Lila pouted, but Brady pulled a simple white toothbrush sealed in plastic out of his back pocket and handed it to her. “We’re a full-service inn, you know.”
She took it begrudgingly and examined it. “You spelled the name of the inn wrong.”
“What?” Brady snatched it back and examined it while Lila smirked. My cousin had a bit of a naïve streak, but luckily, it only came out when he was around beautiful women.
And Lila sure was beautiful. There was no question of that. The first time I laid eyes on her in person, back in that fake lab, I’d wanted to plunge my fingers in her mane of honey brown hair. I’d actually been jealous that Gideon got to give her a scalp massage—not that he’d been able to feel the texture of her locks through the gloves he wore.
“What other tech have you tried to sneak in?” Brady asked Lila, but his gaze was on me, and I realized I wasn’t doing my part.
Plunging my hand into her suitcase, I ignored the smooth, silky undergarments and zeroed in on something I’d caught a glimpse of before. An eReader.
“Oh, come on,” Lila complained. “You guys are all about the old-fashioned lifestyle. Shouldn’t you want me to read?”
Brady spoke before I could. “Back in the olden days, there were these low-tech devices that people could use, and we just happen to have a bunch of them out in the lounge. They’re called books.”
“Don’t use terms she doesn’t understand,” Gideon said from behind the camera.
Lila’s pink lips curved into a snarl as she turned to him before she caught herself. “Books… I think I’ve heard of them.”
“They’re made out of paper,” Gideon said, his voice full of sarcasm designed to make our guest see red. “Paper comes from trees. And trees are those large green things surrounding the inn.”
“I wondered what those were,” Lila said, unfazed. “Guess not everything’s been replaced by tech… yet.”
I shuddered at the thought. I loved the woods around the house. Brady and I had spent our summers out there from dawn until dusk. But I didn’t think Lila was truly anti-nature. She just seemed anti-Gideon.
As I set her eReader down on the growing pile of things we were confiscating, she sulked at me. “So if you guys are supposed to replace my tech, is one of you going to come read me a bedtime story at night?”
A not-safe-for-work image filled my mind. It involved me sitting next to a very scantily clad Ms. James and reading her an adult story that would make her toes curl. I had to admit, it was an intriguing thought—mainly because Lila was an intriguing woman.
She was beautiful, yes, with curves in all the right places. But it was more than that. Once she’d come onto our radar, I’d watched a lot of her videos to find out who she was and why she went after us. I still hadn’t figured out the latter, but that didn’t change the fact that she was a vivacious young woman.
When she talked about something that excited her, her green eyes lit up and her smile made me smile, too. She could be snarky, yes, but as far as I could tell, she hadn’t been outright mean to anyone but us. She was even endlessly patient with her assistant. Though Penny didn’t usually appear on camera, Lila often sought out her opinion, and she seemed very good with the shy young woman.
The main word that came to mind when I thought of Lila wassassy. The word itself sounded very dated, but it was what my grandfather always used to describe a spirited woman—my grandmother included.
Somehow, it suited Lila.
When we were hatching our plan, I’d sometimes speak of Lila in ways that gave the other two pause. Brady once told me that I sounded like half of me wanted to punish her and the other half of me wanted to fuck her. Then Gideon had made a very off-color remark about combining the two, but it was Brady’s observation that had stuck with me.
Lila had insulted me, my cousin, my friend, and my home… which meant, in essence, that she had attacked my family. That pissed me off, but I couldn’t help recognizing that it seemed out of character for her.
And I couldn’t shake the conviction that she was one intriguing, vibrant, and sassy young woman.
“What’s this?” Brady was holding an oblong black bag. Lila grabbed for it, but he spun around, dodging her reach. He’d never been the biggest guy on the football field in high school, but he was fast. Once he got the ball, he’d dodge and weave until he’d cleared the end zone.
“Give me that,” Lila said, lunging for it again, but Brady easily avoided her.
“I will if it’s not electronic,” Brady said. He untied the draw strings of the black fabric and shook the bag. Something hot pink fell into his other hand. “What do we have here?”
“It’s none of your business,” Lila said.
“It definitely looks electronic to me,” I said. The item was made of translucent pink plastic, and while the device was foreign to me, the shape wasn’t.
“And battery operated,” Gideon observed.
Brady fiddled with a dial, and suddenly it was buzzing and quaking. And not just a little, either. That thing would’ve vibrated its way off of Brady’s open palm if he hadn’t shut it off. “That’s definitely on the naughty list.” He grinned at Lila. “So to speak.”
He tossed it to me, and it took me so much by surprise I nearly fumbled it. I examined it, struck by how realistic the shape was. Except for being hot-pink and translucent. “Do women really like this kind of thing?”