I Flipping Love You (Shacking Up #3)(52)

I close my eyes and will myself to sink into the floor, but when I open them, I’m still sitting on the stool and she’s put two and two together. “Oh my God!” She claps her hands. “Oh my God! Did you two”—she looks back and forth between us—“Oh! Look at how red your face is! You so did! Are you two dating now? Can we do double dates?” She’s back to clapping. “This means you might actually have a plus-one by the time we set a date for the wedding!”

“Amie, baby, you’re scaring her,” Lex says, but he looks highly entertained. He turns that panty-incinerating smile on me. “You probably shouldn’t give my fiancée your phone number. She’s a little obsessed with you, if you couldn’t already tell.”

“She’s not alone,” Pierce says from the other side of the kitchen, a warm smile locked firmly in place.

I’m not sure what exactly I’ve gotten myself into, but I think I might like it.





CHAPTER 17

WHEELING AND DEALING





RIAN


Brunch with Pierce’s sister and her ridiculously hot fiancé is an entertaining experience. Amalie is a talker, and I learn about their very interesting beginnings. It’s kind of like a soap opera. She was married to Lex’s cousin for less than twelve hours before he cheated on her—which is insane, because she’s not only gorgeous, but funny and sweet and generally awesome.

I also learn that Pierce can make a mean cinnamon roll French toast. He seems more than happy to have me in his kitchen, wearing his sister’s clothes while she regales me with her relationship history.

Eventually my sister calls, giving me the out I don’t necessarily need, but want. I excuse myself to the deck to take the call.

“Oh good, you’re alive.” Her voice full of sarcasm.

“You sound so genuine in your concern,” I reply.

Amalie sticks her head out the door. “Would you like another coffee, Rian?”

“I’m good, thanks,” I reply.

“Who was that?”

“Pierce’s sister.”

“Say what now? You’re hanging with the family? What’s next, are the two of you moving in together?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, we’re just dating,” I mutter, surprised how easy that was to say aloud.

“Dating, huh? What happened to your ‘I won’t ever date a hot guy again’ insanity?”

“He’s only here for the summer, so we’re having some fun together.”

“Uh-huh. You coming back sometime today or should I meet you at home?”

“I’m coming back. Don’t leave without me.” I don’t want Pierce to offer to drive me home. I’m not ready for him to see where I live. Besides, I like his sister, but this is a lot, very, very fast. I mean, brunch with family members is more than I’ve done in years.

Pierce walks me down to the beach. My dress, shoes, and purse are tucked into a bag that says sweet in bold letters on the front. I adjust the strap on my shoulder and face him.

“I’ll drop your sister’s clothes off before Marley and I go home this afternoon.”

“If that works for you, sure.” He’s still wearing that ridiculous half smirk, as if he can tell I’m suddenly uncomfortable. We have the whole house-financing situation left to deal with and now that I’m dating him, separating business from pleasure seems a bit more challenging.

“I should have all the necessary paperwork for you and Lawson tomorrow.”

“Should we schedule a meeting to go over it?”

“Well, Marley typically takes care of that.”

His smile grows wider. “You can’t avoid me, now that we’re dating. You know that, right?”

“I’m not trying to avoid you. I’m just telling you how it usually works. The house deal has nothing to do with us dating.” I’m not used to liking someone this much this quickly. I keep reminding myself that Pierce is only here temporarily, and he seems pretty tied to his job in New York even if he’d rather not be, so what we’re doing right now is as serious as it’s going to get.

“Okay, well, house deal aside, I’m taking you out for dinner this week, so make sure you have some free time.” He cups the back of my neck and bends to kiss me. And not chastely. His tongue is in my mouth and our chests meet, his other arm snakes around my waist, keeping me locked against him. He comes back to nip at my bottom lip a couple more times before he finally releases me. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

*

In the week that follows, Pierce makes good on his promise to keep business and pleasure separate. Sort of. Okay, not really. Typically Marley deals with the clients throughout the sale, but I’m cc’d into every email, and Pierce calls and messages me about all of the fine details.

Every phone call—which come daily—begins with a question about financing, closing dates, wording in a contract. Once I’m finished patiently explaining something Pierce clearly already knows the answer to, he switches into flirt mode. Both of us have busy schedules this week, so he ends up tagging along with me to my pottery class on Wednesday. It’s something I’ve done since I was a kid, and I took it up again in the past year. It was more fun to have Pierce with me than I thought it would be, especially since I suck at it a lot and have no plans to get better at it. Sometimes practice doesn’t make perfect, but in this case I don’t mind. Pierce wanted to pretend to be Patrick Swayze in Ghost. All he succeeded in doing was making a colossal mess.