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Quinn was as normal as he could be after having walked away from his oil tycoon of a father—and his family’s fortune—to be a cattle rancher. Adam shook his head. “Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night.”
“Like a baby.” Quinn closed the tailgate. “So is that mean little redhead coming?”
“Don’t know. She doesn’t seem like the type to be into this sort of thing.”
“You mean she’s like a vampire who’ll burn up in the sun and probably feasts on the blood of innocents? I totally agree.”
Adam snorted. “You enjoy pushing her buttons.”
“More than I should.” He laughed. “I can’t help it. It’s too easy to get a rise out of her.”
“Get your ass in the truck or we’re going to be late.”
Ten minutes later they pulled up in front of Jules’s shop. He stopped the truck and froze when Jules and Aubry stepped through the door and onto the sidewalk. “Holy fucking shit.”
“You can say that again.”
“Shut up.” He couldn’t take his eyes off Jules. She wore a pair of cutoff shorts that might’ve been the same ones from the other night, but this time, there were ties peeking out the top on either side of her hips. It was like seeing the tip of a present he was dying to unwrap. Adam’s cock jumped to attention as his gaze coasted up her stomach to the tiny black triangle bikini covering her breasts. There was nothing overtly revealing about the cut of the suit, but it had him fighting not to kick Quinn out of the truck and drive her off to somewhere they wouldn’t be interrupted so he could explore those scraps of cloth at length.
“Jesus, man. If you could see the way you’re looking at her.” Quinn shook his head. “Should I get another ride?”
“What? No. It’s fine.” Though he wanted to tell his friend to do exactly that. Get a hold of yourself, idiot. He had to control himself—he was about to be up close and personal with Jules, and jumping her bones the second he saw her wasn’t acceptable.
“Sure it is.” Quinn hopped out of the truck, and Adam took several deep breaths and focused on getting his body’s reaction minimized. He didn’t have long, because Jules climbed up and scooted over until she was pressed against him from shoulder to hip, Aubry on the other side of her.
Quinn wedged his big body into the tiny space between the redhead and the door. “There’s plenty of room for you right here, sweet cheeks.” He patted his lap.
She shot him a look that would have sent a lesser man bolting from the truck. “Touch me and lose the attached body part.”
Quinn just grinned. “You’re all sugar and spice and everything nice, aren’t you?”
Hearing the redhead’s hiss of rage was almost enough to distract Adam from how good Jules smelled—like coconut and suntan lotion. He smiled at her. “You ready for this?”
“Not in the least.” Her eyes were a little too wide. “It’s bringing back all sorts of memories I could do without.”
Memories of her and Grant. The thought sent a completely irrational spike of jealousy through him. That shit had gone down years ago. There was no reason for him to want to wring the man’s neck for knowing that he’d once gotten to touch Jules whenever he wanted, or that he’d held her heart close enough to break it.
Or, hell, that he still affected her strongly enough nine years later that she was willing to get up close and personal with a near stranger to prove a point.
Adam turned back to the road, clenching his jaw to keep words inside that he had no right to. He didn’t have any rights when it came to Jules, and it’d do him good to remember that.
The rest of the trip up was done in painful silence. He was almost grateful for the fact that Aubry had taken an instant dislike to Quinn’s poking at her, because her icy one-word answers to him made conversation between Adam and Jules damn near impossible. He parked next to two other trucks. Of the two, he pegged the shiny pavement queen to be Grant’s—the red Ford must have had all of ten miles on the engine. His ten-year-old Dodge looked battered and beaten by comparison.
He’d be an idiot not to see the similarities between the trucks and their owners.
It was enough to give a lesser man a complex.
Adam got out of the cab before anyone could say something to tip him over the edge and strode around to the back to start unpacking the tubes.
“Is everything okay?”
He didn’t look over at Jules. “I could live the rest of my life happy knowing I wouldn’t hear that question again from another damn person.”
If he expected her to rabbit away from his snarled words, he was sadly mistaken. “You don’t have to do this. We can just say something came up and skip it.”
