“Not good enough,” she said. “Tell me why what I do matters to you.”
“It shouldn’t,” he said, meeting her gaze steadily.
She just stared at him. “You’re incredible, you know that? You’re an insensitive, first-class jerk, and—”
He leaned in. “And what?” he asked, his voice dangerously low.
“And…” Stymied at her ridiculous and invariable reaction to him, she put her hands to his chest to give him another shove, but somehow her wires got crossed and she fisted his shirt instead.
“Dare me,” he said softly.
“Dare you to what?”
“Dare me, Aubrey.”
Oh, how she hated how well he knew her. “I dare you to kiss me,” she whispered, and then to make sure he did, she put her mouth on his first.
He yanked her in hard, so that she fell into him. It was crazy, but she slid her hands up his chest and into his hair to hold him to her. He had one hand up the back of her sweater on bare skin, his fingers spread as if he wanted to touch as much of her as possible. His other hand slid down, cupping her bottom, which made him groan.
“You drive me crazy,” he said against her mouth. “You taste so f*cking good. You always taste so f*cking good.”
She might have said ditto, but then his tongue stroked hers, and they both moaned. Then he was trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses along her jaw to her ear, which he nipped, and her knees melted. “Damn it,” she sighed.
She felt him smile against her skin before he kissed the spot just beneath her lobe. She shivered and knew she was a goner. She was even hearing a ringing in her head—
The store’s phone.
She must have missed four rings, because it clicked over to the machine, and they heard her own voice saying, “Book and Bean. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
And then came Mr. Wilford’s voice.
“Listen, missy. You dug this pumpkin garden; you need to get your skinny ass out here and water it. I’m too old for this. You hear me?”
“Why does everyone call my ass skinny?” Aubrey asked the room.
“It’s a good ass,” Ben said, hands on it. He squeezed. “Really good.”
There was a knock at the door, and she pushed free. “Oh, my God. I have work.” She poked him with a finger. “Stop distracting me with your mouth!”
“I could distract you with another body part instead. Say the word.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. You’re done distracting me. I don’t sleep with guys who sabotage my car. And why did you do it?”
At the second, more persistent knock, he gestured to the door. “You’re ignoring a paying customer.”
“We’re not done with this,” she warned him.
“No doubt.”
Chapter 17
Mornings were easier these days, thanks to the new routine of hitting the bakery before opening the bookstore.
Aubrey was sitting on Leah’s back counter, inhaling powdered doughnut holes left over from the day before. She’d just told them how Ben had pulled her coil wire and had paused, expecting a suitable level of outrage from her friends.
Instead, Leah laughed. She laughed so hard she slid down the cabinet and ended up sitting on the floor.
Ali laughed, too, though she managed to remain upright. “So cute,” she said.
“Cute?” Aubrey repeated, outraged all over again. “How in the world is that cute?”
“He likes you,” Ali said simply, and popped another doughnut hole in her mouth.
“What is this, high school?” Aubrey muttered, reaching for another doughnut hole, too. “And he doesn’t like me. And I don’t like him. He just did it so he could figure out what I was up to.”
Leah nodded. “No doubt. But I bet this entire box of doughnut holes that he also did it because he has a protective streak a mile long regarding people he cares about.” She smiled when Aubrey didn’t have a ready retort. “And in any case, you could just tell him what you’re up to, you know. Or tell us.”
Aubrey let out a breath. “I haven’t told anyone.”
“All the more reason to tell us,” Leah said. “This”—doughnut hole in hand, she gestured to the kitchen around them—“is the cone of silence. Nothing you say here can be repeated outside this room without permission from the tellee.”
“Tellee?” Aubrey said.
“You,” Leah said.
Aubrey looked at Ali. Ali nodded and held up two fingers, as though she were making an oath.
“Were you a Girl Scout?” Aubrey asked.
“No,” Ali said. “But I totally could’ve been. I can make all kinds of knots in ropes. And I look pretty good in khaki.”
Leah nodded. “This is true.”
Aubrey sighed. “Okay, fine. It’s my karma. It’s…shaky at best. I needed to fix some things from my past, so I made a list.”
“A list?” Ali asked.
“Of people I wronged.”
“Well, hell, Aubrey,” Leah said. “We all could make a list.”
“Really?” Aubrey asked. “Did either of you sleep with your married professor in college? Because he’s number seven.”
“Okay, that’s pretty bad,” Ali said after a moment of silence. “But I’ve made some pretty damn spectacular mistakes myself, so there’s no judgment here. Would you like my opinion?”
“Could I stop you?” Aubrey asked drily.
Ali laughed. “Probably not. I told you that I saw you and Ben through the window of your store, right?”
For a beat, Aubrey’s heart stopped, until she realized that Ali was referring to the kiss, not the…deed.
“What I saw was really hot,” Ali said. “So hot you nearly steamed up the glass. But it was more than just lust. He cupped your head, Aubrey.”
“Aw,” Leah said on a dreamy sigh. “He did? Really? God, I love that man.”
Aubrey shook her head to clear it, but nope, she was still confused. “What does it matter that he cupped my head?”
“It means it wasn’t just a kiss,” Ali said. “It was more. And we”—she gestured between herself and Leah—“having recently found the loves of our lives, can tell the difference between sex and love.”
Leah nodded in agreement.
“When you do it with Ben,” Ali went on, “it won’t be just sex. It’ll be love.”
Aubrey inhaled wrong and got a bunch of powdered sugar down the wrong pipe.
Leah jumped up to get a glass of water.
Ali helpfully pounded Aubrey’s back. When she could breathe without wheezing, both her friends were looking at her rather seriously.
“So you already slept with him,” Leah guessed.
Aubrey took a moment with that one, because in all truth, there’d been no actual sleeping involved. “Was it only okay with you when I was just kissing him?”
“No.” Leah covered her hand with her own. “No, it’s not like that. I think you’ll be fantastic for him.”
“We’re not together,” Aubrey said. “Not like that. It was just a one-time thing.”
Ali laughed. “Yeah, okay.”
“No, really.”
“I saw you,” Ali said. “I saw the chemistry. Remember when the town hall caught fire, and the entire town was covered in smoke?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I saw more smoke generated between you two than I did at that fire.”