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“No. Never mind.” Aiming a sour look at Chase, the customer shook his head. “Don’t think I need any tonight.”
Chase shifted away to study the shelf of glass serving dishes and suppressed a smile at the sound of Positively Miserable Dude’s retreating footsteps. The door thunked shut with a jaunty peal of bells.
He didn’t get long to revel in his victory.
“What is the matter with you?” Summer punched him in the arm—the left one, of course—and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to avoid grimacing. She had quite a right hook. “Do you have to scare off paying customers?” She dropped her voice half an octave. “What are you doing here now? It’s not time yet.”
“Time waits for no man when it comes to the search for willing pussy.” He used the frank language intentionally, hoping to send her scurrying behind the counter to where Cass still chatted and laughed with Mrs. Finster from across the street. He hadn’t recognized her at first without her usual frizzy blue wig.
But Summer didn’t scurry. In fact she stepped closer and used that same hand on the shelf trick as Grinning Guy had, adjusting for the height differential. “I didn’t realize you were in need.” She visually accosted Chase’s groin. Said groin responded inappropriately by stiffening and searching for a stroking hand to go with her caressing look. “If I’d known you’d be stopping by early, I would’ve skipped the panties.”
She sashayed away before he’d rolled his tongue back in his mouth.
He rubbed the vague knot in his forehead. Maybe he should’ve stayed at his AA meeting.
“Chase.” Cass hurried up to him, apparently having divested herself of Mrs. Finster. “What’re you doing here?” She also glanced down his body, but stopped at his elbow. “Are you okay?”
“It hasn’t miraculously healed, if that’s what you’re wondering.” To soften his rebuff, he strolled to the glass-fronted case and scoffed at the sheer volume of choices. He was so proud of the business his baby sister had built, but teasing her made up the brightest part of his week. “What happened to plain old chocolate?”
“You came all the way from the city to get something boring?” She didn’t let him answer before she encircled his waist. “I’ve missed you, you big lug.”
“You talk to me on the phone.” But he pressed a kiss to her hair and hugged her back before drawing her away and frowning. “You’ve lost weight. You’re not dieting again, are you?”
“No. I’m surrounded by sugar and cream and fat every day. What would be the point?” She laughed and squeezed him before heading behind the counter. “Did you say hello to Summer?”
“Yep.”
“I hope you were friendly.”
“Aren’t I always?” A rueful smile touched his lips at their last exchange. “Don’t answer that.”
Rather than respond, Cass adjusted the pink and purple straws she’d arranged in her bright red bun. Instead of looking ridiculous, on Cass it seemed fun and perky.
Perky. Fuck him, he was losing it. If he didn’t get laid soon, his dick would spontaneously turn into a vag.
“So, what, you came all the way down here for a bowl of plain chocolate with a side of white chocolate chips?”
He glanced around to make sure the shop was still empty. Summer had yet to return from the back room or wherever she’d disappeared to. “You still have those mini ones?”
“Sure thing. I keep a special stash for my big brother.” She opened a narrow tube at the side of the ice cream case and white chocolate chips overflowed her hand like a sugar addict’s jackpot. “Waffle bowl?”
“I shouldn’t. I’m training.” At her questioning look, he sighed. Someday he’d have to admit PT didn’t count as conditioning. Like right now when he could have a waffle bowl of pure chocolate goodness. “Ah, hit me.”
“Now you’re talking.” Cass grinned, on the verge of doing his bidding when Summer sauntered out, her apron folded and tucked under her arm. “Look who’s here,” Cass said over her shoulder.
“So I saw.” If Summer’s tone got any drier, he’d offer her some grapes and cheese. A fine wine had nothing on her. “Pack up his little snack to go, if you don’t mind. I’m heading out and he’s coming with.” Already anticipating Cass’s question, she shot him a glance and added, “He can fix my shutters. They’re loose. Practically swinging in the breeze.”
Somehow that imagery made him consider what else could be swinging in the breeze if she really had been sans panties—particularly the sweet globes of her ass. Not that they would be swinging, per se. They were too firm and tight. “Do I look like a handyman to you?”
“Don’t think you want me to say what you look like.” Her cheerful reply floated over him as surely as that damnable apple scent she gave off when she sailed past him. “Add some of the raspberry-mocha-white-chocolate sauce to the bag, if you don’t mind. Catch you tomorrow, Casstastic.”
“Her shutters, huh?” Cass grabbed a jar of something—probably the sauce—and placed it into a second bag. In the first she’d already packed a waffle bowl, plastic spoon, container of white chocolate chips and a pint of chocolat
e. “Is this something you discussed when you ran into each other at that club?”
He frowned. Cass could be shifty, and if she was trying to trap him somehow, he wouldn’t make it easier on her. At least Summer had mentioned seeing him at a club, though he’d bet his team’s pennant she hadn’t told Cass exactly what she’d been doing there. “Uh, no. Her shutters are a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“I wonder why she’d think you were good with a hammer.” Neatly rolling up the top of the bags, his sister flashed a blithe smile and passed them to him over the counter. “Poor misguided woman.”
