“Here, hot chocolate.”
Barlow passed her a cup overflowing with chocolate, cream, and marshmallows.
“How do you know I like it?” she asked.
“It’s hot chocolate – who in their right mind doesn’t?” Even he had to admit he loved the stuff, though not in front of his lion shifter army pal. He once admitted he liked drinking tea and opened himself up to tea party jokes for months that were only stopped after a sharp punch to said lion shifter’s head.
“Fair point. Wow, those are some big marshmallows, ooh and sprinkles!”
“Yeah, that’s the super deluxe hot chocolate with all the trimmings – there’s enough sugar in these babies to keep you going for a week.”
“Yummy.”
Both wolf and man gawked at Susie as she methodically started licking the cream off the top. Holy hell… Because sleeping in the same bed with her wasn’t hard enough already.
“Barlow, that you?”
Barlow almost tipped all the chocolate down his front as his wolf sneered and his ex-girlfriend approached him.
“Roxanne?”
She sashayed up to him, swinging both hips and long black hair like she always did. Crap.
Susie watched them with interest. Was it too late to just grab Susie and make a break for it?
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Isn’t this a little out of your price range?”
His wolf growled, but Barlow didn’t care. Roxanne was just bitter about the break-up – though she had made plenty of comments like that when they were together. So really, she was just the same as always.
“Here for a wedding.”
Roxanne gave him a tight smile. “So am I. I just arrived. The groom is my cousin.”
Barlow cocked his head at Susie and placed a hand on her leg. “The bride is Susie’s best friend, and I’m her date.”
Roxanne’s razor-sharp glare found Susie, who smiled politely in return. “How nice. I’m here with my fiancé myself. Edward?”
There was no answer, and Roxanne clicked her fingers impatiently and called his name a couple more times. Boy, Barlow hadn’t missed that.
He shot an amused glance at Susie who looked back curiously.
“Yes, yes, I’m here, I… ah…”
Edward approached, and Barlow’s wolf snorted in recognition. Yep, that was his old commanding officer – Captain Jenkins. Barlow had thought he was already married with three children, but he did know that was the sort of thing that wouldn’t slow Roxanne down. Jenkins’ affair with Roxanne was the reason Barlow dumped her, but he had no idea it had gone this far. Didn’t care much either.
“Tanner,” said Edward, looking more than a little embarrassed.
“Captain.”
There was an awkward pause as they all looked at each other, finally broken by Edward.
“We really should check into our room.”
Roxanne pursed her lips but nodded.
“See you soon, Barlow,” she said with a hint of a flirty inflection. “Nice to meet you, Cissy,” she tossed that out over her shoulder as she left.
“Actually it’s… oh, she’s already gone,” muttered Susie. “Friend of yours?” she asked more than a little sharply.
Hardly huffed his wolf. “Ex-girlfriend – she’s a nurse.”
They met when he was injured – not badly injured just injured by a stray bullet. She flirted outrageously, and he did too. They soon fell into a casual relationship.
“I bet she has a lovely bedside manner. I take it she’s a wolf, too.”
He smiled. “Yeah.”
He wondered how humans could ever tell the species of anyone? Shifters usually scented species – except bird shifters, feathery douches had worse noses than humans. Did humans always have to ask? Boy, that sounded exhausting. Huh. Susie was the first human he had ever been with. Didn’t make any difference really. His wolf yowled. Okay, yeah, no difference except for the fact that she was the best he’d ever been with, the only one that haunted his dreams after, and the only one who could make him shudder with just a look.
“Edward’s human in case you were wondering,” he added a little hoarsely.
Barlow had never been serious about Roxanne and figured she wasn’t serious about him either. Then, he’d never been serious about anyone – he would never let himself get serious.
“What happened between the two of you?”
Susie gave him the worst nonchalant look he had ever seen. Worse than when he was eight, and he asked his little brother who ate all the cherry pies Gram-Gram made, and his brother replied that he had no idea – the little bugger had crust and cherry sauce around his mouth!
She wanted him to think she didn’t care. It was probably a good thing she never decided to become an actress.
“I broke it off.”
“Oh!” She let out the sound of delight before blushing profusely. “Umm, why?”
His beast huffed. “She was sleeping with Edward.”
“She was cheating on you?” Susie breathed in disbelief.
The fact that it was incredible to her gave his ego a nice little boost – not that it really needed it. He was always pretty sound in that department.
“We were pretty casual. Wasn’t the first other guy she was with, but he was first married one – I didn’t want to get involved with that.”
Though, his marriage must be at an end now. He heard rumors that Edward’s family was pretty wealthy. No wonder Roxanne wanted to marry him. She tended to go for wealthy guys. He wasn’t sure what she saw in him. Perhaps he came across as wealthier than he was. He took a huge slurp of his chocolate, earning him some disgruntled looks from everyone around him. Yeah, it was unlikely that anyone saw him as refined in any way.
