Page 35 of A Sinful Trap

Dani grinned. “I’m shocked. Are there things she’s not telling us?”

Bailey chomped a bite of her burger and glared at Kaya across the table as she chewed. “I hate it when you do that.”

“Yes, but you can’t say you didn’t expect it.”

“Eat your nachos, K,” she said petulantly.

She had been expecting it, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with the repercussions of filling them in. If the intensity of her connection to Cam and Davide scared her, how would her friends react to it?

Why couldn’t she stop thinking about them?

“How is Ava working out?” Liam asked after a moment of tense silence. “Everyone at the resort is jealous, in case you were wondering. We were hoping for a spot to open so we could get her in there, but your new boss snapped her right up.”

“She’s the best,” Bailey said gratefully. “Too good. I might need to start hiking again unless I want to buy a new wardrobe.”

“Again?” Kaya said, snapping a cheesy lime nacho between her teeth. Burn.

“I could hike,” Bailey lied.

“If your car broke down.” Liam held up his hands defensively when they all turned his way in warning. “I was trying to fit in. Isn’t this the point where you two would usually tease Bailey about her heel collection?”

“We would,” Kaya agreed. “That doesn’t mean you can.”

Dani tugged him closer and kissed him sympathetically. “I love you, but I won’t protect you if they decide you can’t sit with us anymore.”

“Shutting up now,” he assured her with a besotted smile that made Bailey’s heart sigh.

Dani’s wish had come true. She was with the man who had been her best friend through one of the most difficult periods of her life, the man who’d always adored her and wanted her enough to make all her dirty, dirty dreams come true. Liam was one of the rare good ones, and someday they would make sweet, fat babies that Auntie Bailey could spoil positively rotten.

For half a second, she let herself wish someone would choose her like that. Put her first. But that kind of thing wasn’t in her cards.

“So, he was smart enough to choose Ava,” Dani said thoughtfully, leaning into Liam’s touch as he played with her curls. “No one can stop talking about how gorgeous he is or how much money he makes, and you haven’t complained about him once since we got here, even though he beat your price and bought your inn. Is he married?”

“Um, no. He isn’t married.” But he wasn’t single either. She thought about the chemistry between Cam and Davide and her thighs started to sweat. The idea of watching them together, of joining them in real life, got more arousing every time she thought about it. More necessary.

Necessary?No. Exciting, incendiary, and possibly life altering? Yes. But not necessary.

“At the risk of getting sent back to the bar, is he a jackass?” Liam asked carefully.

“I thought he was.” She hesitated. “Mostly, he’s confusing. Stiff and grumpy one minute, sincere and interesting the next…”

Asking for a date, kissing my boxers off and then flying away.

Kaya dropped her napkin over her empty plate and crossed her arms. “To use one of your favorite sayings, you need to put some more meat on that bone, Bailey. Between the vibes you’re putting out and Dani and Liam playing footsie under the table, I’m about to go into sugar overload and I didn’t even order dessert.”

“We’re not that bad. Are we?” Dani asked, scooting her chair away from Liam’s with a guilty look.

“According to Jace, we’re horrible,” he said with an unrepentant grin. “But most couples are, in his opinion. The man has no romance in his soul.”

“He has a soul?” Kaya jibed, the energy around her changing the way it always did when he came up.

Bailey’s habit was to distract her from the Jace-hating spiral that was about to commence. Unfortunately, when she opened her mouth, everything she’d been trying not to say came pouring out without her permission. “Locke has a boyfriend. A partner. His assistant. I may have made out with him on a ladder. The assistant, I mean. I only kissed Locke.”

“What?!” Dani looked around in embarrassment after the shout, lowering her voice to a whisper-hiss, “What?”

“Pretty much,” Bailey confirmed, shifting in her seat to avoid Kaya’s penetrating stare. “I think I’ve been invited for a ride on their kinky train. Not that I know for sure that anything truly kinky like spanking or restraints would be involved, but they both give off that vibe, you know? Davide is a proven exhibitionist and Cam is bossy, for obvious reasons. They even have this kind of Grouchy and the Rebel act that… What?”

“They want a Bailey sandwich,” Dani breathed, wide-eyed.

---