Page 42 of Tempting as Sin
Rafe was still wearing the sunglasses. His jeans were dirty, but that wasn’t the difference from this morning. It was that size thing again, the way he seemed to grow bigger. Possibly the werewolf transformation.
It was acting. She didn’t care. Because holy hell, did it ever work for her.
His hair was wet again. Why was his hair wet, when his jeans were dusty?
“Problem?” he asked. “Lily?”
“I don’t have a problem,” Trent said. “Except that I was talking to the lady.”
“Seems to me,” Rafe said, “that you were bothering the lady. Or maybe just boring her to death.” Which made Lily smile. Rafe even made testosterone battles casual. That was a gift.
“You know what?” Trent said. “You can get lost.”
“Can I help you?” the kid behind the counter asked, because the family was heading to a table, having finally succeeded in submitting the Longest Order in History. There were only five of them, including the baby. You wouldn’t have thought it was possible.
“Somebody’s calling you,” Rafe said. “Go on.”
“Listen, buddy,” Trent said. “I don’t know who you are, but…”
“I’m fine,” Lily told Rafe. She’d swear somebody was five seconds away from taking a swing, and it wasn’t Trent. He looked like he wasfourseconds away from figuring out that this guy didn’t care that his grandfather had started the lumber mill. Also that said guy was about to deck him. She wanted to watch. On the other hand, she didn’t want Rafe to get in trouble.
“Don’t worry, honey,” Trent told her. “I’ve got this.”
She looked at him, thought of five possible things she could say, including,I’ve already been married to an asshole once. I’m all done.Or maybe,There’s nothing you’ve got to give me that I haven’t thrown in the garbage already.She settled on, “Let me put it this way. I’m not interested. I wasn’t interested last month, I’m not interested now, and I’ll never be interested.”
He was turning red, and she didn’t care. She told Rafe, “I’m fine.I’vegot this,” stepped around Trent, and told the kid at the counter, “One medium skinny iced cappuccino and one large caramel latte, please, Aidan.”
“Sure,” the boy said. “You want that to go?”
“I want it so much to go,” Lily said, “that you can’t imagine.”
She risked a glance behind her and almost laughed. Trent, she’d swear, had never had this much of an out-of-body experience in his life. That is, he wanted his body to be somewhere else, but wasn’t sure how to get his ego there along with it.
Rafe didn’t give him time to work it out. “I’ll bring you the coffees, Lily,” he said. “Be right over.” Then he gave Trent another blank look from behind the sunglasses, stepped around him with deliberation, and told the kid, “And a blueberry kale smoothie with protein powder.”
Lily left.
Rafe held the cardboard container in one hand and pushed the glass door open with the other. The three brass bells tied to the handle gave a merry chime, and Hailey looked up from behind the cash register, smiled at him, then turned back to the two women she was ringing up.
He didn’t see Lily, but she had to be here. He took a guess that the large caramel drink was Hailey’s and set it on the counter beside her as unobtrusively as he could, reminded himself that he was here to be anonymous, and took another step into the depths of the Aladdin’s Cave of Things Men Like. A dusty-rose velvet curtain around the corner to his right was shoved aside with a rattle of rings, and Lily came out carrying an armful of garments that she proceeded to hang on a rack.
Ah. Fitting rooms. She hadn’t seen him. He headed over there, watching as she pinned a white bra onto a padded hanger. The bra was…different, with a ribbon bow at the top of each cup. A bow that looked like it was fastening the lace fabric to the slim band along the top.
Seriously? You tied the cups closed? That was a sexy little thing.
She still hadn’t seen him. He said, “I can’t decide if it’s sleazy to say something about that or not. I do hate to be sleazy.”
She jumped a mile, yelped,“Ow!”stuck her thumb into her mouth, and said, “Don’tdothat! Take this. Here.” And thrust the bra, dangling by one strap from a tiny brass safety pin, at him.
“Right,” he said. “Hold this, then.” He handed her the cardboard tray with their drinks. “One of those is yours. You need me to pin it?”
“Yes, because if I get blood on it, I just bought it for my personal collection, and it’s not my size.” She was inspecting her thumb. “Still bleeding. Hang on.” She detoured over to Hailey’s counter, grabbed a tissue that she wrapped around her thumb, took the drinks out of their container, then came back, inspected Rafe’s progress with the bra, and said, “Close enough.”
“My pinning skills are subpar, that what you’re saying?” he asked, hanging the thing up on the bar again before he could sneeze on it. “I warn you, it’s been a rough day on the ego. This might be the breaking point. Could be I’ll cry.”
She was giving him that smile again, the one that showed her dimples. “Not you,” she said. “Way too tough. That was good back there.” She handed him his drink. “Except for that ‘blueberry-kale smoothie’ thing. It doesn’t exactly sound like, “Whiskey. Neat.”
He laughed out loud, and her dimples went deeper. “I fight so much better when I’m well nourished, though.”
