Wild Love (Rose Hill, #1)(44)

I scoff and watch Cora’s amused gaze bounce between us.

“It’s a board game, not real life. I don’t care if I lose fake money as much as you do.”

Rosie stiffens. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

As if she senses the shift in our interaction, Cora tries to run interference. “Well, I’m having a lot of fun watching Rosie clean you out.”

I shrug and offer Cora a wink. “Me too. She’s good at it.”

Rosie’s eyes narrow at that and she sets her stack of cash down. “Is that some sort of reference to what happened today?”

My brow furrows as I try to follow.

Cora stands. “I’m getting a snack. Who wants a snack?”

“I’ll give it back if you’re going to lord it over me, you know.”

“What?” I whisper to Rosie, hearing Cora rifling through the pantry noisily.

Rosie matches my dropped voice, but there’s anger in her whisper. “The advance. I’m not going to keep it just so you can lord it over me with snide, underhanded comments about me being good at cleaning you out. I have more dignity than that.”

Shit. I hadn’t given that money a second thought.

“That is not at all what I?—”

“Hey, Rosie!” Cora calls, cutting me off. “Can you come reach this for me?”

With a shake of her head, Rosie pushes to stand and pads over to the pantry, shoulders taut and her head held high. She’s miffed, but it doesn’t prevent me from acknowledging how satisfying it is having her here in my house, walking around in bare feet like she’s at home.

“I don’t know what that even?—”

“Ford?” Cora pops out of the pantry, innocent eyes meeting mine. “Rosie can’t reach it either. Can you help?”

I sigh heavily and slide my chair out to help. I round the island and see Rosie up on her tiptoes, reaching for the very top shelf. A sliver of her bare stomach peeks out from where her T-shirt has ridden up. My eyes take in her narrow waist, the curve of her ass in tight acid-wash Wranglers.

“Here. Let me,” I bite out more harshly than intended and step up behind her. As I reach above her, I will myself not to press too close.

I feel the rush of air before I hear the door click as it shuts. The small lock handle turning makes a soft clicking noise.

My body freezes, sprawled over Rosie’s back in the darkened closet. The only source of light is what peeks in from around the door.

“Cora?” I ask firmly before Rosie’s soft breasts brush my arm and my chest as she turns to face me.

“Cora, you did not just lock us in here!”

I grip the shelf above Rosie’s head to keep myself from gripping her.

“I’ll let you two out when you quit bickering about dumb shit. Listening to you two is exhausting. You both like each other. Start acting like it.”

Rosie steadies herself with one hand on the center of my chest as Cora’s footsteps recede.

“Cora! Get back here right now and let us out!” I shout. Rosie giggles almost maniacally. The heat of her breath fans against my throat. She smells sweet, like Coca-Cola and the Fuzzy Peach candies she’s been grazing on all night.

It makes me want to kiss her. Taste her. Here in the dark where no one would know.

A heavy silence descends between us. All I can feel is the awkward tension emanating from the woman pressed up against me... until she finally comes up with something to say.

“This giving you a serious case of déjà vu, Junior? Or just me?”

I swallow, thinking back to that night.

Seven minutes in heaven. A dumb teenaged game. And of course, as some sort of cruel cosmic joke, I got shoved into a dark closet with Rosalie Belmont.

My laugh is a low rumble. It feels like the surrounding shelves vibrate with it as I drop my head in defeat. “It’s not just you, Rosalie.”

Rosalie. Because I cannot call her Rosie right now. This pantry is too fucking small, and she’s too fucking close.

“I really had to work the next day to convince West nothing happened in that closet.” She laughs, quieter this time, as she recalls the story.

I swallow. “Nothing did happen. I recognized you right away.” It was her scent, that heady perfume she wore back then—borderline overpowering—sweet like black licorice.

Her fingers thrum on my chest. She taps them like keys on a piano. “I know, but we did a good job of convincing everyone it did. Didn’t we?”

I nod, even though I’m pretty sure she can’t see me. “I messed up my own hair,” she says.

It’s clear as day in my head. Rosie hushing me and dragging her fingers through her hair.

I start when the tips of her pointer and middle fingers touch my lips. My hand shoots up and I grab her wrist, but she doesn’t back down. She dusts the pads of them over the top dip of my lip and whispers, “Wiped my cheap, sparkly lip gloss all over your mouth.”

“I remember,” I reply roughly, fingers wrapped tight around her wrist.

“I can’t remember the flavor. I was constantly applying that garbage,” she muses, fingers tracing again as a shiver races down my spine.

I don’t even need to think about it. I know. I will never forget.

“Watermelon.”