Page 33 of So Close

“I’ll be there. I agreed to follow the schedule, didn’t I? I don’t break my word.”

I was right,she thought, and then,shut up, you’re so naive.

For a moment she doubted the entire wisdom of the plan. Because saving Beachcrest wasnotworth losing her self-respect again. Not by a long shot.

But no one was asking her to sacrifice her self-respect. She could take a deep breath, tamp down the unruly scraps of attraction, and Get. This. Thing. Done. Wherever they went, including afternoon tea this afternoon, there would also be other people. The romance writers, the fishermen. Reinforcements. Buffers. It would be relatively safe.

“Will there be milk, to go with the cookies? I’m not exactly a dainty tea drinker.”

And, after all, he was the one showing weakness. He was the one who’d slid under her kitchen sink, who’d picked a dust bunny off her shirt, who’d used the word “gooey,” who’d admitted that chocolate chip was his favorite.

She should be thrilled by the fact that he was showing himself. Showing a soft, almostplayfulside. Because it was a sign that Beachcrest’s magic was working on him.

But it felt like the most dangerous thing of all.

She knew. The danger was inside her. It was her weakness. For his body, honed by expensive gym equipment, his power, stoked by years of ambition, and his money. The same weakness that had left her at Patrick’s mercy.

“Ice cold,” she said.

It was an answer to his question about the milk, but also a reminder to herself.

16

Auburn moved around the room as Trey watched. Chatting. Laughing, with a toss of her curls. Carrying trays of cookies from one guest to the next, offering them to the writers, the fishermen, the family.

She giggled at something her front desk clerk said to her, then threw an arm around the other woman’s shoulders. She looked up and her eye caught his. Damn it. He looked away.

He had tried, several times, to stop watching her, but every time he thought he’d tamed the impulse, he found his eyes on her again.

Something bad was happening.

When they’d lain under the kitchen sink earlier, he’d been unable to think about anything except her closeness. They’d turned their heads at the same time, and he’d heard the hitch of her breathing and thought about what it would feel like to lick into the wet heat of her mouth.

It would fuck everything up. Right now, this was all very straightforward. He just needed to march through this schedule of hers, remain sufficiently indifferent, andwin.

The fact that he’d been able to completely forget his mission for at least three inhalations and exhalations, long enough to fall into a rhapsody involving her tongue, was a bad, bad sign.

Luckily, she’d jumped away before he’d really had to test himself. Of course she had. Because he’d been an asshole to her. Because he was still being an asshole to her, going through the motions of what she’d asked him to do while still planning to screw her in the end, and not in the way he’d imagined doing when he’d seen her at Bob’s.

Except there was the way she’d looked at him when he’d touched her shoulder—

It wasn’t the way you looked at someone you hated.

Which only made things worse, of course.

He should probably do something completely assholic so she would hate him again. One of them should have their head on straight.

“Here,” she said.

She had a glass in her hand. Filled with milk. He took it from her, and it was ice cold against his palm.

“You remembered.”

“Of course!” she said. “That’s my job.”

She handed him a chocolate chip cookie, still warm, and watched him closely as he took a bite.

He couldn’t hide how damn good, tender and flavorful and chocolatey, that bite was, and her pupils flared, setting up an answering curl of heat in his groin.

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