Page 75 of Crossing the Line
Hamilton was flopped over on his back next to Xavier on the bed, his tongue lolling happily out the side of his mouth.
“I’ve never seen you this relaxed,” Waverly said from the doorway.
He didn’t spring to attention as she’d have expected. Instead, Xavier rolled his head to the side and beckoned her in. He patted the mattress, and she sat to face him as he propped himself up on an elbow. Hamilton grumbled at the intrusion.
“Sorry about my family,” Xavier said, his tone low.
“Relax, X. If anyone needs to apologize for their family, it’s me. I like yours. They’re…real.”
“Real crazy.”
Waverly smiled. “They’re nice. Normal.”
“Give it until this time tomorrow, and you’ll be begging me to call the jet,” he teased.
“It’s nice seeing you so happy,” she said, changing the subject.
“I’m taking five before I connect with Micah and Hansen and the rest of the team. And I need your help.”
Waverly couldn’t remember the last time anyone had asked her for help. “Name it.”
“You’re going to regret offering,” he said, with a devilish grin.
“What do you need?”
“We’ve got about half an hour before dinner. I need you to keep my family distracted so I can get caught up. Mom will microwave my phone if she thinks I’m running the business instead of spending quality time with the family.”
“On it,” Waverly said, springing up from the mattress. “Close your door and run the water in the shower. I’ll see you in thirty.”
“Devious mind.” He reached out and caught her hand before she could escape. “We’re going to have to talk about last night soon, Angel,” he warned her.
Talking would only ruin it, she thought. “Let’s focus on tonight for now,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze and escaping through the bedroom door.
-------
Very little had changed in the Saint household since Xavier had left for the military. Maybe there were more knickknacks on the endless bookshelves, definitely more books, and the furniture in the family room had been replaced, but the bones of the house and the dynamic of family were the same.
The four upstairs bedrooms still housed the same furniture they had for the better part of two decades. Downstairs, his mother’s study was a crowded, chaotic mess of books and papers whose piles never got smaller. His parents’ master suite add-on was on the other side of the study, accessed through the family room. They’d built it for sanity when Xavier and his sisters were all in the throes of their teenage years.
The dining room across the foyer was still crowned with the flea market-find chandelier that only worked sometimes. The table was set for dinner, he noted as he headed to the back of the house for the kitchen. There would be no casual family dinners around the kitchen table or the coffee table in the family room while Waverly Sinner was a guest.
He hoped he hadn’t made a mistake bringing her home.
The news Micah had given him had added a new, disturbing layer to the darkness that surrounded Ganim, and Xavier prayed his instincts were right about coming to Idle Lake. The man was devious and mobile, but he didn’t have the deep pockets to be chartering planes to follow Waverly from state to state or country to country.
He didn’t need to put anyone else that he cared about in the line of fire where Ganim was concerned, especially not his own family.
He did care. About Waverly. If he hadn’t, last night wouldn’t have happened. He’d never been a one-night stand kind of man. Not the son of Carol Saint.
The flashes of Waverly under him in the dark had him pausing in the hallway to will away the erection that threatened to embarrass him. He’d been out of his mind to give in to those desires. And now craving her again, especially knowing what waited for him with that lithe, responsive body of hers, would keep him out of his mind unless he could find a way to shut it down.
She needed his protection, not his devotion. He would toe the line until Ganim was behind bars or wiped off the planet. And then… And then what? Could there ever possibly be a relationship between them? He with his growing business, she with her thriving career—would there ever be a middle ground to start a life together?
It was a question for another day. Now, he needed to keep his head clear and thwart a new kind of threat: his mother and her uncanny suspicions that his relationship with Waverly wasn’t one-hundred percent professional. If she had the slightest hint of how much he really cared for Waverly, she’d be like Hamilton with his hamburger. Relentless.
Erection under control, he followed the laughter back to the kitchen.
“I knew it,” Chelsea said triumphantly. “Dante Wrede justlookslike he’d be an incredible kisser.”
