Page 35 of Not Your Ex's Hexes
“Are you okay?” Olive masked a yawn as they waited in the nacho line.
“I should be asking you that. You look like a strong wind could knock you over,” Rose pointed out. “You’re still having roommate problems?”
“I think we’ve finally come to an understanding. So are you okay? Or are you also wondering if Mom has been taken over by an alien?”
Rose chuckled, still not sure who’d taken over Christina’s body. When they’d all gone to the stylist to get their hair done for the ceremony, she’d not only been tolerable, but dare Rose say it,pleasant,even calling Harper by her correct name instead of Heather or Hallie, or some otherHname.
“Totally wondering,” Rose answered with a grin. “And I’m fine. I just keeping thinking about the puppies, hopingthey’reokay.”
“Miguel would call Damian if they weren’t, right?”
“True… but it doesn’t stop me from worrying.”
She’d told them everything about the rescue and the puppies at the salon, and Vi, especially, had listened raptly. It wouldn’t be longbefore her sister came nosing around the sanctuary looking for a playmate for her Maine coon, Mr. Fancy Pants.
“You sure it’s only the puppies you’re worried about?” Olive’s glasses amplified the worry glinting from her dark blue eyes.
“Of course.” Rose’s stomach fluttered with the small fib. “What else could I be worried about?”
Olive couldn’t sniff out a lie, but her former lawyer’s interrogation skills were still top-notch even after changing professions and becoming a Supernatural Studies professor at NYU. The truth was, the late-night puppy rescue wasn’t the only thing she couldn’t stop thinking about.
The second subject was her co-rescuer.
When they’d reached the clinic, she’d watched in awe as Damian’s large hands delicately handled each little puppy, giving them the expert TLC—and treatment—they’d needed. He’d been gentle and yet firm. Assertive yet reassuring.
He’d been a walking, brooding, and too-sexy-for-her-own-good conundrum she couldn’t seem to get out of her head no matter how hard she tried. And that kiss that rocked her to her core?
If it hadn’t been for the puppies’ lives hanging in the balance, she wasn’t so sure she wouldn’t have asked him for another, and for one after that.
Rose’s gaze automatically sought him out where he stood with Bax and Adrian, the three men laughing at something Bax had said. Damian glanced her way. The second his gaze locked on her, her lady bits went on instant high alert.
“Why don’t you go for it already?” Olive asked, breaking her ogle-fest.
“Go for what?”
“I’m the youngest by like four minutes, not forty years. You know damn well what—and who—I’m talking about. You’re both adults. You’re both single. Go for it, and partake of the orgasms.”
Rose ran her gaze up and down her sister’s black cocktail dress,another ceremony detail that nearly sent their mother’s head into a spin. “Evidently Mom isn’t the only one who was body-snatched. Who are you? Your voice sounds like Olly, but that advice is something that would come out of our older sister’s mouth… or Harper’s.”
“Not all their advice is bad. Some just aren’t particularly well thought out.”
“Neither is that one.”
“Why? Because you’re not the one giving it?” Olive challenged with a smirk. “He’s friends with both Linc and Adrian, and has been for a long time. That wouldn’t be the case if he wasn’t a good guy.”
“I’m not saying he’s not a good guy. I’m saying me going foritwithhimisn’t a good idea. Are we forgetting the last time Iwent for itwith a guy?”
“There’s one slight difference. Okay, two huge ones.” Olive kicked up her fingers one at a time. “First, Vi and IhatedPepé Le Pee-Yew from the moment we laid eyes on him.”
“Then why didn’t you—?”
“Say something? Because if it’s something you don’t want to hear, you won’t. And you most definitely didn’t.”
She couldn’t argue the point because it was true. Tunnel vision—and hearing—was a known fault of hers.
“And secondly,” Olive continued, “Damian’s not a power-hungry, opportunistic narcissist with psychopathic tendencies. He made a career aroundhelpinganimals. The only animal Pepé liked was the tiger he shifted into.”
“Not wrong… but what’s your point?”
