Need You for Mine (Heroes of St. Helena)(76)

He lifted his head and laughed. “I’m right. It’s three in the morning and you want cookies.”

She offered a small smile. “Yup.”

“Don’t move.” He kissed her nose and climbed out of bed. Not concerned in the slightest that he was traipsing through her house butt-ass naked and painted like a gladiator.

Bed still warm, he slid back in, sure to lift the covers all the way and get a good view of her. With a groan, he hauled her up against him and offered a bite of cookie.

“God, those are good,” she moaned.

“How good are we talking?”

“Scale of one to ten, a nine-point-nine.”

“A nine-point-nine, huh?” He took a bite and frowned as though not sure how he missed that tenth of a point.

She tilted her head up to look into his eyes, and smiled sweetly. “The kind of cookies I was looking for are measured on the Oh scale.”

“I know,” he said, taking a bite of the cookie. “I was just preheating the oven. Because this next batch will blow your mind.”

And then he spent the rest of the night proving that when it came to cookies, Adam was her man.





It’s not even seven and already I’m sweating,” Shay said, fanning herself with a stack of paintings.

As always, Harper’s friends had come through. It was Saturday morning, the main day of the festival, and they’d shown up at the crack of dawn to help display the kids’ artwork at the park, even though they all still had a ton to do for their own booths.

Not that they seemed to be feeling the time crunch. Nope, they were both sitting on the stage, legs swigging off the edge, sharing a bag of kettle corn that the hunting club was providing, and staring out toward Main Street.

“Yup,” Emerson said, reaching into the bag. “Hot.”

Harper hung the painting in her hand, a sweet rendering of a firefighter holding a cat with an apple tree behind them, then sat down between her friends and—whoa!

Across the park, behind the first row of booths and headed their way, were three beautiful men in work pants and BEAT THE HEAT ball caps pulled low, working in tandem to carry a wood table. And there was sweat. Lots of glistening, sweaty muscles.

Jonah was at the back of the table guiding them forward, while Dax stood in the middle, muscling a good portion of the weight. Which left Adam, with his ripped abs, cut arms, and tight backside, negotiating the monstrosity of a table through the crowd—backward.

“What are they doing?” she asked.

“Hauling out all of the chairs and tables from the town’s storage shed,” Emerson said around bits of popcorn.

Harper reached into the bag and grabbed a handful. “Don’t they know the high school football team is coming at eight to set up the eating areas?”

“Maybe someone should tell them,” Shay said. But no one bothered to move—except to pass the popcorn.

“And ruin everyone’s fun?” Emerson jerked her chin to the senior ladies’ water aerobics team, who had left the community pool in their swim caps and suits to watch the show. Eyes big, camera phones rolling, they lined the upper railing of the senior center.

The guys set the table gently on the ground, their muscles straining until Harper heard a few breathy Oh mys flutter over from across the way. And okay, she might have groaned in appreciation too, but who could blame her? It was like watching three gladiators prepare for battle.

Harper smiled at the reference, then felt her body heat rise thinking about last night. It was a hot enough image to have her searing, and she wasn’t lifting anything heavier than popcorn.

After a round of high fives, the guys dusted off their hands and headed back for the storage shed at the far corner of the park. Only Adam stopped to stretch out his arms, lifting them up and over his head, which caused the waistband of his pants to slide down and over the two cute dimples he sported.

Shay turned to Harper. “Is that glitter on Adam?”

Harper tore her eyes off Adam and stifled a giggle. “It’s paint. I practiced some, uh, face masks on him last night.”

Shay snorted. “Then why is it on his lower back?”

Harper looked closer and smiled. So it was.

It looked like he’d missed that spot when showering this morning. Granted, she’d been doing her best to distract him with the soap—and other things. She’d distracted him into a frenzy, then he’d distracted her three times, before dragging her back to bed.

“Huh, I guess it is.” She stood. “Maybe I should go tell him.”

Emerson grabbed her hand and yanked her back down. “That smile says you’re going to do a lot more than tell him. So do all those curls.” Which were held together by a paintbrush and sheer stubbornness. “What happened last night?”

“I guess he likes curls,” she said, still fighting the ridiculous urge to giggle. “He likes it straight, and up, and down.” She shrugged. “He just likes it.”

And he likes me!

“Of course he liked it, you were probably naked,” Frankie said, rushing up to the stage. Her hair was wild, her eyes a little crazed, and she was sweaty—in her normal black-on-black with steel-toed accents. But she looked ready to cry.

Or punch someone.

Not equipped to deal with either outcome, Harper asked, “What’s wrong?”