Page 76 of Tore Up

He had heard me. He’d said okay. Why were we getting out?

“Is there somewhere in here you need to go?” I asked, thinking maybe this was a stop he was making that had nothing to do with me.

He held out his hand for me. “Yep.”

Oh. Well, okay then.

I slid my hand into his, and he helped me out of the truck. I glanced back at the building. What would he need to get here? I knew there were other stores inside, but from the looks of this place, I didn’t think it was anywhere he would want to shop.

As I walked beside him, he went to the two double doors with gold teardrop-shaped handles that had a large crystal of some sort in the center of each. He opened one, then stepped back so I could enter. As I walked inside, the smell was phenomenal. I inhaled another breath deeply.

Bane’s hand rested on my back, and he nodded his head toward the entrance to the bath store. I went with him, trying to decide if he’d brought me here to buy something for another woman. The idea bothered me, but only because it was getting more difficult to remember dream Bane and real Bane weren’t the same.

When we stepped inside the store, a lady with a pink pencil skirt and matching jacket walked up to us. Although she was older than Bane, her appreciative smile wasn’t lost on me. The charming smile he gave her made me bristle. I had no right to be jealous, but I was.

“How can I help you?” she asked, barely giving me a glance.

“I need something that smells like strawberries,” he told her.

I snapped my gaze up to stare at him. Strawberries? My heart did a funny flutter, and then it began to race. Was this a coincidence? Dream Bane had said something about me smelling like strawberries, but never this Bane. His eyes met mine, but he said nothing.

“We don’t have a strawberries scent exactly, but we do have a strawberries and cream. There is also our newest line; it isn’t strawberries, but it’s divine. Marula oil, white truffle, vanilla bean—”

“The strawberries and cream,” Bane interrupted her sales pitch.

She looked deflated, but kept her smile. “Of course,” she replied, then led us over to the scent he had requested. With a wave of her hand, she beamed at him once again. “We have shampoo, conditioner, body wash, lotion, and soap in this scent.”

Bane reached for a bottle of shampoo and opened it. His nostrils flared slightly as he held it to his nose. He nodded, closing it, then handed it back to the woman. “All of it.”

Her eyes flickered to me momentarily, then back to him. “Oneof each?” she asked for clarification.

“Yes,” he replied.

She beamed at that and began taking the items off the shelf. “I’ll go get this all packaged up for you.”

Bane pulled his wallet out of his pocket, then slid a black card from the worn leather. When he handed it to her, I saw her eyes widen slightly as she took it.

With a quick glance down at his name, she looked back up at him. “I’ll be right back, Mr. Cash.”

How likely was it that he’d bought that for someone else? My mind was whirling. If that was for me, why had he chosen strawberry? How had he known that my shampoo was strawberry?

“Stop frowning,” he told me. “You’ll smell just as good with the added cream scent.”

My eyes darted back up to him. “So, this is for me?”

He smirked. “Did you think it was for me?”

I ran my bottom lip through my teeth, thinking about asking him why he’d chosen strawberry or how he had known.

“What is it?” he prodded.

“My shampoo that I get can be purchased for a tenth of what the bar of soap here costs.”

He chuckled. “You didn’t even pick it up to look at the price.”

“I’m guessing.”

“This will be better for your hair and skin,” he told me.

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