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His body clenched and he willed it to relax.Her glamour shot.She may as well have painted a sign: Come All Takers, Get Your Hot Mama Here. Lord knew he was trying to stop staring at her but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from all those damn curves.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“No,” he snapped, and then softer, “It’s all good.”
“I’ll just get changed,” she muttered, swaying away to the cover of an ornamental screen in the corner.
He blinked to get his brain in the groove and made inane chitchat with Lili about the plans for Tony and Frankie’s wedding anniversary party. If his parents had still been here it would have also been their anniversary. The couples had married in a double wedding extravaganza thirty-five years ago. He shoved that to the back of his mind with the rest of the shit he had succeeded in burying.
He was an absolute expert at it by now.
Jules walked out from behind the screen, pulling up the zip of her sweatshirt, but not so fast that he missed the sweet swell of her breasts in something thin and stretchy.Come on!
“Could I see how it came out?” she asked Lili as she set a suit bag over a chair.
“Sure.” His cousin clickity-clicked her screen.
Tad stole another glance at Jules. He couldn’t not look at her. A pearly pink glow had washed her cheeks and she looked so damn fine, he wanted to lick every inch of her. He turned back to the screen and what he saw wasn’t much better.
She looked fucking gorgeous.
Well, she always looked gorgeous, whether she was in baggy sweats or a frayed tee that had seen better days. Even when she looked like she was falling asleep on her feet, she never failed to look amazing to him.
Now she looked amazing to the world.
Lili had caught her in a pose that suited her. It was more sensual than sexy, an acknowledgment of how much she had to offer. Her head was cocked to one side, a jaunty tilt that revealed her humorous side. Some guys didn’t care how funny a girl was, but Tad liked that in a woman. Jules was one of the funniest people he knew, with a dirty mouth that would shock a trucker.
“Oh, Lili, it’s—it’s…” Jules turned to Tad with her hand over her mouth, her eyes sparkling like stars.
“Gorgeous,” Tad finished for her. Croaked, more like.
“Do you really think so? You don’t think it’s too much?”
Oh, yes, he thought it was way too much, but he was playing at friend right now. The good friend who supports his gal pal in everything she does even when she created a visual invitation to take her slow and deep until they both collapsed in a sated, sweaty heap.
“So you like it, cuz?” Lili cut into whatever-the-hell-that-was. “Cara’s done all this research. Apparently red is supposed to be the color that men find most attractive. Some evolutionary junk about how a woman looks flushed when she’s ovulating.”
What?Man, he hated Cara’s guts right now. “Yeah, it’s great. It’s just…”
“It’s just what?” Jules asked, concern pitching her voice a couple of octaves higher than normal.
He backpedaled… “It’s just that it gives off a certain something.” …into dog shit. “I mean, it might attract the wrong sort.”
“What do you meanthe wrong sort?” Jules snapped.
Careful.“Guys who are looking for a good time.”
So much for careful. That statement cannoned straight from his gut to his mouth without checking in with his brain first.
Lili eyed him shrewdly. Of everyone in the DeLuca menagerie, they were the closest and she always saw right through his bullshit. “Maybeshe’sthe one looking for a good time.”
“Yeah, maybe I am,” Jules said in a huff. She glared at him for a second before shaking her head in disapproval. He felt her disdain to his toes.
“I’ve got to go and pick up Evan from Frankie. Thanks a lot, Lili. Maybe we can talk later about how to make it more suitable forthe right sort.”
Without saying good-bye to him, she strode quickly out the door, her suit bag flapping over her shoulder like a stiff cape.
Clangwent the door. Lili started a slow clap.
