Callie and I exchanged a grin. I didn’t think Eilidh knew how to interact without flirting. Dad said she hadn’t gotten it from him or our mother, Francine, but it was in the Adair blood because Uncle Arran and Uncle Brodan were the biggest flirts he’d ever known until Eilidh came along.
“You miss her,” Callie observed once everyone left. Eilidh was off to catch a flight back to Romania.
I nodded. “I do. Sometimes I wish she’d chosen a normal career.”
“She’ll come back one day,” Callie replied with sincere belief.
“How do you know that?”
“Because every Adair who’s ever left this place has found their way home again.”
The next morning, my body clock seemed to know Callie’s early alarm was about to go off, and I woke up first. Only to discover I was spooning Callie, my morning wood digging into her arse. A plump breast filled my palm, and I realized I was also groping her in my sleep.
Fuck.
Slow.
She wanted to take it slow.
Hoping not to wake her, I released her, my thumb grazing a hard nipple. I had to stifle a groan as need tightened in my gut. Carefully, I withdrew, easing back silently from her.
I’d quietly taken care of myself in the bathroom and when I’d come out, Callie was awake and stomping out of the bedroom with a grumbled “Morning.” She didn’t look in my direction and I felt confusion and guilt. Had she been awake after all, and I’d made her uncomfortable?
I found her upstairs making coffee, her back to me. She wore a strappy tank top, the hem rising to reveal her lower back and the way it sloped from her narrow waist to her curvy hips. The pajama shorts she wore were extremely short and cupped her perfect arse. Blood was traveling southward again, so I dragged my eyes off her. “You know, we never really discussed the sleeping arrangements?” I broached tentatively.
She whirled, her generous, unbound tits bouncing with the movement.
The woman was trying to kill me.
I looked past her to the coffee machine, thinking about cold showers and Walker Ironside to dull the throb of arousal.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean … did you want your own bedroom?”
“Do you want me to have my own bedroom?”
At her smarting tone, I looked at her. “I want what you want.”
“Fine. I’ll move into the other bedroom.” She abandoned her coffee and marched past me.
“Callie—”
“I have to get ready.”
“Shit,” I murmured under my breath, suspecting I’d fucked up but uncertain of how.
CALLIE
There was something therapeutic about making pastry. As I worked on thedétrempe(the dough for making croissants), I tried to relax into the method, knowing it by heart. In fact, I was on autopilot as I took my last batch out of proofing and put the new batch in. Shaping the former batch into rectangles, I wrapped them and put them in the freezer where they’d stay until early the next morning. Then I worked on the butter blocks and put them in the freezer too.
Once all batches were in and everything else was prepped for me returning in the early hours, I stood in the bakery kitchen not knowing what to do. I’d dragged out prep for as long as possible.
With a sigh, I texted Lewis I was on my way home.
Home.
It didn’t much feel like it with the two of us dancing around our attraction.