“She kind of seems like a bitch,” blurted Susie, before her eyes flared. “Sorry, I only meant to think that.”
Barlow snorted with laughter. “She is – just stay out of her way, little darling.”
His wolf pawed the ground uneasily. Yeah, he would need to make sure Roxanne stayed away from Susie, too. Roxanne had no reason to do anything cruel to Susie, but Roxanne had a temper. One time she slapped a badger shifter so hard she knocked one of his teeth out, and all because she thought the young man was flirting with Barlow. He was, but Roxanne had no right to slap him.
He didn’t want anything to happen to Susie. A sense of worry and helplessness started clawing at his insides. No, no, no, this was not happening…
“Hey, Susie-cutie, come on,” cried Candace striding over to their table.
“Susie-cutie?” he chuckled, his panic momentarily forgotten. It suited her to a T – though, given the roll of her eyes, she didn’t agree. He winked at her. “I think I prefer little darling.”
“What’s on the agenda now?” sighed Susie, resigned to her wedding-related fate.
“Time for wedding manicures,” replied Candace.
Susie nodded and looked at Barlow. “You coming?”
“I am tempted, but I’m going to take a shower.” He grinned naughtily. “You coming?”
“I am tempted,” she teased, “but these nails will not paint themselves.” She waved her fingers. “See you later.”
“Yeah.”
Barlow watched her go; his little darling shook those curvy hips like there was no tomorrow. Made him think of Vegas. Made him think of how he had taken her from behind, his hands gripping her waist as he pounded into her…. Rawr.
He gritted his teeth and willed his erection to go. He should order another hot chocolate – that would relax him, and make things a little less rigid south of the border. Or perhaps just think of something not quite as sexy as Susie. Like Roxanne… Yeah, that would do it. All he had to do was think about when he dumped her, and she started throwing kitchen knives at him. Breaking up with her in the kitchen had been a mistake – far too many weapons.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have been that surprised Roxanne showed up – she did say she had family not far from Rose, but he hadn’t really thought about her.
It didn’t matter that she was there. He would stay out of her way, and make sure Susie did, too. Problem solved. Though, perhaps there was one good thing about Roxanne showing up. If he was not mistaken, his little darling had been a little jealous of her, and he had to admit, he kind of liked that.
*
“Which color would you like?” asked the manicurist.
“That one,” murmured Susie, pointing without really looking.
Her thoughts were preoccupied with Barlow and Roxanne. The skank all but licked her lips at him – right in front of both Susie and her fiancé. The fiancé wasn’t looking, but Roxanne knew that Susie saw her. She didn’t care! It was insulting. She knew Susie was Barlow’s date. Okay, yeah, so there wasn’t anything going on with them, but Roxanne didn’t know that!
But, Barlow hadn’t seemed interested in her. So even if Roxanne wanted something to happen, hopefully, it wouldn’t. But if Roxanne threw herself at him, would he say no? It wasn’t like he was involved with Susie – there was nothing stopping him.
Son of a monkey, she was going around in circles.
Susie had explicitly told him she wasn’t interested. Then he intimated he wasn’t either. But if that was true, then why was he even there? She was sure Barlow had been trying to start something with her, but he indicated he wasn’t and…
“Susie!” exclaimed Jules grabbing hold of her hand. “Black nails? They won’t go with your dress at all. I told everyone to get pink nails!”
“What?” Susie blinked at her hands, and yep, she was currently sporting midnight black polish. She gave the manicurist a sheepish look. “Oh, sorry – umm, can I have pink?”
The manicurist gave her a sour look and set about removing the black polish.
“You’re a million miles away,” said Jules.
“I know, I’m sorry.”
Jules giggled. “I’m not, I know who you’re thinking about.”
“I’ve been thinking about him too,” sighed Lila. “That ass…”
Candace kicked her and Lila snarled.
“Look,” said Susie, “there really is nothing going on with us. We spent the night together in Vegas, but that was it. Nothing has happened since then.”
“But you wish something was going on,” said Jules.
“Ow!” The manicurist was a tad rough while applying the new polish.
“I don’t want to get involved with him.”
“Pfft!”
“Did you just pfft me?”
Jules gave her a tolerant look that said ‘you’re acting like an idiot.’
“Susie, you’re thinking too much – just enjoy a nice fling with him. Let him be your rebound guy, I mean you enjoyed Vegas, right?”
“Well, yeah…” She was slowly coming to realize it had been one of the best nights of her life.
“So, what’s stopping you from enjoying another night or two?”
“Or three?” put in Candace.
What indeed? Fear of a broken heart, perhaps. Getting over what Allen did was hard, would she be able just to enjoy the sex and not come to care for him? Would she be able to get over Barlow leaving her?