Page 8 of My Stupid Heart

Sasha dove into the pizza immediately, but Molly hung back, a nervous glint in her eyes.Ryker angled his head to the side, so she knew he wanted to speak in private and she followed him outside to the deck, closing the French doors.“So, how’d it go?”

“He’s still alive, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Did you maim him?Did you hurt him?”

“No bones were broken.I didn’t even draw blood.”

“You’re being cagey.”Her green eyes formed thin slits as she gazed up at him.

A smirk hooked one corner of his mouth.“He knows that to even think about you, let alone come near you, is a death sentence.The threat has been conveyed and hopefully he’s not that big of an idiot and actually listens to it.He’s been given his one and only warning.”His fingers ached with the need to cup her cheek, to step closer to her body and reassure her with not only words, but touch.

Instead, he bunched his fingers at his sides.

She let out a long exhale and her shoulders made their way away from her ears.“Thank you, Ryker.Thank you.”Then she wrapped her arms around his neck, lifted up onto her tiptoes and pressed her petite frame against him in a hug.

He did his best to keep some space between their bodies, and to hug her as a friend, but it was impossible.She made it impossible for him to not smell her hair, relish the feel of her in his arms or covet that softness in a more than platonic way.

When his dick twitched in his jeans, he cleared his throat and broke their embrace, stepping back and shaking her free of him.“We should get in there, otherwise Sash will eat it all.”

The sigh she made after he turned his back sounded like something you make when you’re disappointed or defeated.But that made little sense.

Maybe he was just projecting his own feelings and hearing things that weren’t there.

He sidled up beside Sasha at the island and hip-checked her playfully.“I guess I have to come up with a new nickname for you since you’re not really a half-pint anymore, huh?”

She grinned at him as she chewed.“I’ll always be your half-pint, even if I’m tall enough to be a full pint.”

He grabbed a slice of the Meat Lovers with mushrooms, then leaned over and pecked her on the side of the head.“Yeah, you will, half-pint.”

Mollyfoundherselfrestlessand sexually frustrated Sunday night.Knowing Ryker was in the next room, probably in the bare minimum of clothes—or no clothes at all—was pure torture.

He just didn’t feel the same way about her that she did him.

That was clear, now.

He saw her as a friend.As a duty.As a vow he made to her dead husband.

But not as anything romantic.

She knew he was a playboy and could have his pick of women—and he picked many.So why would he want her?She was a boring and frumpy single mom.There was a reason she only attracted weirdos like Adrian.She was damaged goods.And as much as Ryker was an amazing friend, he probably saw her as damaged goods, too, and not as the thirty-something woman in her sexual prime with a vagina growing cobwebs.

Monday morning, after so much tossing and turning, she hauled herself out of bed to the smell of French toast and bacon.

Besides adding new fodder to her fantasies, torturing her heart, and fixing anything broken around her house, Ryker’s skills in the kitchen—particularly breakfast—were just another reason she looked forward to seeing him.Only once in all the years he’d been coming to visit did she see him without a shirt on—and that brief moment left her mouth dry and her panties soaked.He’d probably been for a run already, done a bunch of pushups and crunches, as well as chin-ups in her garage—since he installed a chin-up bar the last time he was there, and was ready to start the day with a breakfast fit for an entire wrestling team.

When it was just her and Sasha, they enjoyed muesli in the morning over their coffee.But Ryker liked to start the day properly, with lots of protein and carbs.

“The oven is really the only way to cook bacon,” she heard him say as she made her way down the hall to the kitchen with her wild bedhead topknot, silky black pajama shorts, and hot pink tank top.“No splatter and then you just crumple up the parchment paper covered in grease and toss it into the compost.”

“Good morning,” Molly yawned, scuffing her slipper-covered feet over to the coffeemaker.Sasha was sitting at the island, still in her pajamas and cradling the one cup of coffee Molly allowed her a day.

“’Morning,” Ryker said, flipping the French toast on the griddle.“I hope you’re hungry.”

Molly poured herself a big mug of java and added cream.She’d need the caffeine if she was going to get through the day staring into people’s mouths.“Just one piece of toast for me, please.”

“I made you lunch,” he said, nodding at a brown paper bag on the counter.“Turkey and Swiss on sourdough, right?”

She smiled and nodded.“Yes.Thank you.”

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