Close Range Christmas by Nicole Helm (ebook reader for laptop TXT) 📗

many things he couldn’t want. “Sarah.” The problem was coming up with the words to get it through to her that this couldn’t happen. She didn’t want it to happen. Not really. Not for the right reasons.

“It’s simple,” she said, her voice maddeningly calm and her expression heartbreakingly vulnerable. Like she was laying her heart in his hands. “Kiss me. Prove there’s no chemistry. We’re just friends. Kiss me and prove there’s nothing there.”

He wished he could, but he remembered their night together all too well. There were all sorts of things there. But she was... She was Sarah, and he was him. Which was not good enough. Plain and simple. It had nothing to do with Ace and everything to do with him.

He wasn’t noble. He wasn’t brave. He was a failure at all the things Jamison had tried to teach him to be when the Sons had been their lives.

Sarah slid her hands up his arms and linked her arms around his neck.

His body was a traitor, because it took all the willpower in all the world not to wrap his arms around her in return. A world of grit not to sink into what she wanted to prove. But he had to be stronger. For the both of them. For the three of them.

Eventually she’d realize she’d made a mistake. Maybe she would with him and the father thing too, but... A kid deserved a father who’d fight for him, even if he wasn’t the best guy around. But Sarah...

She deserved the world. So he had to be a jerk. “I can be your friend and think you’re hot and not have it mean anything.”

She smirked up at him, arms still tight around his neck. “If you think I’m hot and it doesn’t mean anything, then you can kiss me and it won’t mean anything.”

She wouldn’t let this go. Didn’t he know her? She didn’t let anything go.

So, he’d have to somehow steel himself against it. Prove what he wanted to prove out of sheer force of will. Give her a bad, nothing kiss so she’d walk away understanding there was nothing here.

But of course the minute his mouth touched hers, he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be proving. He couldn’t think past her. He was no saint. There was no nobility in him. One touch and he wanted more. One kiss and he wanted it all.

She opened up for him, just like she’d done at the hotel after the wedding. She wasn’t drunk now, but she reacted all the same. As if this feeling had always been there, waiting underneath the surface.

He kissed her deeply, holding her tight against him. The evidence of their one night there between them, but that only made him want more. Want it all over again.

She’d said she didn’t remember, but he remembered every minute, and it had tortured him for approximately nine months. To know everything could be that good, that hot, that right with someone who was supposed to be his friend, his business partner. The girl next door.

Not all this.

She slid her hands underneath his shirt, spreading her palms across his chest. He wanted to do the same, but...

He pulled his mouth from hers, though his arms stayed locked around her. “We have to stop.” Had to. This was insanity on three hundred different levels.

“Why?” Sarah murmured, her fingers trailing down to the waistband of his pants.

He grabbed her wrists before she managed to get there. Thank God. “My grandmother and your father are in the next room. Also my dog is watching.”

She looked down at Cash and then back up at him. “Well, I’ll give you the family in the next room excuse.” Her smile widened. “I don’t think you proved your point just now.”

“So there’s chemistry,” he grumbled, somehow both irritated and aroused by her smugness.

“Excellent chemistry.”

“There is a madman out there who wants to hurt me and my brothers. You were almost in the crossfire today.” Before she could open her mouth to go on and on and on, he kept talking. Focusing on reality rather than the desperate want raging through him. “Sarah, if Anth knows you’re connected to him, it’s bad enough. If he knows you mean something to me—Liza was the target there today. Don’t you think?”

She frowned, her shoulders slumping. “Well, yes.”

“I can’t have you be a target. Not now.” He lifted his hands to rest on her belly. Felt the odd rippling movement of baby inside. “This has to wait.”

She studied his face, blue eyes sharp and assessing. He’d always felt like she’d seen him better than anyone. She always seemed to know what to do or say...except when she set out to irritate him. He was beginning to realize they were all purposeful. The understanding and the irritation.

Often just what he needed even if he didn’t particularly want whatever she was pushing him toward.

“You know waiting is just going to give me more opportunity to strengthen my steamroller.”

He chuckled in spite of himself. “Yeah, I’m well aware.”

She let out a gusty sigh. “All right. I’ll be good.”

He wanted his mouth on her, so he shoved his hands in his pockets. He didn’t trust her fake innocent look at all. “My butt you will.”

She grinned. “Goodish?”

He grunted.

She bit her lip and he blew out a ragged breath. He couldn’t convince her he was the wrong guy. Yet. There was still time. Once the danger was over, yeah, she’d come at him even harder, but she’d have a baby. Surely that would open her eyes. Surely having a real-life baby to take care of would make her realize he wasn’t up to the task.

If the thought broke his heart a bit, well, good. It would get him ready for the inevitable. “Go on now. Get some sleep. We don’t know when more danger is coming. Better get it while you can.”

She nodded, studying his face as if she could read all his thoughts. Still, she didn’t say anything and