gestured down her length, drawing my eyes to her bare legs. I’d had my hand on them for far too brief a time. “Shit. Where is my dress?”
She started for the bedroom, then glared at me over her shoulder as I laughed—I couldn’t help it; she was adorable in her frazzled state. “And put a shirt on.”
“Why don’t you throw me the one you’re wearing?”
She flipped me the finger instead.
“Titou? I know you’re there.”
“You think she can hear us breathing?” I whispered into Emma’s ear as she hustled back into the room, wrenching her sundress over her pretty tits before thrusting a shirt at my bare chest.
Despite the quelling glare she gave me, she started to snicker. “God. How old are we?”
Ignoring the shirt, I snagged her about the waist and hauled her closer, brushing a kiss on the curve of her neck. “Why are you freaking out?”
“Because . . .” She lifted a helpless hand and waved it. “It’s rude to Amalie for me to be . . .”
“Sucking off her grandson?”
“Oh my God.” She punched my arm in horror even as her eyes sparked in amusement. “You are sick!”
“Titou!” Amalie sounded sharp now, annoyed that I hadn’t answered.
I turned to do just that, when the door rattled and then began to open. I swung my gaze back to Emma. “You didn’t lock it!”
Shit. My hair was sticking up wildly, I didn’t have a shirt on, and Emma was still half-dressed. She rightfully smirked at the panic in my eyes. “Something wrong, honey pie?”
“She’ll be relentless.” I set Emma to the side as carefully as I could for someone rushing to get to the door before it could fully open, hopping over one of my shoes and skirting a chair. But it was too late. My grandmother waltzed into the house with an altogether fake look of surprise upon her face as she took in the scene.
“Well,” she said expansively, “now I understand why you didn’t answer sooner.”
There I stood, full-on blushing in front of my grandmother. It was karma, payback for teasing Emma. I could sense Emma just to my right, her silence speaking volumes in my head. I knew if I turned and caught her gaze I’d see “Look who’s laughing now, sucker” in her eyes.
My jaw ticced. “Mamie. You need something?”
Mamie’s gaze moved from me to Emma and back again. “Oh, nothing really. Not anything serious enough to disturb you two right now.” She clapped her hands together, the heavy rings on her fingers clinking. “Oh, but this is marvelous. I’d hoped this would—”
“We were just having lunch,” I cut in.
I could all but feel Emma stiffen. And I winced internally. For all her protests, I didn’t think she liked being relegated to just lunch.
Mamie’s lip curled slyly, telling me exactly what she thought of my sad excuse. “Is that what you kids are calling it these days?”
God. Refusing to squirm, I narrowed my eyes at her. Mamie merely beamed.
“Well then,” she said. “I shall leave you two to . . . eat.” She gave us a queenly nod and then left us alone, quietly closing the door behind her with a definitive click.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Then Emma’s musical voice, tinged with irony, drifted over the thick silence. “Just having lunch, eh?”
Wincing, I faced her. She stood by the table, hair mussed, lips still softly swollen from my kisses, her eyes glinting in either humor or irritation. It was a toss-up.
Hell. I needed to explain. “I—”
Emma burst out laughing. “God. That was awful. I felt like a fifteen-year-old caught in a boy’s room.”
A smile tugged at my mouth. “Creep into many boys’ rooms, did you?”
“Sadly, no. I was a gawky homebody who didn’t get a date until college. But I dreamed of it.”
I couldn’t imagine a time when I wouldn’t want Emma. “If we’d met as teens, I would have invited you to my room. Or crawled into yours.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” she said with flippant assurance. “You wouldn’t have even seen me.”
“I would too. How can you say that?” I didn’t know why I was arguing hypotheticals with her other than it was better than focusing on the rabid panic I’d felt when Amalie had found us together.
“You were one of the popular guys, weren’t you?” She looked me over, as if seeing my younger self. “And probably hotter than you needed to be.”
“Well, I don’t know about hot, but okay, I was popular.” I shifted my weight, rubbing the