An hour and a half later, I’m still asking myself what the hell possessed me to provoke her like that.
Sweet little baby girl? Clearly, Ethan doesn’t know his sister anymore.
Lilly is fire. Pure flame. And her sparks are everywhere.
My blood is pumping like never before. I’m hard. Hungry. Ready to claim.
And this was only day one of thirty with her under my roof.
At this rate, the smartest thing I can do is keep my distance.
Because I know exactly where this is headed.
Chapter 12
I’m shaking all over—partly from anger, partly from something I can’t quite name but that lit up every nerve in my body and made me feel alive.
I’ve never confronted anyone before—not like that. With Ethan and Nora, I’ve always gone the persuasion route, because to them, I’m still just a child. But Amos . . . Amos treated me like an adult. He shoved it right in my face—how I’d put myself in a position where he could’ve kissed me with one move. And worst of all? He’s right. He’s not a boy. He’s a man. One who would never look at someone like me.
And me? What am I even doing, thinking I could match up to someone like him?
I called him sin, and I wasn’t joking.
Despite all the steamy books Martina’s made me read, I’ve never really thought of sex as something relevant to my life.But now? Now my whole body is reacting to him, to every single thing that’s happened since I landed in Boston.
Every word we trade feels like a challenge. Like we’re unwilling soldiers trapped in the middle of a war.
He is the war.
My sinner.
Mine?Only in my dreams.
Amos made it crystal clear how he sees me: as a little girl.
“Hey, sweetheart.” Ula, the older woman who worked for my mom for years and now helps Ethan, appears in the doorway. She was waiting when I arrived—thank God, because the tension in the elevator with Amos could’ve boiled steel.
“Hi, Miss Ula. I thought you’d gone to bed.”
“I just wanted to see if you wanted something to eat. Your brother says airplane food is terrible.”
“He’s not wrong, but I’m not hungry. Thanks, though. You should go get some rest.”
“I don’t usually come over when Mr. Ethan’s traveling. Mr. Amos prefers to be left alone. But if you’d like, I can make an exception.”
“That’s sweet, but there’s no need. I can handle everything myself.”
“In that case, just know I’ll be here tomorrow morning for breakfast. Then I’ll be gone until Monday. I left plenty of frozen meals in the freezer.”
“Okay. No problem. Good night.”
No problem?God help me—I need to find something to do for the next three days if Amos decides to stay home.
I can’t even control how my body reacts to him. There’s no way I’m giving him another chance to tell me how unlikely it is for anything to happen between us.
It’s not like I asked him out, for crying out loud!
Cocky.
