Page 29 of Sweet Temptation

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“HOW DO I LOOK?” Meg asked as she smoothed her hand down the length of her sexy dress and worked for some semblance of control.

John stood there for a moment, his eyes glued to the woman who was crashing through his well-constructed barriers without even trying. Her face was flushed, and her hair a tumbled mess. She looked like a woman who’d just been fucked, and he felt prouder than he should have at knowing that he was the one who’d made her look that way.

“You look like you just had the best sex of your life,” he said honestly, smirking. But the panic, and something else, something he couldn’t quite identify that flashed in her blue eyes, burst the satisfaction welling up inside him, leaving the air to escape his lungs like the hiss of a slow-deflating balloon.

“My family is out there,” she said, her breath shaky. “And the last thing I want is for them to know what the two of us have been doing in this storage room.”

Those words shouldn’t have pricked his flesh like a thousand angry hornets—he didn’t want them to—but damned if they didn’t sting, and there was not a goddamn thing he could do about it.

And I’m going to make sure that you need it, that you need me, forever.

He said a lot of words during sex. Made many commands, but never, ever in his life had he talked about the future. He didn’t make promises, because he knew that they would be empty.

But the fact remained that he’d said them. Were they words just spoken in the heat of the moment, or had they meant more...much more?

“Your zipper is down,” Meg said, worry swimming in her big blue eyes.

“Hey.” He zipped his pants and walked over to shut the garage door before fixing her with a concerned stare. “It’s okay to enjoy what we do, remember?”

Tugging on his shirt, he started toward her. He needed to soothe her. Needed to kiss those worry lines away.

“You go in first, and I’ll follow.” Kissing wasn’t on her mind, her gaze darting around the room quickly. “Here.”

Tucking her hair behind her ears, she moved to a baker’s rack and lifted a stack of cookie sheets. “Carry these in for me.”

“Okay,” he said and easily scooped the trays from her hands. Whatever made her relax.

Without warning the door that led to the kitchen rocketed open.

“I found them!” Jo’s stare darted from John to Meg, her eyes narrowing as she looked them over. A hint of disappointment inked her sharp features, as though she’d been hoping to catch them misbehaving...or was he reading too much into that?

He was relieved when her gaze dropped to take in the trays he was holding.

“John was just helping me carry these,” Meg said, her voice cool and collected. At least one of them had their shit together, and the fact that it was Meg was a harsh reminder that what they’d just done hadn’t fucked with her the same way it had fucked with him.

He shouldn’t care...and yet he did.

“What do you need those for?” Jo asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re not feeding an army tonight.”

“And your point is?” Meg retorted. “I need them for tomorrow, and now I don’t have to make five trips to carry them. They’re heavier than they look, you know.”

“Uh-huh.” Jo tapped her foot, shifting that inquisitive stare to John. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, suddenly acutely aware that she’d once worked as a journalist.

When she shifted to the side to let him past, he went gratefully. He was used to playing his cards close to his chest, but every time he was with Meg, he was certain that what he felt was etched in lines across his face, for everyone to see.

When he and Meg had started this—God, had it only been a few days ago?—he hadn’t seen the harm in indulging their mutual desire, with no one in their circle any the wiser. But as he entered the kitchen and walked across the room to set the trays on the stainless steel island, he felt a set of eyes drilling into his back.

Theo. John knew, without having to hear it, what his friend would think if he knew that he’d been with the woman he considered a sister.

John was fine for a friend. For a business partner. But in Theo’s eyes, he wasn’t good enough for Meg. Not even if he had real feelings for her.

What am I saying?

He turned slowly, his eyes lifting to meet the ones staring at him. Would it make a difference to Theo if he knew how John felt, that he’d never intentionally hurt Meg because he... Because he what? Loved her?

His gaze shifted in time to see Meg laugh at something her sister Amy said, and in that instant, the world as he knew it—his priorities—took a hard shift to the left.

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