Tell Me You Crave Me (Search and Seduce #3)(2)
Dick.
That annoyed East because clearly the woman Boring Guy was with was hot. But her shoulders slumped a little more, and he could tell by the shift in her body language she felt defeated. He kind of wanted to punch Boring Guy. Thankfully, the idiot got up to use the bathroom, and East was done sitting back and watching this mess.
He was going in. Part of his job as a search and rescue medic for the North Carolina area was to assess a situation and save damsels in distress. Okay, so it was more like assess the situation and save lives, but Hourglass definitely needed to be saved. All of his years learning and knowing women told him that.
East made his way toward her at the bar, weaving around the packed area, casually holding his beer with one finger around the longneck and tipping his hat down just enough to shadow his eyes so that when he approached her, all she’d be hit with was his trademark smile, dimple included.
Lucky for him, he did enjoy the hunt. And Honey’s was a massive old Victorian mansion that had been renovated into a huge restaurant and bar. It even had a few shops hidden within what were once bedrooms. So he moved stealthy and finally closed in on his prey.
“Can I buy you a drink, darlin’?” he asked Hourglass as he came right up to her. All that long, chocolate hair smelled amazing, and damn, it looked thick and glossy. She clearly took care of herself. “Or maybe we can skip the drink and go straight for dessert,” he finished.
He leaned in just as she turned to face him. Here it came…he unleashed the smile just as she faced him, and he caught her scent of vanilla, spice and—
Oh shit…
“East?” Hourglass’s voice wasn’t lyrical. It was penetrating and damn near shrieking. Mostly because that voice, which was tied to the hot bod of Hourglass, was none other than Natalie St. Claire, his childhood nemesis.
She hit him with a glare, and East tried real hard to hit her with one back, but the dress she wore showed way too much cleavage, and he had a difficult time remembering why they’d never liked each other.
“Did you just hit on me?” She spun in her stool to face him fully, and that glare turned to a scowl. “What the hell is the matter with you? Don’t think you’ll get my cupcakes for free just by tossing out any old line you use on all your other conquests.”
Oh, right. Now he remembered. She was a mouthy pain in the ass. She’d treated him more like an older brother—one she hated—than she did her own actual brother, and that dynamic had never faded. It didn’t help that she was now her own boss with her own cupcake bakery. She had nobody to talk any sense into her.
Normally he had no problem accepting that they were natural enemies, except that tonight there was nothing normal about Miss Natalie. She was smoking hot. She’d ditched her messy pile of hair for sleek waves, and her oversize flour-covered apron for a sexy little dress. Which again, he shouldn’t be appreciating as much as he was, because she was Natalie Fucking St. Clair. Her last name was a damn legacy in the town, and her family was the only one he’d ever had.
They’d taken him in when he was a young teenager. His dad had never been around, and his mom had barely been there, either. And then, when his mom had taken off and overdosed on her final drug bender, the St. Clairs had become his legal guardians. Lemon-Anne St. Clair was the only woman he really knew as a mom. She’d raised him. Nurtured him. He knew he was trash, as wrong a match for their high class as oil was for water, but they’d loved him anyway. He’d already been best friends with Matt at school, but after that, Matt had been like a brother, Natalie like his sister. Their parents like his parents. He owed everything to the St. Clairs, even if Lemon-Anne St. Clair sometimes liked to remind him of the fact a little too much.
And when Waylon St. Claire passed away three years ago, they all grieved together as a family at losing their patriarch, the only father East had known.
Which was why, even after he’d lain awake at night for years, unable to stop thinking about Natalie and how much he wanted her, he’d never pursued her. To the St. Clairs they were brother and sister. Hell, that was how East thought of them, too. It just wouldn’t be right.
So yeah, little Natalie needed to get out of that little dress really damn quick before his not-so-little dick started hurting.
And not in the way he wanted her out of it…
“Sorry, darlin’. Never expected you to clean up so well.”
And damn had she cleaned up well. He took another look. Couldn’t help himself. He was used to seeing Natalie in baggy jeans and an apron covered in some kind of mess, and thank god for that. He could see her as simply Nat, nothing else and nothing more. The cute little girl grown up into the cute town cupcake baker.
But today? Tonight? Wearing that dress? Every ounce of desire he’d tamped down threatened to rise up.
Get a hold of yourself!
What the hell was wrong with him? The way she pushed his buttons, and the way he felt watching her go out with idiots from her teenage years to now had always come with the territory.
Territory…like the uncharted territory that trailed right between some serious creamy cleavage—
“Get out of that dress,” he muttered.
“Excuse me?” she said and folded her arms over her chest.
Great, that made the “territory” way more enticing to explore. Which was fine for him. But if it attracted more idiots like the one she’d been talking to, he’d never forgive himself.