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“It can’t be,” I murmured, then lifted my chin at Samantha when she came in. Steps hesitant and eyes wide as she looked around for her cousin. “Bathroom.”
“Of course,” she said with an affectionate eye roll as she came to a stop near me and opened the pastry box. “I just always figured she went straight to making her coffee that she pretends Scarlet doesn’t know about.”
I grunted in understanding and pointed at the scone she’d pulled out just as Konrad said, “I wouldn’t eat that.”
Samantha’s hand stilled with the scone in the air as she looked around at us. “Why?”
“She said she put somethingspecialin them,” Brandon informed her as I went back to eyeing the hall.
Samantha laughed, soft and gentle, as she broke a piece off the scone to eat it. And something about that sound had my head slanting. Had that dam weakening a little more. Had my gaze darting to her for a second. Then two, before I went back to waiting for her cousin to reappear.
“She puts somethingspecialin everything she makes,” she told the guys. “Like cinnamon or cayenne pepper where you wouldn’t expect it. She isn’t poisoning you.”
“Wait until she leaves?” Konrad asked Brandon, and Brandon murmured his agreement, forcing another laugh from Samantha.
“You’re all so weird,” she said as she turned toward me, her voice dropping to a whisper. “So, how are you doing with everything? Scarlet seems pretty freaked out.”
“We’re fine,” I said through clenched teeth. But that anxiousness, that feeling like I was going to crawl out of my goddamn skin, was overwhelming now.
“Chase,” Samantha breathed as her hand fell to my trembling arm.
My gaze snapped back to her. Body already shifting instinctively away from her when it happened.
That break.
That flood.
And it about took my knees out with the strength of it.
“If you wanted me wet, you could’ve just asked me to come stare at you instead of making me work out for the last hour,” LT had said as she’d come walking through the kitchen one Friday morning, eyebrow raised suggestively as if I might’ve missed exactly what she’d said.
“Jesus Christ, LT,” I’d whispered, head shaking as I’d gone back to making coffee. Voice all an irritated mumble when I’d reminded her, “Still engaged. You were just out there with my fiancée. You’re one of her closest friends. Don’t know why.” The last I’d added under my breath, too soft for LT to have heard.
“Details, details,” she’d said in a singsong voice as she’d walked toward the hall that led to our guest bathroom. “Don’t miss me too much. I’ll be back for you soon.”
My head had swung toward the sound of the door opening once again, but my disappointment at not seeing Scarlet there had quickly shifted to irritation when Samantha had appeared instead. “Get control of your cousin.”
“What’d she do now?” she’d asked, eyes rolling playfully.
“What she always does. And she made an appointment with me for tonight—anotherappointment,” I’d ground out as I’d turned to face her, setting my mug on the counter as I had.
One of Samantha’s eyebrows had lifted. “Are you saying you don’t like having clients?”
I’d given her a dry look because she’d known damn well that hadn’t been what I’d meant. “I’m saying I don’t like having to tattoo someone who’s constantly telling me what they want to do to me.”
“And what about me?” she’d asked as she stepped close. Too close. Just as I’d begun taking a step back, she’d asked, “What if it was me who made the appointment? What if it was my body your hands were on?”
My feet had become one with the hardwood so abruptly that I’d had to reach out and grab the counter to steady myself. My head had slowly slanted before shaking as if I might’ve somehow heard her wrong.
Taken Samantha’s soft, gentle tenor and twisted it with her cousin’s words.
But before I could ask her to repeat what she’d said, Samantha had stepped even closer, her voice dropping softer still when she’d asked, “Do you think about me when you’re with Scarlet?”
What the fuck?
“Samantha, what the hell are you talking about?” I’d asked as confusion and doubt slammed into my veins.
Because, for just a second, I’d been sure it was a joke. That she was fucking with me.
