Tell Me You Crave Me (Search and Seduce #3)(35)

Just then another round of knocking came, and Natalie got with the program.

“Shit!” she whispered.

“Right!” East agreed.

She looked around and grabbed her dress and her panties and hugged them close. “I guess it’s too much to hope you have a back door to this place?”

East shook his head.

Natalie quickly scanned the room and then headed for the closet.

“Natalie—”

She shot him a grumpy look. “Just go get rid of him, okay?”

East helped her in and then he shut the door behind her. Then he felt like a terrible idiot and opened the door to give her a quick smack on her lips with his.

“Are you out of your mind?” she whispered, but then kissed him back quickly before tugging on her dress. “Go answer the door before he breaks it down.”

East nodded quickly and tried to compose himself. He pulled on his discarded jeans from last night and walked through the short hallway into the main room to answer the front door.

“About time,” Matt said. “It’s after ten. Didn’t know you’d be sleeping in.”

“Long night,” East said.

“I bet,” Matt gave him a grin. “I saw you talking with Sara last night.”

East ran a hand through his hair and glanced over his shoulder toward his room. Christ, he hoped Natalie wasn’t hearing this. He’d hooked up with Sara once last year, and he dimly remembered talking to her. But he’d talked with a lot of people and obviously wasn’t looking at anything more with Sara.

“Nah, nothing like that.”

“Well, I was just checking in to see if you could make sure the chairs from Baughman’s rental company get to the garden for the ceremony on Friday. Also, will you pick out the groomsmen gifts? I just have a f*ck ton to do. I’m going back to Connecticut for a few days then coming back for the ceremony. Oh, and keep the gifts around a hundred bucks a person.”

“So, I get to buy myself a gift from you?”

“Yeah, basically,” Matt said.

Matt walked to the kitchen, and East realized he had left his bedroom door wide open. That wouldn’t have been so bad if A) Matt’s precious baby sister wasn’t currently stashed in his closet, and B) her glasses weren’t right there on his nightstand, totally visible from the front room.

Fuuuuck….

This was why people had bigger houses and longer hallways! But unfortunately for East, he’d never wanted or needed much, and now Matt was a few yards and an easy glance away from seeing Natalie’s trademark glasses resting on his nightstand.

East tried to casually make his way to his bedroom door, but every time he took a step in that direction, Matt followed and kept talking about wedding details. East then tried to turn so his focus was away from the room and the tangled sheets he’d just had Natalie in last night. He felt like no matter what he did, though, it was written on his forehead.

A rush of terror and flood of guilt hit him all at the same time. Here he was, staring down his best friend while his best friend’s sister was hiding in his closet.

“You all right?” Matt asked.

“Yeah, why the hell is everyone asking me that lately?”

“Because you look weird.”

“You woke me up, *.”

Matt raised his hands. “Cranky. Must be hard having the day off.”

“I still work. I’m teaching the damn CPR class.” Just because the season was a bit slow didn’t mean he wasn’t doing anything. He still had training, equipment checks, and now the damn class.

“Fine, fine. Don’t get snippy because you didn’t get your beauty sleep.” Matt headed toward the front door. Thank God. “One more thing. Bridget wanted me to kindly remind you that the wedding and reception are classy events.”

“Oh, and I’m not classy enough for her?”

Matt raised an eyebrow. Okay, fine, he wasn’t classy—certainly not classy enough to be at the St. Clair level. But hell, he was house-broken for Christ’s sake.

“We meant more like the best man speech could be classy, too.”

“Oh, so you don’t want me to bring up that one time we went to Mexico and found those women—”

“No.” Matt shot him a stern, no-nonsense look.

“I’m kidding,” East said. “I’ve got it covered.” Of course, he was lying. He had no clue what the hell he was supposed to say at a wedding, much less how to give a speech about love or committing to one person for the rest of your life. He was probably the least qualified person on the planet to talk about any of that. But he couldn’t let his buddy down. “Already working on something great,” he assured Matt.

He made a mental note to try to figure out what the hell he’d say for a speech and added it to his growing list of things to do.

“Oh, and thanks again for looking after Natalie. I saw you dancing with her. It was sweet.”

“It wasn’t a pity thing,” East said, a touch defensive. He didn’t like the way Matt sounded like he was doing her some kind of favor. If anything, Natalie was too good for him, and her even entertaining the thought of him was more than he’d ever hoped possible.

Didn’t change the fact that he couldn’t be the guy she needed, or would even want long term.