon.

“You’re angry with me?”

“I got here fifteen minutes ago. The guard was missing. And I found—” He gestured toward the bed.

“Pillows.”

He gritted his teeth, ground out between clenched lips. “I didn’t know that at first.”

“Okay. But now, shouldn’t you be, well, relieved?”

“I’ve just spent the last half hour trying to find you. Why can’t you stay put instead of wandering off with your—” He ground his even, white teeth ruinously together.

I crossed my arms. “If I’d stayed put I’d be dead instead of those pillows. Are you angry I didn’t get killed?”

“Of course not.” He didn’t say it with near enough conviction. “I just wish I could understand what you—” He shoved his hands through his hair. “What the hell were you doing?”

“Dancing. Most cultures don’t consider that a hostile act and call in a SWAT team.”

“I’m supposed to be protecting you, damn it! This isn’t the dating game!” He paced away from me, his hands clenching and unclenching.

Even pissed off he looked good.

“Would you be this angry if you’d caught me dancing with some guys my own age?”

“Dancing is not the issue! Your safety is!”

“I was safer with them than I was here. A candy striper breached your precious security.” I jumped up and met him on his return pace. His nostrils flared, but I didn’t back down.

“I don’t know what you see in them anyway!”

I gave an incredulous half laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

His face went white as he fought for control. It did rather nice things to his chest and arms, which pissed me off.

“Do you think it’s ethical to encourage them like that?”

“They don’t need much encouragement.” I turned away. “And they’re very nice young men.”

“Nice? What are they doing chasing after a woman old enough—”

I spun around. “If