He leans back, draping his arm across the tabletop behind us in one of those moves. “Apologies. Please continue.”
As if I can just continue when I’m wondering if he likes me as much as I don’t want to like him. “That building? The A-frame on Main Street just two blocks down from City Hall? That’s the salon where my mom has worked my entire life. The building next to it, the one with the blue roof, is an ice cream shop where I had my first kiss. The building on the other side, the brown one, is a gift shop that once caused the biggest drama the Tooth has seen in years by selling taxidermy chipmunks that weren’t ethically and humanely sourced.”
He frowns. “The GrippaPeen guy’s dad is a taxidermist.”
“Yep. The gift shop didn’t take them off sale, but ownership changed within a year, and the new people did.”
“That sounds like it could be a warning to your new boss about behaving himself.”
My ass is getting cold. Jitter’s keeping Grey warm instead of me. And mention of my new boss makes my face have a reaction that I can’t suppress. “Speaking of, have I told you that my cousin is a complete and total thunder-twat who sold my family’s café to a guy who can be the world’s biggest prick but I get it. I understand a lot of his issues and I don’t blame him for how he feels.”
Grey ducks his head and sucks in a heavy breath.
I mean it though.
I don’t blame him. I haven’t blamed him. But if I’m talking to Duke, then I’m going to talk to Duke. Not Grey. “I have to find a solution to a problem of saving my café while letting my new boss get the peace he deserves in the next twelve days or else I’m facing the very real possibility that I’ll lose something that means the world to me. And the best person to help me find the right solution for justice is angry with me right now, and even if she wasn’t, I will never say that platycuntapus’s name to her. She deserves time to mourn and recover and find her new normal. Not questions about how to make him pay for what he did.”
Jitter whines and sets his head on Grey’s knee. Such a good dog.
I don’t even have to look at the man to know he’s struggling with this too. My dog’s telling me.
And the fact that my dog hates it when Grey’s upset hurts too.
The only other person Jitter loves this much is Theo, which I’ve never quite understood, but I think I’m getting it now.
Jitter has a finely-tuned people have hurt you and I want to love you meter.
I study Grey, making sure he’s not gripping anything for support or getting that distant look in his eyes like he did Sunday night when I thought he was going to pass out in his doorway.
He seems fine though.
As fine as I assume he can be in this position, anyway.
“You don’t think you can find a compromise for your boss,” he says.
“I think it hurts to watch your life’s purpose go up in smoke through no fault of your own.”
He looks away. “That is its own particular brand of torture.”
I know he knows. He told me as much Sunday night. We both know he’s doing the same to me that his partner did to him, except I still get it.
“What did Chandler do to you?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer.
I wonder if Emma knows.
As if it matters. I won’t bring her into this. I can barely bring myself to ask Theo what would hurt Chandler the most for fear he’d ask her, no matter how much I tell him not to.
I hunch forward and cradle my coffee in my hands, which are getting colder by the minute, even inside my gloves.
“Are you staying here in the Tooth?” I ask. “Is that the long-term plan?”
“I don’t know.”
“People won’t come to a kombucha bar for breakfast,” I say. “They won’t drop in for a five-minute chat while they’re waiting for their morning fermented tea the way they drop in for a quick visit while they’re waiting for their latte. And the locals won’t abandon the tavern and the other restaurants they go to for dinner for something new in town.”
“If that’s the case, that’ll eventually be someone else’s problem.”
Exactly the answer I was afraid of. “Please don’t make me fight dirty. I genuinely like you too much as a person to want to fight dirty.”
His eyes flare and then go dark as he shifts to look at me straight-on. “Define dirty.”
The fact that he’s turned on and not wary shouldn’t be a relief.
Nor should it make my breasts tighten and my clit tingle.
I straighten and face him, ignoring the distinct lack of space between us. “I will save my café by any means necessary.”
“You think you’ll find my skeletons.”
He shouldn’t be leaning into me with his gaze dropping to my lips.
And I shouldn’t like it nearly as much as I do. “I don’t want you to have skeletons.”
“You wouldn’t use them against me.”
“You have no idea what I’d do.”
“Okay, Duchess.”
Fuck.
The bastard just called me a good person.
“If I kiss you, I’m pretending you’re still Duke,” I breathe as our lips inch closer and closer together.
“If I kiss you, I know I’m kissing Sabrina.”
“That’s a horrible thing to say to me.”
His lips tip up, but the smile doesn’t diminish the smoky desire in his eyes. “You’re a good person.”
“You just don’t want me to play dirty.”
“On the contrary. I’m intrigued at the idea of you playing dirty. I want to know what you define as dirty.”
I want him to do dirty things to me. I want him to pull me into the storage closet at the café and tease my clit with that long thumb. I want him to kiss me until I can’t breathe. I want him to rip my shirt off and shove me against a wall and thrust into me while I ride him. I want to suck his cock and I want to ride his face and I want to have our night in Hawaii again.
“We need to leave here before we both turn into icicles,” I breathe.
“I’m not cold at all right now.”
His lips brush mine. I grip his coat, pull him into me, and I let myself go.
I pretend we’re in Hawaii. That the night never ended. That we’re kissing, our tongues dancing as we claw each other’s clothes off. That he’s pinching my nipples and growling out that uninhibited noise of sheer pleasure while I shove his pants down off his hips and tackle the buttons on his Hawaiian shirt. That I can hear the surf rolling in through the open door of his balcony.
So hot when you do good deeds, he said while he nipped at my earlobe.
I want to do good deeds to you all night long, I’d replied.
I crawl into his lap, straddling him, ignoring Jitter making a disgusted grunt and the sound of my coffee tumbler bouncing on the snowy ground.
He fists my hair and kisses me deeper.
Why can’t this be simple?
Because men aren’t good for the women of your family, I remind myself.
It’s okay, I add. This is just for the sex.
As if I can actually believe that now.
Despite our differences, Grey feels like a friend. And that is something I’ve never felt in the same way for any of my other flings.
“Why—so good?” he says while he pulls me closer and rocks, rubbing my clit against the thick erection hiding in his pants.
“Bad—always—good.”
He growls.
Growls.
And it’s so fucking hot to have a man growling over me that I almost come on the spot.
He growls again, lower and thicker, but at the same time, he freezes. “Jitter?”
“No jitters,” I gasp, rocking against him.
He shifts me to the side and lunges for something. “No, Jitter.”
Jitter.
My dog.
I forgot my dog’s name, but Grey’s scrambling to untangle himself from me while holding my dog’s collar.
And Jitter is growling.
At—oh fuck.
He’s growling at a porcupine.
“Oh no no no,” I whisper.
“Do. Not. Move,” Grey breathes. “Jitter. Down. Now.”
Jitter whine-growls.
“Jitter, get down,” I hiss.
Quietly.
And gently.
So as not to terrify the two-foot-long rodent currently staring at us with dark, scared eyes and its quills on edge sitting on a rocky ledge just beyond the gazebo.
Grey has a grip on Jitter’s collar and is tugging him back closer to us.