Bad Boy: A Stepbrother Romance(57)

“Okay, I need something for your Dad. I have no idea what, so you might need to help me with that one,” she started saying, counting on her fingers. “Grandma needs a new teapot. I saw one I liked the other day.”

I grinned to myself. Great minds and all that.

“And Mom wants some crazily expensive scarf which I honestly can’t afford, so I’ll probably get her a gift set of her favorite perfume,” Rory finished, already looking determined and on top of things.

Fuck, I wished she were on top of me instead.

“Finn, are you coming?” Rory asked, giving me an impatient look. It was only then that I realized I was still standing several feet away, too deep in my thoughts to notice her walking away.

“Yeah, coming.”

I hurried after her and she ushered me into the first store—some horrible perfume and cosmetics hellhole which any man would run from, screaming for his life and the return of his sense of smell. Seriously, the scent of so many perfumes mixed in there gave me a headache from just walking past the smallest display.

While Rory uhm-ed and ahh-ed over some fragrance or another, I watched her out of the corner of my eye as I aimlessly browsed the aisles.

She was so beautiful, even doing the simplest of things. The way her eyebrows furrowed when she looked at the price tag, she way she smiled to herself when she found what she wanted, the way she kept pulling at her scarf nervously, and the way she bit her bottom lip in concentration…all stunning.

She was perfect, from every wayward strand of hair to the worn-down boots she was sporting. She wasn’t one of those cookie-cutter picture-perfect girls I used to go after all the time. Her hair wasn’t always in place, her clothes weren’t made by expensive designers, and she didn’t really wear much makeup, but to me, she was still the most gorgeous girl on the planet. Every second I was without her, I wanted to be closer; needed her next to me. If I couldn’t touch, I just wanted to look at her, rest my eyes on her beauty. To me, Rory was all that and then some.

I guess she figured out I was staring, because she started giving me some weird looks. She finally asked if I was okay, and I mumbled some shitty excuse about being cold, placing a hand on her shoulder as we looked at another display together.

Really, I was wondering what the chances were of a relationship actually working out between us. I knew our parents were married, which was our main problem…but now that I’d been with Rory, I knew there was no going back, and I wondered if she felt as deeply as me. It might be a problem if she didn’t. I’d been falling for her before, but now I was well and truly…#p#分页标题#e#

My eyes landed on a familiar figure in the distance and I cringed as I realized it was Candice.

“Hey, can you help me pick one of these gift sets for your Dad?” Rory asked. She looked up to make sure I’d heard her, and she stopped once she saw who I was looking at. “Oh, god.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t think she’s seen us,” I muttered.

As if on cue, Candice locked eyes with me, and I stood there like a deer in the headlights.

I gave her a tight-lipped smile in order to appear civil, and her eyes floated to Rory standing beside me with my hand on her shoulder. All she did was smirk, and then she kept on walking. A huge weight fell off my shoulders as she disappeared around the corner.

“You don’t think it’s a problem that she saw us together, right?” Rory asked me worriedly.

“Nah,” I said with a shrug. “She wouldn’t tell anyone. Probably thought it was nothing.”

Rory nodded, and I hugged her to make her feel a little better. The smile that spread over her face made me grin even wider.

The rest of our shopping trip was great. It was genuinely fun to spend time with Rory out in the open, instead of hiding behind the locked doors of our rooms or sneaking glances and furtive touches at the dinner table with our family sitting only inches away.

We were almost done with our shopping when we stopped in front of a well-known lingerie store. Rory lingered, and I caught her looking at a pretty damn risqué bra and thong set.

“You like that?” I asked her, waggling my eyebrows. Because I sure as hell do. My hands were weighed down with shopping bags and I was dead tired, but what I wouldn’t give to see Rory in that set…

“Not for me,” she said shyly.

“Come on, at least try it on.” I gave her an encouraging nudge, and she sighed, hesitating in front of the store entrance.

“I have always wanted a nice set of lingerie,” she murmured.

I gave a triumphant nod, and finally, she smiled at me and led me inside the store. I quickly enlisted the help of a woman that worked there, and she gave Rory the set in her size, along with some other sets she’d suggested.