The next morning, Roxy dumped kibble in the cat bowl and filled the water dish. Winston hadn’t actually come out to see her yet, but the cat was old and was probably trying to hide from the stuffed critters.
After the cat dishes were filled, she sat at the kitchen table eating the cake from last night.
“I can make eggs.”
“Why?” She was achy in all the best places and eating frosting from a giant wooden spoon. It was like paradise. On top of that, she was watching her very hot boyfriend… well, they hadn’t labeled it. Lover? Yuck. She hated that word. Boy-toy. That worked. She was watching her very hot boy-toy make coffee.
It was like she was bouncing around on her very own personal ninth cloud.
“An egg is at least food.”
“Cake is food. It even has eggs in it.”
He shook his head as he filled a mug with coffee. He sat on a chair next to the table and took her spoon—they still hadn’t found the drawer with normal sized silverware—and took a bite of what was left. “This is good.”
“It is.” She stole her spoon back. “You’re lucky I’m in a good mood, or this spoon would be stuck somewhere unpleasant.”
His lips quirked in an adorable smirk. “Good thing I managed to put you in a good mood, then.” He leaned over and ate the cake off her spoon. “Multiple times.”
“You do understand multiple times does not equal multiple bites of cake. Right?” She pulled the plate out of his reach.
He stretched his hand across her body for the spoon, but she wasn’t having any of that. “Not even one bite per orgasm?”
They were pretty good orgasms… but this was cake. The pout on his lips as he looked at the plate on the other side of the table made her weak. Who was she kidding? When it came to him, she was always weak. “Fine. One bite.”
“Per. Meaning I get two more bites.”
“Weren’t you going to make eggs? Eat some real food and leave my fake food alone?”
“This is more fun.” Maybe for him. Not for her. She offered the spoon to Rafe and watched his lips wrap around the tip. He pulled away and stray frosting lined the corner of his mouth.
She fought to keep her tongue inside her head. It wanted to reach out and lick someone until his lip was shiny like a new penny. But then his tongue came out to play, slowly wiping his lip clean. Dear heaven, that was hot.
“What’s with this cake, anyway?” he asked. “Why did they leave it in an empty house?”
“It’s a gender reveal cake. It’s how you tell people if you’re having a boy or a girl. Apparently, Mrs. Schmidt’s having a granddaughter.” The piece of cake left on the plate was decorated with a white chocolate circle. It was round, with a weird crest. She knew that crest.
Like the cake in the hotel.
Rafe must have had the same thought. “So, Amy’s having a girl.”
Roxy shook her head. “No, she isn’t. She and Donnie are having a boy.”
“But the cake in the hotel room was pink. At the risk of being a sexist, isn’t that a girl color?”
He was right. If the cake wasn’t for Amethyst, who was it for?
“Whose cake could it have been?” Rafe kept saying what Roxy was thinking. It would be creepy if Roxy didn’t think it was so darn cute.
Roxy had to think about that. She ate more cake while she thought. “Steve’s daughter is having a girl. Gretchen was meeting Donnie to talk about something important. But she’s not telling anyone about the baby’s sex yet. How would Donnie have found out?”
“Do you know anyone else who’s pregnant in this group? Maybe it was someone else.” Rafe’s eyes were glued to last bits of cake on the plate.
He could glue all he wanted, but they were hers.
“Maybe, but doesn’t it seem strange that Gretchen was having a girl, and there’s a girl reveal cake in his room?” She lifted the spoon to her mouth and his gaze followed.
The heat built as his eyes grew heavy-lidded. “Could be a coincidence.”
“Is that what you think?” She stopped the spoon’s ascent and licked her lips. Her words were suddenly more breath than voice.
“No.” He pulled the spoon away from her and sucked the last bits clean off.
“Hey!” Empty. It was empty, and he just took it. “You owe me cake.”
“We should go talk to her.” Rafe licked his lips in a move that should have been sexy, but he stole her breakfast.
Roxy narrowed her eyes. “I should go talk to her.”
“Why don’t I get to go?”
“Because you stole the food from my mouth. Douche move.”
“That was, wasn’t it?” His tone said he felt bad for the move, but the smirk on his lips said he was just a douche. He took a sip of coffee.
She refrained from tipping it down the front of him. It would be fair play to steal his breakfast, but he didn’t have any other clothing. She’d never get a darn thing done today if he ran around Vegas without a shirt.
“If you’re coming with me, let’s go, food-klepto.” She tossed the spoon into the sink. She’d deal with the dishes later.
“We going to see Gretchen?”
“Yeah. I don’t believe in coincidence.”
Rafe laughed. “You’re starting to sound like Detective Geary.”
No. She did not sound like him. “That was mean.”
“He doesn’t like you much.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” She sighed. Having Detective Dick hate her wasn’t exactly making her life easy these days. It could be because she called him Detective Dick. But probably not. She’d never said it out loud. To him.
Rafe leaned in—inches from her face. His finger softly lifted her chin. “I had a huge crush on you in college.”
“What?” She nearly choked on the word. He’d had a crush on her? Since when? How? She’d had a crush on him. He hadn’t known she’d existed. Well, he’d known, he hadn’t cared.
“You wanted me to tell you something you didn’t know.” He shrugged. “I didn’t think you knew that.”
She smiled. He’d had a crush on her in college. “After everything that happened, I didn’t think that you cared about me at all. I always thought you started that rumor going around that I was sleeping with all your friends. Like the only way you’d be with me is if I was easy—not that you liked me.”
“I told everyone you were only with me.They just didn’t listen.” Rafe leaned in and his breath tickled her cheek. “I wanted to come and find you, but that’s when my sister started having trouble in school and I left campus to help out.” He brought her fingers to his mouth. “But make no mistake about it, you were always on my mind.”
She licked her lips as he stared at her like she was dessert. The look he gave her would lead to one thing. That one thing wasn’t heading to Gretchen’s to get answers. As he shifted closer, she found she didn’t care.
His lips pressed lightly to hers. It was soft and sweet and so damn hot her underwear might have gone up in flames.
“Let’s go.” He pulled away. “We should hit the road if we’re going to talk to Gretchen before Geary finds you and stun-guns your ass.”
Her underwear couldn’t care less about Gretchen. Or stun guns. But her mind knew better. She didn’t want to tangle with Geary again. Not after they found the murder weapon at her work. He probably had an APB and checkpoints set up throughout the city just to get her.