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“Mmm-hmm.” She stroked the lapel. “I like smelling like you.”
“Fuck. What if I don’t want to watch this time?” He plucked her up off Randy’s lap and she shifted, wrapping her legs around his waist and locking her hands in his sleep-tousled hair. Randy rose and Tris took his place in the chair, turning her around so she faced the camera. Instead of pulling her jacket open, Tris fisted a hand in the fabric to hold the lapels closed and inclined his chin toward Randy. “Get over here.”
As requested, Randy crouched on the other side of the chair, and Juliet immediately leaned to the side to kiss him while Tris gathered her hair in one hand and held the jacket closed over her straining breasts with the other. When she started to draw back, Randy followed, making her giggle. They shared playful kisses as she sat back on Tris’s lap, not stopping until her head was dangerously close to Tristan’s. Her lips, her face, the third point of a triangle that none of them could deny.
Eyes wide, she glanced between Tris and Randy, and Randy could see the pulse pounding in her throat. The bob of Tris’s Adam’s apple as he released his hold on her hair and tipped up her chin. He brushed a kiss over the corner of her mouth while Randy did the same on the other side, his own heart rocketing way too fast.
Knowing they were right there with him, feeling the same damn thing.
The vibration of a phone made Jules startle. “Damn, I think I almost came.”
Tris grinned, but there were lines of tension around his mouth that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “Well, then, don’t move.” Even as he said it, he was nudging her aside to tug his cell out of the pocket of his jeans. That he’d gotten dressed at all showed he probably hadn’t intended to go down this road with them again.
Work beckoned. It always beckoned, for all of them. Holiday weekends only lasted so long.
“It’s the restaurant.” Tris helped her to her feet. When she wavered, Randy rose and steadied her, drawing her against him.
Tristan stood and paced to the windows. “Ken, what’s up?”
“You okay?” Randy asked her, brushing a kiss over the top of her hair.
“Yeah. He closes off so easily. Just shuts it all down and packs it away.” She gave a faint shudder and Randy tightened his arms around her. “It’s not as easy for us.”
Randy swallowed over the tightness in his throat. “Us? I t
hought I was alone in that.”
She turned to glance at him and shook her head. “You’re not alone in anything anymore. If you don’t want to be.”
As if she even had to ask.
Saying nothing, he closed his eyes and nuzzled her cheek. “Want to go wait for him in bed?”
“He’s not coming back,” she said quietly. Somehow she understood that whatever Tris was hearing on that phone had intruded on their fragile happiness.
When Tris turned toward them again, blue eyes blazing, Randy knew she was right.
“Which one of you was careless?” He snapped out the question, his voice a whip without a sensual edge. Meant to wound without the promise of a gentle caress afterward.
In his arms, Juliet went absolutely still.
“What do you mean?” Randy asked, keeping his tone even as a direct counterpoint to Tristan’s.
Whatever had happened, he wasn’t going to let Tristan explode at Juliet. Him, fine. But never Jules.
“That was Kendra. She was calling to see if I would be in this afternoon as planned. Since now she knew why I’d blown off work this weekend. Now she understood.”
“You blew off work?” Juliet sounded shocked. “You never do that.”
“Damn right I don’t. The only reason I did this time was because I needed to see my family. The only family I have. People I can count on not to fuck me up.”
Randy stroked a hand up and down Juliet’s arm. He didn’t think about doing it. Soothing her was as natural for him as it was to stand there, prepared to take every bit of his best friend’s anger.
He’d take it and more, but she would not. Not while he had anything to say about it.
“You’re going to want to explain what you’re talking about, Tris.”
“I went to see Hunter and Kennedy. I couldn’t fucking think. It was a goddamn holiday, and you were both off with your people, and where the hell was I?” Tris walked to the end table and shoved off the books and mail. Just let them fly. “You’re both always off doing your thing, and I’m here and I should be good with that. That was what I wanted.”
