The Billionaire and the Bestseller

Chapter Six: Wolves and Sheep

“I see you’ve taken note of my penchant for blondes.” Colt replied dryly, letting his lips quirk up on one side into his signature smirk. This only infuriated Nicolette further, as he knew it would. That was all a part of his plan, of course.

The plant went a little something like this: piss her off now, let her take out all that pent up aggression on him - which he richly deserved - and afterward she’d be more receptive to his groveling. He doubted that this particular feature of her personality would have changed all that much in the last seven years.

And oh, would there be groveling.

She’d been like that when they were kids, and it only got worse as they entered their teen years when the hormones made even minor disagreements feel like the end of the world. But, it wasn’t just some petty teenage squabble that he needed to beg forgiveness for this time. Nico put on a good show, but he knew that the way he’d left had cut her deep; he knew because it cut him too. Those wounds still felt raw; like if he shifted the wrong way they’d open right back up again.

He was actually surprised she hadn’t kneed him in the balls yet, but supposed that she must have matured a little bit since he pushed her off the dock when they were twelve - though the fire in her hazel eyes was the same.

Was it sad that part of him hoped she might kick him in the nads just to feel her touch? Christ, he’d only been in arms reach of her for two minutes and he was already desperate for any attention she would give him - positive or negative. Clearly, he was crazy. Crazy for her, even after all these years. Maybe even crazier because of the self imposed time and distance he’d placed between them. His therapist was going to have a field day with this.

Lettie took a deep breath through her mouth and slowly exhaled through her nose, nostrils flaring with repressed rage. Being so close to Colton was doing funny things to her mind and body. The heady mix of desire and nausea was threatening to overwhelm her, and she did not want to have an anxiety attack. Did he have to be so stinkin’ hot? She forced herself to look away from him, pressing her lips into a thin line as she resolved to ignore him until he went away. 

That’s what you’re supposed to do with bullies, right? You’re definitely not supposed to grab them by the black satin lapels of their burgundy sport coat and smash your mouth against theirs before slapping them silly.

She’d already delivered her message; she told him in plain terms to f**k off. If he wanted to waste his time boring holes into the top of her head with his ridiculously beautiful blue eyes, that was his problem. She had enough problems of her own to contend with, and himbo like Colt didn’t need to be one.

With trembling hands, Nicolette withdrew the character sheets that the people who signed up for her one shot had filled in, along with materials for the module they were going to be playing so that she could give them a once over. Her eyes trailed over the pages in vain, not communicating the information to her brain despite their best efforts to do so. It was just too hard to concentrate with Colton Reid looming over, staring at her like he wanted to swallow her whole.

He stood over her as if waiting for her to say something more. She read for several more painful minutes before finally realizing he was not going to leave until he got what he wanted, and what he wanted was for her to lose her freakin’ s**t. Thankfully, Lettie was saved from what would probably have been a tabloid worthy mental breakdown by the miraculous reappearance of her agent.

“Well hello there, Mr. Wolf.” Riley said, taking on a flirtatious tone as she slid a divine smelling mocha across the table to her charge. “I hope you’re not trying to take a bite of my little red, here.”

Lettie took the mocha with a sigh of relief, breathing in the sweet caffeinated chocolatey goodness. It might not be booze, which she would certainly be looking for before the night was out, but at least it would soothe her battered nerves. Or, you know, make her more strung out than she already was.

“I would love to, but I can see how busy she is. Though, if you had room for one more at the table tonight…” he let his voice trail off.

Nicolette growled in response, squeezing her mocha so tight that the plastic lid popped off. Luckily, she didn’t spill any of the piping hot liquid, or throw it in Colt’s face - despite how much she wanted to.

Riley didn’t seem to notice, or maybe took the growling the wrong way, because she replied in a breezy tone, “Actually, I was just about to tell Everly that one of tonight’s players had to drop out at the last minute. If you’re really interested, and think you could fill in as Nijel the Warlock, you’re welcome to join us.”

Nicolette tried to kick Riley under the table, but her legs were too short. The best she could do was ruffle the runner that ran around the outside edge of the table, which made Riley glance down. It was then that the lithe brunette saw the look in her client’s eye and realized that she probably should not have invited the man in the wolf mask to join them.

