Quickly recapping the morning, she may have been the one to actually hug him first, and that hug had led to kissing. But he’d been the one who asked her to sit next to him afterward. And by the rules of kissing, that meant he wanted to do it again, didn’t it? Gah, it’d been so long since she’d done any of this.
No, they weren’t in middle school anymore, but the rules of sitting next to a guy you just kissed still applied when a girl was going on forty. Didn’t they? She should probably ask Kitty. Kitty would know.
“I should be up-front. I don’t do the whole relationship thing.” Jack sounded sorry about that. Which was silly because she wasn’t into the wholerelationship thing,either. “I’m not step-dad material. Kids are great, as long as they’re not mine.”
Well, ouch. But at least they were on the same page here.
“I don’t want a step-dad for my kids. And I don’t want a relationship out of this.” She pointed to herself like there was someone else she could be referring to with the whole “I” thing. “I’mneverdoing the relationship thing again. I’ve been there, done that. Rode the ride. Wouldn’t recommend it.”
He frowned at that, the vein in his forehead pulsing again like it had before when he was dealing with whatever it was he was dealing with.
“I know relationships work for some people,” she said, a lot more gently than her previous not-gonna-happen tirade. “But you don’t have to worry about that with me. I’m never doing that again.”
Never.
“What exactly do you want, then?” He gestured between them. “From this thing.”
Uh…a little more of what they’d already done. Heck, a few orgasms wouldn’t be an awful place to start. Maybe dinner that someone else would fix for her. Plate for her. Serve to her. Clean up after her.
“I could ask you the same,” she said, instead of the other things she’d considered.
The Adam’s apple at his throat bobbed. “Prior to what happenedbefore, I was content for things to be as they were between us.”
So was she, but it wasn’t like they could take it all back. Not after she’d learned how nice his lips felt against hers.
“And now?” She patted the bed. “You can sit. I won’t bite.”
Unless he asked.
Holy goodness.Who was this person invading her thoughts?
He sat at the edge. Close to her, but not touching her.
“I think it’s pretty clear this attraction happening between us is going to continue to tempt,” he said.
“Tempt” being the understatement of the millennium.
“My job here is to help you get back to calm.”
She could definitely think of one thing that would help with that, and it wasn’t this conversation.
“Do you think that perhaps we’re making this whole thing more complicated than it needs to be?” she asked. What was wrong with what they’d done before? He wanted to kiss her. She wanted to kiss him. In the end, they both wanted the same thing from this. They’d said as much.
“We still have to work together when all this is over,” he said, reaching for her hand.
“I think we can both manage separation of bedroom and office.” She winked at him.
A smile tickled the edges of his lips. “It can get more complex than that.”
“I don’t want forever, Jack.” She sighed. She had no visions of a future with a husband who sat with her through their twilight years. That would not happen for her, and she’d come to terms with it a long time ago.
“I’m good with having today,” she continued. “AfterPractical Parenting, you’ll go home. I’ll stay here.AndI’ll have a sparkling clean reputation with a whole slew of Jack-inspired confidence. Everybody wins and nobody has to worry about messing up our work relationship.”
The heated look they shared stirred something in her that made her question that assertion. But she was being real, laying out what she wanted. Simone would be so proud.
Kitty would be disappointed she hadn’t pounced on him yet.
Some kind of internal debate seemed to war inside him, and she wasn’t sure which side was winning.
