Free Dirty Sexy Knitting by Christie Ridgway Page B

over her shoulder and then turned back to Marlys. Her voice lowered. “Cute.”
    Marlys checked out the woman’s ring finger. A platinum and diamond honker clinched her marital status. “Taken,” she said anyway.
    Too soon, the other woman was gone and Marlys was left alone again with Dean, who had resumed prowling the shop. “Look,” she said, calling to him from the other side of the room. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I have boxes to unpack in the back and—”
    The bells on the door rang out again.
    “—customers,” Marlys finished, blessing whoever was coming over the threshold. She headed for the front of the store, mentally promising the newcomer an instant 10 percent discount.
    Then she noticed it was another man. Weird. She hadn’t had this many male customers since last December 24, twenty minutes before closing time. As she got closer, she realized which man it was.
    Her ex-boyfriend. Pharmaceutical rep Phil. AKA her one-time fuck buddy.
    She closed her eyes. Karma. Damn. That vindictive bitch was really pissed off. “What do you want?”
    Phil gave her that smile he’d been offering up ever since he’d walked into her boutique one November day and she’d begged for a no-strings boff later that afternoon. It was a grateful smile. Hopeful.
    “Just poking my head in to say hi,” he said.
    In case she was in the market for another kind of poke altogether. Last fall, he’d hummed to himself while he’d rocked on her body in her bed. She’d closed her eyes and pretended she was in the kitchen making toast.
    “I’m busy, Phil,” she said, her tone clipped. And if she ever felt sorry about how she treated men, she might feel sorry about that, because Phil had been doing her a favor that afternoon. As Dean had pointed out when he’d arrived for the date she’d set up with him to find the pharmaceutical rep leaving and Marlys dressed in her robe and smelling of the other man’s cologne, Phil hadn’t deserved to be used.
    “You sure?” he asked, hopeful again.
    Really, though, she didn’t think Phil had felt used. “I’m sure.”
    “Okay.” He gave a little wave and half-turned. Then he stopped, his gaze going over her head. “Hey, don’t I know you?”
    Marlys swallowed her groan. No. No.
    Dean’s arm reached around her. “Dean Long.”
    A quizzical light sparked in Phil’s eyes. “Where do I know you from?”
    Shit! She didn’t want Dean knowing they’d had a relationship before, let alone one that she’d ended in such an ugly way. Phil wouldn’t spill the beans, would he? He wouldn’t say, “Oh, yeah, you’re the guy on Marlys’s porch that miraculous day when she offered up some afternoon delight.” Would he?
    Phil rubbed his chin, and he appeared to be thinking back. “We know each other somehow.”
    Dean shrugged. “I couldn’t say—”
    “Because he’s busy, too, Phil.”
    “Busy with what . . . ?” Phil murmured, as he seemed to be thinking harder.
    Oh crap. Did she say bad day? Let’s call it a disaster and get it over with. Pharmaceutical Phil might be slow, but he didn’t suffer memory loss like Dean. Any moment now—but she couldn’t let that happen.
    In a move of total desperation, to get rid of Phil and to derail this dangerous conversation, she turned and launched herself toward Dean.
    “Busy with me,” she declared, then latched her mouth to the tall man’s, as behind her back she made urgent “get lost” gestures with one hand. The other had creeped around Dean’s neck.
    By the time his palms pressed the small of her back to hoist her closer, worries about Phil and doom had burned away in the heat of the mouth-on-mouth. She thought she heard the bells of the boutique’s door ring out again, but that might just be the disturbance caused by the bats in her belfry that had led her to commit such a crazy act.
    Because he tasted so crazy good.
    Dean snatched his mouth from hers. He was panting, his chest moving hard against hers. “We’ve