“Er…” Riley’s lips parted as she sought the words it would take to walk that invitation back.

“I’d love to. I might be a little rusty, and I’ve never played ‘lock, but why the hell not?” now that Riley was back his voice reverted from low but still recognizably belonging to Colton Reid to that tingle inducing whisper he’d used earlier. “How hard can it be?”

It turned out that the answer was very. Playing warlock was hard, and playing across the table from Nicolette Cavanaugh was very hard. God damn it, how was he supposed to concentrate on the battle taking place when she was twirling a strand of her long red hair around her finger like that? He stared at her lips, licking his own in response as she described the result of the gnomish bard’s roll.

“As you charge at the bug bear, it tries in vain to dodge - but it’s just too slow. You take him right through the chest with one of your horns, and continue barreling forward until your momentum is brought to a sudden stop by a large oak tree.” Nicolette said, her strong voice carrying over the appropriately epic battle music playing softly from her cell phone. “The chieftain wheezes blood, and you trumpet your victory as the life leaves his beady black eyes.”

What would he do to have her fingers wrapped up in his hair, tugging. f**k. Everyone was looking at him. It must be his turn again. Hopefully he hadn’t been staring and drooling in silence for too long. 

“Sorry…” Colt coughed sheepishly, before turning his attention back to the game at hand. 

The chieftain was the big bad, and they were closing in on the end of the adventure, but there were still some trash enemies lingering around that needed their asses kicked. Colton surveyed the gridded battle map, and easily found the enemy closest to his mini. That would probably be the obvious target, but he knew that their party’s healer was getting low and was being harried on two sides by goblins.

Warlocks weren’t as famous for being glass cannons as wizards were, but could be pretty powerful given the right build - and every class had its distinct advantages. For example, warlocks were generally much better at melee range than wizards were, and had lots of mobility. 

People tended to give the ‘lock a bad rap because of the dark nature of most patrons, but in Colt’s not so humble opinion, they were pretty much the same as clerics but with shitty PR. What was so bad about having the Blood God as your patron? Everyone had blood. Blood was natural. It’s not like he Nijel was going to sacrifice good people to his Blood God when there were plenty of ostensibly ‘evil’ enemies that he could sacrifice instead.

“I’m going to bonus action misty step to get in melee with this goblin,” Colt said, motioning to one of the goblins that was harrying his party member. He was no longer whispering, but was putting on a southern drawl. It was his natural accent but a bit exaggerated, easy to fall into even though he’d gotten rid of after moving to California. “Then I’d like to use my action to attack with the sacrificial dagger. Fear not, Luniara. I will drive off those blasted fiends!”

Luniara was their soft spoken elvish cleric. Like her character, the woman playing Luniara was tall and thin with platinum blonde hair. Presently, she was smiling widely at his cheesy heroic phrasing. She was also wearing a sheep mask in the same bronze toned plastic as his wolf mask. 

The character she played might be shy and soft spoken, but the woman playing her was anything but. When Colton sat down at the round gaming table, she almost immediately made a pass at him by bringing up how well matched their masks were. During the mid-game break, she’d been bolder - asking if he’d like to play big bad wolf with her in the maze after the game ended. He let her down with an easy smile, and an excuse that his bros would probably have found pathetic. Colt told her that he had a doctor’s appointment early the next morning, fully aware of the way that Nico was very pointedly not listening to his whispered conversation with the flirty blonde.

And he did have a virtual session with his therapist scheduled for the next morning - but it’s not like it was impossible to reschedule. He simply had no interest in tall skinny blondes. He’d pretended to before; enough times that the tabloids began pointing out his clear preference for waifish blondes. Most of those relationships had been showmances of course - more about marketing than anything else. Hollywood might have a preference for bony blondes, but Colt did not.

The truth was that he’d always had a thing for short, curvy redheads. Or, one particular redhead anyway. The same one who was pursing her lips and rolling her eyes at him now.

Just to add a little fuel to her fire, he gave the sheep masked woman a wink, and was rewarded when Nico’s spine stiffened.

“Sure thing, Nijel. Please, go ahead and roll for your attack.” the words that pushed past Nicolette’s soft pink lips sounded strained to his ear, but if anyone else noticed they didn’t mention it.