Page 31 of Sweet Temptation

“Can I help?” Without thinking, he brushed a wayward lock of hair from her face.

“John!” She stiffened, her gaze cutting to her family. He snatched his hand back and resented it.

Occupied with setting the table and communicating with each other, no one in Meg’s family had noticed the reflex moment of tenderness. And he suddenly didn’t love that Meg was so hell-bent on keeping it from them, even though he’d agreed to it in the beginning.

“What would be so bad if someone did see?” He leaned toward her, a satellite in orbit, and for one moment she softened, opening to him.

Then Amy’s loud, infectious laugh cut through the air, and Meg jolted back, her shoulders stiffening.

“Why would we tell them?” She turned to the stove, stirring the vat of soup.

“I—”

Ford’s stomach growled loudly. Everyone laughed as he grinned sheepishly, cutting John off.

“Hold that thought!” Meg smiled brightly at her soon-to-be brother-in-law as she loaded a basket with bread. Tilting her head to John in an aside, she whispered, “Did I fuck the sense right out of you? It has to be like this. You know that.”

Just hearing the word fuck on her plump lips was enough to make John want to drag her back into the storage room for another round. Instead, he absorbed the problem—his sudden need for more and her insistence that it couldn’t work—analyzed and changed tactics.

“Have lunch with me tomorrow.” Her eyes widened in surprise, and he swallowed the grin of triumph.

“You don’t have to use code words.” She rolled her eyes. “You can say booty call like a grown-up.”

He opened his mouth to tell her that it wasn’t code for anything, but before he could speak, there was Jada again. At least this time, in the presence of her boss, she behaved...mostly.

“Jada. Seriously. I’m about to have dinner with my family.” Meg eyed her employee with exasperation.

“I just wanted to drop off my time sheet.” Holding out a sheet of paper, she waited until Meg took it, then winked at John.

“Thanks.” Meg was having none of it. “Next time send it in by email, please, like you’re supposed to.”

“Sorry.” Another little sidelong glance at John told him that she was sorry, not sorry. “I’ll go now.”

As she turned, she brushed up against John as she untied her apron, hanging it on the hook near the stove. She angled her body toward the door, then turned unexpectantly, biting down on her lip. “My ringer is on...all night.”

“You heard her, John.” Meg cast him a look that he couldn’t quite read before sliding her hands back into oven mitts and carrying the vat of soup to the table. “Her ringer is on.”

Goddammit.

Catching his eye, Jada gave her phone a little shake before shoving it into her purse. He closed his eyes and fought the urge to bang his head against the nearest hard surface.

He knew that Meg didn’t believe that he’d fucked her six ways to Sunday, then come out here to hit on her way too young assistant. Still, he felt the need to explain, to verbalize that there was no one else he wanted now that he’d found her.

Except he couldn’t, could he? Broodingly, he watched as she set the pot down on the table, then started to spoon soup into bowls and pass them down.

He couldn’t tell Jada that there was no way he’d be calling her, not here in Meg’s kitchen, with her family in earshot. He couldn’t, because she was clinging to the expiration date they’d set on their relationship.

“Good night, Jada.” He waved the other woman off absently, still watching Meg. The way she walked as she moved to the huge walk-in fridge and exited holding a large bowl of salad...the way she moved was already familiar to him. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t known her that long—he knew her.

She set the bowl down on the table, and he felt a pinch somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.

He wanted to be in the heart of that group, not hovering around the edges, no matter how much he’d once preferred that position. But he couldn’t—wouldn’t—insert himself unless Meg said he could.

If he believed that Meg really, truly only saw him as a fling, then he would willingly back off, even with his feelings thrown into the ring. But he didn’t believe that—hell, he knew that she cared for him, too. But she still saw him, at least on some level, as the playboy associate of the man she considered a brother. Still saw him as someone who couldn’t truly care and wouldn’t ever stay.

He did care...but he couldn’t stay. Could he? Was he chasing something that was impossible?

Logic told him yes, but for the first time in his entire life, he told logic where to go and how to get there.

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