Page 48 of Unexpected Temptation

“I loved the idea of love—the grand gestures, the heart-fluttering moments, the happily-ever-afters, but it was all just fantasy. Real-life relationships seemed so complicated, so daunting. I couldn’t imagine myself in those situations. I was awkward, unsure, and scared of putting myself out there. It was easier to live through Riley, you know?”

“I know,” I tell her, meaning it. It’s not like I’m some Casanova.

“Then, things changed when my mom got sick. It happened so suddenly, and everything else faded into the background. I stopped thinking about romance, boys, and anything other than caring for her. There wasn’t room for anything else in my life, certainly not for dating or losing my virginity.”

She folds her arms, having no idea how it pushes those perfect tits together. Goddamn, I want to tear her shirt off, suck her nipples. The wordvirgintriggers something deep and primal in me.

“Do you think this would make me want you less?” I growl.

She gasps. “I didn’t know you wanted me.”

“You have to,” I tell her, “by now.”

When I grab her hips, she makes the sweetest moaning noise, but she doesn’t try to stop me from pulling her right up against me. She wraps her arms around me, and we lose ourselves in the kiss. Her body heats up against me, and then she pulls back, panting.

“Wait,” she whispers. “I know I shouldn’t be like this. You’ve been so?—”

“If you’re doing any of this because of your job, then we need to stop. Now.”

For some twisted reason, Vanessa enters my mind. I push it away. Goddamn it.

“No,” she says quickly, “but I don’t want to string you along or give you false ideas. If you want a fling, I get it.”

“I don’t want a fling,” I snap.

She looks at me with wide, innocent eyes; warmth clashes with the savage heat in me. Being close to her makes my body stiff, ready, and hungry. WhatdoI want from her? That’s the question I’ve been trying to answer since I first saw her at the window, sharing so much love with little Loki.

“A date,” I say suddenly, smirking, trying to make this all feel less intense, which seems impossible.

“Really?”

“A date,” I say, with more certainty this time, “meaning we go someplace, eat, do something, laugh, kiss.”

She moves closer to me. “Just kiss, huh?”

“Maybe more,” I say, my body starting to burn as much as hers looks like it is.

“Uh, okay.” She beams through her nerves. “I mean, hell yeah!”

“How about I text you some dates and times.”

“That sounds great.”

I nod. “I guess I’ll be going, then.”

She nods, too, but then she moves forward and wraps her arms around me. How she does it tells me that this isn’t aboutthatkind of heat. I slowly wrap my arms around her.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

“I just delivered some meds.”

“No, for everything. For being cool about Mom. About everything else.”

Byeverything else, I know she means the fact she can’t give her young, curvy, virgin self to me.Yet.

“We need to stay focused,” Tank says over speakerphone as I drive back toward the sanctuary. After a heavy pause, he says, “You got to let her go.”

That’s when I know he’s been building up to this. I still feel raw after what I shared, but I was smiling before this crap. I need to try and be civil. “It’s not that simple.”

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