Page 171 of Knot in the Wedding Cards

“Move aside, both of you. I can do it. Somebody find me a blow dryer.”

Beckett hands over the tools without argument.

August disappears into the bathroom and returns thirty seconds later with a small travel dryer and a bottle of leave-in that smells faintly of coconut.

Amber watches the whole exchange with bright, curious eyes, then shrugs the robe off her shoulders and lets it pool around her hips. She’s completely naked underneath—skin still flushed from whatever Beckett put her through, curls a tangled halo around her face, the faint marks of teeth and fingertips visible along her collarbones and the insides of her thighs.

She looks too hot for a simple hair-care session.

I still want to do it.

She settles cross-legged in the center of the bed again, spine straight, hands resting loosely on her knees.

The others sprawl around her—Beckett propped against the headboard, August stretched out on his side with his head near her thigh—both of them relaxed in a way I haven’t seen since the day I rolled into this town. No tension. No careful distance.

Just four people who have finally stopped running long enough to share a mattress.

I plug the dryer in, test the heat on the back of my own hand, then start working the comb through the worst of the tangles.

Soft, patient strokes from the ends upward. Amber’s eyes flutter half-closed.

“You happy?” I ask quietly, over the low hum of the dryer.

She opens her eyes and smiles—slow, genuine, the kind that reaches all the way to the green flecks in her hazel. “Yup. Super happy.” A beat. She tilts her head, studying my face with the same sharp attention she uses on seating charts. “Ishehappy?”

The look she gives me is knowing. She can smell the residual heat on my skin, the way August’s scent still clings to my collar.

She knows exactly what we were doing out by the fire.

I lean in and press a soft kiss to the side of her neck, right over the place where her pulse jumps.

“Yeah,” I whisper against her skin. “I’m happy. He’s happy. Now let’s get this hair sorted so we can snuggle.”

She giggles, the sound vibrating under my mouth.

“Snuggle my ass. You’re gonna make my hair messy again.”

I straighten, still working the dryer in long, careful passes, and meet her eyes in the mirror of the dark window.

“I’ll attempt to be reasonable.”

I know firsthand I’m totally not keeping that promise.

CHAPTER 34

Pancakes For Four

~AMBER~

Iwake the way you surface from warm water — slow, reluctant, some animal part of me already bargaining for five more minutes before my eyes have agreed to open.

The first thing I register is that I can't move.

The second is that I don't want to.

I'm pinned.

Not trapped —held. There's a wall of heat down my left side and a second one curled along my right, and the weight of a heavy arm draped across my waist keeps me anchored to the mattress like I might otherwise float off.