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Holding out my hand to her, I tug her to her feet and walk her to the back of the salon, away from prying eyes. We have an aesthetician who works here a few days a week and thankfully she isn’t here today and her room is empty.

Closing the door, I press Clementine up against it. Her hands find my face and she slams her lips to mine.

“How did you know?” she murmurs.

“That your new hair made you horny?”

“That word is so weird.” She kisses me again. Hard. “But yes, that.”

I smile against her lips as my hands cup her ass and she wraps her legs around my waist. ”You feel sexy, baby. Own it.”

The kiss deepens and Clementine rolls her hips against me just as someone knocks on the door. She stiffens in my arms when Georgie’s voice comes through from the other side of the door.

“Zara,” she says. “Your four thirty is here.”

Clementine slaps a hand over her mouth, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

“I’ll be out in a second,” I tell her.

Clementine drops her head to my shoulder. “This is so embarrassing.”

“Look at me.” She raises her eyes to meet mine. “Own it, remember?”

With Clementine’s hand in mine, I open the door, and Georgie’s eyes are incredulous, her smile wide. “Um…” She reaches over and flattens the top of Clementine’s hair before looking at me. “Maybe quickly go over the back.”

Clementine anxiously follows the motion with her hands, and I drag them off her head. “Sit back down and I’ll fix it.”

She turns and mouths,“Oh my God.”

And I just tap her ass and wink.

Sitting down, she grabs her phone while I make it look a little less like sex hair at the back. In the mirror, I catch her smiling at the screen before glancing around. There’s a young man waiting at the front, and next to him is a young girl who could only be Raine’s age or a little bit older.

“That’s Lennox,” she informs me as she waves at the young man.

As I finish up, I lead her to him, just in time to hear him say, “I never imagined you as a redhead, but now I can’t see you as anything else.”

I watch their interaction curiously as she responds to him proudly, shaking her head from side to side and then splaying her right hand against her chest before pulling it away and making her middle finger and thumb come together.

I know she’s learning how to sign, but I still have no idea which is what, and it almost feels like I’m intruding.

“I love it,” he says before his gaze almost knowingly darts to mine. Whether his brothers told him who I am, or he could just tell by the constant stars in my eyes I have for Clementine, he’s onto us.

When Clementine looks back at me, I tuck some of her hair behind her ear before kissing her on the cheek. It’ll have to do, even if I wish we could wind back the clock to ten minutes earlier.

Lennox and his friend laugh, catching our attention, and Clementine signs again, rubbing a fist over her chest.

Lennox shakes his head. “We aren’t in a rush.”

He guides his friend to the front door, leaving Clem and I to say our goodbyes.

“Sorry I didn’t introduce you two properly,” she says. “I sometimes forget about his accident, and my mind scrambles at the last minute to make it easier for him.”

“It’s fine,” I assure her, leaning forward and kissing her on the cheek. “I’m pretty sure he caught me staring at you like you hung the moon, and figured it out anyway.”

“I hang the moon, do I?” she teases, a smirk on her lips.

“I don’t know about anyone else’s, but you definitely hang mine.”