Licked (L.A. Liaisons Book 1) by Brooke Blaine Read Free Book Online Page B

James Dean’s older brother. I bit down hard on my lip.  
    “…just here to check your schedule. Hello? Ryleigh?” Shayne waved her hand in front of my face, and I snapped out of my stupor.  
    “What?”
    Her gaze followed mine to where Hunter was looking right at me. And his eyes on mine snapped me back to reality, and I quickly looked away.  
    “Sorry, what were you saying?” I asked. “Check my schedule for what?”
    Shayne’s eyebrow went up. “Isn’t that Cameron’s roommate? The one staring at you?”
    I didn’t bother looking to see who she meant. Or if he was still looking at me. “Yeah, apparently so. So you were saying—”
    “He’s hot . Holy cow.” Shayne fanned herself with her hand. “I don’t know how you plan to get any work done with the Chippendales over there.”
    Rolling my eyes, I wiped the counter with a little more vigor. “I do have world domination plans to deal with, so I think I’ll be a little preoccupied.”
    She laughed. “Of course you do. So how’s this Sunday night for a mixer? I know it’s Wednesday and less than a week notice is crazy last-minute, but you know—”
    “Val,” I said, shaking my head. “You have the most demanding, psychotic boss in the world, you know that, right?”
    “Girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. She’s entertaining, at the very least.”
    “She’s a pill-popping sexual deviant diva whore.”
    “True.”
    “She sets you up with all the client rejects as ‘interviews.’”
    “And there’s that.”
    “And what about the time she made you go to her house to FedEx her favorite pair of panties to her while she was on vacation?”
    Shayne laughed. “That too.” She ran her hands over her long, curly red locks, the kind that made you think of the quintessential feisty Irish lass—which was far from what she actually was.  
    A sweet Australian transplant, that’s what she was. She’d been such a quiet thing when she’d first arrived in L.A., all bright-eyed with an accent everyone fainted over, but after a decade in the U.S., she’d been thoroughly corrupted and lost most of the loony Aussie words we didn’t understand, though she could pull them back out when she needed to. And damn, did the boys love that.  
    I grabbed my appointment book from behind the counter and looked at this week’s schedule. Not that I didn’t already know it, but it never hurt to double-check myself.  
    We closed the shop Sunday evenings and Mondays, leaving it open for private parties and events, and if we didn’t have those—a much-needed break. Shayne worked with one of the top matchmaking companies in the city, and they frequently held mixers at Licked. I loved it—watching all that first-date awkwardness was entertaining as hell.  
    “Sunday works,” I said, tossing the appointment book back in its spot.  
    “You’re a goddess.” Shayne leaned over the bar and grabbed me in a tackle hug. “I’ll make sure to tell Val last-minute bookings require a twenty percent surcharge.”  
    “No complaints about that. Want a shake to go?”  
    “Nah, I have a feeling I’ll be stopping by quite a bit over the next few weeks. You know. For the view.” She looked back at the guys working next door and grinned.  
    I swiped her with my dishrag. “Out, you perv. Go slack somewhere else.”  
    She waved as she left, and her timing was perfect. We were slammed with a rush of customers for a good three hours straight, several of them asking for flavors reserved for our Friday night ‘Flavors from Your Favorite Flicks’ theme. That day always proved to be a popular one. I mean, who could resist buying a Bleedin’ Armadillo Grooms Cake shake or a Cinderfuckinrella sundae?  
    When it slowed, I took the opportunity to go next door to check things out and make sure there were no issues. It’d been a steady mix of drills and hammering throughout the day, so I wasn’t worried, though I’d had to turn up the music in the shop to