Tell Me You Crave Me (Search and Seduce 3)

“You can’t put ‘hangs out at a bar all day’ on my…what the hell are you even doing?” Natalie set down the cupcake she was frosting and looked up from the prepping table in the back of the shop to glare at her friends.

Michelle had brought her laptop into the cupcake shop, and now both of Natalie’s friends were set up on her counter and huddled around it, and they were asking way too many questions.

“We’re making you a profile,” Michelle said. “And we need to put this information on here so the men you date have a better sense

of who you are.”

Michelle just kept typing and clicking while Chloe polished off her third cupcake and rubbed her very pregnant belly. They were her two best friends, and while Michelle was newly engaged, Chloe was expecting twin girls any day now, thanks to her super-hot search and rescue husband, Gage McGraw.

“I still think this is a bad idea.” Natalie put the finishing touches on the cupcake’s frosting and then wiped down the counter. There was a smear of frosting she’d missed from earlier, and the stupid smudge reminded her that only last night she’d had sex with East right here…

She sprayed cleaner and scrubbed harder.

“You need this profile if you want to find a date by the wedding,” Michelle said. She was happily typing away on the laptop, and Chloe was reading over her shoulder. After she’d called them in a panic earlier, both of her BFFs had showed up to save the day. Except their version of saving the day was setting her up on Match.com.

“Looking for a short-term, good-time, no-strings kind of fun…” Michelle mumbled.

“That makes me sound like I’m looking for a hookup,” Natalie said.

“Well…” Chloe coughed. “Does it matter? You just need a good enough first date to invite the guy to the wedding for the second date.”

Natalie was starting to think maybe she was too far out of her area of expertise to deal with this. She wasn’t her mother. That woman was graceful and classy and could turn the head of any man she wanted. Natalie? Not even close.

“No one around here is going to date me—” Natalie started.

“That’s not true!” Chloe cut in. “You’re very dateable. It’s just that everyone in town knows you.”

Michelle tapped a few more keys. “Which is why I’m expanding the search to a fifty-mile radius. Unless…” She stopped typing and looked Natalie dead in the eye. “Is there someone you’re interested in?”

Something felt off about the way her friend posed that question and kept that pretty, questioning gaze locked on her. There was no way she could know about East, right?

“Around here?” Natalie asked.

Michelle just continued to look at her. “Yes. If you like someone, there’s no shame in that. No matter how close to home they are.”

Okay, now Natalie was being paranoid. She really thought Michelle might know about East…but there was no way.

“Nope,” Natalie said, cutting off this line of questioning. “There’s no one in Beaufort I’d want to date.” And that was the truth. Easton Ambrose was the least dateable person in these parts. Next to Natalie, that was. Ironic.

“Okay,” Michelle said, going back to typing. “Hookups can be fun, too. You’re hot, Nat. But if the men around here are so set on friend-zoning you, then we’ll go to a different zone.”

That was Michelle. Miss Can-Do Attitude, all the time.

Natalie smiled. Her friends really were great. Too bad she couldn’t tell them that the one man she never thought would ever look twice at her was officially out of the friend zone and in the “oh shit we totally had sex” zone.

Even if she could tell them, she could never go for East anyway…but that didn’t stop her from needing to talk about it. In some way. Because this was killing her. She didn’t know how to process half the feelings she was feeling, and worse, she was pretty sure one of those feelings was withdrawal, like East was some kind of drug. The whole day today, she could still feel him every time she moved.

Yeah, she needed to talk. But she couldn’t out any of the details. Maybe she could be discreet…

“So, most of these guys are probably players, right?” Natalie started. Both of her friends looked up at her. “I mean…” She pointed to the screen. “They won’t be looking for anything long term.”

“You want something long term?” Chloe asked.

Natalie shrugged. “Eventually. One day. I just want…”

“Passion,” Chloe said. She remembered from the discussion they’d had back when Chloe was fighting against wanting Gage. Passion had never been a problem for her. And yeah, Natalie wanted that. In fact, she’d had a taste of that with East. And it was addictive.

“You can find that,” Michelle said. “Maybe one of these guys will work out. You never know!”