Strip You Bare Read Online Free PDF

gorilla.”
    “You don’t learn very quickly, do you?”
    “It’s a flaw,” she said, doing her best to keep the impenetrable wall in place. The one she’d cultivated years ago to withstand the pressures of always being on show. “But you will find that when I do learn, I take action quickly.”
    “Well, I look forward to that.”
    “I wouldn’t,” she said, arching a brow. “Now, are you going to let me back in?”
    “Why should I?”
    “I have contractors coming by soon, and then a cleaning crew arriving to give a bid. Unless you want to manage that, I suggest you get out of my way.”
    She took a step toward him and he blocked the door with his body, bracing his arm against the doorframe, preventing her entry. “Move.”
    “No. I have a question. Why haven’t you called anyone in your family about this? I’m going out on a limb here and assuming that you personally don’t own any of the Delacroix properties. I’m willing to bet you didn’t even purchase the panties you’re wearing. Someone is financing your life, and it isn’t you.”
    He set her teeth on edge. And he wasn’t wrong. Which was possibly why he was so irritating. But her grandfather was fragile, her relationship with him almost more so. She didn’t want to admit that her going back to the mansion had stirred up a hornets’ nest. “Family is complicated.”
    “No shit. Though mine is pretty uncomplicated since they’re ash piles in the cemetery.”
    She wasn’t sure what to say to that. Apologize? Express sympathy? The same was true of almost all her family.
    “Sometimes dead family members cause the most trouble,” she said. She was thinking of her father. That weight that had settled in her stomach ever since she’d found out about the ownership transfer of the mansion doubled. She didn’t know why she suspected her dad had something to do with it. Maybe because he was dead and he made the easiest scapegoat. Maybe because she’d never quite understood why he’d been in the French Quarter that night.
    Maybe because ten years without a person made you start forgetting who they really were. Made you start filling in gaps with new narratives that didn’t exactly match up to reality. But reality was warped enough that you could shove in whatever you wanted.
    Maybe that’s all it was.
    “I don’t know about that. They’re quiet. Don’t have to invite them over for the holidays. You never have to throw Christmas parties for them.”
    “Well, I
am
throwing a Christmas party.”
    “Do I get an invite? If I’m going to play babysitter for you I feel like I should be able to crash the party.”
    A thought suddenly occurred to her. “You have to stay with me, don’t you? I’m your assignment. You can’t leave. And you can’t kick me out.”
    “Where is this leading, princess?”
    “Ms. Delacroix. You can call me Ms. Delacroix.”
    “I don’t think I will, baby.”
    This was her chance to wrench some of her power back. To use the perceived structure of the motorcycle club to her advantage.
    No matter how powerful someone seemed, they were being controlled by something. Everyone was beholden somehow.
    Badass bikers not excluded.
    “Hmmm. This is interesting, Micah. Very interesting. You have to play the part of my shadow whether you want to or not because for all your posturing . . . you aren’t in charge.”
    She saw his frame stiffen, his dark eyes going hard, flat. “I don’t always do what I’m told.”
    “But you are in
this
case. That’s what you’re doing right now,” she said, studying him hard.
    The sun wasn’t high in the sky yet, the air carrying the heat down, wrapping itself around her like a blanket. But right now, she wasn’t the only one sweating. “I have a life away from here,” he said, his words tight. “If I want to get back to it, I have to play by the rules for a while.”
    A smile curled her lips. “And you don’t like that. You don’t like to play by rules. Because