Need You for Mine (Heroes of St. Helena)(4)
He intercepted them, mid helmet pose, and set them back at her sides, squeezing her wrists so she knew to leave them there. And miracle of miracles, she actually listened.
“You have slept-in bed waves, not curls,” he corrected. One pull and all of those soft brown waves came tumbling down to her midback. Like walking sex, he thought. “Back to the lipstick. Are you really wearing pink with glossy shine and glitter?”
She shifted on her feet. “So?”
“So, it’s a problem.” He handed her a tissue and waited while she wiped it off. Then he put his fingers in her hair and gave it a little shake, stepping back to study his work. “Better. But still missing something.”
“Wow, you sure know how to sweet-talk a woman,” she mumbled, and that’s when he realized what it was. Sunshine was looking self-conscious, which he’d never seen before. She usually marched to her own beat and flashed those pearly whites at anyone who looked at her strangely—the good-girl version of flipping the bird. But right then, standing there looking bed rumpled and sexy as hell, she was uncomfortable.
So Adam did the only thing he knew would work. What he wanted to do wouldn’t be appropriate, so instead, he slid his fingers deeper into her hair, and then he kissed her.
And holy shit, Harper Owens with her warm smile and rainbow dreams might have looked like the kind of girl one would bring home to Sunday dinner at the parents’, but she kissed like she’d rock your world on the car ride over.
And back.
She made a soft little mewling sound that drove him crazy, because it was half surprised and wholly aroused. Without warning, she pulled his lower lip with her teeth, sucked on it for a good minute, and he manned up in the most embarrassing way. But then her hands were on him, threading through his hair, playing with the ends at the back of his neck, and he forgot what the problem was.
Forgot why crazy cuties were a bad idea.
Forgot every hard-learned lesson that had gotten him through fifteen years as a smokejumper for Cal Fire. Such as: the key to not getting burned was you had to get in, scratch some line, hook it, call it good, and cut out before catching too much heat. It was a technique that had saved his ass a dozen times over in wildfires—and with women. Only he was too busy enjoying the flame to notice it had gotten out of control. Until he heard his name being called.
“Adam?” she purred, and he started walking them backward into the dressing room when he realized Harper wasn’t moving with him. She also wasn’t kissing him anymore. In fact, she looked all prickly.
“Adam?” a sultry voice teased again. From the other room. “Where are you?”
Harper cleared her throat and took a step back. A big step back. “He’s out here, Baby.”
Four things hit Adam simultaneously. First, he’d come here tonight with the stacked blonde he’d met at the bar for a private lingerie show and a fun game of spin the spinner. Second, he’d almost had sex with a girl named Baby. Third, he’d just made out with the weird art teacher. And fourth, he’d liked it.
Hell, based on the tent in his pants and the way he was gasping for breath, he’d more than liked it. His lips still tasted like some kind of fruity umbrella drink, and he wanted another sip.
Which brought him to the biggest revelation of the night: Harper Owens was a closeted hottie. And if she’d disliked him before, which he could only assume since she’d never looked twice at him until tonight, then she’d hate him now.
Her hair was magically back up in its messy twist, her dress was zipped to the neck, and she was shooting glares frosty enough to cryogenically freeze his nuts for decades to come.
“Oh, hey, Harper,” Baby said, stopping at the entry to the dressing room. She was in stripper heels, fishnets, and three leather straps that strategically crisscrossed her body. Her hair was ratted, her lips ruby red, and she should have had him revving to go. Only Adam was too busy watching Harper. “What are you doing here?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Harper said.
Fired?”
Clovis Owens rested all her weight against the Fanny Wrappers display and patted her brow with the chartreuse cheeky boy-shorts she was folding. “Oh dear, that’s not good. Not good at all.”
“I know,” Harper said, handing her grandma her cane, wondering just how betrayed the older woman felt. Clovis was the kind of person who gave her trust so freely, who wanted to see the good in everyone, and Harper hated to think of her being hurt by Baby’s actions. “But she didn’t take anything, no one got hurt, so it all worked out.”
“I don’t care if she took anything,” Clovis said, her face going a little pale. She hobbled over to the counter, her cane clicking against the wood floor.
On cue, Jabba, the resident go-fetch king, came shuffling out from under the stool, a candy wrapper stuck to his muzzle. Shaped like an overstuffed sausage with kitten legs, Jabba was too short to sniff any higher than shin level, so he put a few wet doggie marks on Harper’s ankle, then plopped down next to his master, eyes zeroing in on her cane, willing it to fall and roll across the room.
Clovis flipped through her phone book, a big round rolodex that was older than dirt and could rival Vera Wang’s. “Do you think if I call her back, she’d give me a second chance?”
“Call her back?” Harper pulled up a stool and helped Clovis sit, then gave her a glass of water. She was more upset by the situation than Harper had guessed.