Here’s what you missed. An (unedited) excerpt from Chasing Her Fire.
(And in case I’m not being 100% clear, yes, the woman in this scene is the heroine for Chasing Her Fire, the next book in the Bailey Brothers series.)
We found Gram in the kitchen, sitting at the big farmhouse table our grandad had made. Her hair was more silver than black now, but she still wore it in a long braid down her back. Lines creased her dark skin, especially around her eyes, and they deepened with her smile.
Grace sat with her at the table with a steaming cup of tea. Her blond hair was cut in a short bob and she’d tucked it behind her ears. We’d grown up next door to Grace, and she’d married my oldest brother Asher. Now she was pregnant with Gram’s first great-grandchild.
“Ladies,” I said, pretending to tip a hat. “Bailey twins at your service. What can we do for you?”
“Jack and Elijah built me some new bookshelves,” Gram said. Jack was Grace’s stepdad and Elijah was her younger brother. Once I would have called him her little brother, but he wasn’t so little anymore. The kid was growing up fast. “I need to make some space in the front room, so I thought we could move things around in there.”
“Sounds good. Just tell us where you want everything.”
I whirled around, ready to get to work, and almost had a fucking heart attack.
It was her.
Cara stood a few feet in front of me—way too close for comfort—her red hair loose around her face. I had a sudden vision of her flipping that hair over her bare shoulder. But not standing, like she was now. Bent over in front of me, naked, all that flaming red hair cascading over her pale skin.
Fuck.
I’d successfully avoided her for the last few weeks, and I did not like being in close quarters with her now.
“What the fu—” I stopped myself from saying fuck just in time. No matter how old we got, Gram still didn’t tolerate swearing in her house. “What are you doing here?”
Her green eyes narrowed and she lifted her chin, drawing my gaze to the slope of her throat. I wanted to run my tongue up—
Nope. No I didn’t.
The hard-on I was suddenly sporting might have suggested otherwise. But come on, that was just my dick. Everyone knows you can’t trust a man’s junk.
Especially when it comes to crazy redheads.
She opened her mouth to speak and I braced for impact, knowing whatever she said was going to piss me off. In fact, the simple act of her lips parting was already pissing me off.
But her eyes flicked to Gram and Grace behind me, and I could practically see the bitchy comment die on her lips. “I’m having tea with Gram and my boo.”
The fact that she was behaving herself in front of Gram kind of made me want to do the opposite. To pick a fight with her in Gram’s kitchen, just because I didn’t want her to be right. Ever. But I decided it was probably best if I didn’t. Because quite honestly, I wasn’t sure if I could trust my mouth any more than I could trust my dick around her right now.
“Whatever,” I grumbled and moved past her, giving her a wide berth.
A few weeks ago, before the night of Skylar’s book launch party, I would have fired off a smart ass comment. But now? I was worried if we started going at each other, like we usually did, I’d say something that would give me away.
I’d been drunk as fuck, but I knew what had happened. Every time I saw her, even at a distance, my body reminded me. I’d done the unthinkable.
I’d fucked Cara Goulding.